Five Classic Music Performances from The Carol Burnett Show

April 26, 2025, marks the 92nd birthday of beloved comic entertainer Carol Burnett.

She’s worked plenty over the years, but most know her best for one thing:

She hosted The Carol Burnett Show from 1967-1978.

A classic TV series by all serious histories of the medium, The Carol Burnett Show is also considered one of the best – if not the best – variety programs ever broadcast.

In fact, someone has written a book about its legacy.

(Ahem.)

But let’s focus on the topic at hand here: the music on the show.

Some would argue that this element was the show’s weak point. In terms of showcasing popular music acts, I’ll allow that they could be right. A lot of Carol’s early musical guests on the show were Broadway singers and middle-of-the-road vocalists.

Rarely were any current pop hits by hot acts performed on the show in its first four years – except twice:

• “You Better Sit Down Kids” by Cher on the November 6, 1967 episode:

• And “Theme from Valley of the Dolls,” by Dionne Warwick on January 29, 1968:

Things began to change in the fall of 1971, which is where our first entry begins. Note that while all these performances use lip syncing, they work great visually and aurally.

September 22, 1971:

The Carpenters: “Superstar”

This song could well be the apex of Karen Carpenter’s vocal artistry. Watch any reaction videos from people hearing it the first time and you’ll see how amazed they are with her interpretive skills. A classic indeed.

Interestingly, the show chose to have Karen “sing” behind drums, a setup that would disappear on future TV guest shots as she took center stage instead.

Carol is clearly thrilled to have them there as shown by her enthusiastic introduction.

Later that same show, Carol joined Richard and Karen to do a medley of hits written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David that ran nearly six minutes – every second of it enjoyable.

November 9, 1974:

Helen Reddy: “Angie Baby”

Reddy first did the series a year after the Carpenters debuted and performed “I Am Woman.” She returned each season afterward until the series ended, doing several more hits on the show.

But the best presentation by far had to have been this interpretation of “Angie Baby,” her last number one hit. Given the lyrics, it’s a tricky song to convey if you’re doing something besides having Reddy sing. The Carol Burnett Show was up to the challenge and beautifully dramatized the story line while keeping its moody and mysterious flavor intact. It kicked off a very strong program, the best one of the 1974-1975 season.

October 27, 1975:

The Pointer Sisters: “How Long (Betcha’ Got a Chick on the Side)”

The Pointer Sisters came onto The Carol Burnett Show initially on September 28, 1974: to the delight of a reviewer with the entertainment trade publication Variety. He said it was great that the show was featuring a contemporary upbeat act and not a performer that drew “rheumatoid demographics-” meaning catering to older viewers.

Though they had big entries on the pop chart by the time of their debut, the quartet didn’t get to do perform one of their current hits until this show.

Apparently, there was enough confidence with how the ladies covered older hits previously on the show that they were able to do this entry with sass and class.

The multiple screen effect used here at the start was an exception, as the show generally eschewed visual tricks for home viewers when presenting music. It was a good call, and it adds to the overall presentation.

January 24, 1976:

The Jackson 5: “Forever Came Today”

This was a “should’ve been a bigger hit” entry for the group. Remaking a lesser Supremes hit from 1968 into a disco number with an incredible lead vocal by Michael Jackson should’ve been a smash hit for early 1976. Unfortunately, the Jacksons were in the process of leaving Motown over creative differences at the time, so the label stopped pushing the song in retaliation.

That’s a shame, because as shown here, “Forever Came Today” was one of the most magical musical performances of 1970s TV at least.

The group grooved and moved beautifully in dazzling outfits that complemented their logo behind them. It’s about the funkiest four minutes ever shown on The Carol Burnett Show, and it was a delight.

The icing on the cake was the introductory number Carol does with the group, “Anybody Named Jackson.” It was a clever way to meet all the performers and shows the nice rapport Carol had with the group, who had done the show two times previously. Definitely worthy of repeat viewing.

February 5, 1978:

Natalie Cole: “Our Love”

The split screen effect to make it look like Natalie was singing to herself in two different hairstyles and outfits is a little hokey, sure. But man, Natalie was such a fine vocalist and performer on stage that she made it compelling despite the distraction. “Our Love” is a top showcase for Natalie’s sultry sound, and The Carol Burnett Show comes off well for featuring her over another easy listening female that it tended to overuse during its run.

This moment is bittersweet to watch when one knows the context as well.

The following day after it aired, Burnett announced she was ending her TV series after 11 years, nearly 300 episodes and dozens of Emmy awards.

I know I said I was limiting this to the top five performances…

…but this one has such a good tale to tell that I had to included it as a bonus listing:

February 3, 1973:

Vicki Lawrence: “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia”

A regular on The Carol Burnett Show from the start, Vicki first met Carol by writing a fan letter and including a newspaper article showing she won a Burnett lookalike contest. Carol called her up and a friendship began, but Vicki had to win an audition to play Carol’s younger sister to get on the show.

Previously, Vicki had been a singer with the Young Americans vocal group.

In 1969, she met singer and songwriter Bobby Russell when he guest starred on the show’s 1969 summer replacement series, Carol Burnett Presents the Jimmie Rodgers Show. That show’s title singer was best known for his 1957 hit “Honeycomb.”

Bobby and Vicki hit it off romantically from there and wed in 1972.

That same year, Bobby originally wrote “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” for himself to sing. Then he thought of pitching the song to Cher, so he had Vicki do a demo. Cher’s then-husband Sonny Bono rejected the song, fearing Southern radio stations might find the tale of murder and injustice too offensive to play the record. (Ironically, the song first took off on Georgia radio stations.)

Then, Cher’s producer Snuff Garrett suggested using instead Liza Minelli (?!). Bobby responded by telling Snuff to just let Vicki sing it since everyone loved the demo.

So Snuff did so in what supposedly was his quickest recording session ever.

Vicki sang “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” on The Carol Burnett Show the same week the single debuted at Number 100 on Billboard’s Hot 100. The presentation wasn’t too fancy apart from the porch setting, which probably was wise to make viewers focus on the song and not the staging. And boy, there’s a lot of story to tell in this song!

How much the show led into the song’s success is debatable. What isn’t in doubt is how big a hit it was.

On the March 24, 1973, show, Carol presented Vicki with a gold record signifying over a million sales for “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.”

Two weeks later, the song became only the sixth entry to debut at Number 100 and go all the way to the top of the chart, peaking at number one the weeks of April 7 and 14, 1973.

Unfortunately, the aftermath of the hit was a messy one. Bobby and Vicki began fighting more and divorced in 1974.