INT: So, you've got a new medium. You’re, you're shooting electronically, but it's going immediately to film and it's gonna go to the theaters, but I want to go back to the actual event. All right? You've got all these surfer girls yelling, "Fuck me! Fuck me!" to James Brown, that's going on, I mean, it's truly spontaneous. And what were the surprises? What were, who were the people, what were the...let's give your little Chuck Berry story because I did a film on Chuck Berry, and I certainly know this is not unusual, but tell us what happened there?
SB: Our first day of filming, actually making our film, was on a Sunday. And we all gathered, and the opening of the film is Chuck Berry with Gerry and the Pacemakers, an English act, and they're trading off songs in a medley that doesn't stop and start, it just goes from wall to wall. Audience, theater's filled at the Santa Monica Civic [Santa Monica Civic Auditorium], and all of a sudden Bill [William Sargent, Jr.] bursts into the control room where I'm at and he says, "We can't go." And I said, "What do you mean we can't go? We're ready to roll." And he says, "Chuck Berry is insisting he be paid in cash." It's Sunday and we can't even get a bank to open. I don't know what to do, you know, and he's out there saying he's not going on." Well he didn't tell anybody, but evidently that was his [INT: That’s his M.O. [modus operandi]] Concert M.O. [modus operandi] and he had waited ‘til the, you know, twelfth hour and say, "Okay, I'm going out there, but give me my money." So, Bill [William Sargent, Jr.], by that time, had created some alliances with Hank Saperstein [Henry G. Saperstein], who owned, I think, UPA [United Productions of America]. There were few people who had lots of money, were businessmen, and they saw this gigantic opportunity to cut into Bill's [William Sargent, Jr.] percentage of his ownership and so forth. And they basically, now I don't know who has that kind of money sitting in their home, but I guess there are a lot of them in Beverly Hills and wherever. And within about, I'd say we delayed our first shot about 45 minutes or an hour, and Chuck Berry got his cash and we launched THE T.A.M.I. SHOW.

INT: The sense of, I can always remember, and you've gotta mention some of your collaborators, because as a Director you have, you're in charge of the visuals and you want to capture something real, but that show had a very distinct dance quotient, you know? There was a, there was a choreographer that's rather famous you should talk about and, you know, I can remember, you know, was it "Hitchhike [Hitchhiker]," was that what Marvin Gaye was doing? [Steve Binder nods yes.] I remember Marvin Gaye going out there and dancing "Hitchhike" [Hitchhiker] and there's like, what did you have, twenty dancers around him all doing the “Hitchhike” [Hitchhiker]? You know, it had, you know, a production quality to it, but it was all live. It was funky and cool, and let's talk about that.
SB: I do wanna say one thing about Bill Sargent [William Sargent, Jr.]. Bill Sargent [William Sargent, Jr.] was the original Mel Brooks conception of his hit THE PRODUCERS. Bill [William Sargent, Jr.] would go out, I mean always, he'd have 100% of something and he, by the time he finished he had sold 200% at least. And he would lose every one of his projects because even if they were successful he would always get burned because he gave away too many, you know, too much of the ownership to all these people who came up with money for him to help finance his projects.

INT: Most of his projects were successful, weren't they?
SB: Absolutely. The dance core was comprised of 30 dancers. There was one girl in a t-shirt with a big bull's-eye on her chest. That's actress Teri Garr, who was, so many dancers, I mean, Goldie Hawn, you name it. I mean, they started as, you know, background dancers-[INT: Gypsies.] who were trying to get on television, exactly. When I did HULLABALOO, Michael Bennett and- [INT: Donna McKechnie] Donna McKechnie were in the chorus of the show. But, I was always interested in music and dance. And I, when I did the T.A.M.I. [THE T.A.M.I. SHOW] or actually before that when I did the NAACB, NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] film, there was a young dancer who ended up, she became a rock and roll star for 15 minutes and she had a thing called MICKEY’S MONKEY I think was. No, it was MICKEY [HEY MICKEY] was her song. Toni Basil. And Toni [Toni Basil] went on to, she works with Bette Midler, she works with lots of famous people, and she's a terrific choreographer, you know, artist. She told me about a young choreographer, who was in New York, who had moved to L.A. and was the hottest dance teacher in town, David Winters. David [David Winters] was very eccentric. At a young age he lived in Greenwich Village. He was known for wearing a long black coat and a parrot on his shoulder. And he was, his claim to fame was he was one of the stars, both on Broadway and in the movie, of WEST SIDE STORY. David [David Winters] had a dance class on La Cienega Blvd. that he started and he was, and I went to a lot of different dance classes. When I was in New York I went to see Luigi [Eugene Louis Faccuito] and all the in kind of people, but in L.A .it was very staid. It was, you know, it was not heavy-duty street, you know, rock and roll and so forth. You know, there's tap dancing going on, there's modern jazz going on, but there was nothing that really had that kind of gutsy fire. David [David Winters], in his dance class, had a professional drummer in there, which was really exciting when you walked into this dance class and you hear these, you know, from outside you can hear the noise going on. And every beautiful actress, dancer in town was in David's [David Winters] classes. And I talked to him, he was like a curmudgeon kind of looking guy, you know, not too tall. He had curly blonde hair, he was stout. But he was one of those, you know, great fiery dancers who put everything into it. And it was, he idolized Robbins [Jerry Robbins].

INT: Jerome Robbins. [SB: Right.] Well, he worked for Jerome Robbins in WEST SIDE STORY. [SB: Exactly.] You have the, you see him, David Winters. If you're a fan of WEST SIDE STORY you know Russ Tamblyn, you know David Winters, you see their unique quotient in the background.
SB: He actually played two different parts. He played a different part on Broadway than he did in the movie. But anyway, there's so many of Jero, Robbins' [Jerry Robbins] protégés or his dancers who became choreographers in the following decades. But I talked to David [David Winters] and I told him, "We're gonna work together one day." And then when Bill Sargent [William Sargent, Jr.] approached me about THE T.A.M.I. SHOW, first call I made - or one of the first calls - was to David [David Winters] saying, "Do you want to choreograph this movie that I'm gonna be doing, a rock and roll movie?" So, we just hit it off and we started collaborating. And we worked a lot of shows even after that. We went together to do HULLABALOO in New York and so forth. But, when we listened to the music of the T.A.M.I. [THE T.A.M.I. SHOW] and we listened to all these rock and roll records without ever seeing the artist coming in, and Bill's [William Sargent, Jr.] offices were kind of famous because first offices he had when we did THE T.A.M.I. SHOW was up on Sunset Blvd. on the Sunset Strip near Doheny. And that office was followed by a young agent, turned manager, turned entrepreneur, David Geffen. That became the Geffen offices on Sunset. And when I went up there, it was to meet with Bill [William Sargent, Jr.] and talk to him about THE T.A.M.I. SHOW, etc. There were lots of people running around. I didn't know exactly what they were doing, but, you know, it was a beehive of energy. I mentioned earlier that, you know, the great thing about Bill [William Sargent, Jr.] is whatever project I did for him, he said, "This is the project, go do it." There was never any, you know, he never pretended to be a creative producer. I mean, he was strictly there to give you 100% support, say you know, you know, "Make me look good."

SB: So when we started listening to this music, David [David Winters], you know, he said, "How many dancers can I have?" And I said, "How many do you need?" And he said, "Well, I'd like to have a couple - " Now the Whiskey a Go Go on Sunset [Sunset Blvd.] was the hot spot. It just, it was a white elephant until the Whiskey [Whiskey a Go Go] opened. It opened with an artist named Johnny Rivers [Jonathan Winters], who happened to be in my management stable. And it exploded, right off the bat. And one of the things that Elmer Valentine, the owner of the Whiskey [Whiskey a Go Go] did, was he, whether he invented it or heard about it or what, he put girls in cages about, you know, 15 to 20 feet up in the air over the audience seats and they wore these shimmy go-go dresses and it was sexy as hell- [INT: They danced?] and they were up there and they were dancers. In fact, when I was with Elmer [Elmer Valentine] one time, you'd think these girls were pilots because one of them hurt her ankle or something and had to sit in the audience and she was like, "I gotta get up there, I gotta get in my cage." You know? But it was a case where David [David Winters] said, "I want some go-go dancers," we'd hired two in the shimmy dresses, a black dancer and a white dancer. There was a couple he was real high on and they were just great, you know, a great team, completely unique, different than the go-go girls. And one of them ended up marrying one of The Righteous Brothers, Bobby Hatfield. So Joy Hatfield [Maiden name Joy Ciro] and her partner were there. And Joy [Joy Ciro] wore a bikini, literally a bikini. She had a humongous, you know, chest and so there were lots of eye candy for males to watch THE T.A.M.I. SHOW aside from the acts. And then he put 30 dancers, dancer dancers, and we just thought of all different ways to integrate 'em into, into the production. And then we met with our Art Director saying, "We need to put them on different levels." So, it was a very, I couldn't even call it a creative set, other than it was a practical structure, like an erector set, of various platforms where the dancers could go upstairs and move around the set. And we used them in practically, you know, almost every act.

INT: I think that that was one of the completely unique things, you know, dance is, you know: what is music? What is rock and roll? Rock and roll is an exuberance, it's a kind of freedom and as, you know, Ray Charles told me when I was researching his film, "If I didn't get those people on their feet, off their asses and up dancing, they'd fire mine and throw me out of the place." That's what this was all about and one of the great things I thought about THE T.A.M.I. SHOW, and you're talking about it and I'm talking about from a Director...from a creative, directorial point of view. Introducing those dancers, which then became a function of SHINDIG! and HULLABALOO and all those things in the background that happened, you know, you look at the ‘60s and you get a time capsule of all that go-go dancing and all the things that were happening. But there was an energy, which I think is intrinsic to rock and roll, you know? You're singing, you're playing, the audience is enjoying it, but people are up on their feet dancing, and I thought that was a great, you know, one of the great features of THE T.A.M.I. SHOW and, you know, explaining it.
SB: Well, I always approached shooting for television, is that, when you go to a motion picture and you're seeing a drama, you wanna be, you know, Robert Redford, you wanna be, you wanna be the star on the screen, you kind of project your personality into a character. You know, normally they're the good looking heroes of the movie. In television and in music, I never thought that I could be Mick Jagger or I could be, you know, Smokey Robinson or anybody, I mean, they're in a league unto themselves. Talented, for sure, just like actors are talented, but what I could do, and what I always think of, I wanna put the person sitting in their living room in the seat of the audience. And in rock and roll, it's all about participation. You can have the greatest rock and roll song, act, etc. but if the audience isn't participating, it's dull. And the one great thing was as much as I, you know, jokingly complained about the screaming audience all the way through and, you know, that we couldn't shut them up, it was spontaneous and it was, they were performing just as much in the audience as the actual performing on the stage. And together, there was a total bonding and, you know, you get inspired in live theater, for sure, by the reaction of your audience, you know? I've heard many, you know, actors, actresses, what have you, my partner who's a pretty famous actor, always says, you know, he relates good shows from bad shows, but it always is about the audience was cold or the audience was hot, so there is this kind of two-way street of performing and knowing you're being appreciated for your craft and you're giving something that people are, you know, just embracing.

INT: I think that, the other thing is that because you've had, you've talked about before, this was a bunch of white kids from Santa Monica that had not seen black acts before. But by the nature of having black acts, you know, there's no clichés, some people, some black people can't dance, but very few. And, you know, you put Marvin Gaye up there who grew up dancing, and you put him with a bunch of David Winters dancers and doing the "Hitch Hike" [Hitchhiker] and Marvin Gaye could hold his own with a bunch of professional dancers, and that's pretty unusual too. So there was just a great feeling about that piece.
SB: And also the dancers, you know, a lot of the artists on the show ended up having relationships with the girls that were in the dance core, you know? And so there was kind of like a layer on top of the other layers that was working for us because nobody was objecting to the girls being in these short skirts and what have you, you know? Kind of intermingling with them as part of the cast.

INT: Now I'd heard, there’s a famous, you know, the James Brown performance, and I've seen James Brown, but that's one of the great moments of capturing a, up to that point James Brown is pretty much a black artist. He performs in black venues, the black audience is aware of him, but white audience, you know, they may have heard a little of James Brown, you know, before, but ultimately as a performer, and one of the consummate performers, he was exclusively in the black community. THE T.A.M.I. SHOW opened that up and you captured his act in a way that I think was revolutionary. It's still very historic. And he brought the house down, as you said. Now whoever made the decision to follow him with The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, who was, you know, just making his first tour of America, is it true that Mick Jagger stayed in his dressing room for over an hour, kept everyone waiting 'cause he was not about to follow James Brown?
SB: No. Actually, Mick [Mick Jagger], he was quoted recently saying, "The greatest mistake The Rolling Stones ever made was to follow James Brown on THE T.A.M.I. SHOW." I felt it was the opposite. I felt, when they, first of all, all the acts knew who James Brown was: white, black, purple. I mean, when they heard James Brown was on the bill, it's like they were all saying to themselves nobody follows James Brown. He was, you know, he was the godfather. I went to see, Saturday night I went to see Sinatra [Frank Sinatra] at some venue, I can't remember, and on Sunday night James Brown was gonna perform in the same venue. Sinatra [Frank Sinatra] was sold out, okay? I went Sunday and I arrived at maybe 7 o'clock, no audience. And James [James Brown], you know, starts the show, most of the time he's, you know, playing the organ and, you know, little by little, by 8 o'clock, people are hanging from the rafters. 9 o'clock they were really hanging from the rafters. That audience kept coming and coming, he outsold Sinatra [Frank Sinatra]. You know, no publicity, no anything and it was true and it was an all-black audience. I mean, I was probably one of the few caucasians in the room. But when I started, you know, working THE T.A.M.I. SHOW and the word was out that James Brown was, you know, the star of the show without anybody questioning it. When James [James Brown], when Mick [Mick Jagger] found out he was gonna be on after James [James Brown], I think there was a lot going on behind the scenes and I'm busy directing the show, so I wasn't privy to the crap games that were going on and the card playing and the booze, and God knows, drugs or whatever. I was convinced when Mick [Mick Jagger] came out he was thinking he was James Brown because he did things in that little short set to this day I've never seen him repeat, even in all The Rolling Stones concerts I've seen.

INT: It's very interesting thing about talent. I'm sure he was terrified, you know, when you have somebody as great as James Brown as a dancer, as somebody who moves, in that show, I frankly, when I heard that Mick Jagger was gonna come out afterwards when I first saw THE T.A.M.I. SHOW, I went, "This ain’t gonna work," but I was quite impressed. He held his own, he got, they were able to get the audience to work and I think that, in a way, he learned a great lesson on this show.
SB: He was in the wings when James [James Brown] was on, that I know. And he, you know, whatever was going through his mind I think you’re A) absolutely right, he was terrified, all artists are terrified, all the time, 'til they start and know the audience is with 'em I think, as a Director, one of the, you know, because I work with so many female stars in my career and realize they're looking for a father image in the Director. Probably why so many Directors end up, you know, with their star in a personal relationship and so forth. I made a pact with myself I was never gonna get involved socially with anybody I worked with, you know, in terms of dating, marrying, what have you. Although I've always known, you know, that if you can connect with a star, especially a female star, they really look at your eyes to see if you're approving. You know, does daddy approve? It's an instant thing, the minute they finish whatever they're doing it's like they're looking right at you to see if you're smiling or you're saying good job, or what have you. It's a case of where, as a Director I think you've got to instantly, and it's working with writers, you know if a writer turns in some material to you, you cannot sit on it without, you know, even if you didn't read it, get back to the writer say, "Thank you, I've read the first page, it's great!" you know, whatever. But because you gotta realize, everybody in your team is, wants approval from whoever's calling the shots. And its, you know, the Director needs to tell the people they're working for him. The stars need to tell the Director, you know, because there's always a power struggle. I mean, when you meet somebody for the first time, who's got the most credentials, who's the bigger power person, etcetera, you're always going to have some kind of a confrontation because you're being tested all the time. You're being tested by your crew, you're being tested by your stars, you know? Will you be there, you know, when my back is turned? And if you can get that message across, I certainly have been lucky in that respect, but I've also had the other. I've walked on stages where, you know, the Rodney Dangerfield, "You don't get no respect," you know you're dead in the water if the artist, you know, isn't listening to you or taking your direction, you have simple choices. You either walk through it and take your money and hope you survive it, which is, to me, the worst choice you can make. Or you're willing to say, you know, "I wanna get off this ship." You know, it's not working. And those decisions basically are kind of where the groundwork is laid. In a football game, the first hit is the most important hit of the entire game. The first day on a set is the most important, the first shot is the most important day on the set.

INT: I think you're, I think you’re totally right. I mean, and I think that’s, it doesn't matter what medium you're talking about, you know, feature films, television, performance, whatever - that relationship, and if the artist has enough comfort and trust in the Director is what it's all about. You can't do your job if they're resisting. Now there's a certain amount, as you said, terror, that is inherent in any artist going out in front of a live audience or getting in front of a camera, you know? It’s, they're the ones in front of the camera and they're the ones that have to bare their soul. You have to help them relax and get into it, but then, you know, your ability to get them to feel comfortable is what directing's about. Did you say anything to Mick Jagger or did you just, did he just go out there and have…? Part of his motivation was watching James Brown I'm sure.
SB: I didn't say a word. He went out there with the group. I did talk to him about, after The Rolling Stones performance we were going into a Bo Diddley with everybody. I thought the strength of the T.A.M.I. movie [THE T.A.M.I. SHOW], what I wanted to bring to it, was that, you'd mentioned the Dick Clark-type shows, etc. where you can shoot one act on Monday, another act on Tuesday, another one on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. It was important for me in this film to show that they were all there together at one time. There was nobody phoning it in or being remote, you know, you're shooting it on a remote that's being played into the show or whatever. And the way I did that was basically the end of act one, where they all came out together at the end. I think it was a Beach Boys [The Beach Boys] thing. And then the very end of the show, where we did this Bo Diddley, where all the artists, all the dancers came out. And that was all improvisational. I mean, I didn't even tell them which partner they had, you know? The guys who were making social connections with the girls were grabbing them to do closing credits in the finale and so forth.

INT: One person in THE T.A.M.I. SHOW that I think, was a personal friend of mine, and you worked with, and I think was crucially important to the integrity of that show was the musical director, Jack Nitzsche. You know, Jack [Jack Nitzsche] is one of the great musicians and certainly understood rock and roll as well as anybody. He was Phil Spector's musical director on a number of things. Phil Spector took a lot of credit for what Jack [Jack Nitzsche] did, but he was your Musical Director and the interesting thing about Jack [Jack Nitzsche] is that he put a great band together for THE T.A.M.I. SHOW. You know, you had Leon Russell on piano, you had Glen Campbell playing guitar. You had a lot of very interesting - [SB: In the house band. Not even performing] In the house band. No, I mean, so these artists would come onstage were backed up by a pretty –
SB: Well, let me go back ahead of that. The acts that were booked on THE T.A.M.I. SHOW were because of Jack Nitzsche, not because of Bill Sargent [William Sargent, Jr.] or Steve Binder. He called the shots in telling Bill [William Sargent, Jr.], who he felt belonged on the film.

INT: Well, you can tell. I mean, Jack Nitzsche was a troubled, dark, you know, human being. Wonderful guy and a terrific talent, but he did understand rock and roll and had been involved with THE ROLLING STONES on a number of things too. He, he was, you know, his presence was there. You never saw him, I don't think, did you?
SB: Oh yeah, I had him on camera. But I was really disappointed because when you hosted the PBS show and you had myself and Smokey [Smokey Robinson] on as guests, Jack [Jack Nitzsche] was the third person, and he came to the studio, we're all sitting around and literally as we were getting ready to tape he got up and said, "I'm leaving, I'll see you guys later."

INT: He had a lot of demons, Jack [Jack Nitzsche]. And by the way he did the score to AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, so I got to know him very, very well and went through some very outrageous experiences with him and, you know, he had a lot of demons and unfortunately he's no longer with us, but a very talented man, a man who really loved and understood rock and roll, and I think that was a great asset to your show.
SB: And the fact that he tutored under Phil Spector, who is the ultimate, you know, eccentric, neurotic, etcetera, now may spend the rest of his life in jail, but, you know, I have lots of those kind of Taylor Hackford, Jack Nitzsche stories with Steve Binder and Phil Spector, so I'm sure we lived in the same kind of worlds.

INT: Yeah. I think it's, I think it’s great that you had, you obviously, this is part of being a Director is also, in this instance, you had a nose for talent, you know? You could throw these people together, you'd meet them, you’d see, you'd meet Toni Basil, she'd tell you about David Winter, Winters, you know? You clearly have the opportunity to see talent, see budding talent that hasn't yet been tried, and have the guts to throw it into your productions. That's an important element because directing is never, it's always collaborative. You're not alone at your easel or alone at your typewriter. It’s, you need the people around you whether the Bill Klages, or David Winters, or Toni Basil’s, or all these people we're talking about. You know? You want to talk a little about that?
SB: Well, you just nailed it. I mean that's what I'm all about. I'm a great motivator and leader of, you know, people who like working for me. I’m, you know, without being phony or superficial, you don't compliment people just 'cause you think you'll get something out of them. I mean, I have, you know, I learned a lesson early on in my career. If you hire the wrong person, you're gonna be kind to them if you fire them, get rid of them. You can't make something that's not working work. And so I’m very careful in terms of, I try to mix my staffs from project to project, no matter what I'm doing. I like having people I trust that I've worked with before and then I like trying some new people and mixing them together and it's a good - you know, to be able to tutor - I worked with a wonderful, wonderful writer named, Neil Simon's older brother Danny [Danny Simon], who just passed away. Danny [Danny Simon], I wanted on every show I ever did when I had writers on my staff because he would mentor them. Woody Allen said, to this day, I mean, even at his funeral, but in his books said, “Danny Simon taught me everything about comedy.”

SB: And Danny [Danny Simon] was that kind of a guy. He never had an ego where everything he wrote was, was, you know, etched in granite and you couldn't change it. If you said to Danny [Danny Simon], "Danny [Danny Simon], it doesn't work for me, how do we, you know, how do we- " "No problem, Steve [Steve Binder]. Let me go try something else and I'll bring it back to you and you'll see if you like that better." I love that attitude. I mean, I had that, I did a movie for CBS called INNOCENT LOVE with Doug McKeon, Melissa Sue Anderson, Steve Bauer, etcetera. I had a writer named I.C. Rapoport, Chuck Rapoport. He was one of the producer-writers for LAW AND ORDER for years and so forth. There was a writer's strike when we started production in Washington. and Chuck [I.C. Rapoport] really felt obligated that he not- we'd already got the script approved, we were in production - and he said, you know, "I really feel guilty if I'm gonna, you know, we're on strike, I shouldn't be re-writing or, you know, whatever." And I said, "Well, come up to Seattle anyway, at least you'll see what's going on with your script." I've always invited writers, as opposed to ban them from the set. Writers are the only ones who know what they thought of when they put the words down on paper, so, you know, I hate actors who want to change the writer's words without giving it a second thought, because I always fight for the words of the writer wrote until you prove they don't work, you know? So, Chuck [I. C. Rapoport] went up to Seattle and the next thing, we had a scene that wasn't working and he said, "Come to my hotel room," and I thought, "Boy, I'm gonna get him to break the code, etcetera." Went into his room and he said, "Okay, Steve [Steve Binder], you're gonna re-write this scene." And he didn't volunteer anything, but he would give me approval or not approval as we went through re-writing the scene to make it work the next day on the set. And I've always loved to work with people like that, you know? I hate labels. I hate calling myself a director when I'm on a set, or the writer a writer, or, you know, the choreographer the choreographer. I just think we're all working together for one goal with the caveat that the final decisions are made, you know, by the director.

INT: I was gonna say, I think that collaboration's fine, but then again the whole definition of a Director is that somebody finally has to say, "Okay, we're going this way."
SB: But I'm good at that. I mean, I can, you know, if somebody says, "Do we go left? Do we go right?" I'm very fast at saying, you know, "We go left.” I mean, or whatever. I mean, it’s just, that's never been a problem of mine.

INT: Let's talk about THE T.A.M.I. SHOW when it's done. Now, it's an unusual situation. You're, you’re kind of putting together something that has an incredible sense of live quotient, it's going from electronic cameras to film. The film has to be put together and now you've got release dates. I mean, this is going to go into theaters and it was somewhat unusual, you know, having a kind of rock and roll show that would go in with these contemporary stars, had not really been, happened before. What was the response?
SB: First of all, the Academy of Motion Pictures [Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences] refused to acknowledge it as a feature film. I'm not sure, to this day, if I put it down as a credit they would acknowledge it as a feature film. A lot of resistance. The review that came out in VARIETY critiqued electronovision and the guy spent all his time critiquing the opening, which I shot on 35mm film. He thought he was watching electronovision, you know, and was critiquing it negatively, you know, it's not as good as real film and so forth. I noticed when it opened at the, which no longer exists, at a theater on Wilshire and Beverly Drive called The Beverly Theater in Los Angeles. It opened all over the country, but this is where it played here and I went to the theater and it was practically an all-white audience because it’s in Beverly Hills at the time and I noticed when James Brown came on, they certainly appreciated him, but not like when Mick Jagger came on. Now I went to a theater in Crenshaw, which is a black community, basically, and it was just the opposite. The audience in the theater was, when James Brown came on, they went bananas. When THE ROLLING STONES came on, they were kind of lukewarm.

INT: But there were people at both theaters?
SB: And they were not just sitting in their seats. A few years later, UCLA, like THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, decided to play THE T.A.M.I. SHOW at midnight. First run at the Bruin or whatever. Just for kicks I decided to go see it. It was ten years after we had done the movie. When I got to the theater, I had a tough time finding a parking space and the line was around the block waiting to get into the midnight show. Stop and got my tickets, just got in the back of the line, etcetera, and now the first run movie lets out and about fifteen people come out of the theater at 11:45 that had been in to see the first run movie and they're like stunned. They look and see this line around the block, curling around the block. Go into the theater, it was one of the great thrills of all time because they knew every lyric to every song. They stood up in their seats and danced for the entire motion picture and by that time, you know, Mick Jagger and James Brown were equal. They reacted to both acts on the same plane and it was predominantly a white audience again 'cause it was in Brentwood, I mean, Westwood.

INT: Did the film make money?
SB: It made, I think the final result was it made about $9 million net profit. [INT: Fantastic.] And the, it, you know, there’s been, the problem is that nobody knows where all these prints are now and Bill [William Sargent, Jr.] was so desperate for money at the time he sold the television rights to Dick Clark whose made a fortune just in licensing clips for, you know, various shows and commercials. He sold the movie rights to American International Pictures. Sam Arkoff [Samuel Z. Arkoff] at the time. He sold me the far eastern rights though I never wanted to take advantage of them, I never did anything with them. But for $1000 he sold me the rights. But there's such a demand. It's on the internet now as bootlegged copies minus THE BEACH BOYS. That's an interesting story, when the film was completed, THE BEACH BOYS manager, father, insisted that they pull THE BEACH BOYS segment from the movie and for whatever reason, it didn't make any sense, but he wanted to prove that THE BEACH BOYS were as big as THE BEATLES or whatever and then when the movie came out and was a success they called Bill Sargent [William Sargent, Jr.], and Bill [William Sargent, Jr.] called me to tell me, asking to put it back and by that time it was totally unaffordable to go redo the prints and put the BEACH BOYS back in, but they're supposed to be a DVD released with the original, pristine print. But I also had a great thrill because last year the Don’t Knock the Rock Film Festival here in Hollywood- [INT: The Arclight] The Arclight. THE T.A.M.I. SHOW was the hit of the whole festival and I was asked to come out and speak to the audience and it was quite a thrill to see that it holds up, you know? And they got their print from Tarentino [Quinton Terantino].

INT: Yeah, you know? Well, I mean, it is one of those cult movies that will continue to be, because it captured a point in time in rock and roll, actually a great time in rock and roll where you have this kind of, again, cross pollination of soul, R & B, you know, white music, BEACH BOYS [THE BEACH BOYS], you have all of these kind of, you know, acts that, at the time, that would work together. They were fantastic. To see THE SUPREMES on with THE BEACH BOYS. Very cool.
SB: The other thing is, that when I’m thinking now because I use basically these old, heavy television cameras with the huge pedestals and there was no such thing as mobile cameras and compact, you know, small, and yet I used them like they were handhelds. We went behind acts and showed the backs and music was basically for years always shot in, you know, you'd have your Lighting Director light a, put a tape on the floor, this is where the act is gonna stand, it's going to be a backlight, you know, and if they want to move in the song then you'd put another t-mark down on the floor and then at a certain point in the song they'd walk over there. They always had to be lit, theatrically. And I had no problem letting them walk through shadows in the dark and, you know, shoot off the set if you have to and things like that and showing their backs, which I love that shot, you know the relationship of the artist performing to the audience and every show that I did I would always push the artist closer to the audience and bring the audience up because there's some sets you walk on to where, you know, it's a gulley between the artist and the first row of seats of the audience. I think placing cameras is a unique, super important thing to do on any concert production for sure. When THE ROLLING STONES did their first pay-per-view after they were already superstars, it was boring on television because there was no - none of the stuff you're talking about, with the cameras weren't close enough, the lenses weren't close enough, you couldn't see Mick [Mick Jagger] sweating, you know? It was just, they were all shot from the last row of the audience to the stage.

INT: I think that we're gonna wrap this part up right now but, you know, from THE T.A.M.I. SHOW, there's a lot of things on television and then subsequent to that, the in-concert, DON KIRSHNER’S IN-CONCERT and ROCK CONCERT [DON KIRSHNER'S ROCK CONCERT], and MIDNIGHT SPECIAL [THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL] and all those things that followed, really until I think Woodstock [Woodstock Music Festival], you know, which was a different kind of inter-relationship, T.A.M.I. SHOW [THE T.A.M.I. SHOW], there wasn't a lot of development in terms of that live thing of feeling people that was really going and having the audience involved. There wasn’t really-
SB: There was one other movie before Woodstock [Woodstock Music Festival], which was Lou Adler, who did THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, produced the MONTEREY POP. [INT: You're right, I'm sorry. MONTEREY POP with Pennebaker [D.A. Pennebaker], you're absolutely right, was a predecessor. And MONTEREY POP did involve the audience and did capture an event that was just phenomenal but that's a good period of time in between. Anyway, it was, it was one of those great experiences and we'll change tape and come back to another milestone in Steve Binder's career.] SB: Great. Thank you.