Timeline
The following chart shows the timeline of the GoJos on Top of the Pops and the Jo Cook dancers and GoJos on Thank Your Lucky Stars.
The Go-Jos were a British TV dance troupe, created for the BBC1 TV music chart show Top of the Pops in late 1964, appearing regularly on the show until mid-1968. They were the first of a series of five dance troupes on the programme. They also appeared on other BBC and ITV shows, finally disbanding in 1971.
The troupe were formed by Jo Cook, who had been a member of the TV dance troupe the Silhouettes in the early 1960s. She then became a founder member of the Beat Girls, appearing in the weekly pop show on BBC2, The Beat Room , from July 1964. She was forced to leave the Beat Girls in October 1964 due to a contractual dispute.
In November 1964, Top of the Pops producers had decided a dance troupe was needed to perform when the act was not available. Jo Cook won the job of providing this troupe, and so created the group, the Go-Jos, named after herself. Their first performance was on 19 November 1964 dancing to Baby Love by The Supremes. The group usually danced on Top of the Pops to the latest pop hits dressed in the mini skirts and high boots that were fashionable at the time. [1] The Go-Jos were not fully resident; they typically only appeared every few weeks.
In the beginning, on Top of the Pops, Linda Hotchkin and Jane Bartlett performed with Pat Hughes. Pat Hughes left towards the end of June 1965 and Jo Cook herself appeared over the next few months.
The troupe changed again in later 1965 when Jo Cook finally quit dancing to focus on choreography. Barbara von der Heyde and Thelma Bignell joined by the beginning of 1966, and Linda Hotchkin temporarily left, creating a three-person group.
Linda Hotchkin rejoined in early 1967, and the group expanded to six in 1968 with the addition of Lesley Larbey and Wendy Hillhouse.
However, the BBC decided in mid-1968 to replace the Go-Jos with Pan's People on Top of the Pops.
Their final performance was on 20 June 1968, dancing to Jumping Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones.
Only one Top of the Pops performance by the Go-Jos is known to survive, Reflections by Diana Ross and the Supremes, [2] transmitted on 26 December 1967.
Jo Cook rebadged the Go-Jos as the Jo Cook dancers when they appeared on the sixth and last series of Thank Your Lucky Stars, replacing the Dance Centre group, the Lucky Stars.
This series ran from 2 October 1965 to 31 December 1966 with regular Go-Jo dancers Linda Hotchkin, Jane Bartlett, Barbara von der Heyde and Thelma Bignell in performances with a chart band.
The following chart shows the timeline of the GoJos on Top of the Pops and the Jo Cook dancers and GoJos on Thank Your Lucky Stars.
The group continued for several years appearing on a variety of TV shows, including the Val Doonincan show and the Goodies. As The Go-Jos, they worked with Lulu in 1967 on the music and comedy series Three of a Kind, which also featured Mike Yarwood.
They appeared in the 1966 Southern TV show Tale of Two Rivers with Lesley Judd appearing as a member with Linda Hotchkin and Barbara von der Heyde.
The group appeared in the film Moon Zero Two in 1969, however with none of the regular members. [3] [ dead link ]
Jo Cook and Linda Hotchkin appeared in Top of the Pops: The True Story in 2001 talking about their time on Top of the Pops [4] [ dead link ]
The Seekers were an Australian folk-influenced pop group originally formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States. They were especially popular during the 1960s, with their best-known configuration of Judith Durham on vocals, piano and tambourine; Athol Guy on double bass and vocals; Keith Potger on twelve-string guitar, banjo and vocals; and Bruce Woodley on guitar, mandolin, banjo and vocals.
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, better known by her stage name Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, pop and dramatic ballads, with French chanson, country, and also jazz in her repertoire. During her 1960s peak, she ranked among the most successful British female performers on both sides of the Atlantic. Her image – marked by a peroxide blonde bouffant/beehive hairstyle, heavy makeup and evening gowns, as well as stylised, gestural performances – made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties.
Pan's People were a British all-female dance troupe most commonly associated with the BBC TV music chart show Top of the Pops, from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. They appeared on many other TV shows in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, and also performed in nightclub cabaret.
Lulu Kennedy-Cairns is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality.
The year 1964 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events which occurred in that year.
Top of the Pops (TOTP) is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and broadcast weekly between 1 January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its history, it was broadcast on Thursday evenings on BBC One. Each show consisted of performances of some of the week's best-selling popular music records, usually excluding any tracks moving down the chart, including a rundown of that week's singles chart. This was originally the Top 20, though this varied throughout the show's history. The Top 30 was used from 1969, and the Top 40 from 1984.
Peter Murray James, OBE, known professionally as Pete Murray, is a British radio and television presenter and actor. He is known for his career with the BBC including stints on the Light Programme, Radio 1, Radio 2 and Radio 4. In the 1950s, Murray became one of Britain's first pop music television presenters, hosting the rock and roll programme Six-Five Special (1957–1958) and appearing as a regular panellist on Juke Box Jury (1959–1967). He was a recurring presence in the BBC's coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest. Murray returned to broadcasting for a Boom Radio special on Boxing Day 2021, over 70 years after his career began. He returned to the station on Boxing Day 2022 where he presented a two-hour show alongside his friend, David Hamilton.
Alan Price is an English musician. He was the original keyboardist for the British band the Animals before he left to form his own band the Alan Price Set. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Animals. He is also known for his solo work and his occasional acting roles and best known for his solo songs, which include "Jarrow Song" and "The House That Jack Built".
Patricia "Little Pattie" Thelma Thompson OAM is an Australian singer who started her career as a teenager in the early 1960s, recording surf pop, with her backing group The Statesmen, she subsequently went onto to record adult contemporary music.
Where the Action Is is a music-based television variety show that aired in the United States from 1965 to 1967. It was carried by the ABC network and aired each weekday afternoon. Created by Dick Clark as a spin-off of American Bandstand, Where the Action Is premiered on June 28, 1965. The show was another step in the then-current trend of entertainment programs that targeted the teenage audience by focusing on pop music, following in the footsteps of Shindig! and Hullabaloo. Dick Clark's voice could be heard doing the artist introductions, and he sometimes did filmed interviews.
The Go!! Show was an Australian popular music television series which aired on ATV-0, Melbourne, from August 1964 to August 1967. It was produced by DYT Productions at the ATV-0 studios in Nunawading, Victoria. Over its run it was hosted, in turn, by Alan Field (1964), Ian Turpie (1964–66) and Johnny Young (1966–67).
Legs & Co. were a dance troupe created in 1976 for the BBC's weekly Top of the Pops programme. They had made over three hundred appearances on this show by the time of their last performance in 1981. The group then continued for four further years on tour. The six-girl dance troupe replaced Ruby Flipper on Top of the Pops, representing a reversion to the earlier all-female format for troupes on this show, and covering the time period when the disco, punk and new wave music fashions were at their chart peak.
Ruby Flipper were a multiracial, mixed-sex dance troupe who performed dance routines to songs in the UK Singles Chart on the BBC television series Top of the Pops in 1976.
Linda George is an English-born Australian pop, jazz fusion and soul singer from the 1970s. In 1973, George performed the role of Acid Queen for the Australian stage performance of The Who's rock opera, Tommy. She won the TV Week King of Pop award for "Best New Female Artist". Her cover version of "Neither One of Us", peaked at No. 12 on the Australian Singles Chart and her 1974 single "Mama's Little Girl" reached the Top Ten. From 1972 to 1998, George also worked as a session singer and later became a music teacher. Her last CD recorded in the late 1990s will be available in 2012.
The Ikettes, originally The Artettes, were a trio of female backing vocalists for the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Despite their origins, the Ikettes became successful artists in their own right. In the 1960s they had hits such as "I'm Blue " and "Peaches 'N' Cream". In 2017, Billboard ranked "I'm Blue " No. 63 on its list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time.
Douglas William Squires was an English choreographer, known best for his work in television from the mid-1950s. He was born in Nottingham.
The Beat Room is a British television series presenting beat, rhythm and blues and other pop music, shown on BBC2 in 1964–65.
Felicity Isabelle "Flick" Colby was an American dancer and choreographer best known for being a founding member and the choreographer of the United Kingdom dance troupe Pan's People, which appeared on the BBC1 chart show Top of the Pops from 1968 to 1976. Colby became the full-time dance choreographer for the Top of the Pops dance troupes Pan's People, Ruby Flipper, Legs & Co., and Zoo, from 1972 until 1983.
Kommotion was a popular Australian "Top 40" pop music TV show that premiered in December 1964. The program was hosted by popular disc jockey Ken Sparkes, who was one of the main presenters at Melbourne pop radio station 3UZ. In 1965, after the end of his previous series, Teen Scene, pop singer Johnny Chester became the associate producer of the program.