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Janis Joplin and Gloria Swanson? Stevie Wonder and Elsa Lanchester? Sly Stone and Debbie Reynolds?
What might sound like fodder for a “Saturday Night Live” skit about improbable celebrity encounters is, in fact, history.
All those meeting happened on national TV in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. They’re part of “The Dick Cavett Show – Rock Icons,” a three-DVD box set being released Tuesday (yesterday) and including more performances and interviews from Cavett’s ABC late-night talk show. Among the artists: the Rolling Stones, Bowie, Paul Simon. George Harrison and Joni Mitchell, some at their artistic peaks, others still approaching theirs. It’s the first time most of these appearances have appeared in any video format.
The new DVD set captures many Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members at key moments in time, Mitchell, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and the Jefferson Airplane appeared in 1969 the day after Woodstock. Harrison, Ravi Shankar and Gary Wright showed up in 1971 shortly after the Concert for Bangla Desh. Stevie Wonder was just 20 and on the verge of establishing himself as one of the great pop artists of the 1970s when he visited.
Today’s pop-music fans may have a hard time believing there was a time when a late-night talk-show appearance for a musician meant more than three minutes at the end of the show. Joplin, for instance, appeared five times in 1970.
“I almost began to think of her as a regular on the show.” Cavett, 68, said…
--Randy Lewis @ LATimes.com
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