''T.A.M.I. Show'' is a 1964 concert film released by American International Pictures. It includes performances by numerous popular

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

and R&B musicians from the United States and England. The concert was held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 28 and 29, 1964. Free tickets were distributed to local high school students. The

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

"T.A.M.I." was used inconsistently in the show's publicity to mean both "Teenage Awards Music International" and "Teen Age Music International". In 2006, ''T.A.M.I. Show'' was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

and selected for preservation in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

Production

The best footage from the two concert dates was combined into the film, which was released on December 29, 1964. Jan and Dean emceed the event and performed its theme song, "Here They Come (From All Over the World)", written by Los Angeles songwriters P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, the song erroneously asserting that

the Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

are from

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

. Jack Nitzsche was the show's music director. The film was shot by director Steve Binder and his crew from '' The Steve Allen Show'', using a precursor to high-definition television, called " Electronovision," invented by the self-taught "electronics whiz" Bill Sargent (H.W. Sargent Jr). The film was the second of a small number of productions that used the system. By using the 25 frames per second 819-line video standard (in use in France for television broadcasting at the time), the video could be converted to film by kinescope recording with sufficiently enhanced resolution to allow big-screen enlargement. It is considered one of the seminal events in the pioneering of music films, and more importantly, the later concept of music video. ''T.A.M.I. Show'' is particularly well known for the performance of

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...

and the Famous Flames, which features his legendary dance moves and explosive energy. In interviews, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones has claimed that choosing to follow Brown and the Famous Flames ( Bobby Byrd, Bobby Bennett, and Lloyd Stallworth) was the worst mistake of their careers, because no matter how well they performed, they could not top him. In a web-published interview, Binder takes credit for persuading the Stones to follow Brown, and serve as the centerpiece for the grand finale in which all the performers dance together onstage. Motown Records, which by 1964 had experienced its first wave of chart-busting crossover success, was represented by three of its top acts:

the Miracles The Miracles (later known as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles from 1965 to 1972) were an American vocal group formed in Detroit, Michigan in 1955. They were the first successful recording act for Motown Records and are considered one of the most ...

Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. (; April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984) was an American Rhythm and blues, R&B and soul singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He helped shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player an ...

, and

the Supremes The Supremes were an American girl group formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959 as the Primettes. A premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s, the Supremes were the most commercially successful of Motown's acts and the most successful Amer ...

. The Miracles ( Smokey Robinson, Bobby Rogers, Pete Moore, Ronnie White and Marv Tarplin) had, three months earlier, lost the services of their sole female member, Claudette (Mrs. Smokey) Robinson. Claudette, who retired from touring for health reasons, remained as a non-touring member of the Miracles, recording with the group in the studio only. Marvin Gaye, backed by '' Shindig!'' favorites the Blossoms, sang several of his greatest hits. The show also featured

during their reign as the most successful female recording group of the era. The group had three chart-topping singles from July 1964 to December 1964, with the album '' Where Did Our Love Go'' reaching number two.

Diana Ross Diana Ross (born Diane Ernestine Earle Ross March 26, 1944) is an American singer and actress. Known as the "Queen of Motown Records", she was the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, who became Motown#Major divisions, Motown's most suc ...

went on to work with Binder on several of her television specials, including her first solo television special and her famous Central Park concert, ''Live from New York Worldwide: For One and for All''. Throughout the show, a variety of go-go dancers including Teri Garr performed in the background or beside the performers, under the direction of choreographer David Winters, assisted by Toni Basil. According to filmmaker John Landis's DVD commentary for the film's trailer, he and seventh-grade classmate David Cassidy were in the audience for the show.

Dick Clark Productions Dick Clark Productions, LLC (DCP, stylized in lowercase as dick clark productions or dcp) is an American multinational television production company founded by radio and TV host Dick Clark. The studio primarily produces Awards ceremony, award sh ...

later acquired ownership of the concert from Sargent.

List of performers

Performers

(in order of appearance) ;

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and de ...

; Gerry and the Pacemakers:: * Gerry Marsden - vocals, guitar * Les Maguire - piano * Les Chadwick - bass * Freddie Marsden - drums, backing vocals ;

The Miracles The Miracles (later known as Smokey Robinson and the Miracles from 1965 to 1972) were an American vocal group formed in Detroit, Michigan in 1955. They were the first successful recording act for Motown Records and are considered one of the most ...

:: * Smokey Robinson - lead vocals * Bobby Rogers - tenor vocals * Ronnie White - baritone vocals * Pete Moore - bass vocals * Marv Tarplin - guitar ;

(and The Blossoms):: *

- vocals * Fanita James - backing vocals * Darlene Love - backing vocals * Jean King - backing vocals ; Lesley Gore ; Jan and Dean:: * Jan Berry - vocals * Dean Torrence - vocals ;

The Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their f ...

:: *

Brian Wilson Brian Douglas Wilson (June 20, 1942 – June 11, 2025) was an American musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often Brian Wilson is a genius, called a genius for his novel approaches to pop compositio ...

- bass, vocals *

Mike Love Michael Edward Love (born March 15, 1941) is an American singer and songwriter who is one of the vocalists of the Beach Boys, of which he was an original member alongside his cousins Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, and Carl Wilson and their frien ...

- vocals * Al Jardine - guitar, vocals *

Carl Wilson Carl Dean Wilson (December 21, 1946 – February 6, 1998) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the Beach Boys. He was their lead guitarist, the youngest sibling of bandmates Brian Wilson, Brian and Dennis Wilson, ...

- guitar, vocals * Dennis Wilson - drums ; Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas:: * Billy J. Kramer - vocals * Mike Maxfield - guitar * Mick Green - guitar * Robin MacDonald - bass * Tony Mansfield - drums ;

The Supremes The Supremes were an American girl group formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959 as the Primettes. A premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s, the Supremes were the most commercially successful of Motown's acts and the most successful Amer ...

:: *

- Lead vocals * Florence Ballard - backing vocals * Mary Wilson - backing vocals ; The Barbarians: * Jerry Causi - bass, vocals * Ronnie Enos - guitar, vocals * Bruce Benson - guitar * Victor "Moulty" Moulton - drums ;

and the Famous Flames: *

- vocals * Bobby Byrd - vocals * Lloyd Stallworth - vocals * Bobby Bennett - vocals ;

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

: * Mick Jagger - vocals, maracas * Keith Richards - guitar, vocals * Brian Jones - guitar, backing vocals * Bill Wyman - bass, backing vocals *

Charlie Watts Charles Robert Watts (2 June 1941 – 24 August 2021) was an English musician who was the drummer of the Rolling Stones from 1963 until his death in 2021. Originally trained as a Graphic designer, graphic artist, Watts developed an interest i ...

- drums

Set list

In order of appearance in the film:

Home media

During the VHS era, there was never an authorized home video release of ''T.A.M.I. Show'' in its full, original cut, although bootlegs abounded. Most of the bootlegs were missing the Beach Boys' performance. The Beach Boys had been deleted from all prints made after the movie's initial theatrical run because of a

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

dispute by the request of someone in their management. Selected numbers from the ''T.A.M.I. Show'' were edited together with performances from another concert film by the same producers, '' The Big T.N.T. Show'', to create a hybrid work called ''That Was Rock''. This film did receive a home video release from Media Home Entertainment's music division, Music Media, in 1984. It was felt that the film was unlikely to be released due to the cost of obtaining the publishing and performance rights to the extensive lineup of artists. (All of the four Beach Boys songs from the show eventually surfaced on DVD in ''Sights and Sounds of Summer'', a special CD/DVD edition of '' Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys''.) On March 23, 2010, Shout! Factory released ''T.A.M.I. Show'' on a restored, digitally remastered and fully authorized DVD, with all performances, including the Beach Boys, included. (A DVD release of the complete film by First Look Studios had been planned for 2007, but subsequently withdrawn.) On December 2, 2016, ''T.A.M.I. Show'' was released in Blu-ray as a combo package with ''The Big T.N.T. Show'' by Shout! Factory. Both features are presented in

1080p 1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...

resolution, 1.78:1

aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...

and DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo. The film was shown in its entirety in Canada on First Choice Network in 1984, the 20th anniversary of its release.

Legacy

Experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

maker Wallace Berman, a friend of choreographer Toni Basil, refilmed a screening of ''T.A.M.I. Show'' using an 8 mm camera. He used close-ups of Mick Jagger and Teri Garr in his 1966 collage film ''Aleph''. In 2006, ''T.A.M.I. Show'' was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States

and selected for preservation in the

References

External links

"''The T.A.M.I. Show'' essay"
by David E. James at

''The T.A.M.I. Show'' Remembered on its 40th Anniversary
* *
''The T.A.M.I. Show'' - Still A Groundbreaking Music Event
*''The T.A.M.I. Show'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pp. 604–60

{{DEFAULTSORT:T.A.M.I. Show 1964 films 1964 in California October 1964 in the United States American documentary films American International Pictures films Concert films Events in Santa Monica, California Films directed by Steve Binder Marvin Gaye video albums The Miracles video albums The Rolling Stones video albums United States National Film Registry films 2010 video albums 1960s English-language films 1960s American films English-language documentary films