Sunday, January 16, 2011

"It's cool, it's groovy, it's number one!"

We've posted this before, but that was three and a half years ago and it's so magnificent that when we discovered it was still on YouTube yesterday we had to give a hopefully wider audience a look. It's BBC current affairs magazine Nationwide in 1970, the days when no BBC bulletin would have run puff pieces about start of year pop predictions. Apparently of more importance to London viewers than a murder trial or two dead kids is the breaking news that some long haired midlanders are now more popular than the Beatles among Melody Maker readers. Therefore guilty parties Robert Plant and John Bonham of 'The' Led Zeppelin have to be hauled into the studio, their first time on telly and still hanging onto their protective cigs, to explain themselves to Bob Wellings, a man for whom the summer of love and hippie revolution clearly happened to other people, and who believes The Zep will see off the cult of personality for good. Pay particular attention to Maker editor Ray Coleman, contributing on his expert field of youth culture before dashing off to the All-England Eric Morecambe Lookalike Contest.

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