Five months after the 1975 Grammys, Elton John, Olivia Newton John and Diana Ross drove onto the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium stage in a futuristic-looking golf cart to host a ludicrous awards show that has been forever lost to time.(RollingStone)
(“Good evening, everybody in TV land, I’m Captain Fantastic,” Elton says in his opening line. Ross’ response: “And I’m general delivery!” ZING!)
Earlier that year, (1975) the Andy Williams–hosted Grammys had given out big-award trophies to decidedly nonrockers Olivia Newton-John, Marvin Hamlisch, and Barbra Streisand.
The show would be held for one more year, in 1977, before becoming an obscure footnote in rock history. We will, sadly, probably never have a Rock Music Awards again, but we’ll always have footage of Olivia Newton-John desperately saying with her eyes, “Please. Anybody. Get Keith Moon away from me.”
(Keith Moon and Olivia Newton John Starts at 1:13)
Outstanding Rock Personality of the Year award. Alice Cooper looks like a porn star playing a cop. Keith Moon, previously known tonight for terrorizing his petrified co-presenter Olivia Newton-John, makes a joke about having sex with a spaced-out Joe Walsh as the camera cuts to a … confused Ella Fitzgerald? Chuck Berry, sporting a mustache that looks like it needs to check in with a probation officer every month, becomes the first person — and one of the last —to get inducted into something called the Rock Music Hall of Fame (not to be confused with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame).
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Daltrey called Moon's drumming one of the key ingredients of the Who's early sound. "It was quite apparent from day one when Keith Moon joined the band," he said. "Every piece of music we played up until then was different immediately after Keith joined. The chemistry changed, and it was quite clear from day one."
At the time, Moon had just reunited with the band in England after a year of hiatus and heavy drinking in Malibu, California, to record Who Are You and participate in the making of The Kids Are Alright. The drummer did live long enough to see some Kilburn footage within a rough cut of the documentary, and he wasn't happy about what he saw, says Daltrey, who was with him.
"It had a very big psychological effect on him. Huge," says Daltrey. "He'd seen what he had become, which wasn't pretty. Then we did make plans: 'Come on, Keith, we'll get you fit. I'll get [guitarist Pete] Townshend back on the road.' He didn't live long enough, sadly." (thewhocom)
“Once, we chartered a plane to Germany. And as we were flying home he came out wearing the toilet door over his shoulder. He’d almost ripped the bulkhead of the fucking plane off. Which got us a bit nerve- racked. You suddenly realise that, hang about, a plane is built so that every bit of the structure holding it together is quite important, and ripping bits out in mid-flight is not a fucking good idea .”
