Hey, look what’s finally on TV! Let the Good Times Roll (1973)

There was a void in rock music in the early 70s that was filled by a revival of 50s rock & roll. Sha Na Na was playing the Filmore East and Woodstock. WCBS-FM changed its format to all-oldies and handed over Sunday nights to doo-wop scholar Gus Gossert. Madison Square Garden began hosting – and selling out – package shows of 50s artists, has-beens and relics to the outside world, but royalty to the reformed juvenile delinquents and greasers who lined up for tickets.

My friends and I attended one of those Rock & Roll Revivals, as they were billed, the infamous Garden Party in October 1971. (Two of my first three concerts were the Garden Party and a January 1973 concert during which Neil Young announced that the Vietnam War was over with the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty that evening – excuse me for thinking every show I’d ever attend would be eventful). My memory of the bill at the Garden that night is hazy (and there’s no reliable online resource to help), but I do remember Little Eva and Rick (Not Ricky) Nelson, plus show-closers Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.

There’s commentary online from people WHO WERE AT THE CONCERT insisting that the booing during Nelson’s set was directed at cops hassling (to use the vernacular of the day) some kids smoking weed. It’s not true and the Rick (Not Ricky) distinction is important. Distancing himself from being the annoying kid brother on that annoyingly corny television show, Nelson took the stage with a band of LA session musicians playing countrified versions of his old hits and a few covers.

I’m sure they were good, but nobody was listening. There was a twang (mostly courtesy of a pedal steel guitar) to the music that didn’t go down well on 33^rd Street in those days when us city folk generally considered country and western “shit-kicker music” and a joke funny above the Mason-Dixon line. Nelson got it right on “Garden Party” – he didn’t look the part and the music didn’t fit. Of course, he got the last laugh with “Garden Party” going top ten and later fathering the twin boys who fronted the atrocious rock band Nelson. 

Let The Good Times Roll, filmed around the same time as the Garden Party, captured similar revivals. There’s Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, looking and sounding much like they did the night we saw them – Bo stutter-stepping, Chuck duck walking – tried and true schtick that the sold-out crowd ate up. It was exciting and still one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Let The Good Times Roll does a great job, sometimes using split screens and “psychedelic” camera tricks, of capturing that excitement.

Other highlights from Let the Good Times Roll: Chubby Checker, minus his American Bandstand baby fat, turning the Twist into an Olympic sport; Little Richard sitting in his dressing room accepting visitors (including Chubby and Bill Haley) like the queen; and Rob Reiner introducing the Coasters with a dead-on impersonation of Murray the K’s hyperactive jive talk. Reiner grew up in the suburbs of Westchester County; obviously he spent a lot of time listening to New York City radio.

Hey, look what’s finally on TV! I bet it’s been more than 20 years since I last watched Let The Good Times Roll before TCM showed it over the Labor Day weekend.