Music Scene - Best of 1969-1970 (Vol. 2)

Whereas Music Scene, Vol. 1 preserved a daring TV show's moment in the low-rated limelight, Vol. 2 shows the series in a fascinating tailspin, in the ratings cellar before cancellation in January of 1970. A bold attempt to combine liberal political comedy, harmless pop, and Woodstock-era rock & roll, Music Scene drew its guests from current Billboard pop charts, supplementing those acts with host David Steinberg's intellectual sarcasm and shrewd assaults on the Nixon administration. In these four complete episodes, however, the show is clearly dying, and while the collected performances still qualify as outstanding relics from the volatile Woodstock/Altamont time frame, it's amazing to watch Steinberg--now stripped of his merry band of cohosts--exchanging genial wisecracks for a darker, more cynical acceptance that Music Scene was doomed from the start.

The music is an eclectic, full-course buffet, from lip-synced performances by Creedence Clearwater Revival to the chart-topping ballads of Neil Diamond and Gordon Lightfoot to the defiantly leftist folk of Pete Seeger and Buffy Sainte- Marie. Unexpected highlights include Joe Cocker's sublime rendition of the Beatles' "Something" and Frankie Laine's emotional delivery of "Lord, You Gave Me a Mountain." Throughout, Steinberg is like a protestor with a lost cause, and by the time he's joined by cohost Groucho Marx for the mesmerizing final show, he's lost all pretense of mainstream propriety, and it's TV history like nothing before or since. A full menu of 21 bonus songs is icing on a bittersweet cake, from one-hit-wonders Zager & Evans ("In the Year 2525") to an impassioned "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" by Janis Joplin, whose own fate would soon echo that of this remarkable, short-lived TV show. --Jeff Shannon  more