Screen age kicks the 50 greatest 50 music documentaries

The ‘rock doc’ has come a long way since the late 60s, and is now an integral part of TV schedules, with a growing presence in cinemas. TERRY STAUNTON talks to the film-makers and offers a personal list of 50 must-see movies.

When David Attenborough was controller of BBC 2, in 1968, he naturally had the power of veto over what would be shown on the channel, still in its relative infancy. After viewing All My Loving, a 52-minute documentary that examined the music of Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and others, his response was brief and to the point. He said the film would only be broadcast “over my dead body”. Music programming was few and far between, and almost exclusively restricted to ‘serious’ classical composers and orchestras. BBC 1 looked after pop well enough, Attenborough felt, catering for followers of the hit parade with Top Of The Pops and Juke Box Jury, and there was no need for his more highbrow station to even acknowledge the existence of such a supposedly lightweight and disposable art form.

However, once he was persuaded to change his mind, and director Tony Palmer’s film got an airing, albeit in a graveyard slot after the epilogue, the reaction was overwhelming. “Remarkable,” claimed The Spectator; “Brilliant and frightening,” suggested New Statesman; “The definitive document of its time,” declared The Daily Express.

Today, Palmer’s film is routinely heralded as one of the touchstones in the birth of the music documentary. Not the first to look beyond the chords and choruses of pop, …

by TERRY STAUNTON
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