Teenage Memories
The BBC4 season looking back over the past fifty plus years of rock and pop music has been providing some great memories, debating points and time for reflection. Over on the Radio Two message board there have been some good discussions about the Pop Britannia and Pop on Trial series and also about the one-off programmes such as the excellent Paul Morley's excellent programme which dissected exactly what it was that make pop lyrics so memorable, there was also a great programme that dissected several pop classics ranging from Bohemian Rhapsody, via Knowing Me Knowing You, Joni Mitchell's Blue to The Smiths This Charming Man.
I know I'm biased because The Smiths are my favourite band of all time but it was great seeing Morrissey's lyrics blown up on the television screen and the poet Simon Armitage deconstructing them. He actually managed to confirm what I'd always thought the lyrics "The leather runs smooth on the passenger seat," was a metaphor for.
The Old Grey Whistle Test has had some of his choicest moments replayed and before the programme was aired there was a thread on the music board about people's memories. One of my personal favourites were the black and white films that used to accompany music tracks in the days before videos were made and the band concerned either didn't want to appear on television or just never did. The black and white film that was shown to accompany Led Zeppelin's Trampled Underfoot remains one of my personal cherished memories and I was relieved to see somebody else mention it after my posting, proof I wasn't dreaming it!
Pop Britannia is one of those series that the BBC does brilliantly, archived material and interviews with people who were there at the time - this isn't one of those silly Channel 4 programmes where non-entity Z-list celebrities pop-up with inane comments, this is the real deal. The thing that struck me watching the second programme in the series, it covered 1961-1973, was how exciting The Rolling Stones were when they burst onto the scene. I've always been a fan of the Stones and saw them back in 1976 but having been born in 1960 I wasn't old enough to appreciate the cultural and musical impact they had first hand. Seeing them perform Get Off Of My Cloud last night you could see the raw energy and the excitement.
The Top of The Pops performance is below, best played loud! I have to confess that seeing those early Top of The Pops performances always makes me feel sorry for Brian Jones as you know that 'his band' is slowly slipping away from him, he looks almost wistful when the camera cuts to him. (I'm an old softie) The other thing that this clip confirms is that Charlie Watts is the coolest guy in the history of music, if not the world!
Pop on Trial is a series presented by Stuart Maconie and features each decade from the 1950's to the 1990's, each programme featuring one of the said decades. The first programme (1950's surprise, surprise) featured clips and music from the decade and the thoughts of C.P Lee, Pete Wylie and Joe Brown. Anybody who approached the programme thinking that Joe Brown was just another guitar player with a slightly dodgy haircut, cockney accent and a daughter who is probably more famous than he is these days who have been in for a pleasant shock. Joe Brown has a CV that contains all the stuff and legend of a Hollywood biopic, the stories of having to play lead guitar for Eddie Cochran because he, Joe Brown, couldn't play the rhythm parts was brilliant as were his tales of the famous people he worked with at the time. Pete Wylie is one of my musical heroes and hearing his take on the music that would eventually influence his work was interesting and C.P Lee is one of those guys who you could listen to all night. It was interesting to hear how The Beatles had been groomed in the world of entertainment whilst learning their trade but subsequently not being forced down that road, whilst Cliff Richard had started as a rock n' roll singer but then drifted into the safe world of family entertainment. As Stuart Maconie said, "Perhaps he should have stopped singing in 1963," to which C.P Lee replied, "Perhaps he should have been killed!"
The series of programmes have also featured re-runs of the Classic Albums series that has been shown on various channels over the past few years, we've been treated to re-runs of the Fleetwood Mac Rumours and Pink Floyd Dark Side of The Moon programmes this week. Watching Roger Waters and David Gilmour talk there was an overwhelming sense, for me at least, that both parties wished they could be back in a studio together but that the past was irreconcilable. Great album and for me it contains one of those À la recherche du temps perdu moments. Whenever I hear Time I am transported back to the summer of 1974, sitting in a school classroom singing Time at the top of my voice whilst a friend of mine used our English books as a substitute for Nick Mason's drums.
It's all been an unabashed nostalgia fest though, re-runs of a 1960 Juke Box Jury had me turning to Janis and remarking, "What a relief The Beatles came along," and the 1968 edition of Top Of The Pops that was broadcast just serve to prove that every era has its duff tunes as well.
8 comments:
Oh dear Paul, I was 17 in 1965, and I remember watching the Stones on TOTP.
The Sixties was so exciting after the Fifties, we just couldn't believe our luck to be teenagers in that decade !
I see your namesake from the Pirate Radio station has passed away...
And from those days(you cannot keep up with every group or public figure)but the lead singer of the Fortunes has also passed on in the past few days.
I'm sure the 50's were exciting compared to the 40's and as Curmy says the same is true of the 60's.
But good music wins through and I still can get excited listening to music of the 40's...the Big Bands and vocalists were playing their "pop"
What a lot happened in the ten years between 1957-1967.
You go from Rock n Roll and artists like Elvis to the 60's pop explosion and the clichéd Summer Of Love, Pirate Radio and the start of Radio 1 etc...
Watching Six Five Special was interesting and looking at as much those in the audience.
Who was Jo Douglas? What else did she do? And to have her credited as the programme's producer. Rare at that time?
To break off from the music to have a documentary about hill walking, whose idea was that?
An interesting bit of tv history. How much of the programme was Rock and Roll? Very little. It was mainly jazz and band based. Micahel Holliday popular yes but with teenagers and young adults, I doubt it.
I hope to catch some more of these archive programmes. And documentaries which the BBC do as you say...very well.
Hi Curmy and Gildy, thanks for dropping by.
Curmy you've said exactly what I felt watching the re-runs,the 50's did seem tame until about 1955 but looking at the Stones they just seemed so exicting.
Gildy - I didn't know about my namesake dying, funnily enough I found some old recordings of him on the internet a while ago, I knew about the Fortunes lead singer though.
The Six Five special was fascinating to watch - the thing that struck me, apart from the eclectic mix of music and items (Spike Milligan and mountaineering!) was the audience looked so natural - no posing for the cameras, hardly anybody looking at the camera either.
Great post agian Paul but overshadowed by the fact that CURMY IS SIXTY THIS YEAR!!! ;-)
I like the Stones and the Smiths too but must say a lot of what you've written is new to me...and of course I can't see the programme (I think)
My 'strongest' memory of OGWT was Meatloaf doing a sexually explicit (SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tame by today's standards) duet "Paradise by teh dashboard Light" with Ellen Foley.
I think the music would be familiar either because you've heard it on the radio over the years and if you have a wide appreciation of many types of music(young and old)
There are many pop tunes that areexciting but I can equally hear certain tunes associated to the 40's and still get that tingle...
It was an eclectic mix as Paul says, from jive to jazz to rock and roll I suppose in hindsight(though having Michael Holiday there was a bit strange)as I said. Thought the coloured group at the end(sorry if that's the incorrect term)were very good at what they did.
Interesting that a guest on the programme was Ray Anthony a famous band leader(originally in the Glenn Miller Band)but all they could do was have a short caht with him and not have him actually perform in the studio for whatever reason.
oops, I've made an error(I don't very often ;-)
Your namesake may still be alive and on the 17th February will be 74years of age.
It's Dave Dennis(another Pirate)who has left us.
What was I thinking of?
Span, even more depressing, I was 60 last November !
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