Does anyone remember watching The Arrows weekly show on ITV/Granada television, in 1976 and '77.
One important fact about The Arrows. They were the only band in the history of pop music to have not one, but two 14 week weekly TV series, and no recordings released during their series at all. Unprecedented in the hisory of the music business. No band has ever had that distinction, if you can call it that.
Mind you they had hit singles before the series, in '74 and '75, with "Touch Too Much", "My Last Night With you", and "I Love Rock N Roll". But they had no records released during either of the TV series.
The reason ?
A black listing by their record company due to an acrimonious and antagonistic relationship between the band's record company and management.
The end result?
The band died on the vine. Who could stand that sort of pressure ? Having your own telly series and no singles out?
It's a golden opportunity lost.

Anyway, if anyone has any sort of memories of The Arrows there is a fun website about them, with a lot of very good 70s style photos.
http://www.geocities.com/arrowmaniax/

It will bring it all back.

:)
I wish I had seen that tv show. It's such a sad story.
Still they had some hits. It's better than most bands ever get.
Love,
Lonna
X

misterbeck, I remember it well. The two American guitar players, Alan (can't remember his surname) and Jake Hooker  - married to Judy Garland's daughter, wasn't / isn't he? - plus the English drummer Paul who looked and sounded like a bricklayer from Preston.

I heard that Joan Jett was on tour with The Runaways in 1976 and saw the TV show in her hotel room, that's when she fell in love with the song and decided to cover it.

Funny thing is, I can't remember anything about the TV show except the band playing songs. I'll check out that website you referenced....

Hi Mad dog,
The singer and bassist of the Arrows is Alan Merrill, son of the jazz singer Helen Merrill, and cousin of Laura Nyro. He's still recording and he has a new album out now called "Double Shot Rocks", with his old RAK labelmate Chris "Motorbiking" Spedding playing guitar on it. It's a tribute to Arthur Alexander and Otis Blackwell. He has lots of records out. Solo, and also with bands. Did you know Alan Merrill played guitar with Meat Loaf for nearly 5 years in the mid to late 1980s ? He has written album title tracks for R&B artists like Lou Rawls and Freddie Scott.
He married model Cathee Dahmen in '78, and has three kids.

You're right, Arrows guitarist Jake Hooker did marry Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft. They had two kids. They divorced about 10 years ago. Jake retired from playing music in 1978 and became a rock manager. He manages Edgar Winter now.

Arrows drummer Paul Varley is very ill right now and has been for some time. He had a child long ago with Marc Bolan's ex-wife June, a daughter named Ilona, who is 25 years old now.

The late joining member of the band, Terry Taylor, is now with Bill Wyman's band Rhythm Kings.

The Arrows music on their TV show was mostly original tunes
never released by RAK because of the band's poor management and the record company grey listing the group. The band had no records released in the last two years they were together. If you can't buy the records it's pretty hard to remember the music from a TV show. These songs are finally available on "Tawny Tracks", an album of the unreleased demos they did on the TV shows. It took 26 years but they can now be heard.
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/arrows/

The Arrows were a band that generated a fun atmosphere on the shows. Too bad that they didn't have records out with the shows, because they would have been a much bigger band.

I wanted to let you all know that The Arrows record producer, the legendary Mickie Most, died on May 29th, 2003, of cancer. He was 65.
Mickie also produced Hot Choclate, Suzi Quatro, Herman's Hermits, The Jeff Beck Group, The Animals, Donovan, Lulu and more.