Abstract
Growing up in 1960s England, my marker for the beginning of the weekend was an hour-long Friday evening TV show, Steady Go! RSG was launched in 1962 on ITV (independent television). It was soon the major mass audience showcase for the bands and fashions of the era. RSG was where new mod groups like Who, Kinks, Animals, and scores of others went to plug their latest releases, and where kids fresh from Carnaby Street and the King's Road went to show off the latest gear and to dance. RSG was unique among the staid and safe radio and tv pop shows of the 1960s-Juke Box Jury, Pick of the Pops, Top of the Pops, and so on-all hosted by distinctly middle-aged (to my eyes) recycled radio DJs. Almost from the outset RSG was fronted by Cathy McGowan, an unknown who was little older than the show's audience. For a while she became one of Swinging London's standouts.1 Maybe two years after the show was launched with the slogan, The Weekend Starts Here! Cathy began to push a new one, Ready Steady Live! In the show's original format, the bands had mimed to their own canned studio recordings. new format announced something very different-live performance, with all its uncertainties and improvisations. What would Troggs sound like outside a recording studio? buildup to the first live broadcast was huge, the risks of a flop enormous, the change a wild success. Audience ratings shot up. I have been reminded of Goes Live many times over the last fifteen months. analogy, admittedly, is imperfect. Nevertheless, in our own
Published Version
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