Shhh! Al Green is talking. “I can’t see peace of mind,” he says. “I can’t hold joy in my hands. I can’t grab everlasting life and hold it like that.” He’s sitting on a Chicago TV stage clad in what looks like a jeans jumpsuit and a stunning fur coat. His face flashes with extremes, a shit-eating grin alternating with that patented beatific smile.
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The scene is part of a lengthy reminiscence by Green that took place between songs during a 1978 broadcast of Soundstage, the heralded public-television live-music series that gave dozens of artists an uncluttered hour in which to present their work. The show originated in Chicago at WTTW; today, four years after the series ended, the Museum of Broadcast Communications is presenting three weekends of Soundstages, the cream of a complete set of the series recently acquired by the museum. While shows often included short interviews, Soundstage’s chief virtue was its unadorned presentation of music: with no variety-show hoopla or vacuous “hosts,” the artists–most of them American, and most having some roots in country, folk, or blues–were treated with a tacit deference and respect. While this sometimes resulted in incongruity–with, say, Barry Manilow–it more often resulted in good to spectacular television.
Most of the shows were filmed in WTTW’s studio A, located then as now at 5400 N. Saint Louis; occasionally special shows were filmed at Park West or the Aragon, or in Grant Park during ChicagoFest. For roots music, Ehrlich and his directors would present Muddy Waters, or Jackie Wilson (just months before the stroke that disabled and eventually killed him), or Ella Fitzgerald, or Count Basie. The show was also strong on the singer-songwriters of the mid-70s, filming John Prine, Loudon Wainwright III, and Harry Chapin. Country and folk were adequately represented as well, with shows on Doc and Merle Watson, Emmylou Harris and Ricky Skaggs, and Kris Kristofferson.
For fans of music, there are several not-to-be-missed programs. The first, at noon today, is an incendiary performance by Cheap Trick at its height, at a 1981 ChicagoFest. The hard-rock quartet from Rockford is convincingly filmed pinning the crowd’s ears back. On Saturday, a historic and mesmerizing two-part special, The World of John Hammond, will be shown. Hammond was the CBS exec who signed and produced some of the greatest stars in jazz and rock, from Billie Holiday to Bob Dylan. Hammond’s reminiscences are the stuff of history, and the performances–including Benny Goodman and George Benson jamming on “Seven Come Eleven” and Bob Dylan singing the hell out of “Hurricane” and “Simple Twist of Fate”–are nonpareil.
