#music on tv
Isaac Hayes receiving his Oscar for 1971’s Shaft.
April 10, 1972: the biggest fake fur bow tie and fake fur lapels you’ve ever seen. His grandmother was his date that night, days before her 80th birthday.
Now here’s the performance!
A relatively understated costume, but only relatively: bare-chested and draped in gold chains, a blatantly political statement. Something along the lines of: “You think Black men belong in chains? Here I am, wearing chains worth more than everything you own combined.”
It was the first time a composer performed his own work on the Oscars, and Isaac’s win represented the first time a Black performer won an award outside the acting categories. Indeed, this ceremony was co-hosted by Sammy Davis, Jr., the first Black performer in that role too.
I may be remembering wrong, but this is also the first time I can recall a full-scale production number for a Best Song performance – before this, they’d all been one person and microphone, and that’s it.
This is not that! Hit play and get ready to lose your mind!
(Note that this clip has come and gone half a dozen times since I’ve been doing this blog, so please search for it even if this embed breaks.)
TURN IT UP!
Paul McCartney and George Harrison rehearsing for the ITV special Around the Beatles, Wembley Park Studios, London, England, April 19th 1964, my edit via beatleseverything
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