Top of the Pops, 27 September 74:
Pan’s People dance to It’s Better to Have (and Don’t Need) by Don Covay
Thanks to an anonymous donor, here’s another fine vintage Pan’s People routine, with the dancers all looking relaxed and well-rehearsed.
Don Covay is more of a critics’ favourite than a huge crowd pleaser, but he’s probably my personal top soul singer of the sixties and seventies.
Top of the Pops, 20 September 1974: Pan’s People dance to Machine Gun by The Commodores.
From a generous, anonymous donor, here’s another rare classic routine. Pan’s people, in one-piece white bell-bottom outfits, dancing to The Commodore’s first hit, a spirited instrumental.
Noel Edmonds, usually a practitioner of terrible puns, actually manages a reasonable play on words in his introduction.
Many thanks to my anonymous donor.
Top of the Pops, 16 September 1971:
Pan’s People dance to Tap Turns On The Water by CCS.
Watch on sendvid | streamable | google drive
I had posted a version of this rare Pan’s People treat on the old blog: but as many people remarked, there were audio/video synching problems with it. Soon I was sent this properly synched version from a different source.
Pan’s People are dancing in a grand victorian palace of industry, which I thought at first was Battersea Power Station (being the ignorant provincial I am): but “OB” (aka Albert Trinker) soon put me right:
Turns out they’re in the Kempton Park pumping station. You can see the huge Engine No. 6 that they’re dancing on/in front of here.
Steam power and PP! Ticks so many boxes! 🙂
OB (aka Albert!)
I’m grateful to the generous donor who sent this clip, but I can’t remember if they had asked to remain anonymous or not. Please get in touch if you want to by credited by name.
Pan’s People dance to Cat Stevens’ hit cover of Sam Cooke’s Another Saturday Night, 13 September 1974.
It’s takes a lot of chutzpah to cover a Sam Cooke song: your performance will always be compared with the master’s original. But Cat Stevens just about gets away with it.
The dancers’ performances and outfits are surprisingly jolly, given the sad edge to the lyrics subject matter: but I’m not complaining: it’s always nice to see them get the chance to goof around a little.
Many thanks to my anonymous donor for this excellent routine.
Top of the Pops, 5 December 1974
Pan’s People dance to You’re the First, the Last, My Everything
Pan’s People in big floppy veiled hats and white leotards, dancing in dry-ice mist (kept under control for once) to Barry White’s classic song.
NB: There’s no video for the first few seconds of music.
I’ve been looking for this rare Pan’s People routine for a long time, and recently a decidedly ropey version, marred by an excessively large central watermark, has appeared on YouTube.
So I’m very pleased to be able to post this superior version, contributed by generous forum regular Vintage Videos. Thanks Vin!
Top of the Pops, 27 September 1973: Pan’s People dance to Monster Mash by Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt Kickers again.
Top of the Pops, 13 September 1973: Pan’s People dance to Monster Mash by Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt Kickers.
A mere snippet of this version, with only a few brief glimpses of PP.
Thanks to and ASmK & Andeebee for the YouTube posts.
From the old blog, Saturday 30 October 2010:
Here’s a couple of special treats for the Halloween season: not just a clip of Pan’s People dancing to Monster Mash: two clips!. The first will probably be the most familiar: the girls in monster-movie themed fancy dress. Louise get the easy option as a sort of tap-dancing vampire. Deedee is an egyptian mummy with a twenties flavour. Cherry is the cutest bat you’ve ever seen. Ruth draws the short straw in the gorilla outfit as King Kong. And I just can’t make out what Babs in meant to be: an alien car-hop?
The second is an earlier clip, from the time when Top of the Pops regularly commisioned and created short films to show where the artists weren’t available to perform in the studio. Here, amidst various kooky spooky goings on, Pan’s People dance around in a vaulted basement wearing sexy Morticia-Adams-type outfits. Merely a small taste in this incomplete clip, I’m afraid, but it’s all I can find.
TOTP, 4th September 1975 Pans People dance to, and Mike Batt sings, Summertime City.
Great minds think alike: Alongside Lou Reed (in the Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again“), Mike pinched the bridging hook he used here (at the end of the introduction and of each chorus) from Marvin Gaye’s 1963 US hit Hitch Hike (as covered by the Stones).
Thanks to KeatonsAnnex for the YouTube post.
Top of the Pops 31 August 1973:
Pan’s People dance to I Think of You by the Detroit Emeralds.
Every time I get despondent and think “That’s it! I’ll never get another new routine to share,” another generous soul proves me wrong. Hurrah!
An what a great routine this is: it’s oozing with literal choreography – which is a good thing. (If you don’t like literal choreography, go away and look at a Ballet Rambert site or something.) My favourite bit of literal? Louise pointing to her biceps for the line “makes me strong” (0:32).
All the dancers seem to be enjoying this light hearted routine, particularly Dee Dee’s faux forgetfullness. The whole thing feels well-rehearsed and tightly executed.
The outfits are great, but as usual my clothing vocabularly is sadly not up to a proper description. Flamenco trousers perhaps? But they’re one-piece: so flamenco catsuits? Surely not flamenco dungarees? And what do you call the scarf bra bit? I’m flailing around here, language-wise. Will some knowledgable person please comment and correct me?
Many thanks to the anonymous donor who supplied this marvelous bit of Pan’s People history.
Top of the Pops, 28th August 1975: Pans People dance to One of These Nights by The Eagles.
From the old blog, Saturday, 30 October 2010:
Here’s a higher quality version of a clip posted a while ago by ilovelulu: Pan’s People dancing to The Eagles’ One of These Nights.
Thanks to Andeebee for the YouTube post.
comment:
carl said…
This is how the lovely Pans people looked like the day I was born!
26 May 2011 13:03
Top of the Pops 15th August 1974: Pan’s People dance to You Make Me Feel Brand New by The Stylistics.
From a show guest-presented by The Osmonds. Pan’s People are so stunning in these lovely backless frocks, it’s hardly surprising that they even tempt a goody-two-shoes like Donnie into impure thoughts.
Update, 17 August 2018: Thanks to forum-regular Vintage Videos, here’s a much-improved, timecode-free version of this routine.
Lots of forum regulars have help this site out, with contributions of rare video, cash, and their erudite knowledge.
So many thanks to my generous benefactors:
...amongst others.
And a particular thank you must go to Ryan, who has single-handedly kept the forum alive, building a community of enthusiasts and supporting this site.
Video for the Top 20 Pan's People Routines Forum Choice was broken: now it's fixed.
My old One for the Dads blog was shut down by the Kopyright Kops. So here's a new one. Still showing performances from Legs & Co., Pan's People and Ruby Flipper, amongst others. But no more downloads. Sorry.
A TOTP rarity.
