A little bit of radio broadcasting history happens today as,
for the first time since 1956, there will no longer four shipping forecasts a
day. This is all part of the plan to decommission Radio 4’s long wave
transmitter (see note) and to acknowledge that those at sea are more likely to
get their information electronically, e.g. NAVTEX.
It was in April 1956, Sunday 22nd to be precise,
that the BBC and the Met Office reorganised the broadcasting of the shipping
forecast so that it would be heard on 1500m long wave on the Light Programme.
Prior to that, since its resumption after the war, it had been carried on the
medium wave (and VHF) frequencies of the Home Service as part of their mixed
shipping and general weather bulletins.
Those initial Light Programme dedicated shipping forecasts
were heard at 7.45am, 1.40pm (12 noon on Sunday), 5.58pm (7.28pm on Sunday) and
12 midnight. By the end of the decade
the first bulletin was an hour earlier at 6.45am. By the mid-60s with the
extension of broadcasting hours the forecasts were at 6.45am, 1.55pm (11.55am
on Sunday), 5.58pm and 2.02am. The Sunday 11.55am bulletin, just before Family Favourites, was on long wave only
whilst listeners on VHF heard a 5-minute pre-recorded programme preview called Good Listening.
Radio Times (23 March 2024) on the long wave changes
By 1974 Radio 2 had forecasts at 6.33am, 1.55pm (11.55am on
Sunday), 5.55pm and 12.33am. A year later the VHF alternative of Good Listening was now heard twice on a
Sunday and during each weekday’s afternoon forecast.
Following the wavelength reshuffle in November 1978 the
forecasts came over to Radio 4 and were initially heard at 6.25am, 1.55pm,
5.50pm and 12.15am. The last ships moved to its now familiar 12.48am position
in 1995 and the afternoon reading shifted to 12 noon in 1998. The early morning
forecast moved progressively earlier to 5.55am, 5.35am and finally 5.20am on 24
April 2006.
Here's the last weekday 5.54pm forecast on long wave only from 29 March 2024 read by Al Ryan. The early evening forecast will continue on all frequencies on Saturday and Sunday.
Here's the last long wave only forecast read at 12 noon on 31 March 2024 by Ron Brown.
The other programme on the move today is the Daily Service, one of BBC radio’s
longest-running programmes, dating back to January 1928. On Radio 4 the 15
minute service has always been broadcast mid-morning with times varying between
10.00am, 10.15am, 10.30am and, since April 1998, on long wave only at 9.45am.
Today it makes the move over to Radio 4 Extra, which at least suggests that
station has got a reprieve. Yesterday in
Parliament is also due to move to 4 Extra though parliament is in the
Easter recess at the moment. Cricket
fans will be able to hear Test Match
Special on Radio 5 Sports Extra and on BBC Sounds.
Note: The closure of the long wave is now likely to be June
2025 due to the requirement to move about 900,000 households and businesses
from older Economy 7 electricity meters that rely on the Radio Teleswitching
Service (RTS) that is carried on the LW transmitter. As well as the Droitwich
transmitter the Radio 4 long wave broadcasts are provided at Burghead and
Westerglen to cover Scotland and Northern Ireland. Radio 4’s medium wave
transmitters will close on 15 April 2024. The affected transmitters are: Crystal
Palace 720 kHz, Redmoss 1449 kHz, Enniskillen 774 kHz, Lisnagarvey 720 kHz, Carlisle
1485 kHz, Wrekenton 603 kHz, Plumer Barracks 774 kHz, Redruth 756 kHz and Londonderry
720 kHz.
So The Now Show
becomes The Then Show after this next series as time is called on one of
radio’s longest running comedy shows. Punt and Dennis have casting their eye
over topical news stories for the last 26 years, a remarkable run. And when you
take into account their work on Live on
Arrival, The Mary Whitehouse Experience and It’s Been a Bad Week
the duo have been on the radio pretty much consistently for 36 years.
Steve and Hugh are not disappearing from BBC Radio 4
however:a second series The Train at Platform 4 follows in July,
Steve will be asking the questions on series 14 of The 3rd Degree also starting in July and together
they’ll be working on a podcast (naturally) called RouteMasters which will also be broadcast in October.
I’ve written about The
Now Show before back in 2015 – see That Was the Week – Part 6 – complete
with a couple of editions of the programme from 1998 and 2012. This time I’m
offering three more recordings.
Firstly, the series two opener from 3 April 1999. It’s worth
pointing out that The Now Show wasn’t
yet a Friday night comedy fixture, that happened from series four. This edition
went out on Saturday at 6.15 pm, the old Week
Ending repeat slot, with an in-week repeat on Tuesday at 11 pm. Early
series tended to rely more on a regular team rather than a number of guest
contributors. In this show the regulars are David Quantick, Emma Clarke, Dan
Freedman, Nick Romero , Jane Bussmann and the guest is Kevin Day.
The Wikipedia entry for the show mentions the time in July
2005 when the show was recorded without an audience due to the London bombings
on the day of recording. Of course that entry should probably be updated to
mention the shows in 2020 for series 57 and 58 that had to be recorded remotely
with no audience due to Covid-19 restrictions. Anyway here is that 22 July 2005
edition with Mitch Benn, Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin and guest Andy Zaltzman.
Back to 2016 and just two months before THAT referendum this
show from the start of series 48 features Gemma Arrowsmith, Marcus Brigstocke (both appear in the first show tonight) and an early appearance by Mae Martin. It’s from the period when they had the
bright idea of including a journalist or some expert talking about an issue of
the day, a spot that often drained the comedy out of the programme, in this
show its Felicity Spector from Channel 4 News on the impending US presidential
election.
The 64th and final series of The Now Show starts tonight and runs for six weeks.
Richard Wiseman wrote abou the ending of The Now Show for the Radio Times (w/c 13 April 2024)
As any BBC Radio 4 controller knows, you ‘refresh’ the
schedules at your peril. And what’s more, to tinker with The Archers is sure to incur the wrath of any dyed-in-the-wool Ambridge
fan. Cue the letters in green ink and emails fired off to Feedback.
But this is exactly what Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya is
doing from next month as the Sunday omnibus edition of The Archers is shifted by an hour to the later start time of 11am.
Taking its place after Broadcasting House
is an extended one hour Desert Island
Discs. As a sop to listeners whose Sunday morning routines will now be in
disarray the omnibus edition will be available online at midnight, presumably
so that Archers listeners can play it out for themselves just after Paddy
O’Connell has signed off.
To be fair the omnibus edition has been at 10am on Sundays
for the last 26 years. It was moved forward by 15 minutes in April 1998 under
the controllership of James Boyle. He’d gain himself something of a reputation
as schedule meddler -in-chief, changing the time of the weekday editions of The Archers from 1.40pm to 2pm, dropping
the repeat of the Friday edition (reinstated in the new changes) and adding a
Sunday evening edition. Boyle also
extended Today, changed the start time of Woman’s Hour lopped 10 minutes offThe World at One and dropped the likes of Kaleidoscope
(for Front Row), Week Ending, Sport on 4 and Breakaway.
Interestingly Desert Island Discs
also moved from 12.15pm to 11.15am where it also has remained until next month.
But surely The Archers
omnibus edition has always been on a Sunday morning? Well, no it hasn’t, as
this dip into the schedules of Radio 4, the Light Programme and the Home
Service will demonstrate.
7.30 pm on Saturday
Well that surprised you. Yes, when the omnibus editions
first started on 5 January 1952 – a year after the programme had first been
nationally broadcast – it was on a Saturday night. In 1952 it was on the Light
Programme so followed programmes such as Sports Report, Jazz Club and Radio Newsreel.
4.00 pm on Sunday
From 26 July 1953 the omnibus moves to Sunday. Why? Well
I’ll come to that.
7.30 pm on Saturday
Yes even Light Programme controller Kenneth Adam liked to
move the radio furniture now and then as the omnibus is back to Saturday night
by the end of September 1953. That same week saw the start of Friday Night is Music Night, also recently in the news as it
re-appears on Radio 3.
9.10 am on Sunday
Listeners can, in July, August and September 1954, now ‘have
breakfast with The Archers’. But
what’s behind this Saturday night/Sunday morning swapping? Well it coincides
with the summer Proms concerts. In the 1950s the Proms were not the exclusive
preserve of the Third Programme and would also be broadcast on the Light and
the Home Service. This summer pattern continues in 1955.
7.30 pm on Saturday
This remains the usual slot apart from when the Proms are on
in 1955. The Sunday morning versions start at 9.10 am and run for 50 minutes
rather than the usual one hour so actually there’s a bit of editing going on
here to make the omnibus version fit the timeslot.
8.00 pm on Saturday
It’s moved on by half-an-hour from 1 October 1955. In the
summer of 1956 it again pops up on Sunday, this time at 3.15 pm. In mid July
1957 it temporarily moves to Sundays at 9.10 am.
12.15 pm on Saturday
For some reason, between 28 September and 30 November 1957,
the omnibus is now heard on the Home Service on Saturday lunchtime, again in a
truncated form. The weekday editions remain on the Light Programme.
9.45 am on Sunday
Finally, from 8 December 1957, the omnibus edition ends up
on Sundays where it has remained ever since. Back in 1957 on the Light
Programme it was followed at 10.30 am by Easy
Beat, so it remains very much edited down from the regular weekday broadcasts.
9.32 am on Sunday
On 1 January 1961 it moves back a few minutes and is now just
under an hour long so presumably we’re now getting the full weekly story. It
follows Chapel in the Valley and a
two-minute news bulletin at 9.30 am.
9.30 am on Sunday
From 30 August 1964 the Home Service takes the Sunday
morning omnibus and, as it happens, Chapel
in the Valley. Meanwhile over on the Light they have The Record Show with Geoffrey Wheeler followed by Easy Beat. The fact that Radio Caroline,
with its all day pop programmes, had started earlier that year is purely
coincidental surely!
Meanwhile from 14 December 1964 the Home Service starts to
repeat the previous day’s Light Programme broadcast. From Monday 2 January 1967
the Home Service broadcast all editions of The
Archers .The Home Service becomes BBC Radio 4 on 30 September of that year.
6.15 pm on Sunday
In 1976 Ian McIntyre is appointed as the new controller of
Radio 4 and a year later, from 2 October 1977 he causes major consternation by
moving The Archers omnibus to Sunday
evening at 6.15 pm; at the same time dislodging Letter from America from Sunday morning to lunchtime. Listeners
complain in droves. Correspondents to the Radio
Times were not happy: ‘I feel like weeping...the most disastrous change of
all” (Renee Obard, Salisbury) and ‘change for the sake of change has no appeal’
(S.C. Russell, Bolton). Even the offering of a quadraphonic stereo transmission
– for the first omnibus edition at any rate – failed to impress: ‘the pleasure
afforded to a few listeners of hearing The
Archers in stereo and quad must surely be outweighed by the discomfort
caused to those who, like myself, are now denied the pleasure of listening at
all, albeit in humble mono’ (R. Collingwood, Camberley)
The incoming Director General Ian Trethowan tells McIntyre to
think again. Bizarrely someone protests by nailing both an abusive letter and a
kipper to the door of McIntyre’s son’s room at his Cambridge college. BBC
Governor Lady Seota complains that it has “up-ended her life”. Eventually after
increasing pressure from listeners and the governors McIntrye relents and the
omnibus programme reverts back to Sunday mornings from July 1979.
10.15 on Sunday
This becomes the new time for the omnibus edition for the
next 19 years. Returning to Sunday morning on 1 July 1979 it is preceded by Letter from America (which had already
been moved back to Sunday morning) and the Morning
Service and followed by Weekend
Woman’s Hour, back on air after been dropped in late 1974.
10.00 on Sunday
On 19 April 1998 there are changes to Radio 4 Sunday
morning’s schedule as mentioned above. At 9 am we get a brand new programmes Broadcasting House in which ‘Eddie Mair
presents a fresh approach to news’ followed by The Archers now 15 minutes earlier and also 15 minutes longer. And that is how things have
remained until now.
Wogan House falls silent this month as engineers continue to
decommission the BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music studios. The stations have been based
in what was then Western House since 2006, at the time of the Broadcasting House
re-development. Prior to that there were some production booths in the building. Radio 2 and 6 Music have been moving into new studios back over
in NBH, with the daytime news bulletins now coming from studio WG1. Any
late-night revelries in the BBC Club, also in Wogan House, ended in December 2023
prior to its move into the existing Media Cafe area by the end of April.
Studio 6A in Wogan House (2018)
The BBC first occupied Western House in 1953 and for many
years it was the home of the Designs Group of the Engineering division. A car
showroom remained on the ground floor premises until the early 60s. Later the
Recorded Sound Effects Library moved in.
Western House in 2015. The following year on 16 November 2016 it was renamed Wogan House
The lease for the building will transfer to Landmark Space
who propose to use it as ‘flexible office spaces’. It will be known as 99 Great
Portland Street.
Studio 6B (2024)
Studio 4D (2024)
As far as I’m aware the last 6 Music show from Wogan House is
today with Gideon Coe, in for Cerys Matthews. The last Radio 2 shows are this
coming Friday.
I first
heard Steve Brown on Radio 4’s late-night live comedy show In One Ear. His songs, musical skits and attempts to paint
himself as the “affable sex symbol” were an integral part of the show. Press
releases of the time also described him variously as “a good natured Nicholas
Ball”, “the versatile Brown” and “the man who wrote the press release”.
In One Ear enjoyed a run of three series of live
Saturday late-night shows (plus a recorded pilot and a Christmas special)
between 1983 and 1986. It brought together a cast of four: Nick Wilton principally
an actor though also in revue and a scriptwriter, stand-up comedian Helen Lederer, musician
Steve Brown and actor Clive Mantle. Mantle’s height (6’5½”) and his role at the time as Little John in
ITV’s Robin of Sherwood was the
subject of much ribbing in the show.
Before In One Ear both Nick and Steve had
worked together a number of times. In 1982 they appeared in the Perrier award-winning
show Writer’s Inc. alongside Jamie
Rix and Vicky Pile. Rix would go on to produce In One Ear and Vicky wrote for it. (Nick’s first professional role
was in the farce Simple Spymen
directed by Jamie’s dad the veteran farceur Brian Rix). Wilton and Brown also worked together in the
Spring of 1982 in a two-week run at the Fortune Theatre of News Revue, an attempt at a musical satire show with Wilton in the
cast and Brown at the piano. In July 1982 there was a limited run of Ha Bloody Ha! at the Gate in Notting
Hill. This sketch and music show also featured Jan Ravens, at the time a radio
comedy producer (Week Ending etc.). The
following year she and Steve would marry (they divorced in 1993) and from 1986
to 1988 they were part of the Sunday morning Brunch crew on Capital Radio (CFM) with Roger Scott, Jeremy Pascall,
Paul Burnett and later Angus Deayton.
Steve’s
first radio gig was as a song writer on the 1982 sketch show Three Plus One. Produced by Jan Ravens
it also featured the musical talents of Philip Pope, already an established
performer on Radio Active. This led
to Steve working with Philip on future series of Radio Active and, a few years later, on Spitting Image.
To introduce
the first series in May 1984, Radio Times
staff writer David Gillard wrote this article. By the way, take the reference to
The Goons as the last live comedy
show with a large pinch of salt. That show was, to my knowledge, always
recorded, though interestingly enough the In
One Ear team do reference The Goons in the pilot episode.
The art of living dangerously
The sign on
the door of one of the BBC Radio Light Entertainment offices reads: ‘Prefects
Common Room. Knock before Entering’. Inside, the wine bottles and paper cups on
the table suggest St Trinians, though the assembled ‘prefects’ seems a studious
bunch. Here, in earnest conclave are the producer, writer and performers of In One Ear – radio’s first live comedy
show since the Goons.
‘Above all,
we have to justify going out live at 11.30,’ producer Jamie Rix, tells his
team. ‘We’re not going to hide behind the format – we’re going to be different
and we’ve got to be dangerous. The audience at home must be unsure about which
way we’re heading. We must constantly take them by surprise by going off at
unexpected tangents.’
The
programmes’ tongue-in-cheek publicity poster describes In One Ear as ‘somewhere between alternative cabaret and a puerile adolescent
undergraduate revue’. Jamie, in a more serious moment, prefers to call it ‘cabaret
revue with a satirical element’. The four performers Nick Wilton (late of Carrott’s Lib), stand-up comedienne Helen
Lederer, Radio Active songwriter
Steve Brown and actor Clive Mantle –share the burden of providing Rix with ‘seamless
comedy’.
Though occasionally
adopting another persona, they will all be playing themselves – or, at least
what they see as their ‘radio selves’. Nick is ‘paranoid and politically naive’;
Helen is ‘slightly embarrassed and neurotic’, modest Steve ‘a romantic crooner
and an affable sex symbol’, while Big Clive (recently seen as Little John in
ITV’s Robin of Sherwood) is ‘the
thick-set, strong-voiced type’.
Jamie Rix,
who produced Radio Active and The Best of Bentine and was once a
writer on Not the Nine O’Clock News believes
they have the recipe for a controversial, hard-hitting comedy success, though
there will be no attempt to shock for shock’s sake. ‘We’ve been put into a slot
where we can offend the least people-just before the Shipping Forecast’ he says
with a grin. ‘But we’re not out to offend. We’re out to challenge.’
So here is
that first episode from Saturday 12 May 1984. Although Radio 7/Radio 4 Extra
have repeated some episodes I’m not aware that this was been heard since. The
show doesn’t entirely eschew BBC comedy traditions as there’s a parody poking
fun at the recent Granada tv series The
Jewel in the Crown and a Fats Waller gag straight out of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again. “It’s
time for comedy....”
From a
couple of weeks later comes the third show. It includes Steve and Nick singing Hello Alexei, referencing Alexei Sayle’s
‘Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? that had
charted a couple of months previously. Hello
Alexei was itself released as a single on the Red Door label at the end of
1984. The B side Nobody Ever Listens to
the B Side featured Nick doing his John Cooper Clarke impression as he had
done in the pilot episode. The single didn’t chart.
Steve Brown’s
death at the age of 66 was announced last week.
In One Ear episode guide:
All
programmes (except pilot) broadcast live at 2330 on Saturday night
Pilot:
Tuesday 27 December 1983
Series 1: 12
May 1984 to 30 June 1984 (8 programmes)
Christmas
Special: 22 December 1984
Series 2: 16
February 1985 to 6 April 1985 (8 programmes)
Series 3: 30
November to 1 February 1985, except 21st and 28th
December (8 programmes)
The In One Ear poster comes from Nick's website nickwilton.com
This week BBC Radio 4 Extra begins a repeat of the recently
recovered second series ofWrinkles,
the 1981 sitcom from Grant and Naylor starring Tom Mennard and Anthea Askey. For
a comedian with nearly 30 years of experience under his belt the 1980s were a
busy period for Tom as he undertook an increasing number of acting roles.
Born in Leeds in 1918 Tom Mennard had appeared in amateur
children’s pantomimes. His wartime service was in the Royal Engineers and he
also played in Divisional Concert Party Shows. On demob he found work as a bus conductor
and then driver with Brighton & Hove Omnibus Co. but the pull of the
theatre meant he still performed in amateur revue whenever he could. His time
on the buses sounded like an episode of the LWT sitcom with Mennard getting
into trouble for his comic antics, telling stories to the local kids rather
than taking the bus out and impersonating a ticket inspector.
Coming to the attention of singer Donald Peers, who was
touring in Brighton at the time, he suggested Tom go for an audition with the
BBC; he was successful and made an appearance on the BBC tv’s Show Case (15 March 1954) presented by
Benny Hill. On advice from Hill he auditioned at that well-known training
ground for budding comedians, London’s Windmill Theatre. Successful only on his
third attempt Vivian Van Damm told him to commence in the show starting in one
hour, he stayed there for a year.
Variety and theatre work followed such as the Moss Empire’s New Faces of 1956, the Fol de Rols-“the famous song and laugh
show”- Masquerade (this was alongside
Pamela Cundall, later Mrs Fox in Dad’s
Army), summer seasons back up in Yorkshire at Bridlington and Scarborough
and, perhaps most significantly in the touring revue show Music for the Millions. Starring in the show was his idol Robb
Wilton, then nearing the end of his career. Wilton’s style of delivery of his
famous monologues heavily influenced Mennard’s act, especially his meandering Local Tales. (see below)
Alongside the theatre
work there were tv spots including Camera
One and The Good Old Days and dozens
of radio appearances throughout the 1950s and 1960s on Midday Music-Hall, Workers’ Playtime, Variety Playhouse, Holiday Playhouse and London Lights.
from Panto Archive
In the latter half of the 1960s Tom hosted regular seasons
of Old Tyme Music Hall in Newquay and
on Radio 2 in 1968 acted as the chairman on Come
to the Music-Hall, a radio equivalent of The Good Old Days. Panto work included Goody Two Shoes at Hull’s New Theatre in 1969 which I was in the
audience for (oh no you weren’t!). His co-stars were local lad Norman Collier,
Jimmy Thompson and McDonald Hobley.
Comedy panel show work followed in the 1970s with regular
gigs on You’ve Got to Be Joking
(Radios 2 & 4 1977-80) and Funny You
Should Ask (Radio 2 1978-80). From 1980 the majority of Tom’s work was as
an actor mainly on tv but also in the two series of Wrinkles (Radio 4 1980-81). Wrinkles
was made in Manchester by the veteran comedy producer Mike Craig. Writers Rob
Grant and Doug Naylor were apparently introduced to Tom Mennard by Mike Craig
in the BBC bar. Grant recalls: ‘Tom was a naturally funny guy, with a unique
and distinct delivery. He was always “on”. But not one of those annoying,
not-really-very-funny people who are always straining to get a laugh: he was
actually funny. He would play practical jokes constantly, weaving some
fantastical story to innocent, hapless bystanders without making them the butt
of the joke. I once saw him on his knees outside a closed lift door, shouting
“Well how did you get stuck down there?” That kind of thing.’
In Wrinkles
Mennard plays the handyman in an old people’s home. His co-star was Anthea
Askey, daughter of big-hearted Arthur who Tom had worked with year’s earlier. He’d
appeared with Anthea in Dick Whittington
at the Sunderland Empire just the year before. Also in the cast were Ballard
‘Morning Fawlty’ Berkeley, David Ross, Gordon Salkilld and Nick Maloney. After
a successful pilot a series was commissioned to air in April and May 1980. A
second series followed in November and December 1981. The BBC dumped or
otherwise lost the tapes of Wrinkles
but off-air recordings were returned and series one was repeated late last year
and the second starts today.
It was around this time that Tom was also given his own
series on Radio 2. Local Tales was a
series of short monologues, each about 13 minutes, that aired at intervals from
1981 to 1987. The scene was his local pub the Goat and Compasses and the
rambling stories were about Tom and his mates Harry, Charlie and Fred.
Throughout the 1980s most of Tom’s work was as a actor in a
number of tv series, particularly Oh
Happy Band with Harry Worth (BBC 1980), Foxy
Lady (Granada 1982-84), Open All
Hours (BBC 1982-85) and, most notably, as Sam Tindall in Coronation Street between 1985 and 1989.
As Sam he would often be sparring with Percy Sugden for the affections of
Phyllis Pearce. Sugden and Pearce were played by Bill Waddington and Jill
Summers whom Mennard had first met during his Windmill Theatre days. Sam
Tindall appeared in the soap, often with his dog Dougal who was, by all
accounts, Tom’s own dog, in over sixty episodes. His last appearance was in May
1989. Just six months later Tom Mennard died.
Back to Local Tales
and my recording comes from the final series in 1987. There are five shows on
YouTube including this one but I’ve also uploaded it as it includes some
continuity. The theme is Johnny Pearson’s Corn
on the Keys (KPM 1008 issued in 1966).
Tracking down the details of all the broadcasts of Local Tales has not been easy due to
some inconsistent labelling of repeats and industrial action affecting the
printing of the Radio Times.
3 episodes: 5 March to 19 March 1981
5 episodes: 16 December 1981 to 13 January 1982. All but one
of these, the 30 December 1981 programme, are listed as a repeat but given that
only 3 episodes were in the first series this can’t be the case.
16 episodes: 21 April to 4 August 1982
8 episodes: 28 January to 18 March 1983
3 episodes: 19 April to 10 May 1983. Not clear if these are
new or repeats as the National editions of the Radio Times have reduced listing
information.
4 episodes: 1 April to 22 April 1984 (all repeats)
6 episodes: 20 March to 24 April 1985
4 episodes: 27 November to 18 December 1985
6 episodes: 4 February to 11 March 1987
There were selected repeats in late 1989 following Tom’s
death and a further six repeated shows in late 1990.
You can hear Tom in a Workers' Playtime revival from 1982 on my YouTube channel here
Writing a
song with radio in the title is a surefire way to grab some airplay. With luck
that airplay will translate into a hit record. Perhaps that thought was going
through the mind of songwriter Paul Battle when, in 1977, he penned Radio Loves You a paean to the joys of
listening to the radio “a love affair on the air.”
Promotional
copies of the single were sent round to US radio stations with a stereo mix on
one side and a mono version on the flipside, to cater for both FM and AM
stations. Paul’s version was released in the States and in Australia by A&M
and in Europe, or at least the Netherlands, by CBS. On the B side was another
of his songs Baby, I’m Falling in Love
With You. Paul Robert Battle (1949-2012) wrote over 200 songs but this song
remains his best known.
But it
doesn’t end there because in November of that year another version of the song
was released, this time by an act calling themselves Gadzooks. It seems likely
that Gadzooks was a group of session players and singers brought together for this
recording. Again a stereo/mono promotional copy was circulated. It went on
general release on the GRT label with Holiday,
written by Jack Grochmal, on the B side. Interestingly the lyrics for the
second verse were re-written for the Gadzooks version.
The
original lyrics read:
Lovely maid in your Cadillac that day was serenaded
by the sounds of I’ll be true,
The three of us were there, no one seemed to
care, not the radio, not me or even you.
These were
changed to:
You’re feeling down and your chin is on the
ground from the hassles in your life from day to day,
Then you hear your song and you start to sing-a-long
as the radio blows all your blues away.
Both songs
did get US airplay; according to the comments on YouTube uploads stations
WRSU-FM, WCOR, KKUA, KSTN, KACY and KHJ are mentioned. As far as I can tell
chart success eluded both releases as they failed to make the Billboard Hot 100
or the Dutch or Australian charts.
My
attention was drawn to these recordings when they were featured recently on Jon
Wolfert’s weekly show on Rewound Radio. Jon also shows us how the Gadzooks
record was used by JAM Creative Productions to create a bespoke version for
WAKY radio in Louisville. Here’s how this played out on Jon’s show on 7 January
2024.
The song
lived again two years later when, in 1979, Swedish group Säwes recorded it under the title Radion spelar för dig with lyrics by Björn Håkanson (you can find
it on YouTube). Säwes seemed to specialise in
cover versions as their records also included Let Your Love Flow, Paloma
Blanca and RFSU (their equivalent
of YMCA).
Jon’s three
hour show, a mixture of music and jingle features, can be heard online on
Rewound Radio each Sunday at 3 pm US Eastern time.