The T.A.M.I. Show
Hailed by one music reviewer as "the grooviest, wildest, slickest hit ever to pound the screen," "The T.A.M.I. Show" is an unrelenting rock spectacular starring some of the greatest pop performers of the 60s. These top recording idols - representing the musical moods of London, Liverpool, Hollywood and Detroit - packed the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium with 2,600 screaming fans and virtually brought down the house. This is the cinematic record of that electrifying event.In the early 1960’s "T.A.M.I" stood for "Teenage Awards Music International" a foundation devoted to providing music scholarships to teens. In support of this foundation a concert was organized that would combine top British Invasion and American groups in one show. Filmed in 1964 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, the TAMI Show is a record of one truly great concert hosted by Jan and Dean, featuring a mixture of groups and individuals and musical styles that pretty much summed up popular music of the era: American rock and roll (Chuck Berry); Motown (The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and Marvin Gaye); California surf music (the Beach Boys);American garage band (the Barbarians); the original teen angst goddess Leslie Gore; the British Invasion (Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Rolling Stones); and the incandescent James Brown and His Famous Flames, in what many critics have asserted is hands-down one of the best performances of his career.The whole spellbinding production was masterminded by Jack Nitzsche and directed by Steve Binder (who later gave us `The Singer Special', the unforgettable 1968 Elvis Comeback Special).                                                                                                                                                                            The film itself was to be shown at the TAMI Foundation's first annual awards ceremony, where the scholarship winners would receive a TAMI, an award like an Emmy or an Oscar. Evidently the foundation never made it that far. The film was released to theaters, then quickly withdrawn and never seen again...UNTIL NOW!