Hootenanny (TV series)
Hootenanny | |
---|---|
Directed by | Garth Dietrick |
Presented by | Jack Linkletter |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of episodes | 43 |
Production | |
Running time | 26-52 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | ABC |
Release | April 6, 1963 September 12, 1964 | –
Hootenanny was an American
After two seasons, the shifting musical tastes of the era- heavily influenced by the British Invasion starting in 1964 - and a decline in the program's variety led to its effective replacement by Shindig!, a similar but more broadly-based and pop music oriented variety program.
History
Background
Hootenanny was created in 1962 by
With Cates at the helm, the pilot was
New York radio personality Jean Shepherd was the original emcee, and four folk acts appeared in the pilot: The Limeliters, Mike Settle, Jo Mapes and Clara Ward’s Gospel Singers.[4] Rather than showcase acts once per show, each performer/group would do a song, then yield the stage to another and return later in the program. Occasionally two otherwise unrelated acts would team up for a duet. The final result was so well-received by network executives that the idea of airing the pilot as a stand-alone special was jettisoned, and production on the series began.
Producer Richard Lewine was put in charge and Garth Dietrick assumed the director’s chair. The first thing Lewine did was to replace Shepherd with Jack Linkletter. (When the original pilot aired in June 1963, Shepherd's scenes had been removed and Linkletter was spliced in.[5]) As Shepherd had done, Linkletter would discreetly provide information about the performer(s) and/or the song(s) they would sing as each act took the stage. Linkletter described his role as "an interpreter. The people at home hear what I have to say, but not the ones at the performance. (The feeling is) that the Hootenanny would be going on whether we were there or not."[6] On February 26, 1963, their first two Hootenanny programs were taped at George Washington University in the District of Columbia.[7]
Series production
Between February 26 and April 30, 12 Hootenanny shows were taped at six colleges. The production team would arrive at a campus on Monday to begin rehearsal and camera blocking. Taping of both half-hour programs would take place on Tuesday (later, when Hootenanny expanded to an hour, one program each would be taped on Tuesday and Wednesday). Students were permitted to attend the rehearsals, many of them volunteering to be runners for the various acts and production staff.[8]
The first Hootenanny to air had been taped at the University of Michigan in March, and starred The Limeliters, Bob Gibson, Bud & Travis and Bonnie Dobson. (Easily the best known folk group among those who appeared, The Limeliters would headline in seven of the first 13 episodes, literally appearing at least every other week.)
Critical reaction
Overall, critical reaction was favorable, although
The
By the time Hootenanny concluded its first 13 weeks, a craze had been born. A front-page Variety story noted that "the big demand for the folk performers in virtually all areas of show biz (records, concerts, college dates, TV, pix) is stimulating a new folk form that can appeal to a mass audience. Among writers now contributing to the new-styled folk song are Bob Dylan, Mike Settle, Tom Paxton, Shel Silverstein, Bob Gibson, Malvina Reynolds, Oscar Brand, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie."[13] MGM's Sam Katzman produced Hootenanny Hoot, a motion picture featuring The Brothers Four, Johnny Cash, Judy Henske, Joe and Eddie, Cathie Taylor, The Gateway Trio and Sheb Wooley – all of whom did or would appear on Hootenanny. Record labels from the independent Folkways and Elektra to the mainstream Columbia and RCA-Victor released folk music compilation albums with "Hootenanny" in the title.
Magazines
Two bi-monthly magazines appeared on newsstands: Hootenanny, edited by Robert Shelton with Lynn Musgrave, and ABC-TV Hootenanny, edited by music critic Linda Solomon. Mainstream magazines such as Time and Look reported on the folk craze, with the latter calling Hootenanny the "final proof that folk music has gone big-time."[14]
Despite its popular appeal - or perhaps because of it - the overall reaction to Hootenanny by serious folk music critics was one of scorn. In an article for Shelton's Hootenanny magazine, Nat Hentoff savaged the program, writing "Aside from the fact that a sizable proportion of each week's cast has been echt fake, the 'Hootenanny Show' aura has also diluted the work of many of its performers with some credentials as folk singers." He also chided the students comprising the audience: "(Be) not deceived that the campus activists for social change are in the majority. If you want to see the moyen American college student, watch the TV 'Hootenanny' show."[15] Editor Shelton, however, eventually acknowledged that "some good performances did sneak through; some obscure musicians won recognition. The TV series probably led millions of its viewers toward quality song."[16]
Renewal and format changes
When the series resumed in the fall of 1963, it had been expanded to a full hour with a slightly altered format. Although the program continued to primarily showcase folk music, other genres were added to the mix: jazz (represented by such performers as
The second season also saw the debut of Hootenanny's "home-grown" creation, The Serendipity Singers. "Discovered" by talent coordinator Fred Weintraub, the Serendipities were a nine-member folk chorale closely patterned after The New Christy Minstrels. The group appeared in eight of the 30 shows produced that season, and had a major hit in spring 1964 with "Don't Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)". The group, with various member changes, continued for decades after Hootenanny's demise.
Boycott
Even before it reached the airwaves, Hootenanny created controversy in the folk music world. In mid-March, word circulated that the producers would not invite folk singer Pete Seeger, nor Seeger's former group The Weavers, to appear on the show. Both Seeger and the Weavers were alleged to have overly left-wing views; in Seeger's case, he had been convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to discuss his political affiliations with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1955 – although the conviction had been overturned on appeal in May 1962.
Seeger encouraged his fellow artists not to boycott but to accept Hootenanny invitations, so as to promote the popularity of the folk genre. Nevertheless, by the end of March three other folk acts had joined Joan Baez in boycotting the show: Tom Paxton, Barbara Dane and The Greenbriar Boys, a bluegrass trio.[19] Some weeks later, Guthrie disciple Ramblin' Jack Elliott announced he, too, was boycotting Hootenanny.[20]
Over the years, other arguably better-known folk performers have been associated with the Hootenanny boycott; these include Dylan (who mentioned the show in his song "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues"),
With the expansion of Hootenanny to one hour weekly, effective with the broadcast of September 21, 1963, the producers made overtures to Pete Seeger. However, there was a caveat, spelled out in a letter from network executives: "ABC will consider Mr. Seeger’s use on the program only if he furnishes an affidavit as to his past and present affiliations, if any, with the Communist Party, and/or with the Communist front organizations. Upon so doing, the company will undertake to consider his statement in relation to all the objective data available to it, and will advise you promptly [if] it will approve the employment of Mr. Seeger."[23] Seeger, naturally, refused to provide anything that smacked of a loyalty oath, and his manager, Harold Leventhal, made the story public[24] - which only encouraged others to refuse appearances.
Cancellation
ABC tentatively renewed Hootenanny for a third season, but a major shift in popular music brought about a last-minute reversal. The 1964 British Invasion eclipsed the folk music craze among younger viewers, resulting in a decline in Hootenanny’s viewership to about seven million by the end of April 1964, prior to the start of reruns.[25] Not only viewers, but musicians, were affected by the Invasion; performers such as Gene Clark (The New Christy Minstrels), John Phillips (The Journeymen), Cass Elliot (The Big 3) and John Sebastian (The Even Dozen Jug Band) - all of whom had appeared on Hootenanny's second season - abandoned folk music to form very successful pop-rock groups including The Byrds (Clark), The Mamas & the Papas (Phillips and Elliott) and The Lovin' Spoonful (Sebastian).
There were other factors that contributed to Hootenanny's demise, not least of which was repetition of both songs and artists. Eventually, it seemed that audiences were likely to see The Serendipity Singers, or The New Christy Minstrels, or The Brothers Four every time they watched; occasionally, they would see two of these three acts. Faced with a dwindling talent pool, growing viewer indifference, and competition in the time slot from the
The network erased its videotapes of the show many years ago, but
Host institutions
Hootenanny taped 43 programs at 22 different institutions of higher learning, mostly private colleges and universities. Eight
At the request of the then-president of
Notes
- ^ "Strum Along with 'Hootenanny'" by Cecil Smith, TV Channels, January 19, 1964
- ^ "Helmsman of the Pilot Ship", TV Guide, issue of July 25, 1964, pp.22-23
- New York Times, April 14, 1963, Section II, p.15
- ^ "Top Folk Singers Will Perform on Video" by Fred H. Russell, Bridgeport Post, November 10, 1962, p.7
- ^ "Folk Music Heritage Wide Claims 'Hootenanny' Host", Syracuse Post-Standard, November 16, 1963
- ^ "Who gives a hoot?" by Aleene MacMinn, TV Channels, April 28, 1963
- ^ "GWU Students Hoot It Up for ‘Hootenanny’", Variety, February 27, 1963
- New York Times, November 17, 1963, Section II, p.17
- ^ Review of Hootenanny, Variety, April 10, 1963
- New York Times, April 8, 1963, p.95
- ^ "’Hootenanny’ Looms As Hour ’63-’64 Entry; Ratings Start To Swing", Variety, April 24, 1963
- ^ "ABC’s TV Hootenanny Show", Hootenanny Songs and Stars, Winter 1964, pp. 10-11
- ^ "Folk Music’s Tin Pan Alley" by Mike Gross, Variety, July 3, 1963
- ^ "Folk Singers and Their Fans," Look, August 27, 1963
- ^ a b "Requiem for Saturday Night Television" by Nat Hentoff, Hootenanny, Vol.1 No. 3, May 1964
- ^ Shelton, Robert, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, 1986, published by Beech Tree Books division of William Morrow; page 169
- ^ "Talent Boycott Threatened in Ban Of Seeger, Weavers on ‘Hootenanny’", Variety, March 20, 1963
- ^ "Six More Folkniks Nix ‘Hootenanny’", Variety, March 27, 1963
- ^ Billboard. 13 April 1963.
- ^ "Jack Elliot Joins Ranks of ‘Hoot’ and Holler Boys In Ban on ABC-TV Show", Variety, April 24, 1963
- ^ ""Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" by Bob Dylan". from 1991 album The Bootleg Series 1-3, tabbed by Eyolf Østrem. Retrieved 2007-07-29.
- ^ "Why I Quit the ABC-TV Show" by Judy Collins and Robert Shelton, Hootenanny, Vol.1 No. 2, March 1964
- ^ "ABC Finally Puts Itself on Record Re ‘Hootenanny’", Variety, September 11, 1963
- New York Times, September 6, 1963, p.59
- ^ "Two Paths of Folk Music," Hootenanny, Vol.1 No. 3, May 1964
- ^ "Hootenanny Dropped: Monsters to Replace Folk Singers on TV." Cynthia Lowry, Corpus Christi Times, June 9, 1964.
- ^ "The Alkalizer Goes to a Hootenanny", The Alkalizer, Jan-Feb 1964, employee newsletter of Miles Laboratories, Inc.
DVD release
In 2007,
References
- The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows- 1999 Edition - Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh.
- Remembering Hootenanny - Bruce Edwards, Professor, Bowling Green State University
External links
Media related to Hootenanny at Wikimedia Commons