From The Beatles To The Sex Pistols: Bill Grundy's Legacy

02/09/2012
. (Gibson) On this day in 1993, British broadcaster Bill Grundy died of a heart attack at age 69. He conducted the famous Sex Pistols interview on Thames Television on December 1, 1976, when Grundy provoked the band into using obscenities on live TV. The broadcast wrecked Grundy's television career. He also was the first television presenter to present The Beatles on Granada Television on October 17, 1962. Gibson takes a look back:

Bill Grundy was a tough, uncompromising TV man who made his name in the early '60s. Grundy was famously belligerent and got results. Mostly he was a current affairs man, but on a couple of notable occasions he crossed over into rock and roll history, first with the Beatles in 1962 and then with the Sex Pistols and one of TV most controversial interviews. It was an explosive interview that launched the punk band and pretty much finished Grundy's career.

In the more innocent musical days of the early '60s, Grundy was presenter of Granada TV's People and Places TV show. Leslie Woodhead was a researcher on the show and, in the book Granada Television: The First Generation, she recalls the day that Grundy made history by introducing a young Liverpool band for their first-ever television appearance.

"They arrived for their first TV appearance in little waistcoats like tacky Spanish waiters to sing 'A Taste of Honey,'" she remembered. "Paul [McCartney] had told me that he was upset that nobody would allow them to sing any of their own songs so we allowed them a second number; a thing he'd written with John [Lennon] called 'Love Me Do.' They said they'd done it on a record that was due to be released. As they were leaving, Ringo [Starr] sought me out to say, 'Thanks for the gig.'" more on this story

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