Seeing Stars - September 1971
Just look at the line up for the 1971 autumn season - John Mayall, Magna Carta, Ray Charles, Gene Pitney and Deep Purple - and that’s all in the month of September.
Nobody turned out to review John Mayall and his blues band, or for that matter, the folky rockers Magna Carta, but long time fan David Harrison decided to go and see the legendary Ray Charles.
But he wasn’t too impressed.
“To be saddled with the title “genius” by the publicists is a liability which Ray Charles has difficulty in overcoming” he wrote the next day.
“ But, as last night’s concert showed he has the enduring talent to overcome even major obstacles like this.
“It’s just a pity his band didn’t live up to it.
“And the Raelets - one of the finest girl groups in the world - were badly served by poor balance and inadequate micro phoning.
“Charles was his usual jerky, totally animated self - his movements reflecting each variation in tempo and mood.
“ His programme, mainly well tried favourites, covered the entire gamut - from earthy, soulful, blues to maudlin country and western.
“ But Ray Charles has done it all so many times before - and so much better.”
It was the Post’s Judi Miles who turned out to see US singer Gene Pitney.
“Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa was just the first of many nostalgic numbers we heard from Pitney last night” she said.
“Medleys of old hits dominated the show.”
Pitney died of a heart attack some three years ago in Cardiff, aged 66.
If neither of these acts was your cup of tea the how about the very popular Black and White Minstrels at the Hippodrome.
“We have come to expect a lot of the Minstrels down the years” wrote the Post’s John Coe.
“And it is to their enduring credit that they are always as polished as we are sure they will be.
“This show, which is admired throughout the UK as well as Europe, shows the company’s teamwork and glowing professionalism.
“Like a well drilled platoon they move... with a precision that comes from disciplined training.
“The Minstrels and Maids put in so much work so willingly and their enthusiasm is so fresh that it is hard to believe they have come straight from a strenuous summer season.”
The Black and White Minstrel Show, first broadcast by the BBC in 1958, ran for some twenty years with audiences regularly exceeding 18 million.
At Bristol’s Top Rank Suite you could catch that evergreen Rock ‘n Roller, Shakin’ Stevens and at Hickey’s Club in Whiteladies Road listen to the “fantastic” sound of Union Express, which, if my memory serves me correctly, had a hit the following year with a song called Sugar, Honey.
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