Jingle Collecting - Jingle Mad?

I guess I started taping pop music off-air when I was about 13 or 14 years of age. I still have some of those early tapes. About a year later I became fascinated by the bits in between the records – the jingles. I started recording Radio 1 and Radio 2 jingles in 1976 – in the dying days of their use of PAMS jingles - as well as some off Radio Humberside and Radio Tees. Those early recordings were of variable quality, literally a mic stuck in front of a radio. But once I got my radio with built-in cassette I was away. Some of those jingles have appeared on this blog and my small Radio Humberside collection made it on-air last month as part of their 40^th birthday celebrations.

Why am I telling you this? Well David Hemsley at The Jingle Network has just published this audio documentary, Jingles: A Collectors Tale,  on jingle collecting.

[Edit: Since this post was written The Jingle Network site has dropped off the net so here is that audio. The full set is also available on Soundcloud]

In the programme you can hear what inspired some British collectors to start their jingle collecting. It all sounds unerringly familiar to me though I was never as serious about it as these guys are.

Here are two of my favourite jingles:

Radio 1's 1971 Traffic News



The Viking Radio Song