As the opening credits of the documentary “Sunday Best” roll, Billy Preston in a killer chartreuse suit takes to “The Ed Sullivan Show” stage. Ray Charles pounds the keyboards and brass players ready to enter a sped-up version of “Agent Double-O-Soul.” From the get-go, Sacha Jenkins’s film about the variety show trailblazer Ed Sullivan and […]
On July 21, Netflix debuted Sunday Best, a documentary about The Ed Sullivan Show—the longest-running variety show in U.S. broadcast history—and how it featured Black American performers at a time when discrimination was still rampant in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954, and the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, the documentary highlights […]
Ed Sullivan, the legendary TV host whose eponymous variety show helped launch Elvis Presley and the Beatles to superstardom, was one of the key figures in the early evolution of rock & roll. Before American Bandstand‘s Dick Clark and Soul Train‘s Don Cornelius later set the standard for youth-oriented music programs, Sullivan was America’s first oldest teenager. He quietly helped change television, music […]
Since 2020, The Ed Sullivan Show has found an entirely new audience online where its collection of celebrated TV moments has amassed more than two and a half billion views across YouTube, Facebook, and Apple Music. Now, The Ed Sullivan Show has reached another milestone in its celebrated history: It’s surpassed one million subscribers on its popular […]
Back in 2014 when fans celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ first televised performance in America, I asked my father for his reflections. What it was like to watch the four members perform live, on TV, in 1964? He was only eight years old at the time, but distinctly remembers the event. “What we […]
Since the dawn of television, music has seamlessly used the medium to connect with new audiences. Whether it was on talk shows or variety formats such as The Milton Berle Show, The Dean Martin Show, or The Johnny Cash Show (and, thankfully, the music was usually far more exciting than the programme titles), or in serialised productions like The Adventures […]
It’s hard to believe that Creedence Clearwater Revival was only together for a few short years. They released some of the most enduring music of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Songs like “Down on the Corner,” “Proud Mary,” “Born on the Bayou,” and “Fortunate Son” assured that they would be forever enshrined in the classic rock […]
The Roku Channel has become one of the most well-known free streaming services, and today, it has quietly added 11 new channels. This includes multiple 24/7 channels, including The Ed Sullivan Show and more The Roku Channel now has over 450 live TV channels and 80,000 free movies and TV shows. It does not stop there, […]
Beatles ’64 repeats the bold declaration that when the Beatles first appeared on American TV, crime across the US stopped for an hour, but the truth is not quite as magical. The Beatles undoubtedly sparked a new wave in music when they began to climb in popularity during the 1960s. The band may have been four young boys […]
On Friday, October 23, 1964, The Rolling Stones were at London’s Heathrow Airport where they boarded a BOAC, Boeing 707, to fly to New York’s JFK Airport to begin what was to be their second US tour, including a coveted performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. When they arrived in America there were around 500 fans at the […]
