Billy joe royal concerts tv#

Soon after Upbeat’s popularity grew so large that Spero and WEWS began syndicating the show around the country, eventually appearing in 105 television markets.īands/performers would be brought in on a Friday and Spero, Webster and their staff would try to get them a booking at a local High School or club so they’d get some extra pay out of it. Spero saw a young Don Webster hosting a Canadian dance party show and hired him to take over the soon-to-be-renamed Upbeat show.Īfter being hired by WEWS one of Webster’s first duties was to interview The Beatles during their Cleveland appearance. It was hosted by a variety of Cleveland area disc jockeys until Spero decided a permanent host was needed. It debuted on Augas The Big 5 Show, named so because it aired on Channel 5 at 5:00 PM on Saturdays. Upbeat was a trendsetter having appeared long before Hullabaloo, Shindig, Where The Action Is and later, In Concert, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and the Midnight Special. “Instead of having, like American Bandstand, where they’d have Frankie Avalon come on and sing two songs, all the rest was kids dancing to the records, he said ‘Let’s have 10 acts.'” David Spero is the son of Herman Spero, producer of the WEWS program The Old Dutch Polka Review, which would later be known as Polka Varieties. “It was the first show of its kind that really wasn’t a dance party,” said David Spero to WEWS not long ago. Upbeat was a weekly music program that featured the top national, international and regional bands of the day.

Billy joe royal concerts tv#

If you were a young person in the 1960’s and early 1970’s who loved rock ‘n roll and lived in northeast Ohio and if you were anywhere near a television on Saturday’s at 5:00 PM from 1964 – 1971 you were more than likely tuned into the Upbeat TV Show that aired weekly over Cleveland’s WEWS Channel 5.