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Nice to see Mr Bennett on last night's edition of Top of the Pops (1976) drumming on Devil Woman. The rest of the band consisted of Dave Richmond, Terry Britten and Graham Todd. Plus, of course, a certain Mr Cliff Richard on lead vocals! Not a clip I'd ever seen before - Brian seemed to be having fun.

Must say though, I found a majority of the 'music' on last night's programme absolutely horrific! It certainly would seem that 1976 represented something of a 'dark age' for music, in between the glam rock of the early 70s and the punk rock of the last couple of years. Watching it felt like an excercise in wading through treacle. Quite sickly. Never knew that Mud did such an overtly discofied record - I noticed that they couldn't quite manage to do the Shadows walk to it. But they tried. Cliff was the best thing on the show, frankly. I hope they continue to show them, as I'd like to see the Shads appearances from 1978, 1979 and 1980. Got a long wait though...

I watched this too and I think it was the first time Cliff performed Devil Woman on TOTP. It wasn't even in the top 30 yet. It was probably this performance that propelled it up the charts. It was great to see Brian on drums!

The rest of the show was a bit schmaltsy. The audience reaction to Barry Manilow was interesting to watch as they were all looking really bored and there was a similar reaction to JJ Barrie and his performance of the future number 1 record No Charge.

It has been fun reliving my teenage years during the reruns of TOTP and I hope they continue particularly as it's on at 7.30 on a Thursday night. I sometimes feel like I'm living in my own version of Life on Mars!

Best Wishes
Mary

its on youtube everyone

Funny thing is, BBC4 repeated the programme, in a slightly longer format (ie, 40 mins) quite late on Saturday night. A shame that they don't show the entire programme earlier as Rolling Stones fans would have had to catch the repeated edition to see their heroes. Although I'm sure the performances are not entirely 'live', I noticed that the version of Devil Woman was slightly different to the usual version, as it was obviously Brian's drums and Cliff seemed to be singing live. All in all, really glad to have seen it and I look forward to more of the same. But please, no more Barry Manilow or JJ Barrie!!!

Mary wrote:The rest of the show was a bit schmaltsy. The audience reaction to Barry Manilow was interesting to watch as they were all looking really bored and there was a similar reaction to JJ Barrie and his performance of the future number 1 record No Charge.

This reminds me of The Shadows' performance of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" op Top Of The Pops in very early 1979, to me, the audience also looks kind of bored to me. It also looks as though Hank is a little bit uncomfortable in front of this audience. He also looks like that during The Shadows' performance of "Riders In The Sky" on Top Of The Pops in February 1980.

Unless it's in another thread, no-one's mentioned that X Factor hopeful Herbie Armstrong also appeared on that edition of TOTP performing "Only You Can" with Fox.