The marriage of television director Ted Glover and television producer A.G. Bannister has gone on the rocks because she has permitted her career to take precedence over romance. The horror of it all!The website includes reader reviews that provide more details.
Complications also arise because of a romance between Ted's agent, Steve Laughlin and a performer, Billy-Joe Henley, with a touring Hootenanny group.
The resolvement comes when A.G. realizes that love is more important than a career ...
... Guest stars The Brothers Four, Sheb Wooley, Johnny Cash, The Gateway Trio, Judy Henske, George Hamilton IV, Joe and Eddie, Cathie Taylor and (Bob's boy) Chris Crosby work up a sweatin' storm trying to create a craze for "Hootenanny".
Enterprising New York producer Peter Breck (as Ted Grover) discovers the combination of folk and country music is taking the Midwest by storm, so he goes to Missouri for a "Hootenanny Hoot!" There, college-aged crowds groove to several music acts. Aiming to sign some of the popular singers, Mr. Breck summons chum Joby Baker (as Steve Laughlin) to assist. Breck watches Mr. Baker to pursue a romance with shapely blonde Pam Austin (as Billie Jo Henley) while he tries to get over leggy ex-wife Ruta Lee (as A.G. Bannister). The "Hootenanny" TV series was on the air before the movie premiered; some musical guests appeared in both.The movie featured folk music, which was very popular among Caucasian college students at that time. See my previous article titled The American Folk Music Revival in 1963.
At the time, the biggest act appearing in this cast was arguably folk favorites The Brothers Four, who sing their hit version of the novelty song "Frogg" (from 1961). In hindsight, the enduring star is certainly a gauntly appearing Johnny Cash, reaching back for his version of "Frankie's Man Johnny" (from 1959). The biggest hit from the time of this film's release was George Hamilton IV's pretty pop version of John D. Loudermilk's "Abilene" (a #15 pop hit for him, in August 1963). The Brothers Four had a "Hootenanny" hit (from the then airing ABC-TV folk music variety show), but Sheb Wooley does it here, helped by some attractive young dancers.
Gospel duo Joe (Gilbert) and Eddie (Brown) do a rousing "There's a Meeting Here Tonight" and the humorous "The Frozen Logger" is sung by Cathie Taylor. It's unfortunate to see The Gateway Trio singing "Foolish Questions" on a trampoline, and downright embarrassing that Gary Crosby and Judy Henske were asked to perform in their bathing suits. Mr. Crosby's "Sweet Love" is more like recent Rick Nelson recordings. By the way, Ms. Henske singing "Wade in the Water" may make you wonder why you haven't heard her fine voice more often. The movie is truly mediocre, but director Gene Nelson allows his dancers to strut their stuff.
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Vintage posters for the movie follow (click on an image to enlarge it).
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The following videos are from YouTube.
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The Wikipedia article about the word Hootenanny includes the following passages.
Hootenanny is an Appalachian colloquialism that was used in early twentieth century America as a placeholder name to refer to things whose names were forgotten or unknown. In this usage it was synonymous with thingamajig or whatchamacallit, as in: "Hand me that hootenanny."
Hootenanny was also an old country word for "party". Nowadays the word most commonly refers to a folk music party with an open mic, at which different performers are welcome to get up and play in front of an audience. ...
According to Pete Seeger, in various interviews, he first heard the word hootenanny in Seattle, Washington in the late 1930s. It was used by Hugh DeLacy’s New Deal political club to describe their monthly music fund raisers. After some debate the club voted in hootenanny, which narrowly beat out wingding.
Seeger, Woody Guthrie and other members of the Almanac Singers later used the word in New York City to describe their weekly rent parties, which featured many notable folksingers of the time. In a 1962 interview in Time, Joan Baez made the analogy that a hootenanny is to folk singing what a jam session is to jazz.
During the early 1960s at the height of the American folk music revival, the club Gerdes Folk City in Greenwich Village started the folk music hootenanny tradition every Monday night, that featured an open mic and welcomed performers known and unknown, young and old. ....
Several different television shows are named and styled after it, including:
* Hootenanny, an early 1960s [1963-1964] musical variety show broadcast on ABC in the United States. ...
* In 1963 and 1964, a BBC 1 show The Hoot'nanny Show, recorded in Edinburgh ....
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