Solid Gold (TV series)

Solid Gold is an American syndicated music television program that debuted on September 13, 1980, and ran until July 23, 1988. The program was a production of Brad Lachman Productions in association with Operation Prime Time and Paramount Domestic Television.

Synopsis

Solid Gold featured a weekly rundown of the top ten hits on the pop charts for the week, similar to America's Top 10 which also premiered in 1980. It also featured music artists performing their hits in studio, in the vein of American Bandstand; although there were some cases where a song was actually performed live, like on American Bandstand, artists featured on Solid Gold would almost always perform lip synching over a recording of their song. In fact, on most of the first five seasons of episodes, the only song that was sung live was the show's theme song, which was written by Academy Award winning songwriter Dean Pitchford along with Michael Miller.

One thing Solid Gold had that its counterparts lacked was a dance troupe that performed heavily choreographed routines to the songs featured on the weekly countdown. The Solid Gold Dancers, as they came to be known, were led for most of the show's run by Darcel Wynne, who had previously performed theatrically in several musicals and in films such as Xanadu.

Personnel

Singer Dionne Warwick was the original host of the program, hosting for the first season. Warwick's involvement with the program actually began seven months before it premiered. In early 1980, a one-off special was commissioned to honor the performers behind the top songs on the 1979 pop chart.