50's Country Band Recorded TV Performance

spantini

spantini

COO of me, inc.
NOTE : CORRECTION

Buck Owens & The Buckaroos actually performed Tiger By The Tail.. not I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. That explains why we couldn't locate the video clip.

See Post # 14 for the video clip from The Jimmy Dean Show
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I was just watching PBS' fund raising and saw Buck Owens and his band on some show (Opry..?) back in the 50's, looked like, all B&W and 2D and all.

Man.. he was singing I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry and there was just one single dynamic mic on a straight-up stand and he was backed off of that thing about 2-feet! He and his backup guitar player (Telecaster) were both at 2-feet singing away and coming in loud and clear.

Now a few times Buck would move in closer.. about 1-foot, and the volumes remained the same. Would they also have had an overhead on those guys? Or was the sound guy riding the hell out of that mic?
 
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There was not much lip-synching going on in 50s television. Was the Tele plugged in? That's the first clue to look for when watching older tv music shows (take a look at American Bandstand, etc, they were never plugged in!)
 
I reckon this Buck Owens performance was prerecorded and mimed.

mjbphotos said:
There was not much lip-synching going on in 50s television. Was the Tele plugged in? That's the first clue to look for when watching older tv music shows (take a look at American Bandstand, etc, they were never plugged in!)
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Yeah. That's the first thing I look for. The Tele did have a line plugged into it, but who knows about the other end - no amps showing. I've read Ed Sullivan would have bands mime to recorded music while insisting all vocals be live. Then that wasn't a hard and fast rule as I've also read he allowed full live bands, then some fully mimed to prerecorded tracks.

The performance I watched could well have been specifically for TV as it was close cropped and no audience could be detected. Fully staged.
 
Tried to find the clip but was unable but was able to find...

Lip syncing...pffft! It's just how they did things back then REAL LIVE and cool!

 
TAE said:
Tried to find the clip but was unable but was able to find...
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My best guess is the clip came from The Buck Owens Show featuring Buck Owens & His Buckaroos - lots of YouTube clips from that show display the same band, costuming and stand-mounted mics. I found nearly identical clips from The Jimmy Dean Show but there were no stand mics used there.. only during The Buck Owens Show. The clip I saw last night was during a PBS fund-raiser - from one of the CDs in the offered collection.

Some of the YouTube clips of other songs show Buck and his guitarist some 2 feet from the mic - same technique, different tune.
 
My dad recorded lots of old Nashville Network shows on VHS. They were almost all live shows, most times from places like the Grand Old Opry. They did the recording the same way they did the radio shows for years, so the engineers were well versed in how to get the sound. HeeHaw, Front Row Center, Nashville Now, were all just like the Glen Campbell clip.

Lip syncing was the way lots of rock and roll artists were done for shows like American Bandstand. Play the record and fake the singing. It was rare for an artist to play live.
 
In the early days of British music programme Top of the Pops, union agreements meant they had to mime. Some big names deliberately made this obvious, but when you are number 1 in the charts, they figured it didn't matter and they'd make the point. Hit the 80s and they had to lip-sync because there were no guitars and it was all electronic. If you are a festival goer - everyone knows that every band who is NOT using tracks will sound terrible for the first two or three songs. We played live as support to a well known Rock band at a football stadium in the UK and were surprised they had in-ears with click and a track. The audience hear what they expect and everyone is happy.

That said - I heard a Buddy Holly recording recently from 58 or so - and the recording quality was stunningly good. You would have thought it was a modern recording. how many mics? Not very few - so decent musicians with somebody who knows the music mixing was possible on TV.
 
rob aylestone said:
In the early days of British music programme Top of the Pops, union agreements meant they had to mime. Some big names deliberately made this obvious, but when you are number 1 in the charts, they figured it didn't matter and they'd make the point. Hit the 80s and they had to lip-sync because there were no guitars and it was all electronic. If you are a festival goer - everyone knows that every band who is NOT using tracks will sound terrible for the first two or three songs. We played live as support to a well known Rock band at a football stadium in the UK and were surprised they had in-ears with click and a track. The audience hear what they expect and everyone is happy.

That said - I heard a Buddy Holly recording recently from 58 or so - and the recording quality was stunningly good. You would have thought it was a modern recording. how many mics? Not very few - so decent musicians with somebody who knows the music mixing was possible on TV.
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That's some interesting background.

I recall watching a few old TV performances from the 60's where the singer would mouth other words, or stop altogether and smile into the camera while his recorded vocal was playing. Sometimes a guitar player would mess around that way miming something so obviously wrong on their guitar and laughing about it - I think all of those were rock bands. At least they were having fun.
 
The BBC and the unions always seemed to have a love/hate relationship. The Bands wanted to play live, but for a while they actually had to re-record the track in the studio and then mime to that, not the original. All sorts of reasons were bandied around, but I'm not sure any were actually factual. The BBC also soldered some bits of wire into XLR plugs and stuck them into microphones and pretended they were radio mics! One famous cock-up was where a band called Dexies Midnight Runners - they had a song called Jackie Wilson said. The BBC had no idea who Jackie Wilson was and got it mixed up with a British overweight Darts player called Jockey Wilson and projected his picture randomly on the screen - the band were totally confused.

Watch this one - British Rockers Status Quo - falling into the drum kit on purpose to make a point!
 
Yeah its hard to believe that the public put up with such shite now looking back at that stuff.

The BBC were so powerful that they either made or sunk bands. A lot of crap bands became famous and made millions. A lot of great bands never saw the light of day all because of the power of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

There's a lot more to the BBC but it's best we don't go there.
 
My band were invited to do a session on Radio 2 - live! BUT - at broadcasting house in the green room. The engineers dug out brand new mixers never used from the store and we set up an electronic kit half in the corridor with people walking past. It was actually quite fun. They had the usual BBC headphones with volume limiters - totally useless for mixing a band with amps, so secretly produced their old unlimited ones from the cupboard. We got a call from the Jeremy Vine show - they never do live music, but had the idea we could do what they wanted. Ten years ago from memory. We never did get the promised expenses - no fee! Part of what I do is manage stuff now and we did a big children in need live event and everyone did it for free - apart from the musicians who demanded the officially agreed BBC fee for broadcast. I got it for them before the show or they wouldn't play. In honesty, I was pretty annoyed with them. I gave them the money and they gave it me back and said, now donate it to the charity. I was confused. They pointed out that everyone who does the show for free generates nothing for the charity from the BBC, so the band got £70 per person, then the charity got nearly £500 - which was great. It did make me think about good causes. working for free is a frequent request, but working fo0r money then donating it generates real income for the charities.
 
Here's the clip of Buck Owens & The Buckaroos I started this thread about. You can see what I'm talking about with their singing and the mic placement. I do also notice now that there are amps behind the guitarist and bass player and everyone's plugged in - I'll assume now that this was live. It's from The Jimmy Dean Show.

 
Well - he has a magic mic that doesn't lose level or change tone when he goes off-axis to allow the other guy to sing harmony - the drums have invisible mics too for what we are hearing. The Telecaster player's rhythms you see him play often don't match what you hear and a few times that low country bass on the tele doesn't seem to be playing. I wonder if the vocal mic is an omni and they're playing along to a track because his acoustic guitar often seems missing. The bass player seems to be playing the right notes, even if we can't hear all of them. Then you see guitarist turn up and play the solo - so my view is I really cannot say they're miming, but I also hear things my eyes can't see. It still sounds good for the vintage - so I guess it's a mystery. What is for sure is that the volume theyre playing at is very low - they have a chat then he plays and that sounds like that one mic did it - but where is the spill? This means low volume on set for the bass, pedal and tele, and a quiet drummer - who could have a single overhead we can't see?

I like mysteries. After typing this and listening over and over, I now think maybe it really is totally live. How's that for a turnaround?
 
Pretty sure that's live - the final mashup of songs with pauses/start-ups, and the host coming in for the last line of Act Naturally couldn't have been done very easily as miming.
 
spantini said:
Here's the clip of Buck Owens & The Buckaroos I started this thread about. You can see what I'm talking about with their singing and the mic placement. I do also notice now that there are amps behind the guitarist and bass player and everyone's plugged in - I'll assume now that this was live. It's from The Jimmy Dean Show.

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Definitely lip-synced--you can see that at the beginning quite clearly where Buckaroo's mouth movements aint matching up too well. The guitar solo by Don Rich looks faked as well, so likely the whole thing is. I read up on Owens (and Rich) on Wikipedia; it's a sad and interesting story. Check out Don Rich's story too-- how about that Telecaster he's playing there?
 
TimOD said:
Definitely lip-synced--you can see that at the beginning quite clearly where Buckaroo's mouth movements aint matching up too well. The guitar solo by Don Rich looks faked as well, so likely the whole thing is. I read up on Owens (and Rich) on Wikipedia; it's a sad and interesting story. Check out Don Rich's story too-- how about that Telecaster he's playing there?
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How about those Teles..? 8-)

chasingguitars.com

Buck Owens/Don Rich Sparkle Tribute Telecaster

Buck Owens and Don Rich may have been the original Telemasters. Back in the 1960s they were playing some Fender custom made “sparkle” Telecasters. No Fender Custom Shop in those days. T…
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