Rolling Stone Magazine: The 10th Anniversary

The laughably hideous Beatles tribute from the show is available at this address. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=988209650819812250 I can't tell who the "Peter Pan in kabuki make-up" guy is who sings Helter Skelter, but he's either a bad singer, or he is having an off night. I also wonder who is croaking the voices for the Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter characters. I think Roxi Roker enters from the left side of the screen at the 12:58 mark, but I'm not sure. I remember watching this in its original airing, although I had blocked it out until a friend sent me the link to the video. In those days, I would have watched anything with Yvonne Elliman in it.

The person who commented on this prior to myself was pretty much dead on however Paul Simon did not perform on this show, only Art Garfunkel as I recently reviewed this show and in fact added it into the IMDb archive.

As Rolling Stone has always been about the music those moments were the best on this program. Art sang "Bridge over Troubled Water" in a performance that was 100% perfect. It was also nice to see a Jesus Christ Superstar reunion of sorts with Ted Neely and Yvonne Elliman performing on the show, Richie Havens voice was superb as always. Lesley Anne Warren was gorgeous and still is even 30 years later.

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I remember seeing this when it originally shown and thinking there had to be a better way to celebrate Rolling Stone's anniversary. I was in college and had been reading RS for a couple of years (I can still remember the Linda Rondstadt issue and thinking there will never be a more beautiful woman in rock and roll) and it was so good at combining politics, culture and music. It was such a better magazine when it was based in San Fransisco and took a real anti-establishment view of things. Now it is part of the establishment. The days of barely getting an issue out the door before deadline or the great issue they put out on Elvis' death are long gone.

The tenth anniversary print issue of RS was very good with the writers & editors picking their favorite albums and songs during the magazine's existence (Exile On Main Street was picked most often I think) and it was a good look back at an interesting 10 years. But the only memorable part of this show was Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water. The rest of the show was barely a notch above a bad 60's variety show and would have been mercilessly slogged by magazines like RS. They would have been better off doing a VH1 Behind The Music type show.

I give it a 3 just for the S&G number but the rest was not up to the standards of the magazine circa 1977.