How could this series not have caught on? In this NBC pilot movie, aired in January 1979, future GOP Congressman Sonny "The Beat Goes On" Bono played a country western songwriter who moonlights as a private detective in Nashville. Sonny and his TV wife (Lee Purcell) stumble onto a murder that leads them across the paths of half the Grand Ole Opry, including Barbara Mandrell (who soon had her own NBC series, BARBARA MANDRELL AND THE MANDRELL SISTERS). Writer/executive producer Ernie Frankel generated a number of Nashville-based crime dramas during the late 1970s, but none panned out. Jerry Reed and Tom Selleck starred (with MUSIC CITY's Morgan Fairchild) in CONCRETE COWBOYS, a TV-movie about Nashville detectives that spawned a shortlived Selleck-less series. Reed also starred with MUSIC CITY's Claude Akins and Lucille Benson in NASHVILLE 99, a CBS series about Nashville policemen. That one lasted about a month.
Sonny looks hilariously bored in that ad.
I remember watching--and, yeah, I'll admit it--unabashed Bono fan that I am--enjoying that pilot. It had some pretty good dialogue and the plot didn't suck. Loved the part where Bono and his wife meet Barbara Mandrell and didn't know who she was.
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