Dick Cavett rolls out his rock credentials on DVD

Janis Joplin and Gloria Swanson? Stevie Wonder and Elsa Lanchester? Sly Stone and Debbie Reynolds?

What might sound like fodder for a “Saturday Night Live” skit about improbable celebrity encounters is, in fact, history.

All those meetings happened, and they happened on national television in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. They’re part of “The Dick Cavett Show -- Rock Icons,” a three-DVD box set being released Tuesday and including more performances and interviews from Cavett’s ABC late-night talk show. Among the artists: the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Paul Simon, George Harrison and Joni Mitchell, some at their artistic peaks, others still approaching theirs. It’s the first time most of these appearances have appeared in any home-video format.

The new DVD set captures many Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members at key moments in time. Mitchell, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and the Jefferson Airplane appeared in 1969 the day after Woodstock; Harrison, Ravi Shankar and Gary Wright showed up in 1971 shortly after the Concert for Bangla Desh. Stevie Wonder was just 20 and on the verge of establishing himself as one of the great pop artists of the 1970s when he visited.

Today’s pop-music fans may have a hard time believing there was a time when a late-night talk-show appearance for a musician meant more than three minutes at the end of the show. Joplin, for instance, appeared five times in 1970, three of which are included on the DVD set, and the final one coming just two months before she died of a heroin overdose.

“I almost began to think of her as a regular on the show,” Cavett, 68, said in the distinctively crisp, deeply resonant voice still heard hosting the Detroit Symphony’s syndicated radio broadcasts. “A review once said that her greatness doesn’t come through on television.... I was surprised at that, because most people I talked to who saw her said they almost forgot she was on television and they just wanted to go up and grab her.”

What’s not on this set are any of the Jimi Hendrix interviews or performances. Those were issued independently by Hendrix’s estate. A set of Ray Charles’ appearances is slated for Sept. 13 release. And rock fans who watched Cavett’s show originally probably will wonder about his celebrated interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Those, he says, also will be released separately, in November.

“There was just so much [footage],” he says. “Nobody ever expected to get them on a [talk] show, much less to have them come back.”

There is, however, one allusion to the John and Yoko appearances in the “Rock Icons” set. During his interview with Harrison, Cavett recalls, “I wasn’t really expecting anything, and I just mentioned that ‘You know, you’re sitting right where Yoko Ono sat when they were here.’ And he just flies out of the chair.”