Having a late career re-boot with I Love To Boogie in 1976 Marc was back in the chart
and suddenly TV wanted him again. Mike Mansfield afforded him his own TV special
Rollin' Bolan in August, while in the London area he could also be found interviewing
pop stars on Thames' Today, the show which would see those pesky Sex Pistols get
the better of a drunk hack later in the year. It was of course, a false dawn. He
wouldn't really bother that charts again and, unbeknown to anyone, the end was in
sight.
Marc Bolan was probably approached about hosting his own show when he appeared on
Granada's fellow tea-time pop shows Arrows and Get It Together in April 1977. Both
were produced by Muriel Young, who single handedly owned tea-time pop from the mid
sixties for well over a decade.
Marc re-recorded his songs for the new show with his new version of T Rex, including
Herbie Flowers, Dino Dines and Tony Newman. While he was there to play his old hits
and introduce new acts he not unreasonably plugged his new 45 Celebrate Summer several
times, which despite the plays and his sudden death was still not a big hit. The
resident dance troupe were Heart Throb, choreographed by Teri Scoble as were many
of the Granada shows of the time.
Bolan had been touring with The Damned and invited them onto the show, but due to
a previous incident on a Southern TV pilot pop show called Blast Off where they shot
at cameramen's backsides with an air rifle, they found themselves with a ban, so
couldn't appear.
By mid-1977 punk was considered a little safer than it had been and was slowly encroaching
into tea-time telly, so The Jam, Generation X and The Boomtown Rats were invited
onto the show as were The Radio Stars, featuring Bolan's old friend from John's Children
Andy Ellison. However, another old friend also appeared on the final edition. David
Bowie was briefly back in the UK to promote his single Heroes and lined up appearances
on Top Of The Pops, a Bing Crosby TV special of all things, and Marc's show. In the
Bolan TV documentary 'Ride On' DJ and friend Jeff Dexter gave some comic-tragic insight
into the recording of that final show, and the occasionally less than cordial relationship
between Bolan and Bowie, "That day at the studio was one of the of the worst experiences
of our lives. We get back to the studio and go to walk straight into the room I'd
been in three days a week for six weeks, and this guy puts his hand up and says 'sorry
you can't go in there, it's (a) closed session.' I said 'excuse me, who are you'
he said 'I'm stopping anyone going to see David Bowie' I said 'you get out the bloody
way right now or you're out of here mate'. I walked straight past him into the studio
I walk in and there's this 'air' and the studio is empty apart from Marc and the
band and David and there's two other people on the other door, so I go out the side
door and go to look for Muriel, and I walk down the end of the hall and there's this
floor manager standing on his side with his kit on and there's a group of people
and there gonna call out everyone out they've been ordered out of their own studio
by David Bowie's security. So they've calling a meeting, shop steward's come down.
They're gonna close the show. So this turned into an incredible row between everybody
once Marc had twigged what had happened. The rivalry then really showed." Publicist
Keith Allen had invited press to the studio only to witness the madness for himself.
"Then the run through was chaotic because people were arriving late. The Generation
X turned up without their equipment and to borrow from everybody else and Marc was
saying 'if they smash anything of mine I'll kill 'em.' Marc was going into his Cecil
B DeMille routine 'Why do I have to do it all, I can't be the director, the producer,
the artist'." Everyone had assumed the recording was at an end, but Marc and David
promptly went into an end of show jam which ended abruptly when Marc fell off the
stage, much to Bowie's amusement, he was only there to plug his new single after
all.
A second series of thirteen shows was discussed with Marc, but his sudden death on
the 16th of September, two days after wrapping up the recording of the final show
put an end to that. The final two shows which were still to be shown were broadcast
as intended.
Many of the shows began with Marc's Sing Me A Song and before he signed off he suggested
we all "Keep a little Marc in your heart and we'll be back at the same Marc time,
the same Marc channel." Consider it done.
A Network DVD featuring only the Marc and T Rex songs was released, while the complete
series was released in Japan.
