Quentin Tarantino puts it “in the Top Three of all rock movies.” Steven Van Zandt calls it “the greatest rock movie you’ve never seen.” And, talking about James Brown’s dynamic segment of dance & soul, Rick Rubin said it was “the greatest rock and roll performance ever captured on film.”
High praise for a movie we’ve never seen, hey? But many of us have, in fact, seen The T.A.M.I. Show, a concert staged one long evening in October, 1964, in L.A. and featuring—take a deep breath here—the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Lesley Gore, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Barbarians, and hosts Jan and Dean. Seven of these acts went on to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And there were more big names behind the scenes. The director, Steve Binder, went on to oversee the Elvis Presley comeback special four years later; the house band was led by Jack Nitzsche, who’d scored his own hit with “The Lonely Surfer;” the backup singers, the Blossoms, included Darlene Love; and recording engineer Dave Hassinger went on to work with the Airplane, the Dead and the Stones.
T.A.M.I., BTW, stood for “Teenage Awards Music International.” There never were any awards. No matter; the capacity crowd at the 3,000-seat Santa Monica Civic Auditorium got themselves a show. And within a few weeks, in late 1964, movie audiences got a chance to see it, in living black and white “Electronovision,” a Sixties version of high-def.
But after a short theatrical run, financial and legal problems rendered the film hard to find. It was never released on home video. Over the years, it’d show up on TV on occasion, but it’s been available mainly on bootlegs, truncated and grainy.
Now, it’s been lovingly restored and issued on DVD by Shout! Factory. For me, it’s a reunion. As a college kid, I was a fan of the movie. Now, I can look at the lineup and tick off the artists I’ve met (and ticked off): the Beach Boys, James Brown, Marvin, Smokey, Diana Ross, and the Stones. And the director, Steve Binder. Crazy.
And watching the mesmerizing performance that James Brown put on – years before his Apollo Theater shows put him on the pop music map – reminds me of my visit with him, when he happily claimed credit for influencing the dance moves of at least one fellow T.A.M.I. artist—that’d be Mick Jagger—as well as Tina Turner, Prince and Michael Jackson. I asked who influenced him. For example, the classic bit, during “Please Please Please,” when he’d repeatedly stagger off, and a valet would drape a leopard cape over his shoulders, and he’d shake it off, run back to the mike and sing some more.
That, he said, came from church – and from Gorgeous George, a colorful wrestler of the Fifties. “I used to come back on stage carrying a suitcase, and they threw a towel around me; I threw it off. And I thought of Gorgeous George. He had capes, and that was flamboyant, so I put that in the act.”
11 Comments
I saw this show on a Saturday at the Fox theater in Oakland Ca, was 13 at the time. In addition to the other artists mentioned there was a set performed by the Beatles, the girls of course went nuts. Could this have been from another feed or is my memory shot?
i saw this in early 1965 in norfolk, virginia. i was in the navy. the audience was racially mixed. everyone left the theater raving about their favorite acts.
just a great show. great enough that i remember it to this day.
Your memory may not be shot, but the Beatles were not on the T.A.M.I Show.
Just a slight correction to the article. The T.A.M.I. show was released in a truncated version on home video in 1984. It was titled “That Was Rock”.
I own it on Beta Hi-Fi. It was paired with the T.N.T. Show, which was produced by Phil Spector. No Beach Boys. It was released by Music Media.
I first saw it at The Covell Theatre in Modesto, Ca with many freshman friends from Modesto High School. Shows like that stay with you. I remember reading that Keith Richards said the biggest mistake the Rolling Stones ever made was following James Brown on that show!!
Pittsburg High, with Gerold Oler and his brother Ron who became addicted to the stones hair clothes and all,a radical move for a young black man in gangland California…we saw that film many times and went on to play in many bands…always had a crush on Chris Lujan,wished she was with me at the Vogue theater!! I can still see her smile in my dreams,love wherever you are,you glowed with spirit! DC
I was 14 when this came out and remember there being a lot of excitement because of the Rolling Stones. We had seen The Beatles, both on TV and in “Hard Day’s Night” but the Stones were still somewhat of a mystery. Maybe they had been on the Sullivan show by then, I don’t know. Much as I loved the Beatles from the get-go, I was more a Stones fan in those days and relished the chance to see them perform.
The Stones not that long after recorded a couple of the numbers Marvin Gaye did, “Hitchhike” and “Can I Get A Witness”. They must have really been impressed with his performance!
Great to finally have it out on DVD!
I remember seeing this on TV in 1974–I was just flipping channels and was mesmerized. Don’t know if it was a network broadcast or just some local station filling air-time. Haven’t seen it since. Sounds like a must-have DVD!
i was 16 when that show came to the santa monica civic auditorum…
i believe it was my first concert
the memories are hazy, but for some reason, i recall it as being a 2 day show
my most vivid memory was the drummer for the barbarians had a hook for a right hand. i had never even heard of the barbarians at that time
james brown shocked me, and i haven’t been the same since
I still have never heard of the Barbarians. Wasn’t Jane Fonda in that?
I went to the TAMI show and still remember much of it vividly. I was 16 and went with my best friend … James Brown blew us away…. I had never seen or heard of him, and there was no denying from anyone, in what I recall as a mostly white crowd of teenagers, that he just blew the roof off of the joint. His business with his cape, and being helped off the stage in despair at loosing his girl, and then coming back and singing yet again was amazing…. As much as I loved the Rolling Stones, James Brown was the obvious life altering hit of the event and he opened up a whole world of music for everyone there.