I never got to see SAHB apart from on TV. I did see his drummer, Ted McKenna, play as Rory Gallagher’s drummer when Rory played Leeds Uni in 1980. Somewhere there is a TDK AD C60 cassette with a recording of that concert. Someone I knew smuggled the small cassette recorder into Leeds Union. This was before Walkmans et al. had been thought of!
And so just to remind us how good Mr. Harvey could be…
He doesn’t do much for me, but somehow the performances have a studied decadence that is reminiscent of the 1920s, I’m thinking of Walton’s Facade with Edith Sitwell bellowing her verses through a megaphone with intent to shock.
By heck… Annie Nightingale dead at 83. First female DJ on the BBC, Guinness world record holder for longest serving female presenter. Unlike many DJs of the time she didn’t just plug the mindless chart pap that was the staple of the BBC daytime radio. She had some taste. She didn’t play stuff I liked but I was more likely to be able to listen to what she played than others at the time. (Alan Freeman/Tommy Vance excepted.) I also remember listening to her with my sister if Fab 208 reception was pants at the time. (Fab 208 played plenty of rubbish but was just SO much cooler than Radio 1).
A photo from 60 years ago. I don’t what’s cooler, a young Annie Nightingale or that fantastic stereogram
I remember an Anne Nightingale disco at Bodington Hall during my final year at Leeds University 1979-1980.
I was not a “disco” sort of person, but this was quite different, probably because she did not play “disco” music.
Much more like John Peel or Bob Harris at the time.
I also remember listening to her Sunday afternoon request program on Radio 1, probably while pretending to study something.
Oh heck, Melanie ( Melanie Safka) checks out at 76 earlier this week.
I’d be 10 when Melanie’s big hit “Brand New Key” was in the charts. A simple song that was very popular. I wondered at the time how someone could only have one name failing to understand the concept of stage names. As a kid I never heard of Melanie again apart from when The Wurzels did their comedy cover “Brand New Combine Harvester” a few years later. Though she did write “Look What They Did To My Song” which I do remember from the time but not that it was Melanie.
There was a time when Brand New Key was never off the radio… it got a lot of play on Fabulous 208 but it was only after I read Melanie’s obituary in The Times yesterday that I looked her up on Youtube and saw what she looked like. ISTR that the UK’s only pop music program had dancers (Pan’s People and beautiful Babs) dance to it.
Here’s the video and 52 years is rolled back in an instant…
and the tune will be playing in your head for weeks now
I have “Love To Lose Again” on 7" vinyl from the album Madrugada which a work colleague had. Her style wasn’t quite my thing as I was more into groups and BTO were more my sights in 1974.
Edit - I played Madrugada on Youtube last night. It was a fair album… either that or I’m getting softer in my old age.
Not a musician, but a big influence on my youth. I first heard Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 1 Medium Wave in the early eighties. I worked in the local Spar shop for an hour every afternoon after school. I swept the floor and baled cardboard in the warehouse. There were radios on around the place, always tuned to Radio 1. I loved the comedy callers on the phone - Mr Angry, Old Lady, Sid the manager, Diamond geezer…then we had factoids, the posse and my favourite tunes.
Fast forward 40 years and Mo is gutted that her Sunday Morning Love Songs will be no more.
There was also a rumour that he held a radio amateur licence.
Yes quite a surprise. His Steve Wright in the Afternoon started when I was still at university. Same dire music as other daytime Radio1 programmes but some of the character callers lowered the tedium of Top-40 music. Mr. Angry was a classic. I very much doubt Gervais would get airtime now. There was another, Horrible Voice who could be amusing.
As for him as a DJ and his presenting style that never changed over 40 years, well they say you should not talk ill of the dead. So I wont.
But it’s another piece of my youth that has now gone. Mrs. FMF is lamenting the fact that The Body Shop may be closing as they have called in the administrators. She’s been shopping there since she was a teenager and said “Where will I get my nice gentle eye makeup remover now? I blame the youth of the today for not shopping there. It’s those damn makeup videos they watch on their phones that makes them all cheap hookers that’s the cause.” She did sound like Mr. Angry for a moment!
As soon as they announced Steve Wright had died I thought “that is one for the Formulative Years thread”. Over the years I’ve driven for many many hours listening to Steve on my way to / from site, a pleasant way to while away the miles.
I now rarely bother to listen to the radio on any of the main stations. It’s not the music that puts me off, but the inane prattle between tracks. A few gigabytes of SD card allows me to choose what I want to listen to.
Back in the Dark Ages (well, 1970’s) he was on Thames Valley Radio with Mike Read - The Read & Wright Show.
Will be missed - not good going SK at 69, and so suddenly
RIP OM
Yes, there’s about 35GB of MP3 files on an SDcard in my phone. For a while it was set up so that when I got in the car, the car audio system would control the phone by Bluetooth and you were away. But one day after adding another rip of a CD I’d just bought I exceeded the limit (pathetically small) for the car BT system and it stopped working. Works fine if you plug the phone in to the USB port. Bah, technology…they should have got me to write the software!
New phone and I found that if I select a music track on the phone for it to play then get in the car, BT syncs up and the audio pops out over the car system. That’s good. More over the car unit can select any of the tracks in that folder. So almost as good as before. The player stops when you get out of the car and continues when you get back in. Pluging in is no problem if you’re driving some distance but having BT working “sort-of” is great for shorter trips.
Radio… as I have got older I do find that I can turn on Radio4 and listen to the talking heads without boredom. Sure I don’t know who or what they are on about for sometime but it is quite pleasant listening to people who can string grunts into meaningful sentences for 30mins or so. Definitely the sign of older age
I was never a fan of Steve Wright’s radio programmes personally, but absolutely acknowledge that he was a skilled, innovative and incredibly popular broadcaster.
As for radio listening in the car - whether commuting, or heading to a SOTA activation (actually that’s usually both of those simultaneously when I’m in the car hi!) - I have been a huge fan of BBC Radio 5 Live since its launch, and its predecessor BBC Radio 5, which commenced the same summer I met Marianne - 1990. News, sport, Drivetime, Weeknights, Fighting Talk, Stephen Nolan, Nicky Campbell etc - I pretty much love all of it, and it’s by far my most common driving companion.
The only one I’m not so keen on is the “Wake Up To Money” which I encounter if setting off for SOTA before 6am. If that happens, I tune away. LBC is a candidate substitute - but nowhere near as good. Canalside Radio 102.8 FM is good, but only has a very local coverage it being a small-scale community station. BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service and Jazz FM are other go-to stations in the car (it’s great having DAB as well as FM/MW/LW as part of the satnav unit). If Marianne is in the car, it has to be BBC Radio 2, and when I’m on a road trip with Liam, he likes to go onto the analogue FM and scan around for local commercial stations and pirates.
This morning was different again as I had the Yaesu FTM-100 scanning through the memories for VHF/UHF activity. I was hoping to get into one of the Fusion nets but none of the nodes or repeaters with activity were good enough RX to bother. GB3CR “Chester” - but which I’m pretty sure is on Hope Mountain GW/NW-062 - was providing decent coverage. I had a nice chat with a GW4 and a HS8/G3 who was connecting in from Thailand using the DV-Link app.
I wasn’t much of a repeater op but GB3CR was the go-to repeater when I was on The Wirral. A sniff of 70cms would get you in from my QTH. Yes, on Hope Mountain. GB3LI (70cms) was a good signal but could be more awkward about access. CR was never really plagued with lunacy that Miss Piggy (GB3MP) was. Shall we say, CR had a much more up-market user base back in the 80s/90s
Dickey Betts, guitarist for The Allman Brother Band dead at 80.
There are some Allman Brothers songs which are brilliant and some which are too close to Country Music. But Dickey could play even if I didn’t like the track. So here’s a track I did like.
Dickey’s the guy with the long hair. Nope, they all have long hair. Dickey’s the guy with moustache. No they have one. OK Duane Allman plays slide guitar and Dickey is the other guitarist
