Popping the Questions

Question: What's the name of the first Radio 2 pop quiz presented by Ken Bruce? If you answered Pop Master then you could be said to be "one quiz out!" The answer is Pop Score, the quiz that ran from 1972 to 1992 which Ken chaired for the last five series.

Devised by Light Entertainment producer Richard Willcox is was initially seen as a Radio 1 versus Radio 2 contest (early series were carried on both stations) with Tony Blackburn captaining the Radio 1 side and Terry Wogan representing Radio 2. Popping the questions was Pete Murray. Willcox continued to produce and write all the questions, and indeed do the audience warm-up, for the first fifteen series until Mark Robson took over production. By this time Willcox  had already brought in a certain Phil 'The Collector' Swern to help set the questions. Phil had previously attended some of the show's recordings to 'help' Tony with some of his answers until he was thrown out of the Paris studio a few shows later.    

Early guest stars were a  little eclectic to say the least. You can hardly say it was on trend, more like a decade behind. Many of the musicians had been sixties hitmakers with virtually no current chart performers taking part in the early series with perhaps the exception of Lynsey de Paul, Dana, Neil Sedaka, Long John Baldry and Mike Batt. But Deryck Guyler and Reg Varney?

In time under Willcox's tenure a smaller pool of contributors was called upon, often appearing on a other radio panel games. For instance we have actor Patrick Mower (also on The Law Game), singing impressionist Johnny More and Ray Alan (both on The Impressionists), Lance Percival (also on Wit's End and Just a Minute) and Duggie Brown (also on The Name's the Game and Dealing with Daniels). Some folk such as Tim Rice (also on Just a Minute and Trivia Test Match) really knew their stuff but generally it was a chance to muck about and the quiz side was never taken that seriously.    

Later series, produced by Robson, Dirk Maggs and Phil Clarke took things a little more seriously, but only just, with people from the music business and DJs. Typically a show might include rounds such as continuing to sing a song after its faded (think of Clue's Pick Up Song), correcting song titles, identifying song covers or  records played backwards, and a final quick-fire round. Throughout the quiz the chairman would, depending on how many points they'd scored in the round, read out so many letters of a song title that team's could guess at any time for bonus points.   

The old Blackburn/Wogan rivalary ended in 1977, though they returned for the 200th edition in 1987. Coming in as team captain for Terry was David Hamilton and a couple of series later Ray Moore replaced Tony. Ray in turn would become chairman when Pete left the BBC and after a series of different captains - Joe Brown, Duggie Brown and Helen Shapiro, who eventually became a show regular - new boy Ken Bruce was drafted in.

Following Ray's untimely death Ken took over as quizmaster (Ken was also hosting the Radio 2 general knowledge show The ABC Quiz) and with David off to commercial radio the team captains settled down to be Helen Shapiro and Alan Freeman.       

It all came to an end in April 1992 by which time panel games were virtually a thing of the past  on Radio 2.

Six years later Ken Bruce and Phil Swern, who had both worked together on Pop Score,  put their heads together (together with Ken's then producer Colin Martin) and came up with the format for Pop Master. The daily music quiz which stops the country is celebrated tonight in the Radio 2 programme One Year Out-The PopMasterStory and tomorrow sees the second All Day quiz.

Series Details

Question masters:

Pete Murray series 1 to 10.

Ray Moore series 11 to 13

Ken Bruce series 14 to 18 

The theme tune used for the majority of Pop Score's run was Chicken Feathers by film and TV composer Pat Williams from his 1968 album Think. In the late 80s Weather Report's Birdland was used for a while.  

Series 1 Team captains Tony Blackburn (TB) and Terry Wogan (TW)

24 Oct 1972-6 Feb 1973

Guests: Ken Goodwin, Alan Price, Lynsey de Paul, Kenny Lynch, Roger Greenaway, Rolf Harris, Peter Noone, Vince Hill, Dana, Roy Castle, Anita Harris, Georgie Fame, Tim Rice, Lance Percival andTony Brandon

Series 2 TB TW

20 June 1973-20 Mar 1974

Roger Whittaker, Peter Noone, Tony Brandon, Lance Percival, Wally Whyton, Leslie Crowther, Bob Monkhouse, Mitch Murray, Roy Castle, Dana, Chris Barber, Joe Brown, Jimmy Tarbuck, Adrienne Posta, David Jacobs, George Chisholm, Kenneth Williams, Tim Rice, Gerry Marsden, Peter Jones, Deryck Guyler, June Whitfield, Bernard Cribbins, Johnny Pearson, Matt Monro, Lonnie Donegan, Rolf Harris, Ron Goodwin, Reg Varney, Eric Idle, Ray Fell, Frankie Vaughan, Michael Aspel, Diana Dors, Jon Pertwee, Kenny Ball, Neil Sedaka, Dickie Henderson, Peter Goodwright and Henry Cooper.  

Series 3 TB TW (Paul Burnett covered for TB on two shows and Tim Rice covered for TW on two shows)

2 Oct 1974-26 Mar 1975 Leslie Crowther, Henry Cooper, Cathy McGowan, Bob Monkhouse, Joe Brown, Kenny Ball, Ray Alan, Long John Baldry, Michael Parkinson, Marian Montgomery, Ray Fell, Vince Hill, Clive lea, Tim Rice, Ronnie Carroll, Matt Monro, Mike Batt, Mitch Murray, Cindy Kent, Roy Castle, Diana Dors, Norman, Newell, Roger Whittaker, Ray Barrett and Roger Kitter 

Series 4 TB TW

30 Oct 1975-22 Jan 1976

Bernard Cribbins, Tim Rice, Diana Dors, Kenny Ball, Roy Hudd, Ray Alan, George Chisholm, Long John Baldry, Lonnie Donegan, Rolf Harris, Clive Lea and Johnny Moore

Series 5 TB TW

13 Sept-29 Nov 1976

Leslie Crowther, Diana Dors, Bernard Cribbins, Tim Rice, Rolf Harris, Charlie Williams, Johnny More, Duggie Brown, Bobby Knutt, Jack Douglas, Patrick Mower

Series 6 TB TW

1 Sept-17 Nov 1977

Bobby Knutt, Bernard Cribbins, Faith Brown, Derek Griffiths, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Vince Hill, Duggie Brown, Ray Alan, Johnny More, Patrick Mower, Dave Evans and Tim Rice (also captain on a couple of shows) 

Series 7 TB David Hamilton (DH)

11 Sept-27 Nov 1978

Lance Percival, Joe Brown, Mike Batt, Clive Lea, Patrick Mower, Johnny More, Tony Brandon, Bill Oddie, Rolf Harris, Bobby Knutt, Dave Evans and Tim Rice

Series 8 TB DH

19 May-4 Aug 1980

Dave Dee, Lance Percival, Mike Batt, Vince Hill, Joe Brown, Tim Rice, Duggie Brown, Bernard Cribbins, Bobby Knutt and Johnny More

An edition of Pop Score from this series is on Mixcloud here though sadly the last couple of minutes are missing.

Series 9 DH Ray Moore (RM)

24 Aug -9 Nov 1981

Faith brown, Johnny More, Duggie Brown, Lance Percival, Rolf Harris, Tim Rice, Joe Longthorne, Dave Evans, Vince Hill, Acker Bilk and Joe Brown

Series 10 DH RM

20 June-5 Sep 1983

Helen Shapiro, Acker Bilk, Joe Brown, Vince Hill, Duggie Brown (also captain on two shows), Patrick Mower, Susan Maughan, Freddie Garrity and Mike Berry

I've unearthed the 7th programme from this series.

Series 11 DH (Other captain was either Duggie Brown, Joe Brown or Helen Shapiro)

19 Feb-14 May 1985

Rolf Harris, Mike Berry, Acker Bilk, Helen Shapiro, Clodagh Rodgers, Susan Maughan, Frank Ifield, and Russ Conway

I've previously posted the 11th programme in this series before but only recently uploaded it to YouTube

Series 12 DH Ken Bruce (KB)

15 Mar-24 May 1986

Frank Ifield, Acker Bilk, Duggie Brown, Helen Shapiro, Lonnie Donegan, Vince Hill, Helen Shapiro, Tim Rice, Des Cluskey, Con Cluskey, Noddy Holder and Paul Nicholas

Series 13 DH KB

14 Mar-20 June 1987 (includes 200th edition with Pete Murray, Terry Wogan and Tony Blackburn)

Alvin Stardust, Helen Shapiro, Lynn Sheppard, Denny Laine, Rick Wakeman, Noddy Holder, Steve Marriott, Acker Bilk, Tim Rice and Frank Ifield 

Series 14 Helen Shapiro (HS) + either Joe Brown, TB, Adrian Love or Paul Jones (First to be compiled by Phil Swern)

12 Mar-28 May 1988

Cathy McGowan, Adrian Love, Tony Blackburn, Duggie Brown, Dave Dee, Gloria Hunniford, Rick Wakeman, Tommy Vance, Noddy Holder, Robbie Vincent, Tom McGuinness

Series 15 HS + either Adrian Love or Alan Freeman (AF)

25 Mar-10 June 1989

Duggie Brown, Rick Wakeman, Rolf Harris, Peter Dickson, Noddy Holder, John Craven, Tim Rice, Alvin Stardust, Paul Jones and Vince Hill

Series 16 HS AF (Producer Dirk Maggs)

21 Apr-7 July 1990

Janice Long, Adrian Love, Sheila Ferguson, Paul Jones, Duggie Brown, Stephanie de Sykes, Joe Brown, Rose-Marie, Don Powell, Lyn Paul and Colin Berry

The first edition of this series is available on Mixcloud here. 

Series 17 HS AF

27 April-15 June 1991

Cheryl Baker, Adrian Love, Wendy Richard, Noddy Holder, Alvin Stardust, Janice Long, Rose-Marie and Colin Berry

Series 18 HS AF (Prod Phil Clarke)

28 Feb-17 April 1992

Terry Wogan, Pete Murray, Adrian Love, Lyn Paul, Lynsey de Paul, Alvin Stardust, Noddy Holder and Rose-Marie

As is typical with virtually all Radio 2 panel shows from this era they've never been repeated since they ended so if you've got any recordings of Pop Score please let me know.

Put Out the Light

Fifty years ago this month, on Friday 29 September 1967, the BBC Light Programme closed down, in name if not entirely in spirit, to be replaced by Radio 2. Regular listeners to the Light wouldn't have been too disturbed by the changes brought about by that young pop upstart Radio 1. Sure Music While You Work and Housewives' Choice had been dropped but you could still get you fill of Max Jaffa, The Dales and the Frank Chacksfield Orchestra.

So how what was offered up on the final day on the Light? Well I've dug out my Radio Times  back issue and taken a look.

I can't be certain if the Light Programme was still using the Oranges and Lemons theme to gently usher in the day, but if it did it may have sounded a little like this. 

The broadcasting day started at 5.30 a.m. (you'll notice a few programmes starting at half past or a quarter past the hour; drawing up the schedule was a considerably more complex task back then) with Breakfast Special. This was always presented by one of the staff announcers, today the turn of Peter Latham. Whilst there are off-air recordings of Breakfast Special with Paul Hollingdale, Ray Moore and John Dunn I've heard nothing of Peter. So instead here he is reading the news on Radio 1 and Radio 2.

David Hamilton once wrote that "my BBC bosses gave me the job of burying the Light Programme". And sure enough he features at either end of the day. "I wondered if the BBC were trying to tell me something".  David had been appearing on the Light since The Beat Show in 1963 ("the band with the beat that's reet") but on the final day "I was tucked away in the basement hosting the very last week of Housewives' Choice... Everybody who was anybody had presented that programme, but it looked as though I would be the only one to do so and then be instantly forgotten."  No recordings of David on Housewives' Choice exist but  we can hear how David sounded in September 1967 thanks to this recording from Friday 8th of Music Through Midnight (more of which below).

One BBC radio stalwart that played out for the final time was Music While You Work. Introduced in 1940 "specially for factory workers to listen to as they work" the Corporation had decided it'd run its course. Featuring on that final show was a musician who'd appeared on the first day too, Jimmy Leach.  A composer, pianist and organist, just before the war Leach had joined forces with the trio Organola, who a year later would become The Organolists. The group went on to appear in 256 editions of Music While You Work. Remarkably that final edition has survived and comes from the archive of Brian Reynolds. You can download it from this page on his Masters of Melody website. Amongst all the traditional tunes the one nod to pop is Penny Lane. The opening announcer is Brian Hudson and rounding things off is Paul Hollingdale.       

Orchestral music was still the order of the day, from light music to the more 'poppy' end of the musical scale, with the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra, the BBC Midland Light Orchestra, the Joe Loss Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra all featuring at different time of the day. The Midland Light Orchestra was one of the BBC's most prolific in-house orchestras, broadcasting every week, sometimes two or three times a week, from 1947 until the late 1960s - it was eventually disbanded in 1973. On 29 September they were part of the Music in the Air programme under the direction of their regular conductor Gilbert Vintner. This is how they sounded in 1963 performing one of their regular morning sequences of music.  

Some of the former pirate DJs had already come back to dry land before the start of Radio 1 and got a try-out on the Light Programme. That list included Tony Blackburn and Dave Cash plus, and appearing here, Pete Brady with Midday Spin and Keith Skues on Swingalong. 

The cast of The Dales after the final recording in 1969 (Getty Images) 

The Dales, Roundabout - this week with Desmond Carrington - and News Time would transfer to Radio 2. Newly Pressed would become What's New on Radio 1. There's a rather curious programme at 7.30 pm called Movietime. This was a long-running series, it started in 1961 though there'd been similar programmes before that, which provided adapted film soundtracks for a radio audience. One can only imagine how Gordon Gow managed to cut down the nearly two-hour action-packed You Only Live Twice to a meaningful 30 minutes of radio.  

Friday evening sees two programmes that still grace the airwaves five decades on: Any Questions? which would shift over to Radio 4 in 1970 and Friday Night is Music Night, then in its 14th year. The recording of Friday Night is Music Night I can offer nearest to this date is from 25 July 1969. The setting is The Assembly Hall in Worthing. Many of the participants are the same as you'd have heard in September 1967: the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Sidney Torch, William Davies at the piano, The Friday Knights directed by John McCarthy and the announcer Jimmy Kingsbury.  

Diddy David was back in the evening for Music Through Midnight, which would become Late Night Extra on Radios 1 and 2, though, initially at least, without David. By the time midnight arrived it was party time in the rather packed studio. In the nine minutes of off-air audio that survives the DJs who pop in, and most seem to have consumed a fair amount of BBC plonk, include Johnny Moran, Miranda Ward, Duncan Johnson, Tony Blackburn, Chris Denning, Roger Moffat, Bruce Wyndham, Mike Lennox and Bill Crozier plus Cindy Kent of The Settlers.

The task of closing the Light Programme after 22 years fell to staff announcer Roger Moffat with It's One O'Clock. In this clip you'll hear an off-air recording of Roger chatting to his old Make Way for Music chum, the singer Sheila Buxton. We then get the final 2 am news bulletin and closedown which the BBC did keep: "There we end broadcasting in the Light Programme, not just for today but, as it seems, forever..."

Later that morning witnessed, in the words of station controller Robin Scott, "the strident birth-pangs of a much-heralded and rather bouncy new radio network - or, rather, the emergence of two new programmes, one resembling in many respects the old Light (but with a number of new features), the other brand new in style (but sharing some of the most popular features of the other)". It was welcome to the world BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2.

In the summer of 2015 I wrote about the Light Programme. You can read the first in a series of nine posts here.    

BBC Radio 2 remembers the days of the Light Programme in the two-part documentary The Story of the Light the first of which airs this evening. The series is produced by Made in Manchester.  

It's a Hot Shot

"If you're slaving all at home or relaxing or you're working in a noisy factory, just set yourself free when the clock strikes three cos everything stops for tea".

Know the lyrics? And the tune? Chances are you too were enjoying a cuppa on a weekday afternoon sometime in the mid-1970s tuned into the David Hamilton show.

David Hamilton's career stretches back over 50 years from his time on British Forces radio and the Light Programme and as an announcer and presenter on ABC Television and elsewhere on the ITV network. Since then he's made hundreds of TV appearances and thousands of radio broadcasts on dozens of stations. Retirement? Not a hint of it.

I've been able to share some of my own off-air recordings of David and some press cuttings on the recently formed Facebook group David Hamilton's Hot Shots. Set up and administered by David 's friend, and supporter of this blog, Noel Tyrrel there are audio contributions, photos and rare TV footage from Diddy's own collection. The man himself is keeping a eye on proceedings. Launching the group David said: 

"I am very excited and flattered in equal measure at the prospect of a group in appreciation of my work past, present and future. I would like to take this opportunity to warmly welcome all members and hope that you will derive pleasure and stimulation from our interaction.

Each week I shall suggest a David Hamilton Hot shot. A record of the week featured on my past radio shows; I shall also give a little bit of background on the reasons for choosing it. Please feel free to add memories of your own too".

David continues to broadcast on The Wireless and pops up now and again on BBC Sussex and BBC Surrey. He's also fronting the live stage show Rock 'n'Roll Back the Years that has nationwide tour dates booked for the next twelve months. Members of the Hot Shots Facebook group will be offered a chance to win free tickets for one of the shows. So why not join?

Ploughing a similar furrow is the Facebook group Retro Radio. Stacks of unscoped airchecks, mostly from the 70s and 80s are available and up for discussion. I'm sure Stuart Busby will welcome more members. 

The Summer of 76

The summer of 1976 and Britain was baking hot. So hot that a Nationwide reporter was attempting to fry an egg on the pavement, probably. "What a scorcher" screamed The Sun headline, probably.  In early July the USA was celebrating 200 years of independence and at Wimbledon Bjorn Borg was about to win the first of his five consecutive titles. On BBC Radio 1 Johnnie Walker was bidding farewell to his listeners and starting a new adventure Stateside. And every afternoon David Hamilton could be heard across the nation on both Radio 1 and Radio 2 on MW, LW and VHF.

Just recently two recordings, one complete and one virtually complete, of David Hamilton's afternoon show from July 1976 have been posted on Mixcloud. At the time I regularly caught the last 40 minutes or so of the show on getting home from school so I probably heard the tail end of these programmes first time round. I definitely heard the 5th July show as I have a note to prove it - more on that below. So here are my observations on each programme. Thanks to Noel Tyrrel for uploading radio gold and to whoever recorded them in the first place.

Friday 2 July 1976

This show was preceded by the "and now a choice of listening" announcement as David was heard on Radio 1's 247 metres and Radio 2 VHF whilst Radio 2 long wave carried the penultimate day's coverage from Wimbledon presented by Peter Jones.

1 min: Whenever I hear Listen to the Music I just can't help singing "David Hamilton" in the appropriate place. David's afternoon show started on Radio 1 only on 4 June 1973. Does anyone know if the Doobie Brothers were used from the off? One hit wonder Lee Garrett is the opener, not to be confused with Leif Garrett.

8 mins:1976 was a great year for Gallagher & Lyle with their hit-laden Breakaway album. A tenuous connection here: my wife Val also comes from Gallagher & Lyle's hometown of Largs and she has memories of Mrs Lyle's wool shop.

11 mins: The Mystery Star was  a long-running feature. All write-in entries of course but the address not given until the last half-hour when all three clues are read out.  

14 mins: The classic Radio 1 travel news jingle. Tried to record this at the time hoping the DJ wouldn't come in too quickly after "news". PAMS jingles had another three months left on Radio 1 before the massive JAM package aired from late September. There seemed to be no regular times for travel news, we get a second bulletin at five to three.

15 mins: I'd totally forgotten about this lovely song from Nancy Ryan in the intervening 40 years. Canadian born Nancy had been recording in Nashville since the 1960s though what happened to her after her mid-70s recordings remains a mystery.  

26 mins: Paul Burnett was ready to take over from Johnnie Walker the following week. Here he plugs a US special for what was to be his last Sunday morning show that was always billed as All There is To Hear. Simon Bates took over the same slot.

30 mins: I'd forgotten this feature. They Sold a Million would get its own jingle in that first JAM package.

31 mins:  A bizarre "fiddle-fired" cover of the Tavares hit by Jonathan King. He recorded a quadraphonic version, that I still have on tape, for the 1978 special Jonathan King Rules.   

37 mins: Does this Insight programme with Gambo still exist I wonder? I'd love to hear it.

42 mins: The third trailer in an hour. This from the time Savile was still using the Sauter-Finegan Doodletown Fifers that had previously been used for Radio Luxembourg's Top 20.

45 mins: A case of state inflation from David. Just 50 states of course with Alaska and Hawaii the last to join in 1959.

55 mins: Ruth Cubbin on news reading duty. Ruth had previously worked on Woman's Hour before joining Radio 2 in 1975 (I think). As well as newsreading she presented The late Show, Folk 78 and You and the Night and the Music before leaving in July 1979. Subsequently she worked behind the scenes as a researcher on Derek Jameson's breakfast show (1986) and as producer on various Radio 2 shows, but mainly Gloria Hunniford's (1988-89) and then David Jacobs (1990), Anne Robinson (1991-93) and Radio 2 Young Musician between 1991 and 1995.

I love the news story about Parisian bus drivers demanding an hour's siesta because of the sweltering conditions. You can imagine them pulling over with a bus full of passengers for a kip.

56 mins: Tea at Three, but who sings the jingle? The music appears to come from a version of Everything Stops for Tea recorded by The Syncopators. Today's sequence is almost like listening to the Light Programme: James Last, Manhatten Transfer and Glen Miller! (Edit: Apparently that jingle was specially recorded for David by Mud).

1 hr 8 mins: Hour two and you realise just what a busy a show this is. Notice too how David hardly ever signposts what's to come. David Hamilton's Hot-shots was so popular it led to an LP release in May 1976. My mum used to have a copy, though it long since disappeared. This Frankie Valli track failed to chart.

1 hr 21 mins: I remember C'mon Marianne getting its first spin on Roundtable as the mystery record so different was it from Donny's earlier stuff.   

1 hr 23 mins: The 70s equivalent of Make, Do and Mend with advice from David's frugal listeners. Make Ends Meet was published in book form in the following month. 

1 hr 42 mins: Ah yes, David's Daily Dolly! Well this is the 1970s. Could this be the voice that says "It's David's daily dolly" This YouTube clip posted, coincidentally, by another Andrew Walmsley. Spooky.

1 hr 48 mins: One of my favourite records of the year, Starbuck's Moonlight Feels Right complete with its marimba break. It never charted in the UK despite plenty of airplay. It was the first record that Simon Bates played when he took over from Paul Burnett on All There is to Hear just over a week later.

1 hr 51 mins: Any thoughts as to who's voicing this news lead-in? "Satisfaction  guaranteed!" I wondered if it was Rod Lucas. (Turns out it is Rod thanks to his comment below)

2 hrs 19 mins: The pips on the half-hour so that Radios 1 & 2 can split. Rosko over on 1 and Waggoner's Walk on 2.  

5 July 1976

After a weekend gig up at Annan David is back on 247 metres, 1500 metres LW and VHF. You'd have spotted David on the telly on Saturday night on a recorded Seaside Special from Scarborough. The guests were The Three Degrees and Kenneth McKellar plus, hands up if you remember them, Dailey & Wayne and Brothers Lee.

It was also a significant weekend for me radio-wise. On Saturday 3 July I first started to note the names of the Radio 2 announcers and newsreaders, something I kept up for a few years, adding Radio 3, Radio 4 and IRN over that summer. I noted that John Dunn was reading the 4 pm bulletin on the 5th which suggests that I did hear part of this show the first time round, even though it may have been the missing last half-hour of this recording.

4 mins: Hard to believe that any other Radio 1 show at that time would play Ken Dodd as a new spin. Presumably it was to keep some of the older Radio 2 audience happy and, of course, there's an obvious Doddy and Diddy connection.

8 mins In both these shows David uses Machine Gun by The Commodores as his music bed. The late Chris Rainbow of course known to jingle fans for his Capital Radio jingles and the superb 'Summer Radio' ones used by various Radio 1 jocks.  His multi-tracked vocal talents much in evidence on Allnight.

11 mins: Time for sing-a-long with the Starland Vocal Band. This record gave rise to a number of afternoon radio shows adapting the title Afternoon Delight. Radio Trent certainly had one and I'm pretty sure Radio Sheffield did too. I suspect they weren't really expecting their listeners to enjoy the kind of afternoon delight the group were actually singing about.

26 mins: A little bit of fun at the expense of his good mate Tony Blackburn. Tony would replace David on Radio 1 in November 1977 with David continuing on Radio 2 only. Followed by The Singing Kaftan.

32 mins: The nation's number 1 from The Real Thing. I may be wrong here but this doesn't sound like the single and so could be a re-recording that may not count towards needletime. It was still common practice for Radio 1 to play the occasional re-recording, I have songs by John Miles and Leo Sayer on tape from this period that aren't the original single releases.   

36 mins: A trailer for Radio 2's The Monday Movie Quiz voiced by James Alexander Gordon.

43 mins: More vocal multi-tracking, this time from Adrian Baker performing as The Tonics. Note too the specially recorded jingle, he also recorded versions for Tony Blackburn and Paul Burnett, perhaps other too. Sadly David ditched most of his own personalised jingles when he moved house. Around this time Adrian also recorded other jingles for Noel Edmonds and Paul Burnett. In 1988 he was behind Radio 1's 21st birthday song.  

55 mins: Odd now to hear John Dunn reading the news. He'd been on daily at this time on Radio 2 until March 1974 and then presented Late Night Extra for the remainder of the year. But in 1975 he was back on newsreading duties and the occasional late-night show. John continued to read bulletins until September 1976 just before he moved into the teatime show from which, with a few shifts of time, he didn't leave for the next 22 years. 

56 mins: These Tea at Three segues were a good way for us home tapers to get 3 or 4 records back to back.

1 hr 1 min: On Radio 1 Everyday seems to be the only jingle from the 1970 Audio Producers package that still got an airing in 1976.   

1 hr 23 mins: Some decidedly dodgy cheapskate advice on reusing polystyrene meat trays from Mrs J. Winter that David later qualifies.

1 hr 36 mins: After a great sequence of records from Neil Diamond, Liverpool Express and Candi Staton comes this naff cover from the Surprise Sisters showing that in '76 nothing was safe from been disco-fied. They'd had their only hit earlier in the year with La Booga Rooga.  

1 hr 44 mins: David's Daily Dolly used two 1975 tracks for the intro: Dolly My Love by The Moments and Girls by Moments and Whatnauts.

1 hr 48 mins: Our Kid was one of those acts that came out of New Faces. Not exactly the One Direction of their day they were a one-hit wonder with You Just Might See Me Cry. 

1 hr 51 mins: Another mystery voice. Does anyone know who's saying "You're listening to afternoon national radio"  etc before the news?

And there you have it. A chance to relive a whole chunk of afternoon radio from exactly forty years ago in the hands of a consummate professional. A little dated, of course, and a reminder that not all songs of the period would become golden oldies. But just for a while I was 14 years old again.  

Oh, and the answers to the Mystery Star competition are Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Alistair Cooke.

Centre Spot

Local TV services have met with, it’s fair to say, mixed fortunes. The service in Birmingham, for instance, had an abortive start when City TV collapsed before launch. Picking up that licence is a consortium headed by Chris Perry and Kaleidoscope TV, names that will be familiar to anyone who’s read about the recovery of ‘missing believed wiped’ TV archives.

And the radio connection? Well I mention this because amongst the shows on Big Centre TV, launching this coming Saturday, is a chat show fronted by veteran broadcaster David Hamilton. Whilst there’s no discernible local connection the first show sees ‘Diddy’ David having a nostalgic trip down memory lane with his old DJ chums Ed Stewart and Pete Murray. There’s more about the recording of that show here. Future guests include Jona Lewie, Jackie Trent, P.J. Proby, Tony Christie, Jane Rossington and Madeline Smith.

A Day on 2

Set the controls for the 18th of February 1985.

Imagine being able to fashion a radio time-travelling device that can receive your favourite show from the past or being able to listen again to an historic broadcast (and no I’m not talking about 4 Extra!)  

OK, so it probably wouldn’t be BBC Radio 2 on 18 February 1985. As far as I know nothing earth-shatteringly significant happened that day. But, for no real apparent reason, thirty years ago I decided to stick some tapes in my cassette recorder and capture that days output, well a large chunk of it.

This is your chance to hear again how the station sounded in the mid-80s, from Night Ride to Round Midnight, stopping off at the JY show, John Dunn’s Mystery Voice and all points in between.  Here's a quick rundown of the day in jingle form and the full Radio Times schedule.

These are the technical bits: I’m posting the clips on my YouTube channel just to ensure a wider audience. I’ve chopped out most of the commercial music tracks in order to avoid any copyright notices. So far this seems to have worked, though for some reason listeners in Germany may not be able to hear all the programmes, sorry Germany.

I’ll be posting the shows online during the day of the 18 February 2015 at the same time as their original start time – although to avoid staying up all night Peter Dickson and Colin Berry’s show will be available on Tuesday night. Each time a programme is added I’ll update this blog post, send a Tweet and update my Facebook page. All times in GMT of course.

Unfortunately I didn’t record every show that day. So you won’t hear the specialist music shows with Alan Dell and Humph, the mid-afternoon sequence Music All the Way or that evening’s Star Sound Special.  However, elsewhere on this blog you can read about and hear Alan Dell, Humphrey Lyttelton and Music All the Way.  Also the quality of the audio is variable, this is nothing to do with my FM reception at the time but more the fact I used budget tapes.

Kicking things off at 1 a.m. was Peter Dickson with a suitably jokey start to Nightride. Peter took care of the overnight shifts alternating with either Bill Rennells or Charles Nove. Lack of needletime meant we still had doses of the Radio Orchestra, the Brian Lemon Trio and so on. Making the first of two appearances that day is John Fogerty, whose new album Centrefield had just been released, although Peter seems not to know the former lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival. There’s a also a talk from Barney Lawrence – anyone know who he is? This kind of (mildly) comical talk was still a feature of Nightride just as they had been on You and the Night and the Music. 

Following Nightride was a repeat of the previous day’s Two’s Best with John Dunn, demonstrating that the current overnight repeat policy is nothing new. Sadly I didn’t record this programme.

At the time the king of the early shows was Colin Berry who’d had early starts, on and off, since January 1976. Getting up before dawn every day must have been taking its toll as Colin reports he’s practically wrecked the studio and nearly garrotted himself with his headphone lead. Note also a mention of changes that evening on BBC TV, he’s referring to a new BBC1 globe and the launch of EastEnders. Listen out too for a news summary from David Bellan.



At 6 a.m. enter the still much missed Ray Moore. Ray’s on form this morning, witness that lovely intro into the Shakin’ Stevens track There’s also mention of the announcers over on Radio 3 with Tarmac Rigby and Miss Hughes who’s apparently “gone into tax exile”. Towards the end of this recording catch Bill Rennells voicing a trail for Gloria’s show later that day and her special guest David Cassidy – more on that to follow.



It’s “hello chums” from Ken Bruce on the Radio 2 breakfast show. Perhaps it should have been the Late, Late Breakfast Show as Ken didn’t go on-air until 8.05 am. At the time of this recording he’d been presenting the programme for just six weeks. Punctuating proceedings are Steve Madden reading the news and Pause for Thought with the Rev Roger Royle. Listeners to Radio 2’s current morning output will notice how much calmer it all was thirty years ago; no shouting, no whooping, no laughing acolytes and no-one else to read the traffic news.

The matters on Jimmy Young’s agenda at 10.30 are the Falklands, the miners, school dinners and Winter Fuel Allowances. In this extract he interviews SNP MP Gordon Wilson about his Cold Climate Allowance Bill and Peter Smith of teachers’ union AMMA about school kids supposedly having ‘chips with everything’. In contrast to Jeremy Vine’s show no listeners appeared on the programme to voice their opinions, all the feedback from “the listener” is read out by Jim himself. “Bye for now!”

“Hello there!” It’s amazing to think that Radio 2 took an hour out each lunchtime for David Jacobs to play “our kind of music”. Much as I love the music he played it really did seem like the station was stepping back to the days of the Light Programme, even including a track by Frank Chacksfield, a regular on the Light.



As a reminder that Radio 2 used to have women presenters during the day on weekdays here’s Gloria Hunniford with an edited version of her 90-minute show. Promised guest David Cassidy is a no-show, having backed out at 12 noon due to a “contractual difficulty”, so instead its Bonnie Langford! Glo’s second guest is author John Byrne Cooke, son of Alistair Cooke. 

From 3.30 pm it’s as if Radio 2 had a short interlude and put up the audio equivalent of the test card whilst Music All the Way was on. This was a 30-minute sequence of music on record and BBC sessions. I didn’t record the programme for 18 February but you can hear an edition from February 1986 here. Of Music All the Way former Radio 2 presenter and announcer Charles Nove commented: “An odd little duty, that one, which involved heading for one of Broadcasting House's least popular studios (bit of lashup, no windows, dodgy ventilation etc) and doing the live top and tail for this, and playing in the music, ‘supervised’ by the BBC's most panicky producer and a bored engineer. Overmanning? Never!”

In all the recordings so far you’ll have heard very little new music, and certainly nothing that would trouble the charts. That’s why David Hamilton’s show was such a breath of fresh air, and rightly dubbed “the music show”. There’s also plenty of listener interaction and prizes available in The Music Game and Spot the Intro. 

The reigning monarch of drivetime for an eon was John Dunn. The show’s mix of music, topical interviews and a quiz – in this case the long-running Mystery Voice competition – is still the template for today’s Radio 2 offering. Providing the programme rundown at the end of this recording is John Marsh.



There are no recordings of Alan Dell’s double bill of the Dance Band Days and the Big Band Era but you can hear other editions here. Nor did I tape Humphrey Lyttelton with The Best of Jazz but there’s plenty of Humph here. And again I inexplicably failed to record Star Sound Special in which John Benson featured the music of Nelson Riddle. But what you can hear again is the third edition of a new panel game, and the second dose that day of David Hamilton, in Some of These Days. The premise of the programme was to answer questions about news, events, TV shows and music that happened on that day in history. On the panel are Peter Jones, Sheila Tracy, Fiona Fullerton and Barry Cryer.  



Closing proceedings for the day is Brian Matthew with the daily arts and music show Round Midnight, at this point more than halfway through its 12 year run.  Brian’s guests are Patrick Marr and James Roose-Evans talking about the revival of George Axelrod’s play The Seven Year Itch and author Nickolai Tolstoy plugging his latest book The Quest for Merlin. 

Radio 2 - A Day in 12 Minutes

Inspired by Radio 2's 2DAY event on the 22nd of this month - which promises a taste of the full schedule over a 12 hour period - here's 24 hours of Radio 2 from Thursday 3 April 1980 compressed into just 12 minutes*.

In this montage you'll hear: Bill Rennells, Ray Moore, Terry Wogan, Jimmy Young, David Hamilton, Ed Stewart, David Symonds (who gets the date wrong), John Dunn, Wally Whyton, Colin Berry, Alan Dell, David Bellan, Brian Matthew and Sheila Tracy.

* In January 2020: I' added a clip from You and the Night and the Music with Sheila Tracy to this sequence so that it now runs at nearly 15 minutes, admittedly making a nonsense of the blog post title.    

David Hamilton Music Show

Radio Times 5 December 1977

More David Hamilton, this time from the 1980s.

By November 1977 David’s afternoon show was now on Radio 2 only. He continued in this time slot until early 1980. Here’s the end of that last show on 4 January. The clip also includes a minute or so of David Symonds introducing Much More Music.

 

From 18 February 1985 this is a 45 minute extract from his daily show. By now back in the afternoon sandwiched between Gloria Hunniford and John Dunn from 4 to 6 pm.
 

 I recorded each of the DJ hosted shows on this day in 1985 (one on each side of a C90 cassette so just 40 odd minutes or so) and I’ll post those shows later.

Finally, here’s the end of David Hamilton’s last show on the BBC from 19th December 1986. He left the station apparently complaining that the music policy was "geriatric".
 

 

Early radio memories

Some of my early radio memories are:

• Listen With Mother - presumably during the school holidays
• Saturday morning Junior Choice – Three Wheels On My Wagon and Terry Scott’s My Brother
• Sunday afternoons with Family Favourites, The Clitheroe Kid, Pick of the Pops and then Sing Something Simple
• Dad coming home from work at lunchtime and switching on Radio Humberside who carried The World at One – “The World at One, this is William Hardcastle”

(Audio of some of these programmes to follow)

But I got “into” radio when I started to get into pop music late 75/early 76. In those days we had no commercial radio in East Yorkshire, or North Humberside as they insisted on calling it at the time, so when I got home from school the only option was Radio 1.

The mid-70s was a time when Radio 1 and 2 shared the afternoon programme so I soon became hooked on David Hamilton’s show in all its glorious stereo on VHF. And after he’d finished at 4.30 I’d switch over to It’s DLT OK on 247 metres.

In the days before downloads, and very little pocket money, the quickest way of getting hold of music was to sit with your finger poised over the pause button on your cassette recorder. But before long I was recording the bits in between the records as well, all those jingles and announcements. So started my collection of programmes and jingles that continues to this day.

Unfortunately I didn’t record much of David Hamilton’s afternoon show back in the late 70s, cassette tapes were still a bit pricey for me. But here is a collection of some of those Hamilton jingles with his mystery stars, hotshots, daily dollies and tea breaks. (Apologies for the somewhat variable quality).