This Week In Music History

Happy Friday all! Hope you’re enjoying the pre-Thanksgiving chill. To get you pumped for your imminent turkey-coma here’s today’s music history fix for your Friday.

On this day in 1973, David Bowie’s first television special, 1980 Floor Show, was broadcast as a part of NBC’s Midnight Special series. This was Bowie’s first appearance after his publicized retirement on July 3, 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon. The idea for the show came about when Bowie was approached to create something for NBC’s The Midnight Special rock series. The result was Bowie’s idea for a highly theatrical cabaret featuring himself as well as other various 1960s rock groups performing within a futuristic setting. Bowie was allowed complete creative control for the project and the product was edited down to fit the one hour time slot for the rock series. The filming was done at the Marquee Club on October 19th and 20th of that year. This was to be Bowie’s final performance as Ziggy Stardust and admission to the taping of the show was by invitation only. 200 lucky fans were admitted to the performance and enjoyed a ten hour performance as the club was so tiny so that only two cameras could be let in and had to be re-positioned multiple times and each song re-shot to get multiple angles. Bowie joked with the audience and signed autographs between takes despite having just recovered from a bout of influenza.

In 1978, speaking of risqué performances, Queen performed their song “Fat Bottomed Girls” during their show at Madison Square Garden and during the performance sent numerous semi-nude women bicycling around them in a mock ‘bicycle race’ during the song. The stint was a play on a promo they had done earlier at Wimbledon Stadium for the track.

Finally today celebrates the birthday of Canadian jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall. She is the wife of English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello. She turns 48 today.

By Alexandra Parker

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