> To be clear, SNL presently likes to book the top of the charts. In > their day as counterculture revolutionaries, they enjoyed booking > equally obscure bands. It was, in fact, one of the reasons they were > noticed early on. Looking at my DVD box sets, Art Garfunkel, ABBA, > Carly Simon, Paul Simon, Ray Charles, Eddie Money, and Meat Loaf would > be the only performers from the first three seasons that I would > consider mainstream (others who were on would eventually find their > way to pop culture, but at the time they appeared, they seemed to be > going out of their respective ways to avoid the pop scene... even > ABBA'a appearance somewhat predates the height of disco).
Pop music in the '70s was less straitjacketed than it is now. On the first show, Janis Ian did "At Seventeen" and Billy Preston did "Nothing From Nothing", both of which were top 40 hits. Looking at Wikipedia for season 1, Phoebe Snow, Esther Phillips, Martha Reeves, the Stylistics, Anne Murray, Neil Sedaka, John Sebastian, and Leon Russell would all have qualified as popular mainstream acts at the time. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
