TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

Both Georgie Fame and Alan Price bad been familiar faces on British television since 1964, but despite their respective rhythm and blues pedigrees by 1967 they had both moved into pop.

Neither had shown any Jools Holland tendencies to want to step up from behind the keyboards and present, but in May 1968 Alan Price was given the chance to do just that when he was invited to co-host Top Of The Pops with Alan Freeman. This may have been an audition for his own series The Price To Play which began 29th July 1968.

They first appeared on TV together on ATV's The Des O'Connor Show on 18th November 1967, but on the 15th March 1969 both Price and Fame appeared on the Lulu show and producer Stanley Dorfman spotting potential offered the two their own series. The show featured musical guests and a script written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones, who would have been writing and possibly filming Monty Python at the time of the show's first broadcast in September 1969. The show was on BBC2, the only colour channel at the time, but by the time the series proper started in late November the rest of the BBC and ITV had caught the colour bug.

Between the first show and the rest of the series Price was also to be seen on BBC1 hosting Monster Music Mash.

Among the guests they enticed for the four shows were Delaney & Bonnie with chums Dave Mason and Eric Clapton, Thelma Houston, Doris Troy, Billy Preston and Zoot Money.

Despite working together on the TV show their respective recording contracts with CBS (Fame) and Decca (Price) would have precluded a tie-in album. By the time they could get together for an LP the show was over. However, in April 1971 they were back, but this time is was on the singles chart with Rosetta, and the LP chart with their one and only album for CBS. Curiously despite this success they were not asked to host another series together, although in the mass of promotional appearances the found themselves back on the Lulu show on 24th July 1971.

THE PRICE OF FAME OR FAME AT ANY PRICE

BBC2

17th September 1969, 20th November 1969 - 25th December 1969, 17th June 1970