The Challengers Rock Out on Hollywood A Go Go

The Challengers were one of the top LA Surf Bands, and by 1965 a regular fixture on KHJ-TV's "teen" shows. Here they are in their capacity as the "other house band" on Hollywood a Go Go. Nice clip from original 2" Quad videotape, some dropouts but rareness of this clip makes up for it.

Here are some comments from Randy Nauert who played Bass guitar for The Challengers Band:

Hey, we worked live shows every Saturday night after taping Hollywood A Go Go all day. And then we did "Surf's Up! With Stan Richards and The Challengers Band" live for an hour at the same studio, KHJ Channel 9, on Sundays.
We worked a lot. Hollywood A Go Go was an amazing opportunity to work with the greatest music artists of our time. Sam Riddle picked the songs that he wanted us to do. It was his show. It was a great time. And we had lots of other success'.

Instrumentals just didn't seem to cut it for this dance show so we couldn't really do our best work on TV. I think that you missed the boat in your description for the clip, but I thank you for posting it. BTW, Richard Delvy passed away last Friday.

These were the days before record companies paid royalties, honestly, to artists. James Brown worked 350 days a year and had 300 pairs of shoes, no cash. Performing on "Hollywood A Go Go" we would get union scale from the Musicians Union for playing, and AFTRA (American Federation of Television & Radio Artists) scale if we sang.

Sam Riddle would write an intro to the whole show using song titles (Sam was a great radio DJ and this was his first TV experience) We would record and play anything that he asked us to play. Playing a song was about $135, singing was an additional $235. This was more money than band members got for shows live back then! Only the business side of music made real money. Artists struggled to make rent and eat each month.

Sam Riddle was a great friend. The show's producers were wonderful folks. I would sing or play anything that they asked of me. Besides, it all had to come out of a 2 inch speaker in your TV once, and then it was gone. Our live stuff just didn't come across on TV. Live shows were fantastic.

Thanks,
Randy Nauert
Bass guitar, The Challengers Band
www.nauert.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Surf music
• dance party

[pentlandite]

Great sound!! Brings back fond memories...

[randyn1]

"Sticks and Stones" by Ray Charles. We loved playing just about anything from his first few albums. "Georgia" was much more difficult.

[blacflag]

excellent show, are we ever going to see any of the surviving shows get an offical dvd release?