

The catalyst was a series of highly publicized "unplugged" performances that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The direct inspiration for the series came in the decade immediately preceding the creation of the MTV program.

The casual "in-the-round" sequence in Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback Special, and The Beatles' informal studio jams documented in the 1970 film Let It Be were both precursors of the "Unplugged" concept, though they were neither conceived nor promoted as such at the time they occurred. The underlying concept behind the Unplugged series has been attributed to the popularity among musicians of a variety of informal musical performances on stage, film, television and record in earlier decades. Many of these performances were subsequently released as albums, often featuring the title Unplugged. The show featured musicians performing unplugged versions of their electric repertoire. The term Unplugged has come to refer to music that would usually be played on amplified instruments (such as an electric guitar or synthesizer) but is rendered instead on instruments that are not electronically amplified, for example acoustic guitar or traditional piano, although a microphone is still used. 4 Performances using the "Unplugged" format.
