I've been so busy posting albums from the Port Chester soundboard leak that posting albums from the "Midnight Special" TV show, and other projects, has largely been on hold. (The main problem is splitting single files into individual mp3s. If anyone can help with that, that would be awesome.) But last week (as I write this in later October 2026), a new episode was released on YouTube that I found too interesting to wait on. It's a rare episode with two hosts: Jackie DeShannon and Johnny Rivers.
Both of those are interesting to me. I would be happy to post concerts from them in the 1960s/1970s primes. But I'm especially interested in DeShannon. In my opinion, she's a drastically underrated singer and songwriter. One problem though is that it seems she performed concerts only rarely. I have posted a short concert she did way back in 1963, near the start of her career, but that's been the only worthy one I could find. So this is a very welcome discovery for me.
Both DeShannon and Rivers had most of their success in the 1960s, though they did have some successes later. For instance, Rivers had a Top Ten hit in the U.S. in 1977 with "Swayin' to the Music [Slow Dancin']" (often just known as "Slow Dancing"), and DeShannon wrote "Betty Davis Eyes" in 1974, which was a massive Number One hit for Kim Carnes in 1981. But this particular episode was a 1960s flashback one. All the musical acts were chosen for the 1960s hits.
It also was a dreaded "clip show format" type episode. Luckily, that didn't include DeShannon and Rivers, who gave all new performances for the episode, including introducing the other acts together. However, all the other acts consisted of previously aired performances, mostly from 1973 and 1974. Those were videos of the Byrds, Flo and Eddie (a.k.a. the Turtles), Steppenwolf, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Sam and Dave, plus a tribute to Jan and Dean.
All the songs DeShannon and Rivers performed only totaled about 25 minutes. I don't like posting episodes that short. Luckily, both performed on the show at other times. DeShannon was one of the guests for an episode broadcast on July 9, 1976. I've taken three songs from there: "All Night Desire," "Boat to Sail," and "I Wanted It All." That last one was a duet with Rita Coolidge, who hosted that episode. Those were all recent songs for DeShannon, in contrast to the 1960s hits she did for the episode co-hosted by Rivers.
As for Rivers, he hosted or co-hosted the show in 1973 and 1975. I may attempt to put those appearances together for an album at a later date. Additionally, he was on the show a couple of times in 1977 just to sing one song, his big hit from that year, "Swayin' to the Music [Slow Dancin']." Each week, the "Midnight Special" YouTube page posts another new episode. As I write this, they're still posting 1976 episodes. But luckily, someone has already posted that 1977 song from him with worthy sound quality. So I reached into the future a little bit (from this 1976 episode perspective) to include that song.
The first track has "[Edit]" in its title because I removed the theme song and replaced that with some applause. I also cut down Wolfman's Jack intro so he didn't mention the other musical acts.
This album is 41 minutes long.
01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 talk (Jackie DeShannon & Johnny Rivers)
03 Put a Little Love in Your Heart (Jackie DeShannon)
04 talk (Jackie DeShannon)
05 Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers)
06 Seventh Son (Johnny Rivers)
07 Poor Side of Town (Johnny Rivers)
08 When You Walk in the Room (Jackie DeShannon)
09 Needles and Pins (Jackie DeShannon)
10 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Jackie DeShannon)
11 Summer Rain (Johnny Rivers)
12 The Tracks of My Tears (Johnny Rivers)
13 All Night Desire (Jackie DeShannon)
14 Swayin' to the Music [Slow Dancin'] (Johnny Rivers)
15 Boat to Sail (Jackie DeShannon)
16 I Wanted It All (Jackie DeShannon & Rita Coolidge)
17 The Weight (Jackie DeShannon)
18 talk (Jackie DeShannon & Johnny Rivers)
19 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Jackie DeShannon & Johnny Rivers)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/EZoKKNCn
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/hyZ7wo6yugNYuFw/file
The cover image is a screenshot I took of a video of this exact concert.
Thank you
ReplyDeleteNice! Hard to find much from either performer, so this makes a nice, varied "oldies show" from two underrated and underexposed (in live recordings) worthy performers. Thanks for taking the time and effort to add additional live material from the MS library!
ReplyDeleteThese days, 41 minutes is all we get (after discounting commercials) from hour-long television anyway!