Album Review - Various Artists - The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons
John Metzger
Several years ago, Dick Cavett repurchased the rights to his talk show,
and with the recent release of the triple-DVD set The Dick Cavett Show:
Rock Icons, his investment is about to pay huge dividends. Compiling
material from nine episodes of the program, which aired in a trio of
different time slots between 1968 and 1975 -- the most notable of which
was against Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show -- the collection provides
an inessential, but no less captivating, glimpse at a handful of
intriguing moments from the annals of rock 'n' roll's glorious past.
While no one likely was going to succeed in posing much of a threat to
The Tonight Show's dominance, there was an untapped niche market, which
Cavett gladly filled. While Carson (and everyone else, for that matter)
frequently shied away from booking controversial guests, Cavett
seemingly embraced them. Although, he initially wasn't completely
comfortable conversing with radicals and revolutionaries, he, at least,
had the intrepid foresight to give them a voice, and by the time that he
sat down with David Bowie in 1974, he unquestionably had found his
rhythm. There's little doubt, of course, that everything on The Dick
Cavett Show: Rock Icons is anecdotal, but for fans of the featured
artists as well as those seeking perspective on the intersection of
popular culture with socio-political dialogue, it's a rather
illuminating set.
This is an excerpt. To read the complete review, please visit: