Review: 'My Music Archives: Best Of The 60s'

I sympathize with PBS stations trying to run pledge weeks in 2025. Every station is concerned with tightening budgets for programming and while in theory it would be great to offer up some compelling new special guaranteed to drive new pledges, that is not always possible.

And I can appreciate the challenges of finding programming that will both drive pledges from the older PBS audience as well provide an opportunity for some pledge giveaway tie-in such as DVDs or CDs.

Still, I am perplexed by the fact that many PBS are devoting multiple timeslots during their pledge period to rerunning the zombie-like My Music specials for yet another year.

If you have watched a PBS pledge break at any time since the mid-1990s, you have almost certainly see at least one of these My Music specials. One of the earliest was focused on 1950's R&B groups and there have been a number of them produced over the years. The format for every variation is basically the same. Live performances from recognizable acts, many of them one-hit wonders. Awkward and often jarring editing that often feels as the special was cut together by a drunken monkey. And multiple shots of the audience that are often slightly out of focus and frequently seem to have little connection with the performance.

And yet, for all of their flaws, the specials are wildly popular with PBS stations. Which leads me to believe they are some combination of cheap to license and are still compelling bait for the over-seventy crowd.

My Music Archives: Best Of The 60s is one of the specials airing this week on various PBS stations and it does include an impressive number of performances from musicians who are long dead. Scott McKenzie died in 2012, The Grass Roots lead singer Rob Grill died in 2011. Paul Revere (of Paul Revere & The Raiders) has been dead since 2014. And there are more.

The show's package even has some "celebrity" call-outs for viewers to subscribe, including Michelle Phillips, and Roger McGuinn. But it also awkwardly includes a segment featuring the Smothers Brothers, and Tom Smothers has been dead for nearly two years.

This two-and-a-half hour special is billed as "new," and apparently it's named that because it's a new edit of two previous specials. The first segment features performances by a number of rock and pop acts and the heavily edited performances use Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron as the narrator. Then at the 1 hour and 45-minute mark (counting some veeeery long pledge breaks) Davy Jones (of The Monkees fame) performs one of the band's hits. He is then suddenly hosting something called My Music 60s: Pop, Rock & Soul. I swear, this special has more edits in it than the first Avatar movie.



Peter Noone (lead singer of Herman's Hermits) also shows up as a host later on. Although inexplicably, his first segment includes introducing The Vogues not by name, by referring to them as "the boys from Turtle Creek." I'm a pretty hard core 1960s Sunshine Pop fan, but I had to look it up to realize The Vogues did come from Turtle Creek, California. So why not mention their name? I'm assuming it's because whatever Vogues-adjacent grouping these guys represent, they didn't have the rights to use the band's name on TV.

And that lack of clarity happens a lot on the show. Even back when this show was originally recorded, half of the members from some of these groups were already either dead or bedridden. There are a lot of performances that are basically the lead singer and some random collection of non-original old guys. The Miracles make an appearance and from what I can tell, the group might have been down to one original member at the time this special was produced. And he died the following year.

Some of the performances through the special are just awkward. Eric Burdon spends most of his performance growling his hits from a stool. So during much of his segment, viewers see random stock footage of some 1960s protests. Later, The Ventures play the theme from the TV show Hawaii Five-O, which isn't so visually compelling because a) it's three old guys standing there casually playing guitars, and b) the real core of the song comes from a horn section, which is provided by members of the "My Music Orchestra." So much of that performance features footage from the TV show, along with some random surfing scenes.

The most jarring "What the F***?" moment comes courtesy of the band pretending to be Jefferson Starship. First, they are performing the late 1960s hits "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit," which were recorded and released by Jefferson AIRPLANE. The two bands did share some members, but it's still a very strange flex. And the lead singer - handling Grace Slick's part - is some lanky blonde who looked familiar for some reason. After spending entirely too much time on Wikipedia, I discovered it was Cathy Richardson, who I remember seeing performing with her Cathy Richardson Band. She has a great booming voice. But it's a weird experience and even after all of that Wikipedia time, I still couldn't figure out who else was in the band back in 2011, other than unnamed old guys.

I know it's nice for PBS stations to have a program that has built in segments of artists thanking PBS. But given that some of those thanks are now coming from the Great Beyond, perhaps it's time to give this special the long rest it deserves.

Live Performances Included In 
Roger McGuinn "Turn, Turn, Turn"
Chuck Negron (of Three Dog Night): "Easy To Be Hard," "One"
Martha & The Vandellas: "Nowhere To Hide"
Eric Burdon: "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place," "House Of The Rising Sun"
Scott McKenzie: ""San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" 
The Association: "Along Comes Mary" 
The Grass Roots: "Live For Today," "Midnight Confessions"
John Kay & Steppenwolf: "Magic Carpet Ride," "Born To Be Wild"
The Association: "Never My Love"
Vanilla Fudge: "(You Keep Me) Hangin' On," "In-A-Gada-Da-Vida"
Jackie DeShannon: "What The World Needs Now Is Love"
Davy Jones: "Daydream Believer"
Paul Revere & The Raiders: "Kicks" 
The Guys From Turtle Creek (aka The Vogues): "Turn Around (Look At Me)," "Five O'Clock World"
Gary Lewis (of Gary Lewis & The Playboys): "This Diamond Ring"
The Ventures: "(The Theme From) Hawaii Five-O"
The Miracles: "Ooo Baby Baby"
Peter Noone: "I'm Into Something Good," "I'm Henry VIII, I Am," "There's A Kind Of Hush"
Jefferson Starship: "Somebody To Love"