Rare Sandy footage

[Philip W]

I would humbly submit that the "White Dress" is a clip from the previously mentioned Yorkshire TV show that was a full half hour & in London, broadcast one lunchtime, on ITV Thames.

Clinton Heylin's, excellent if not all together trustworthy, "Gypsy Love Songs & Sad Refrains" lists the programme as Yorkshire TV, 29th December 1975 (recording or transmission?) & containing only three tracks: "Rising for the Moon", "Stranger to Himself" & "White Dress". However, I'm convinced that "Brilliancy Medley / Cherokee Shuffle" & "Iron Lion" also appeared, but I cannot recall if there was anything else.

Ian  

Sometime in mid-1975, possibly early September, Fairport recorded a half hour session for Westward TV before an audience. This was first broadcast in the Westward region on September 25 1975 and repeated on Thames TV (December 22) and Yorkshire TV (29 December). The audio that circulates of the Yorkshire programme (with tracklisting as given in reply 18) is clearly a repeat broadcast because Trevor refers to Rising For The Moon (released July 75) as their “new album” and Sandy describes ‘White Dress’ (released the same month) as their “new single”. This video has never surfaced.

What’s being discussed in this thread is a totally different programme, the London Weekend Show for 8 August 1975. I have seen a copy of it. They perform two songs only (in the studio, no audience). Please read my blog entry as posted at reply 15 for a description of the contents. If you don’t believe me check the first few seconds of the clip posted by our anonymous friend on YouTube and you’ll see Janet Street-Porter, regular presenter of the London Weekend Show.  

Philip

[quodlibet (Ian)]

Thanks for clarifying & apologies for muddying the water.

[Edthefolkie]

I'm really glad to be proved right for once. I was discussing the YouTube clip with a fellow Fairporter recently, and maintained that there was a very good chance that the complete original recording was available in somebody's archive somewhere. After all, old broadcast videotape reels were pretty big and expensive things to work with, also nobody just took bites out of them or physically divided a tape. Therefore they were either overwritten, thrown in a skip, copied to a digital format, or kept. In this case, kept!

I think Philip may have done a very good thing (see his blog). ITV know about it now, ergo it won't be skipped (please God). I wouldn't put it past some ITV archivist to pop a few seconds on YouTube to gauge interest. Look how often the BBC recycles its old TOTP and OGWT stuff. Fingers on rec buttons everybody?