From
Americana to rockability, from bluegrass to the pop crossover of Taylor Swift, country music has never
been more popular. This week BBC Radio 2, together with Chris Country, visits
the C2C: Country to Country festival at the O2 and the digital pop-up station Radio 2 Country can be heard from the
9th to 12th.
US radio is
flooded with country music stations - about 2,000 in all - that can trace their genesis back to
station WSM's Barn Dance in October
1925, almost immediately renamed the Grand
Ole Opry. WSM still broadcasts the Grand
Ole Opry on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights.
The Grand Ole Opry started by featuring what
was generally termed 'hillbilly music', a fusion of folk and bluegrass with a
bit of gospel thrown in. It was hillbilly music that started to be heard over
the Atlantic on BBC radio in the late 1930s when shows such as Hill-Billy Round Up, The
Rocky Mountaineers and Cabin in the
Hills with 'Big Bill Campbell' were heard. This Canadian entertainer was
perhaps the first person to popularise the American music form in the UK. In
the Radio Times of 4 June 1940 we are
told that "he has a terrific library of Hill-Billy songs - around 6,000 -
and his friends in Canada keep sending him more. He used to broadcast a lot in
Canada and the States and came over on a holiday in 1934. He went to see Eric
Maschwitz, then Director of Variety, and Eric invited him to compere an All-American Variety programme. Within a
year Big Bill had produced on the air the first Rocky Mountaineers
programme, which was to bring him fame".
Big Bill Campbell toured the theatres with Prairie Round-Up in 1950 |
Big Bill
Campbell, real name Clarence Church Campbell - who often declared the music to
be "mighty fine, mighty fine" and would close with "the clock on
the wall says it's time to go home" - continued to broadcast on both Radio
Luxembourg and BBC radio until his death in 1952. His BBC programmes included
the popular Rocky Mountain Rhythm
(1940-49) featuring "old log-cabin favourites" followed by the
similar Prairie Round-Up (1950).
Meanwhile
wartime listeners could enjoy National
Barn Dance (1943-44) on the Forces Programme and, very much adopting the
then popular cowboy persona, shows such as Home
on the Range (1942-46) and The Call
of the West (1939-46).
In 1949 BBC
producer Charles Chilton was using the music of the Wild West in a
fictionalised story of cowboy Jeff Arnold, played by Paul Carpenter, called Riders of the Range (1949-1953). Such
was the success of the series that it spawned its own comic strip in the Eagle. Chilton's other production from
that year was Hill-Billy Hoe-Down introducing
"the folks of Smoky Mountain".
Music for
dancing, in the form of square dancing, featured in the programme Happy Hoe-Down (1950-53) with music from
Phil Cardew's Cornhuskers. But this was no American outfit, Phil came from
Wimbledon and had played in Jack Hylton's band.
The next
broadcaster to appear on the scene is yet another Canadian, this time
Toronto-born DJ and actor Murray Kash. Born in 1923 he'd pursued a career as
both an actor, initially in the theatre but later on TV and film - look out for
him the next time Thunderball gets a
showing - and as a DJ with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Arriving in
the UK in 1955 he was initially in rep but picked up some minor film roles and
began to appear in radio and TV dramas, both on the BBC and ITV. However, in
late 1957 the BBC Home Service offered him a record show called Hill-Billy Hoe-Down which led to further
shows in 1958 and 1959. In 1960, by now on the Light Programme, Kash's Hoe-Down shows are now billed as
featuring "country and western music". Throughout the 1960s he was the go-to person
for country music shows on the BBC, Radio Luxembourg and British Forces Network.
On the Light
Programme Murray Kash popped up on Sweet
Dreams (1961) and Fine 'n' Dandy
(1962), meaning it wasn't all country music, but was mainly introducing country
and western records on Twelve O'Clock
Spin (1962 & 1964). Walk Right In
(1963 & 1965), On the Trail
(1963), It's Kinda Folksy (1965-66)
which "served up a lunchtime menu of folk and country music" and Call It Country Style (1966-67). Kash
continued to organise and promote live country music shows but still made some
radio appearances until 1971 reviewing records and providing the latest country
music news on Country Meets Folk and Country Style.
National
radio got its first regular country music show in the summer of 1967, although
it had to share the hour with folk music. Country
Meets Folk, running for five years on the Light Programme, then Radio 1 and
Radio 2, (and often simulcast on BFBS radio) blended records, live performances
and reviews of new releases and pretty much set the template for radio country
music shows.
Both Wally Whyton and David Allan regularly broadcast on the BBC World Service. Country and Whyton was heard in October 1975 |
This edition
of Country Meets Folk, recorded at
the Playhouse Theatre in London, comes from either 1969 or 1970. Thank you to
Chris Brady.
This edition
dates from 20 May 1972 and was recorded by Barry Alan Shaw who regularly
attended the recordings that year.
The next
name in the story is David Allan who presented a new show, Country Style, on Radio 2 from March 1968. David would become the
voice of country music broadcasting on radio and TV for the next three decades.
He'd started off on the offshore pirate 'sweet music' station Radio 390 where
he also devised a country music show.
David left Country Style in 1969 to concentrate on
TV continuity work for BBC1 and BBC2, a role he maintained until 1994. He was
replaced by Pat Campbell, another performer turned broadcaster. Irish-born Pat
had been part of the singing group The Four Ramblers, a group that Val Doonican
was in for a while. He became a promotions manager for RCA Records but also
started to broadcast both for the BBC and Radio Luxembourg. On the Light
Programme he'd filled in for Brain Matthew on Saturday Club, hosted Ring-a-Ding-Ding
(1962) and over on BBC2 introduced the acts on
The Beat Room - a series for
which only show has survived. Pat continued as presenter of Country Style until
the end of its run in June 1973.
David Allan
was back on Radio 2 in September 1972 for the series Up Country, following him, until it ended in 1974, were Dave Cash
and Pete Brady. This short clip with Pete Brady dates from 1973.
In July 1973
another far longer-running series hit the airwaves, Country Club. Over the years both Wally Whyton and David Allan
presented the programme, and for a while in 1978 and 1979 it was a double-header.
Between 1980 and 1995 Wally remained the main presenter. He was also in charge
on Both Sides Now (1976-78), another
mix of country and folk and had, until just a month before his death in January
1997, a regular show, Country Style,
on the BBC World Service. In 1993 he spoke to Mark Goodier for a country music
edition of the World Service programme An Essential Guide to ...
Why not sit
a spell and enjoys these recordings of Wally on Country Club dating from 1982ish (I can't trace the exact date), 1984
and 1985. His guests in the third clip are Kathy and Christy Forrester from
Lookout Mountain, Georgia
David Allan
meanwhile was back on Radio 2 in January 1980 with the record show Country Style (1980-82), running for 30
minutes on a Sunday afternoon and later getting a full hour on Saturday
evening. He then introduced Country
Greats In Concert (1982-83). This recording of Country Style dates from 15 March 1981.
From 3 February 1980 comes this recording courtesy of Noel Tyrrel.
From 3 February 1980 comes this recording courtesy of Noel Tyrrel.
Moving away
from national radio for a moment I mustn't forget that local radio, as many BBC
and ILR stations used to devote an hour
or so a week to country music. Growing up in East Yorkshire I well recall Radio Humberside's country music presenter
Tex Milne, followed later by Tammy Cline and Bob Preedy. Until his death last
year Dave Cash presented a country music show on Radio Kent and one of the best
of the current crop is Steve Cherelle on BBC Essex. Nearly all the early ILR
stations started off with country shows but the longest running is, of course, Downtown Country with Big T, still on
the air 40 years later. So popular is country music in Northern Ireland that
Downtown launched a DAB spin-off station Downtown Country in 2015. In the 1980s Metro Radio had a country music programme
presented by Brian Clough, known for a while as The Friday Night Country Crowd. Brian was also heard on Radio Tees
and later Great North Radio, Radio Newcastle and Smooth Radio. These days his The American Connection Country
Show is on Radio Tyneside. Radio Cumbria's Paul Braithwaite, with the station
since 1972, also has a weekly Braithwaite's Country programme.
Country-only stations are rare in the UK: in London there was the AM station Country 1035 (David Allan was an early presenter), the short-lived Clyde spin-off 3C and CMR, (Country Music Radio), a sister station of QEFM, broadcasting via satellite in the 1990s which still has an online presence as CMR Nashville with the original owner and DJ Lee Williams. More recently there's Chris Country which has DAB and DAB+ coverage in a number of regions.
Country-only stations are rare in the UK: in London there was the AM station Country 1035 (David Allan was an early presenter), the short-lived Clyde spin-off 3C and CMR, (Country Music Radio), a sister station of QEFM, broadcasting via satellite in the 1990s which still has an online presence as CMR Nashville with the original owner and DJ Lee Williams. More recently there's Chris Country which has DAB and DAB+ coverage in a number of regions.
The new kid
on the block in 1992 was Nick Barraclough. Country music was breaking through
to the mainstream with artists like Garth Brooks and Mary Chapin Carpenter and
his show, Nick Barraclough's New Country,
reflected that. Nick had been a folk musician in the 1970s but started to
broadcast in the early 1980s on his local station BBC Radio Cambridgeshire as
well as introducing the Cambridge Folk Festival coverage on BBC2. He moved into
radio production, working on a number of music documentaries for Radio 2 and
joining the team of producers for Gloria Hunniford's show. He worked on
programmes as musically diverse as Country
Club and Alan Keith's The Golden
Years. Running from 1992 to 2007 New
Country was an independent production from Smooth Operations, a company of
which Nick was a director. This short clip is from the 1990s, I seem to have
mislaid the exact date.
When Wally
Whyton left Radio 2 in 1995 David Allan was back in the hot seat on Country Club. In January 1997 he had the
sad task of informing listeners of Wally's death. Here's part of that show from
24 January.
Bob Harris
had always played country music on his Radio 1 and Radio 2 shows but it was
still a surprise when network controller Jim Moir asked him to present a show
dedicated to the genre, to "explore the fringes of mainstream and unearth
the new artists who were going to take the music forward". Bob Harris Country launched on 8 April
1999 and, of course, remains on air to this day, the station's only regular
country show. In this special edition from 21 October 2010 Bob talks to Mary
Chapin Carpenter.
Thanks also to Paul Bainbridge
5 comments:
Thanks for the 'credit' Andy. Superb blog as ever.
Great page Andy..so much info! Just one omission- Bob Powel, who presented London Country on BBC Radio London for many years.
Sadly none of the audio files play. Are they Flash?
So many memories for me during '60's through to '70's. I played rhythm guitar and 5 string in my dads dare I say it, UK's first famous country music band: The Alabama Hayriders or George Brown's Alabama Hayriders as it became known. Our first broadcast was in 'Folk Room' followed by 'Country Meets Folk' also other non-country music broadcasts such as 'Swinging into Summer' (I think it was called). I remember Dave Cash being presenter but I can't remember what programme.
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