Mojo: Billy J. Kramer was another one--
Binder: Right, Billy J. Kramer was another. Then he said, “And also in this package is a group called the Rolling Stones.” So, in this conversation, I said--and this was a time when American kids were really, in the music world, kind of segregated. They were buying Black artists, but they really didn’t know what they looked like. And the English artists were just kind of the, English, this was before Shindig and Hullaballoo and so forth, and the English invasion of rock’n’roll had not really started. In fact, when I was doing the Steve Allen show, I remember distinctly when Steve used to go out in the audience and talk to people, some older guy, probably to me at that time, because I was just 20 or something like that, there was a guy who stood up in the audience and he had a wig on, and he said to Steve--and I guess he was all of 40, he said to Steve, “Did you know the Beatles are coming?” And Steve looked at him like he was crazy and you know, said, “yeah, ok,” and then went on to the next person in the audience. He didn’t get it that the guy was there promoting the Beatles, so...So, anyway, to make a long story short, we kind of put our heads together and said, “Let’s do a big rock’n’roll show from all over the world.” In fact, the opening theme was titled “They’re Coming From All Over the World,” which was a song that was written by P.F. Sloan and Steve Berry, who were I think at the time going to Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. Coming over to Bobby Roberts and Pierre Corsett’s office, who were my managers, to come and write songs. And Pierre Corsett and Bobby Roberts were basically--Corsett was a traditional, suit and tie manager. Pierre, right now, to this day produces the Grammys, he has for the past 20 years or so. But Pierre was an agent in the early days, and he became a personal manager. His clients were all, very conservative sort of artists. I think he managed at the time people like Victor Borge, Jerry Wietraub’s wife--traditional pop singers at the time. But anything, totally removed from rock’n’roll. Bobby Roberts was his young partner, who--there was a very famous dancing act that was a white version of the Stepp brothers, called the Dunhills, and Bobby was one of the Dunhill dancers, and Pierre represented, as an agent, the Dunhills. And Bobby evidently hurt his back and so he couldn’t dance anymore, and Pierre said, Why don’t you come into business with me and we’ll be personal managers. So, what happened was that Bobby, being much younger than Pierre, was out to find young artists to represent, and the stable that I was in, I was the only director in the group, but the stable I was in was Bobby and Pierre’s, and they’d signed Lou Adler, signed basically Barry McGuire, who was in a singing group and had a hit with “Eve of Destruction,” which was also written by P.F. Sloan and Steve Berry--they were kids that I knew and they were hanging out in the office. That’s why I got them to write the theme for the TAMI movie. So, what basically happened in this relationship and everything is that another act that they signed was Jan and Dean. So, when Bill came to me, he sort of put together certain elements, and left other elements to me, I immediately suggested, at the pushing of Bobby Roberts, to get Steve Berry and P.F. Sloan to write the theme song, I got Jan and Dean to host the movie, so it kind of all fell together. So I went out and I filmed, not using electronovision, but I filmed on 35mm the entire opening sequence. Which was Jan and Dean on skate boards going down Sunset Boulevard across from the Whiskey A-Go-Go, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in the trunk of the car as they pull up to the hotel they’re staying in, you know...those were all just, kind of shot like a movie, or a music video would be shot today. We had hand held cameras and just ran out and shot, etc. So, once the cast was assembled, and Sargeant really put the deals together for the cast, we had this English contingent package, we had basically a whole artist group of Black rock’n'roll artists, rhythm and blues, which included Chuck Berry and Smokey, and the Supremes, and then James Brown. And, so, all the artists were sort of teamed together. The big challenge was, and this was the early day when we were kind of making up the rules for rock on film, is that there were sort of time limitation for how long any one act could be on the screen. So, I’m trying ot think of their names, but they were fantastic--Rod McQuen, is he the poet?
Mojo: I know the name, but I’m blanking....
Binder: I think Rod and there was a hot singer, female, very pretty blonde, I remember. They teamed up to figure out how to arrange the music for the show, and there was immediate, natural resistance by the agents of the artists, who basically were fighting for how much screen time these acts were going to get. And what we did basically is we did greatest hits all the way through. We took their basically their hit records and made shortened versions of them, you know, to 30 seconds, 45 seconds, whatever, so the entire act on the stage probably would be about six or seven minutes. It was a cut down version of all of their hit songs, and the decision was made to film this thing at the Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles. I basically took my crew from the Steve Allen Show, the camera crew, audio, etc. These are the days before, you know, all the sophisticated audio tracks, and there wasn’t any sophisticated editing, where you could go in, as they do today, and shot by shot, or track by track, create this film.