Remember when MTV was a hot cable channel? And remember the MTV UNPLUGGED series? The show aired regularly from 1989 to 1999. From 2000 to 2009, it aired less frequently and was usually billed as MTV Unplugged No. 2.0. Bob Dylan showed up on MTV UNPLUGGED in 1995 and shortly there after the Bob Dylan MTV Unplugged album showed up in record stores.
The year before that, Tony Bennett showed up on MTV UNPLUGGED with guests k. d. lang and Elvis Costello. While Dylan performed a selection of his songs, Bennett went with the Great American Songbook.
“The new audience reached its height with Bennett’s appearance in 1994 on MTV Unplugged.(Bennett quipped on the show, ‘I’ve been unplugged my whole career.’) Featuring guest appearances by rock and country stars Elvis Costello and k.d. lang (both of whom had an affinity for the standards genre), the show attracted a considerable audience and much media attention. The resulting MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett album went platinum and, besides taking the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance Grammy award for the third straight year, also won the top Grammy prize of Album of the Year.”
“Now MTV is a ghost. Its average prime-time audience of 256,000 people in 2023 was down from 807,000 in 2014, the Nielsen company said.” Even worse is The Disney Channel which has lost 93% of its audience, from 1.96 million in 2014 to 132,000 last year. Cable TV is sinking fast.
Are you a Bob Dylan and Tony Bennett fan? GRADE: B+ (for both)
TRACK LIST:
| Tombstone Blues | 4:54 | ||
| Shooting Star | 4:06 | ||
| All Along The Watchtower | 3:36 | ||
| The Times They Are A-Changin’ | 5:48 | ||
| John Brown | 5:26 | ||
| Desolation Row | 8:17 | ||
| Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 | 3:29 | ||
| Love Minus Zero / No Limit | 5:22 | ||
| Dignity | 6:29 | ||
| Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door | 5:36 | ||
| Like A Rolling Stone | 9:09 | ||
| With God On Our Side | 7:07 |
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | Old Devil Moon Written-By – B. Lane*, E.Y. Harburg | 2:29 | |
| 2 | Speak Low Written-By – K. Weill*, O. Nash | 3:10 | |
| 3 | It Had To Be You Written-By – G. Kahn*, I. Jones | 3:13 | |
| 4 | I Love A PianoWritten-By – I. Berlin*Written-By – I. Berlin* | 1:57 | |
| 5 | It Amazes Me Written-By – C. Leigh*, C. Coleman | 3:03 | |
| 6 | The Girl I Love (a/k/a The Man I Love) Written-By – G. Gershwin*, I. Gershwin | 4:05 | |
| 7 | Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words) Written-By – B. Howard | 2:57 | |
| 8 | You’re All The World To Me Written-By – A.J. Lerner*, B. Lane* | 2:16 | |
| 9 | Rags To Riches Written-By – J. Ross*, R. Adler | 1:24 | |
| 10 | When Joanna Loved Me Written-By – J. Segal*, R. Wells | 3:16 | |
| 11 | The Good Life / I Wanna Be Around Written-By [I Wanna Be Around] – J. Mercer*, S. Vimmerstedt *Written-By [The Good Life] – J. Reardon*, S. Distel | 3:21 | |
| 12 | I Left My Heart In San Francisco Written-By – D. Cross*, G. Cory | 2:35 | |
| 13 | Steppin’ Out With My Baby Written-By – I. Berlin | 3:12 | |
| 14 | Moonglow Vocals [Performed With] – k.d. lang Written-By – E. DeLange*, I. Mills*, W. Hudson | 4:34 | |
| 15 | They Can’t Take That Away From Me Vocals [Performed With] – Elvis Costello Written-By – G. Gershwin*, I. Gershwin* | 3:26 | |
| 16 | A Foggy Day Written-By – G. Gershwin*, I. Gershwin | 2:15 | |
| 17 | All Of You Written-By – C. Porter | 2:36 | |
| 18 | Body And Soul Written-By – E. Heyman*, F. Eyton*, J. Green*, R. Sour* | 3:53 | |
| 19 | It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing Written-By – D. Ellington*, I. Mills | 3:38 | |
| 20 | Autumn Leaves / Indian Summer Written-By – A. Dubin*, J. Prevert*, J. Mercer*, J. Kosma*, V. Herbert | 5:50 |
Never watched MTV, as you might imagine! Cable TV may be sinking fast but my cable TV bill isn’t! It has quadrupled since I first signed on!
Bob, we pay about $200 a month for cable.
Yikes. We pay about that much for Internet access, landline phone and our reasonable cable package (all the basics aside from a raft of foreign-language channels and networks that don’t have local broadcast outlets…those we get) and Starz/HBO/Showtime/MGM premium cable (the rather unimpressive Cinemax hasn’t been part of our package for several years, about the same time dumped all their series on that service, and decided it wouldn’t be bundled with HBO any longer, and can watch a significant number of the films they run on-demand from other services).
We can look at Max streaming as HBO subbers, Probably a few more of those sorts of deals as well.
Todd, Spectrum includes Internet access in that $200 bundle.
Hge Dylan fan. Not a fan of Bennett. I just am bored by much of the great American songbook. I’ve just heard these songs so many times it has worn on me. And if I never hear I Left My Heart in San Francisco again it will be too soon. I have respect for Bennett but he is not for me.
Steve, I’m with you on “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Song burn-out!
Yes to both…but it’s hard to accept that these recordings were made almost 30 years ago!
Deb, I agree. It seems like only yesterday I was watching MTV with my kids. But, the years don’t lie: 30 years ago! Yikes!
Bennett I never heard of but as a member of the 60s protest movement I enjoyed Dylan of course, his early songs are my top favourites.
Fond memories!
Wolf, Tony Bennett had a long and mostly successful career. Bennett had a drug problem in the 1980s but was able to recover.
Anthony “Tony Bennett” Benedetto, Wolf, was perhaps a notch less distinctive than Frank Sinatra, but in the same league, and famously a very nice guy. Terrible actor, surprisingly good painter (helped set the trend for art school pop musicians to follow)…by all reports a good person to know, unlike Sinatra or, for that matter, Zimmerman/Dylan. Threw in with some good causes, too, never too showily
Yes to both. Dylan these days? Not so much. But the ’60s and ’70s, definitely. Tony Bennett still sang and sounded great into his nineties! That’s more than you can say for Deb’s former secret husband Stephen Stills, or Paul Simon, or Billy Joel, or, yes, certainly Dylan. Jackie loves the Great American Songbook and has several Tony Bennett CDs, including a couple of his Duets albums. A couple of years ago I bought the extended CD (two disc) version of an album my father (who was a HUGE fan) played regularly in his new stereo/RCA Victor days – TONY BENNETT LIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL. This was 60 years ago and he sounded almost as good to nearly the end,
Jeff, you’re right about Tony Bennett sounding good right up to the end. I think I have a copy of TONY BENNETT LVIE AT CARNEGIE HALL around here somewhere.
MTV overplayed its hand in any number of ways, not least in giving up on music for the most part….
Todd, when the music videos became “old fashioned” and MTV went into other programming, I lost all interest.