Ringside Report Looks Back at 70’s Classic Music TV Show The Midnight Special

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By James Gatto

If you told me what songs were number one on the charts, I can probably tell you what was going on in my life at the time. In my house, there was always music playing. My father would bring home at least one new record every week. His stereo was his prized possession. As a kid I went through his record collection all the time. My dad, rest his soul, would let me put together the playlist as he sat on the sofa listening. Big smile. He taught me well. As a very young child I would lay on the floor with my ear pressed against the booming speakers of that console stereo. For a while I thought there was a person in there. Knowing nothing about technology, that was the way I rationalized it. These people were in my living room.

My earliest memory of musical group on television was the first broadcast of the Midnight Special, hosted by John Denver. And who was this guy Wolfman Jack? My dad was the master of ceremonies, so we watched what he watched. That show was on my TV every Friday night throughout my childhood. Burt Sugarman, the show’s producer, had an idea in 1972. The 26th Amendment had been passed in 1971, in which the voting age had been lowered from 21 to 18. Sugarman’s idea for the show was to motivate the millions of teenagers, who were now enfranchised, to go out and vote. In the backdrop, the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. It was time to do something, and the youngbloods were just the ones to make hay. But that message never quite registered. However, two years later we watched an American president resign for the first time and our troops were beginning to be pulled out of Viet Nam and returning home. The show could never claim to have had an impact on either of those moments, but boy did it have an impact on my life.

Helen Reddy became a household name as one of the hosts. As did Olivia Newton John. And of course, the raspy voiced, slightly strange, Master of Ceremonies, Wolfman Jack opening with “Let the Midnight Special shine its ever lovin’ light on you.” As an 11-year-old I will never forget “Ike and Tina Turner” doing their rendition of “Proud Mary.” I spent most of my childhood on the living room floor, either with my ear pressed to the stereo or parked in front of the 25-inch console TV. So, there I was watching Tina Turner and her backup singers “The Ikettets” tearing it up, with a bird’s eye view from both the cameraman’s point of view, below the stage and facing up, and my perspective to the TV just above my head, mimicking that of the cameraman’s. I was 11, and very interested in “chicks.” I did all I could to reposition myself, craning my neck and encouraging that cameraman to get a better view of what might be hiding under those short skirts. I was 11, and those chicks were hot. But it was really the music, as I would find out later.

The show ran for eight years, essentially my entire adolescence and early adulthood. If it was on the radio it was on the Midnight Special. From the one- hit wonders, to the stars in the making, to the already well-established acts. Everyone in the music business wanted and needed the exposure they would receive by appearing on that stage in Burbank, California. And they brought their A-Game. They crushed it. The Steve Miller Band did perhaps the best version of “Fly Like an Eagle” I had ever heard. Peter Frampton doing “Do You Feel Like We Do” where we finally got to see the “Talk Box” he made famous, no longer wondering how he made those “Wah Wah” sounds. Even though we still didn’t understand how it worked, at least we knew he wasn’t some kind of an alien. Speaking of aliens, Kiss, with their very own space alien, Ace Frehley, did a set in 1975. Who the heck are these guys? Well, they’d be soon showing up at your door on Halloween night. I was Gene Simmons. Small people, small minds. Which has nothing to do with Randy Newman doing “Short People.” My father hated that song. He was 5’ 6”. He never quite understood the message. I miss him every day. And more than anything else, that’s what shows like The Midnight Special have contributed to my life. Memories. Music, for so many of us, provides a chronology for our lives. Those otherwise vague memories can be brought into focus when we conjure up the music playing in the background. Those Friday nights sprawled out in front of the TV will be forever etched in my memory.

Before the Midnight Special it was rare to see a live performance on television. Most of what you got was a lip-synced version of a studio recording. Most famously on Dick Clark’s iconic show, “American Bandstand.” All the music was lip-synched, not much fire. but still fun for what it was. We got to see new music, some of which wasn’t on the radio. And, after all, Mr. Clarke was the one who started it all. But this was different. And so it was… Every Friday night at 12:30, we tuned in to Wolfman Jack’s intro to the show that launched my intrigue for the pageantry of the live Rock and Roll show. It’s no surprise that I would later be on the rock and roll stage, myself. The bug was in the ether and I caught it. Thank you, Burt Sugarman. And thank you for the countless shows which were spawned out of your groundbreaking idea. My youth wouldn’t have been quite as fun without them. Shows like “Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert” and “Soul Train” (however, some of the performances were lip-synced). And, although not famous as a showcase for musical acts, I would be negligent not to mention “Saturday Night Live.” where every week we are treated to the biggest and brightest. Moreover, producer, Lorne Michaels doesn’t allow any musical guest to lip-synch on his show. I understand why: as in the live sketch-comedy format, the connection to the audience, in the moment, is where the magic lies—mistakes and all. But, still, I loved them all—for different reasons.

In the coming weeks and months, I will be exploring many of more of these great shows.

Stay tuned…

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