Thank Your Lucky Stars: The 60's Pop Show Featuring The Kinks, The Beatles And The Rolling Stones

Book excerpt: Fully revised and expanded, this history of the influential 1960's pop show contains a wealth of facts, information and trivia on ABC's Lucky Stars, a weekly pop show that ran from 1961 to 1966. The Beatles, the Kinks and the Rolling Stones were among the many hundreds of artists that travelled up the M1 to the Alpha studios in Birmingham to appear on the show. Chapters in the book deal with the history of the show, an analysis of the surviving episodes, a detailed look at a rare surviving script, a discussion of the crew, books and records, the artists who appeared from 1961 to 1966 and the songs they performed and the Australian version of the show. Fully illustrated throughout, there are many references to how the show was reported in the U.K. press. Original host and television and radio legend Pete Murray has very kindly written the foreword: Pete says: "Thank Your Lucky Stars was a pleasant and easy programme to work on. We were given plenty of freedom to play whichever songs we wanted. The big difference between Thank Your Lucky Stars and Top of the Pops – Lucky Stars was not driven by the charts - we had the complete freedom to play whatever we wanted. I remember meeting The Springfields on the show, and I really enjoyed working with them – what a lovely group of people, really friendly! Thank Your Lucky Stars was a great sixties tv show that has been sadly neglected in the archives in recent years. I am delighted that Kevin Mulrennan has brought out this long overdue book. I’d like to say that not just on behalf of myself, but also on behalf all the others who worked on that lovely show. Pete Murray, Thank Your Lucky Stars presenter, and original host of Top of the Pops. Thank Your Lucky Stars was unique in that it straddled the pre and post Beatles era of British pop music. There are brief biographies of all the artists appearing on the show, as well as the guest Disc Jockeys. In addition to the main hosts (Pete Murray, Keith Fordyce, Brian Matthew and Jim Dale) I have discovered that John Benson, Martin Locke, Simon Dee and Don Moss introduced the show too. Fans and performers alike recall their memories of this super show.. Hopefully this book will raise the profile of this forgotten gem of 1960's British television and you'll be thanking your lucky stars you bought it.