If you adore music, or if you are a musician, then I bet those TV shows that feature music get your interest. Now I am not talking about The Voice or America's Got Talent or American Idol. I'm talking about real musicians playing live. Not some real life show or canned music in the background. Not that there's anything wrong with those programs.

Now of course this idiom of Television has a long record. Way back you had American Bandstand and that truly was THE show where youngsters could see their idols and the hottest pop stars of the day do their thing. Some of it was lip-synced but in a few cases, especially later you had actual bands playing live.

And obviously the other biggie was Soul Train, where the black side of the equation and more soulful music might be heard. Again there was plenty of lip-syncing in a number of cases but at last more of these shows had real music playing live. Actually the best, truly live show during the early days was Don Kirchner's show Rock Concert. That was pre-dated by a show called In Concert where taped versions of live shows were shown. But I suspect that Rock Concert was the 1st live show featuring live musicians.

But the grandfather of all of them, and probably the first music program, was The Ed Sullivan Show. It started in 1948, years ahead of American Bandstand or Soul Train. Most teens where introduced to their idols live for the 1st time on those Sun. night shows. That is where Elvis Presley and The Beatles and numerous other bands got their first live TV introductions. And the fantastic thing about the Ed Sullivan show is he usually tried to make the recordings as high-quality as practical. And they were generally all live. He set the bar for that.

And in Britain, the huge live show was Top of the Pops. That show started in the mid 1960's and went on for a long while. It featured whatever bands where at the top of the pop charts that week. The Beatles, Stones, and all of the pop acts were on.

And over time, many shows developed that featured live performances. You had Austin Town Limits, Shindig, Saturday Night Live, Later with Jools Holland and others.

But my favourite shows are those that essentially have real musicians as an element of the cast or storyline. Of course you had The Monkees back in the old days which was truly a take off The Beatles "A Hard Days Night." And there had been The Partridge Family which was again taken from a real band The Cowsills. But in The Partridge Family the sole "real" musician was David Cassidy who had a pop music career of his very own.

But today, there actually have not been many programs that feature live music aside from the variety shows or programs like Saturday Night Live or Austin City Limits and a couple of other shows.

My Favourite TV Program

The HBO original show Treme is the only one that springs to mind where the particular cast members are musicians. Actually the life of New Orleans musicians is a central story line for the whole program. That with plot lines about New Orleans ' chefs, police, redevelopment and the congressmen, form the key story lines of the show.

But it's the live performances of the musicians in the cast that are the stars of the show for me. You see New Orleans musicians performing in clubs, restaurants, fancy music halls and on the street corner. You see high school bands during rehearsals in school. You see musicians performing at aeroports friendly new visitors. You really have music everywhere possible in the town. The point being, that music truly does outline what New Orleans is about.

And it feels like everyone sings. At clubs and bars the audience will sing along to classic New Orleans music they appear to know well. It makes New Orleans look like the most musical city worldwide. Perhaps it is.