Country music legend Jack Greene passed away on March 14th at the age of 83 from complications of Alzheimer's Disease.
While not much of an expert on all things Jack Greene I enjoyed hearing the songs that he made famous. I became aware of Jack Greene at some point in the early 1990's when looking through an issue of the out of print Country Music Magazine. Within this magazine they'd have advertisements for cassette's and LP's of a lot of artists from the '50s and '60s that I wasn't familiar with up until that point...and Jack Greene was one of those artists. I was a teenager in the 1990's and was nowhere near as familiar with country music's history as I am now. As the '90s went on I stumbled upon WSM radio's frequency while searching the AM dial...I'd known of the station for awhile due to the publicity it got on TNN during their airing of The Grand Ole Opry segment on Saturday evenings. For me, finding WSM radio by accident, it was like finding a goldmine...at long last I was hearing the actual Grand Ole Opry on the radio instead of seeing the half hour segment that TNN aired. I had never thought to seek out WSM's frequency simply because I live several states away from Tennessee and in my mind there was no way I could be able to hear that station.
Anyway, while listening to the Opry that night and in many, many more Saturday nights to come I learned rather quickly that the televised portion of the Opry that I'd been watching for several years was much different in tone and delivery than what the radio audiences and those who attended the show in person heard. It was an Opry radio broadcast on one of those Saturday nights in the mid 1990's that I heard Jack Greene perform "Statue of a Fool" and "There Goes My Everything". He, like a lot of other Opry members of considerable membership longevity, were rarely shown on the nationally televised portion on TNN but you could hear them consistently on the radio broadcast. Jack also hosted half hour segments of the show and would often have Jeannie Seely on his portion of the show. This would often reverse later in the night...Jeannie would host a 30 minute segment and have Jack Greene appear.
1967 was the year of Jack Greene in country music. This was the year that he won multiple awards at the first ever CMA gala: Male Vocalist of the Year, Album of the Year for There Goes My Everything, and Single of the Year for "There Goes My Everything". The song's writer, Dallas Frazier, won for Song of the Year.
A common practice for a general audience is to assume that Jack Greene was a 'one hit wonder' given the enormous popularity of "There Goes My Everything" and how it dominated country radio and the country music awards in 1967. Jack, in truth, had a total of five #1 hits with five more reaching the Top-10 for an overall total of ten Top-10 singles. Also, he sent 13 singles into the country Top-40...9 of those singles would climb into the Top-20...so, in truth, Jack had more hits than "There Goes My Everything" but in hindsight it happened to be his biggest single as it stayed at #1 for seven weeks!
He had a healthy string of Top-40 singles beginning late in 1966 and running uninterrupted through 1974. So, when you factor in all of Jack's major hit singles occurred within an 8 year time span, it puts into perspective of just how popular he truly was. I have a theory as to why he didn't have as many Top-10 singles as he could have had and it has to do with music industry politics and the various changes that were taking place in country music right at the time he hit it big in 1967...but there's no denying that for the next 6 years he was one of the biggest singers in country music and the statistics speak for themselves.
After 1974 he had just two singles manage to climb above #50 on the country singles chart...both of these singles arrived in 1980 with one of them climbing into the Top-30 and it's my assumption that the unexpected Top-30 success of the single was treated more or less as a fluke and perhaps as a response against the Urban Cowboy trend because it was during this era that 1950's and 1960's recording artists who hadn't been in the Top-10 for quite awhile were experiencing airplay revivals. Eddy Arnold reached the Top-10 in the early '80s, a full decade after having his last Top-10 singles in 1969. Hank Snow had a couple of singles reach the country Top-40 during the same 1979/1980 era. Snow's previous Top-10 had been the surprise #1 "Hello Love" in 1974. Hank Thompson was another artist in 1979/1980 that had not had a Top-40 single for several years (going back to 1974) but suddenly he found himself on the Top-40 country singles chart twice during that '79/'80 time frame.
Jack Greene remained a vital part of the Grand Ole Opry, having joined in 1967, and lasting through his retirement in 2011 some 44 years later.
Jack Greene's Top-10 singles are as follows:
1966: There Goes My Everything - hit #1 the last week of 1966 and remained at the top for six more weeks through January the following year.
1967: All The Time - hit #1
1967: What Locks the Door - Top 5
1968: You Are My Treasure - hit #1
1968: Love Takes Care of Me - Top 5
1969: Until My Dreams Come True - hit #1 for 2 weeks
1969: Statue of a Fool - hit #1
1969: Back in the Arms of Love - Top 5
1970: Wish I Didn't Have to Miss You (with Jeannie Seeley) - Top 5
**Between 1970 and 1973 Jack placed 7 singles in the country Top-20 before returning to the Top-10 a final time.**
1973: I Need Somebody Bad - Top 5 Canada
Friday, March 15, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
The Love Boat: 1977-1986...
A happy birthday greeting goes out to Gavin MacLeod...reaching 82. I usually don't pay attention to celebrity birthdays but I heard it was his birthday today and so I decided to make note of it. Why? Well, he was part of an ensemble cast on one of the classic television comedies of all-time plus he starred in another one of my favorite television programs. MacLeod portrayed Murray Slaughter in the 1970-1977 classic comedy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Prior to the role on Moore's sitcom he had a role in McHale's Navy as a character referred to as Happy Haines. On The Mary Tyler Moore Show, MacLeod's character was forever annoyed at Ted Knight's character, the often inept news reader Ted Baxter. The big reason stemmed from the fact that Murray wrote the news scripts for Ted's show...only to have Ted bungle his lines on a daily basis.
After Moore's program ended production in 1977 both Ed Asner and Gavin MacLeod starred in highly successful programs on into the 1980's. Asner, who had played Lou Grant on Moore's show for 7 years, starred as the same character in the dramatic Lou Grant series for five more years (1977-1982). MacLeod, on the other hand, landed the starring role on The Love Boat. In this series MacLeod portrayed Captain Merrill Stubing, a single father and captain of a cruise ship. The program featured a crew and loads of extra's in addition to guest stars each week. The program typically aired on Saturday nights on ABC-TV and was one of many programs airing on ABC that was associated with and, or, produced by Aaron Spelling and his associates. A companion series arrived in 1978 in the form of Fantasy Island. The weekly series was tested in 1977 via a made-for-TV movie and it became a series the following year...airing right after The Love Boat on Saturday nights. Fantasy Island starred Ricardo Montalban as Mr. Roarke and Herve Villechaize as Tattoo. Each program had a similar formula which consisted of special guests each week who often appeared in separate, unrelated story-lines that were ultimately tied together by episode's end.
The ship on The Love Boat served mostly as a backdrop as the crew and the Captain were rarely shown performing their duties. There were brief scenes in practically every episode showing Isaac the bartender, for example, serving drinks and cracking jokes with passengers but for the remainder of the episode he was often roaming around the ship mingling with the guests. The ship's doctor, Adam, occasionally shown his medical prowess but was much more interested in flirting with female passengers. The cruise director, Julie, was shown performing her tasks at the beginning and end of each voyage but like the other crew members she spent her time socializing.
It's long been something of a habit for some people to make fun of Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Dynasty, Hotel, and other programming associated with Aaron Spelling. The common criticism expressed is "escapist drivel" or "trash TV". Even today there's often some critic or blogger making fun of the celebrity guest star concept and making it sound as if every legendary actor and actress that guest starred on The Love Boat or Fantasy Island did so out of desperation in order to be in the spotlight again. How cynical can people be? The Love Boat, as well as Fantasy Island, are/were available on DVD. You can check Amazon and other on-line stores for DVD availability, obviously. I am not much of a watcher of television too much anymore unless it's a sports program or news and so I don't know if any of those programs are currently airing on TV Land or Nick-at-Nite. I saw some uploads of Fantasy Island on You Tube and they had a TV Land logo on the lower right side of the screen and so I know at one time it aired on that channel.
After Moore's program ended production in 1977 both Ed Asner and Gavin MacLeod starred in highly successful programs on into the 1980's. Asner, who had played Lou Grant on Moore's show for 7 years, starred as the same character in the dramatic Lou Grant series for five more years (1977-1982). MacLeod, on the other hand, landed the starring role on The Love Boat. In this series MacLeod portrayed Captain Merrill Stubing, a single father and captain of a cruise ship. The program featured a crew and loads of extra's in addition to guest stars each week. The program typically aired on Saturday nights on ABC-TV and was one of many programs airing on ABC that was associated with and, or, produced by Aaron Spelling and his associates. A companion series arrived in 1978 in the form of Fantasy Island. The weekly series was tested in 1977 via a made-for-TV movie and it became a series the following year...airing right after The Love Boat on Saturday nights. Fantasy Island starred Ricardo Montalban as Mr. Roarke and Herve Villechaize as Tattoo. Each program had a similar formula which consisted of special guests each week who often appeared in separate, unrelated story-lines that were ultimately tied together by episode's end.
The ship on The Love Boat served mostly as a backdrop as the crew and the Captain were rarely shown performing their duties. There were brief scenes in practically every episode showing Isaac the bartender, for example, serving drinks and cracking jokes with passengers but for the remainder of the episode he was often roaming around the ship mingling with the guests. The ship's doctor, Adam, occasionally shown his medical prowess but was much more interested in flirting with female passengers. The cruise director, Julie, was shown performing her tasks at the beginning and end of each voyage but like the other crew members she spent her time socializing.
It's long been something of a habit for some people to make fun of Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Dynasty, Hotel, and other programming associated with Aaron Spelling. The common criticism expressed is "escapist drivel" or "trash TV". Even today there's often some critic or blogger making fun of the celebrity guest star concept and making it sound as if every legendary actor and actress that guest starred on The Love Boat or Fantasy Island did so out of desperation in order to be in the spotlight again. How cynical can people be? The Love Boat, as well as Fantasy Island, are/were available on DVD. You can check Amazon and other on-line stores for DVD availability, obviously. I am not much of a watcher of television too much anymore unless it's a sports program or news and so I don't know if any of those programs are currently airing on TV Land or Nick-at-Nite. I saw some uploads of Fantasy Island on You Tube and they had a TV Land logo on the lower right side of the screen and so I know at one time it aired on that channel.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Hee Haw: 1969-1992, Part Eighteen...
This past Saturday, February 23, 2013 marked a little known anniversary in the life of the television series, Hee Haw. It was on a Saturday back on February 23, 1991...22 years ago to the day...that the series aired it's final first-run episode with it's rural decor. This was also, perhaps, the final time a lot of viewers seen the program as affiliate stations had been dropping the show during the previous couple of seasons and would continue to drop the program throughout the season. In a previous blog entry I remarked that I'd read where the show had reached a peak of affiliate stations during the mid 1980's (in the range of 220) but by the early 1990's the number of television stations airing the show had fell to a little more than 170...a drop of at least 50 stations within a 5 to 6 year time frame. A lot of factors played into that...there were more first-run syndicated programming hitting the air than in times past and some local stations were even creating their own programming rather than pay for outside shows to fill the local access time slots. There was a time when syndicated programs were considered inferior because they weren't a product of a network but my how times have changed. Since there have been many examples of successful syndicated programs lasting much longer than network programs there shouldn't be any inferiority directed toward syndicated programs.
In the meantime, after Hee Haw went out of production in February 1991 it didn't return with new episodes until January 1992 and it was this series of programs that ultimately led to it's cancellation. Technically, the new look had been unveiled in the late fall of 1991 during a press release but the new episodes didn't hit the air for another few months. The 1992 episodes marked the program's 24th season.
The rural look and country fashions, which had been a staple of the show since it's 1969 debut, was gone, and it had been replaced with an urban look and uptown fashions. Also, in 1991, almost all of the cast-members and back-up singers who had been part of the show for more than 10 years, in some cases 20, were let go in favor of newcomers. There were only a handful of longtime cast-members who survived the fall 1991 make-over. The urban version of Hee Haw lasted until May 1992. In the fall Hee Haw Silver debuted, a retrospective series celebrating the program's 25th season. Roy Clark hosted this series and Cathy Baker provided the sign-off remarks. This retrospective was on the air from the fall of 1992 through the fall of 1993. As mentioned in previous blog entries Hee Haw left the syndicated television market in the fall of 1993 and jumped to cable (The Nashville Network) several weeks later for a highly successful three and a half year stay. Reruns of Hee Haw usually aired at 10pm Eastern on Saturday nights following the The Statler Brothers Show. Later in it's run TNN moved the show from 10pm to 7pm Eastern, the show's time slot for decades when syndicated. Repeats of the series left the TNN airwaves in 1997 for a brief run on CMT and then it vanished from cable television not long afterward.
Time Life, the famed mail order company, began releasing DVD's of the program in 2004 to retail outlets after having first sold episodes on DVD via infomercials. The DVD's, typically featuring episodes from the mid '70s, would ultimately go on to collectively sell more than 1,000,000 copies by March 2006. That July, CMT aired the series for the first time in more than 9 years when it aired a weekend marathon of episodes during July 29th through the 30th. The series was handed a TV Land award in April of 2007. It was one of the programs honored during the telecast...sharing the spotlight with Hee Haw that night were tributes to Lucille Ball, Taxi, The Brady Bunch, and the mini-series, Roots. Given the sales successes of the Time Life DVD's and the success of the CMT weekend marathon in 2006...plus the TV Land award in the spring of 2007...it shouldn't have come as no surprise that the program remained just as popular as ever. As I pointed out in earlier blog entries I've written, the only reason that I feel that Hee Haw's "ratings went down" in the early '90s is because the program was losing affiliates...the program was not necessarily losing it's viewers voluntarily (television markets were taking the show away from it's longtime viewers).
If a syndicated program isn't being shown in as many television markets as before it's pretty much common sense that this turn of events will have an impact on the ratings.
The ratings successes on TNN and CMT during the early to late '90s and the sales successes of the Time Life DVD's in the middle part of the 2000's specifically demonstrate that the program had held on to it's fan base and possibly acquired newer fans during it's rerun cycle on TNN and the exposure that the program received in the DVD marketplace. The following year, news surfaced that Hee Haw would become part of the RFD-TV line-up. Reruns of the show hit the airwaves on Sunday night at 8pm Eastern in the fall of 2008, with an encore the following Monday at 10am Eastern, and they have aired in those two time-slots ever since.
RFD-TV debuted in 2000 as a satellite channel. Years later it spread it's availability to cable television and is part of many cable outlets across the country. In my area we finally started receiving RFD-TV on our cable line-up in 2010 during the channel's 10th anniversary...meaning that I had missed the episodes of Hee Haw that were airing during 2008-2009 (episodes originally broadcast on CBS during the summer of 1969, episodes that aired on CBS during the 1969-1970 season when it was added to the schedule as a mid-season replacement series, and finally the episodes that aired during it's one full season on CBS during the 1970-1971 season).
As was the case with TNN, CMT, and the DVD sales for Time Life, the show's become wildly popular all over again on RFD-TV. The channel airs the program in chronological order. Once a season of reruns has aired on the channel it re-airs those reruns to fill the summer gap and in the fall a new season of reruns hits the air. The channel is in it's fifth season of Hee Haw reruns and since it airs the reruns in chronological order they're into season five of the series (1973-1974). In January of 2012 a special program saluting the show aired on RFD-TV. It was titled Salute to the Kornfield. The continued popularity of the show, some 40+ years after it's debut, no doubt helped inspire the salute. Social media also played a part...clips of the show on You Tube have collectively been watched by hundreds of thousands of people. Those clips are no doubt being seen by a majority of people who weren't even born when the show was a weekly television program and some probably have only heard of the show in passing...others remark that the program was watched religiously by their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents.
Never a favorite among so-called 'hip' television critics and those who see themselves as urbane and sophisticated, Hee Haw nevertheless has kept a fiercely loyal fan base and it's continued airing on RFD-TV and it's exposure on You Tube and other social media outlets suggests that there will still be an audience for Hee Haw for generations to come and that's something everyone should be grinning about.
In the meantime, after Hee Haw went out of production in February 1991 it didn't return with new episodes until January 1992 and it was this series of programs that ultimately led to it's cancellation. Technically, the new look had been unveiled in the late fall of 1991 during a press release but the new episodes didn't hit the air for another few months. The 1992 episodes marked the program's 24th season.
The rural look and country fashions, which had been a staple of the show since it's 1969 debut, was gone, and it had been replaced with an urban look and uptown fashions. Also, in 1991, almost all of the cast-members and back-up singers who had been part of the show for more than 10 years, in some cases 20, were let go in favor of newcomers. There were only a handful of longtime cast-members who survived the fall 1991 make-over. The urban version of Hee Haw lasted until May 1992. In the fall Hee Haw Silver debuted, a retrospective series celebrating the program's 25th season. Roy Clark hosted this series and Cathy Baker provided the sign-off remarks. This retrospective was on the air from the fall of 1992 through the fall of 1993. As mentioned in previous blog entries Hee Haw left the syndicated television market in the fall of 1993 and jumped to cable (The Nashville Network) several weeks later for a highly successful three and a half year stay. Reruns of Hee Haw usually aired at 10pm Eastern on Saturday nights following the The Statler Brothers Show. Later in it's run TNN moved the show from 10pm to 7pm Eastern, the show's time slot for decades when syndicated. Repeats of the series left the TNN airwaves in 1997 for a brief run on CMT and then it vanished from cable television not long afterward.
Time Life, the famed mail order company, began releasing DVD's of the program in 2004 to retail outlets after having first sold episodes on DVD via infomercials. The DVD's, typically featuring episodes from the mid '70s, would ultimately go on to collectively sell more than 1,000,000 copies by March 2006. That July, CMT aired the series for the first time in more than 9 years when it aired a weekend marathon of episodes during July 29th through the 30th. The series was handed a TV Land award in April of 2007. It was one of the programs honored during the telecast...sharing the spotlight with Hee Haw that night were tributes to Lucille Ball, Taxi, The Brady Bunch, and the mini-series, Roots. Given the sales successes of the Time Life DVD's and the success of the CMT weekend marathon in 2006...plus the TV Land award in the spring of 2007...it shouldn't have come as no surprise that the program remained just as popular as ever. As I pointed out in earlier blog entries I've written, the only reason that I feel that Hee Haw's "ratings went down" in the early '90s is because the program was losing affiliates...the program was not necessarily losing it's viewers voluntarily (television markets were taking the show away from it's longtime viewers).
If a syndicated program isn't being shown in as many television markets as before it's pretty much common sense that this turn of events will have an impact on the ratings.
The ratings successes on TNN and CMT during the early to late '90s and the sales successes of the Time Life DVD's in the middle part of the 2000's specifically demonstrate that the program had held on to it's fan base and possibly acquired newer fans during it's rerun cycle on TNN and the exposure that the program received in the DVD marketplace. The following year, news surfaced that Hee Haw would become part of the RFD-TV line-up. Reruns of the show hit the airwaves on Sunday night at 8pm Eastern in the fall of 2008, with an encore the following Monday at 10am Eastern, and they have aired in those two time-slots ever since.
RFD-TV debuted in 2000 as a satellite channel. Years later it spread it's availability to cable television and is part of many cable outlets across the country. In my area we finally started receiving RFD-TV on our cable line-up in 2010 during the channel's 10th anniversary...meaning that I had missed the episodes of Hee Haw that were airing during 2008-2009 (episodes originally broadcast on CBS during the summer of 1969, episodes that aired on CBS during the 1969-1970 season when it was added to the schedule as a mid-season replacement series, and finally the episodes that aired during it's one full season on CBS during the 1970-1971 season).
As was the case with TNN, CMT, and the DVD sales for Time Life, the show's become wildly popular all over again on RFD-TV. The channel airs the program in chronological order. Once a season of reruns has aired on the channel it re-airs those reruns to fill the summer gap and in the fall a new season of reruns hits the air. The channel is in it's fifth season of Hee Haw reruns and since it airs the reruns in chronological order they're into season five of the series (1973-1974). In January of 2012 a special program saluting the show aired on RFD-TV. It was titled Salute to the Kornfield. The continued popularity of the show, some 40+ years after it's debut, no doubt helped inspire the salute. Social media also played a part...clips of the show on You Tube have collectively been watched by hundreds of thousands of people. Those clips are no doubt being seen by a majority of people who weren't even born when the show was a weekly television program and some probably have only heard of the show in passing...others remark that the program was watched religiously by their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents.
Never a favorite among so-called 'hip' television critics and those who see themselves as urbane and sophisticated, Hee Haw nevertheless has kept a fiercely loyal fan base and it's continued airing on RFD-TV and it's exposure on You Tube and other social media outlets suggests that there will still be an audience for Hee Haw for generations to come and that's something everyone should be grinning about.
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