Robert Plant on Later ..with Jools Holland

joel · 2011-01-17T21:39:43+00:00

On DSTV Sony Channel 113 Tonight @ 22H10 17/01/2011 , then repeated @03H20 and 14H20 18/01/2011 8)

Robert Plant on Later ..with Jools Holland

Bob-Dubery

Thanks Joel. I caught this.

For those who didn't, what's on offer in this particular episode is Robert Plant and Allison Krauss touring to support their "Raising Sand" album. Excellent - great vocal performances. Also Stuart Duncan turns up in the band. He's a heavyweight fiddler, but on these clips he plays guitar and what looks like an octave mandolin but doesn't quite sound like one (did I see palm pedals?). Fab player. Buddy Miller and T-Bone Burnett are the other guitarists. I think it's T-Bone who is playing that dirtied up, tremolo rhythm guitar.

There's an interesting short interview too.

Jack-Flash-Jr

I would be keen to see Band of Joy on Jools! I like Raising Sand but BoJ kicks a bit more...

Bob-Dubery

Jack Flash Jr wrote: I would be keen to see Band of Joy on Jools! I like Raising Sand but BoJ kicks a bit more...

The Jools we get here is not particularly current. The Raising Sand tour hit the UK in 2008.

I would have liked to have seen BOJ, but this was still cool and full of good playing. A different band from that used on the record, and it was a live performance so there was a different feel.

bloukie

Thanks Joel,

I bought the album at the time of release and thoroughly enjoyed the Jools performance.

Tremelo guitar in the hands of a master is a dangerous, emotional tool.

Groente

Riaan-Combrink

X-rated Bob wrote: The Jools we get here is not particularly current. The Raising Sand tour hit the UK in 2008.

I'm enjoying it nonetheless. Intriguing concept for the show. Weird that some really top artists are willing to set up and sit around like that waiting for a second number while some lesser knowns (and sometimes suckier) guys play. Ito publicity, Jools' show must be a 'must do' like Oprah or Larry King (which I believe is now Pierce Morgan?).

[deleted]

Hahaha, indeed - Piers Morgan has taken over the mantle (or suspenders) from Larry King, and his first interview (IIRC) was with Oprah. ?

Jools is a monster musician in his own right. I particularly enjoy it when he sits in with bands on his show.

Riaan, there's a curious tradition with the music shows in Britain - I can't picture any of the acts shunning it as a waste of time because those shows have always played such a vitally important role in defining the prevailing musical culture. Viz: Tony Wilson's show: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6941846.stm

(Oh, forgot to add: for those of a queasy disposition, that link involves a moral stance on music piracy.)

Riaan-Combrink

Stratisfear wrote: Riaan, there's a curious tradition with the music shows in Britain - I can't picture any of the acts shunning it as a waste of time because those shows have always played such a vitally important role in defining the prevailing musical culture. Viz: Tony Wilson's show: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6941846.stm

I take your point re the Brits. That explains why all the hugest acts over the decades have accepted having to go on Top of the Pops and obviously mime for four minutes. Its the done thing, I suppose.

I found this wiki re TOTP and miming very interesting:

Initially acts performing on the show mimed to the commercially released record, but in July 1966 — just after the show had been moved to London — and after discussions with the Musicians' Union, miming was banned. After a few weeks during which some bands' attempts to play as well as on their records were somewhat lacking, a compromise was reached whereby a specially recorded backing track was permitted - as long as all the musicians on the track were present in the studio. The TOTP Orchestra, led by Johnny Pearson augmented the tracks when necessary. This set-up continued until 1980, when a protracted Musicians' Union strike resulted in the dropping of the live orchestra altogether and the use of pre-recorded tracks only. This accounts for a number of acts who never appeared on the show due to their reluctance to perform in this way. Highlights have included Jimi Hendrix who, on hearing someone else's track being played by mistake (in the days of live broadcast), mumbled "I don't know the words to that one, man", Shane MacGowan of the Pogues' drunken performance of "Fairytale of New York", a performance of "Roll with It" by Oasis in which Noel and Liam Gallagher exchanged roles with Noel miming to Liam's singing track and Liam pretending to play guitar, and John Peel's appearance as the mandolin soloist for Rod Stewart on "Maggie May". Two other memorable incidents included performances by Marillion; an appearance for "Garden Party" saw Fish miming perfectly except for the line "I'm miming" (which was changed from the original "I'm fucking" for broadcast purposes), when he simply pointed at his closed lips. Two years later, Fish lost his voice prior to an appearance for "Lavender" and, despite only needing to mime, had the lyrics placed on large pieces of card and flipped them over in time with the recorded version, although had a problem on one occasion with tearing off a sheet, only to quickly catch up in time.

For virtually the whole "Live Sound" period, the Sound Supervisor was the late Dickie Chamberlain, who skillfully reproduced the sound of the original discs with a fraction of the kit available in the recording studios.

The miming policy also led to the occasional technical hitch. A famous example of this is the performance of "Martha's Harbour" in 1988 by All About Eve where the televised audience could hear the song but the band could not. As the opening verse of the song beamed out of the nation's television sets, the unknowing lead singer Julianne Regan remained silent on a stool on stage while Tim Bricheno (the only other band member present) did not play his guitar. An unseen stagehand apparently prompted them that something was wrong in time to mime along to the second verse. The band were invited back the following week, and chose to sing live.

Another hitch was Simon Le Bon singing with Duran Duran. He was posing with his microphone which promptly flew off the stage and he was left to sing into a microphone stand...he just shrugged his shoulders and carried on.

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. had such difficulty miming "Orange Crush" on the show, he used a megaphone to cover his mouth throughout the performance.

In 1980, the then fledgling heavy metal superstars Iron Maiden became the first band to play live on the show since The Who in 1972, when they refused to mime to their single "Running Free".

For a few years from 1991 the show adopted a live vocal to pre-recorded backing track policy. Kurt Cobain on "Smells Like Teen Spirit" dropped his voice an octave and changed the opening line to "Load up on drugs, kill your friends"; the band also made it very clear that they were not playing their instruments. (Kurt later said during an interview that he wanted to sound more like Morrissey during the performance). It also exposed a number of poor live singers, and was dropped as a general rule. It was not helped by the fact that it coincided with a sudden upsurge of chart success for dance tracks which were heavily sample-based and whose sound could not easily be reproduced in a TV studio - sampled vocals from other tracks had to be sung live.

One example of an artist who was exposed as a poor live singer was Kelly Overett of the Italian Eurodance act Cappella. During a 1994 performance on the show she sang "Move on Baby", but it was evident that her performance on the show would also lead to questions about whether she actually sang on the group's songs. Those questions would later be answered several months later when Overett was dropped by Cappella and having admitted that she never sang on any of their recordings.

t.A.T.u. used playback for Yulia Volkova because of her vocal fold cyst in 2003 when performing "Not Gonna Get Us".

In its final few years miming had become less and less common, especially for bands, as studio technology became more reliable and artists were given the freedom to choose their performance style. Former Executive Producer, Andi Peters, stated that there was "no policy" on miming and said that it was entirely up to the performer if they wanted to sing live or mime.

[deleted]

Hahahaha! I have a TOTP performance by the Stone Roses on DVD, where Ian Brown holds the microphone way above his head while he mimes to illustrate his disapproval. It's quite funny.

Bob-Dubery

Last night's show interested me because one performance (Santogold) was very obviously not entirely live - though the lead vocals seemed to be. 3 vocalists and a deejay to make all that sound? I don't think so. It may be that using backing tracks and laying some live elements over it is part of what they do.

Everything else looked live though - and generally you don't get TOTP type faux pas on that show because most acts play live and thus have to be good enough to play live. Hmmmm.... or is there careful "retouching" before broadcast?

Bob-Dubery

PS: Don't want to look like I'm dissing Jools or his show. I enjoy it a lot - not least for it's diversity. Diversity along commercial lines (big sellers to cult artists) and diversity on stylistic lines.