Tacky and Misguided

So this is pretty strange: Neil Diamond performing "Holly Holy" with really bad dancers distracting everyone.





It's from the "Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour," and the IMDb places it in 1970, probably an October episode. It is... well, I already said tacky and misguided, so all I got left is bizarre.


Neil had been on the show a year earlier. Interestingly, he's introduced as having had 8 top ten hits in the past three years, which wasn't true in 1969 unless you counted half of those hits as Monkees versions of the songs. To make things even more confusing, the IMDb has no record of either Neil or Cher appearing on this episode, so I have no idea what the date could be beyond 1969.




Don't watch this. It's terrible. It's a revoltingly smug Glen Campbell and slightly confused Cher singing a medley of Neil's hits with Neil playing a supporting role, and at about 4:24 when he gets a close up, you can see he's frightened to death, and I would imagine really damn irritated to boot. I can't believe human beings were subjected to this kind of crap just to get their art noticed.


Not content with having his work butchered by Glen Campbell twice, Neil apparently went back in 1971 to perform "Soolaimon."



This is listed as the "Glen Campbell Comedy Hour," but no such show existed. It's a rerun from CMT so obviously it's the "Goodtime Show" again, and it's certainly 1971 because Neil looks exactly as he did on the 1971 BBC performance... which is also not on the IMDb, I mean come on IMDb, what are you even there for? While I'm not comfortable with the white god standing over the African natives motif, the dancing is very good, the song is surprisingly strong 40 years after it was released, and the overall presentation of the white male singing about his black female "my woman" was pretty progressive.


Back to the bad: The 1977 "I'm So Glad You're Here With Me Tonight" special with Neil performing a medley of his hits with interspersed bits of slo-mo clips of his past concerts. It appears stretched out because aspect ratio is hard, and editing the width doesn't correct the problem.



The sunglasses are to hide his shame.

Honestly, the "I Am...I Said" breaks my heart, because I imagine the pained look on his face is the knowledge that he is about a million miles away from the earnest young man who could barely bring himself to perform such an emotionally revealing song in the 1971 BBC appearance.


And finally, speaking of 1971 BBC, here's Neil in almost the same outfit as the BBC appearance, performing "I Am...I Said" while wandering around a bunch of teenagers who aren't paying much attention.



No idea what show this is from. Does anyone recognize the tag on the upper left? I guess I should be asking if anyone is even reading this blog first, then asking questions of the few stragglers left behind. But if the tag can be identified, we can possibly figure out what reruns they show and go from there.

I have done nothing but learn about Neil Diamond for five full days now. I was about to say "nothing but devour Neil Diamond" but that turns this post into some kind of cannibal porn I'm just not prepared to think about right now.

Speaking of tacky and misguided, I guess I should actually create a Neil Diamond tag for the blog.