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Author
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Topic: Strange old music programme on British television.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 05-10-2009 04:46 PM
I've just found on Youtube some clips from what must be one of the most bizarre programmes made by Granada television.
Granada Television are based in Manchester, they took a typical British steam locomotive, the last of them still had almost four years of life ahead of them at that time, and fitted it with what seems to be a plywood cowcatcher, and a huge headlamp that wouldn't have looked out of place in 'The General', but certainly did on this loco. They used it to take a train full of blues and gospel music fans from Manchester Central station, which was to close five years later, but still exists as the G-Mex exhibition centre, to another station, Wilbraham Road, which had already been closed for six years.
When the train arrives the music fans rush out onto the platform, and several of them seem to come close to falling down the gap between platform and train, as they did at the other end of the journey. There on the platform to greet them is Muddy Waters playing Guitar.
The train pulls out of the station, and there on the other platform of a typical British railway station, with cast iron and glass canopies etc., we have what seems to be Granada Television's idea of what the American South should be like, including a couple of rocking chairs, a reward poster of the wall, a farm cart, a hanging oil lamp some wooden barrels and various other things. There's also a drum kit, and a piano, on top of which is a wooden crate which contains something that can be seen moving from time to time, a chicken I think. Given that the station had been closed for six years, the broken windows which can be seen are probably genuine.
Later Sister Rosetta Tharpe arrives in a horse-drawn carriage, but the horse isn't the right type, it looks like a shire horse that they've borrowed from a Manchester Brewery.
The Manchester rain is genuine!
The clips are not of very good quality, it seems to have been shot with television cameras, and then telerecorded on film, which is surprising, I would have expected them to shoot it on film at that time. The first clip seems to have been shot off a television screen by someone. On another website there is a scan of an original audience ticket for the show, which says that it was to be 'recorded' at the disused Wilberham Road station, so it doesn't seem that it went out live.
Most of these clips were captured by somebody when used in recent times in a BBC documentary, which explains the annoying BBC logo in the corner. There are several errors in the BBC narration, including the date and name of the original location. The 'Chorltonville' nameboards on the station are false, but Chorlton-cum-Hardy was the next station along the line.
I haven't seen either the original programme or the BBC one, but at least if the BBC were able to use clips recently then the original programme must still exist, so maybe it will be screened again. Those young men and women of Manchester would be just about retiring age now!
From 1964, Muddy Waters, Cousin Joe Pleasant and Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Granada Television's 'Blues and Gospel Train':
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There's some overlap between the clips, but each contains material not in the others. It's probably best to stop watching the first one when Sister Rosetta comes on; she's on two of the others with better quality.
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