Music – Page 29 – Ian Louis Harris

One Of My Lost Recordings Found: The Animals Live In 1963, (My Recording c late 1977)

Photo of The Animals by Richard William Laws, CC BY-SA 3.0

I started avidly listening to contemporary (late 20th century) music towards the end of 1977. Until then, apart from an early burst of enthusiasm for it in the late 1960s, when I was a very wee nipper, I had listened almost exclusively to classical and middle-brow music.

Friends, neighbours and family helped me out by lending me records and cassettes. As did the Streatham Library. I would scrape the recording onto reel-to-reel tape and then listen to it a great deal.

I shall document some more of my “discoveries” over time, but I have recently (December 2021 as I write) rediscovered one of those recordings that I thought was lost.

All I had written on the reel was “Animals Live 1963” and/but that spool was completely unplayable when I tried to digitise it in the late 2000s. I searched on line, at that time, but to no avail.

While researching something completely different the other day, I discovered the following upload, made in 2018, which is it.

If you like that sort of music, it really is rather good and captures the vibe of live blues-infused pop/rock of that era. If you don’t like that sort of music, it should nevertheless sound quaint and might be interesting for you.

I especially like the bit, at c15’50”, when Eric Burdon explains that he is going to remove his helmet so he can shake his head “like The Rolling Stones”

The sound quality of the above link is much better than my scrape from a Streatham Library recording (which I think was in cassette rather than record format).

The other thing to say is that the recording I had was only the first six tracks, which are The Animals without guest. The above recording has 10 additional tracks with Sonny Boy Williamson as guest artist.

Anyway, I couldn’t allow the inadvertent finding of this recording pass without noting it and embedding it as a link in Ogblog. Enjoy.

Visiting The Slipped Disc in Clapham Junction With Paul Deacon, 10 August 1977

I have happy memories of visiting The Slipped Disc in Clapham Junction with Paul Deacon. I was reminded of those record hunts the other day, when circumstances took me to 28 Pembridge Road, which was Record and Tape Exchange in years gone by. I wrote up those 1978 record hunts here.

The Slipped Disc days were earlier. My trawl of my diary yields two diary references to visiting the Slipped Disc with Paul Deacon:

Wednesday 10 August 1977 – went to Slipped Disc with Paul. Bought 72 records for 72p

Then a couple of months later:

Saturday 8 October 1977 – went down to Slipped Disc with Paul. Bridge in evening

I probably need to provide some context to the mention of 72p. Back in 1977, my parents would give me 10p a week pocket money. Grandma Anne would give me 50p in a week when I saw her, but that was expected to be “saving money” for big things. (I’m still not sure what such big things are, which probably explains why I remain reluctant to buy things. Just in case they aren’t big enough.)

I could supplement my 10p a week “frittering money” by:

saving a bit from my school fare by walking some of the way;
winning at Kalooki against mum and Grandma Anne on a Sunday. On average, I tended to be up a few pence when we played, but of course I’d lose sometimes too;
in the summer I could occasionally earn a penny per weed to relieve dad of that particular arduous task.

In short, 72p back then was real money to me. But 72 discs was a real haul too.

Singles wasn’t really my thing, to be honest (more albums, me), but my goodness singles was Paul Deacon’s thing. I’m not sure how formative these Slipped Disc trips were in his astonishing career as a collector, archivist and DJ – Paul might choose to explain that for himself.

I mentioned in my discussion with Paul on the Record and Tape Exchange business, that I planned to write about The Slipped Disc this weekend and Paul said:

I look forward to revisiting the ‘Disc. Here’s a comment online that resonates. He mentions Melodisc. We picked loads between us didn’t we?

Click here for that Disc Deletion/Slipped Disc comment Paul mentions.

Sadly, not all of my Slipped Disc purchases seem to have made it to my log and/or collection. Only 34 Slipped Disc ones are catalogued and that must cover several visits.

I might just have a box of uncatalogued singles somewhere or they might not have made it from the house. I’ll have a look in the flat, but I don’t hold much hope. For example, what became of my copy of Bulgarian Betrothal by…whoever on earth did Bulgarian Betrothal? Most of those that didn’t make it were probably truly awful. Some of those that did make it are a bit embarrassing to be honest, although Hard Work by John Handy had me grooving and syncopating in my chair just now.

The extract linked here as an aside shows the first 40 singles in my collection, numbers 7 to 40 being my Slipped Disc purchases.

The first six deserve a mention, though, not least because the first five will also be Slipped Disc purchases, but those made by my dad some years earlier, when in search of music to use as backing tracks for films. The Wailers record is quite rare, I think. They probably all are. Goodness knows what dad would have paid for those in old money. Probably 1d each. Maybe a ha’penny each.

Record 6 in the collection was the very first record I owned. Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear by the Alan Price Set. Bless.

I’m really hoping that Paul will chime in with some more memories of these visits. I’m also going to send a link to the Clapham Junction nostalgics who hang out together on Facebook to see if we can generate some additional chat about the amazing record shop that was The Slipped Disc.

Stop For The Music by The Nutrons, An Aside To The Aside To The Slipped Disc Posting Of 10 August 1977

The above image “borrowed” from Discogs but if you click here you can read more about this record and even try to buy a copy, so I’m sure Discogs won’t mind

This posting is an aside to my listing of the first forty singles in my collection, which itself is an aside to my posting about my visit with Paul Deacon to The Slipped Disc in Clapham Junction in August 1977, which is where/when I bought most of those singles.

Visiting The Slipped Disc in Clapham Junction With Paul Deacon, 10 August 1977

Paul is now (writing in December 2020), amongst other things, a DJ in Ontario, Canada. Paul is the braver sort of DJ; he likes to push his listeners’ boundaries. But I thought he pushed those boundaries beyond the limits on one occasion a few years ago – soon after I published the piece about The Slipped Disc, when he played, as a “request” for me on his show, Stop For The Music by the Nutrons.

Foolishly, I had imagined that Paul would not be able to source such a thing in Canada and even if he could he wouldn’t broadcast it.

Wrong and wrong again.

What does Stop For The Music by The Nutrons sound like?…

…I hear you all cry.

Here is the digitised copy of my single, which has languished in a rather unloved box of singles for more than 40 years.

Dare I say, enjoy!?

The First 40 Singles in My Collection, An Aside To Slipped Disc Posting, 10 August 1977

Set out neatly in a pdf from my iTunes here…First Forty Singles Landscape

…or quoted as a simple listing from my old Access database below.

001,Genie With The Light Brown,Shadows

001,Little Princess,Shadows

002,Shindig,Shadows

002,It’s Been a Blue Day,Shadows

003,Zero-G,Barry Gray

003,Fireball,Barry Gray

004,Playboy,Wailers

004,Your Love,Wailers

005,Funny,Ken Lazrus

005,Walk Like a Dragon,Byron Lee Orchestra

006,Simon Smith And The Amazing,Alan Price Set

006,Tickle Me,Alan Price Set

007,Our Love,Scrounger

007,So Here I Stay,Scrounger

008,Legalise It,Peter Tosh

008,Brand New, Second Hand,Peter Tosh

009,Stop It I Like It,Patti Boulaye

009,Kiss and Make Up Time,Patti Boulaye

010,Hard Work,John Handy

010,Young Enough To Dream,John Handy

011,Red Alert,Patti Boulaye

011,Without My Man Inside,Patti Boulaye

012,Juicy Fruit (Disco Freak) Pt I,Isaac Hayes

012,Juicy Fruit (Disco Freak) Pt I,Isaac Hayes

013,I Want More,Can

013,More,Can

014,All I Wanna Do In Life,Marianne Faithful

014,Wrong Road Again,Marianne Faithful

015,Do My Thing Myself,Glass Menagerie

015,Watching The World Pass By,Glass Menagerie

016,Jolie La Ville Curepipe,Alain Permal Mauritius Police Band

016,Danse Dans Mo Les Bras,Alain Permal Mauritius Police Band

017,Wonderful Dream,Anne-Marie David

017,Tu Te Reconnaitras,Anne-Marie David

018,C’est Ma Fete,Richard Anthony

018,Les Beaux Jours,Richard Anthony

018,Le Ciel Est Si Beau Ce Soir,Richard Anthony

018,Son Meilleur Copain,Richard Anthony

019,Le Roi D’Angleterre,Nino Ferrer

019,Il Me Faudra – Natacha,Nino Ferrer

019,Les Petites Jeunes Filles De Bonne Famille,Nino Ferrer

019,Monsieur Machin,Nino Ferrer

020,Slip And Slide,Medicine Head

020,Cajun Kick,Medicine Head

021,Desperate Dan,Lieutenant Pigeon

021,Opus 300,Lieutenant Pigeon

022,Casatschok,Dimitri Dourakine

022,Toi Toi Toi,Dimitri Dourakine

023,The Trouble,Silvers

023,Almost In Love,Silvers

024,What Do You Say About That,Phase 4

024,I’m Gonna Sit Down And Cry,Phase 4

025,Beautiful Sunday,Daniel Boone

025,Truly Julie,Daniel Boone

026,Ding-A-Dong,Teach-In

026,Let Me In,Teach-In

027,Any Dream Will Do,Max Bygraves

027,Close Every Door To Me,Max Bygraves

028,Back Home,England World Cup Squad 1970

028,Cinnamon Stick,England World Cup Squad 1970

029,I Fall To Pieces,Pat Dusky and the Marines

029,This Can Be The Night,Pat Dusky and the Marines

030,Turn On the Sun,Sandra Christy

030,How Can We Doubt,Sandra Christy

031,Agbogun G’Boro,Tunde Nightingale and his HighLife Boys

031,Kole Si Se,Tunde Nightingale and his HighLife Boys

032,Stop For The Music,Nutrons

032,The Very Best Things,Nutrons

033,Spinning Wheel,King Koss

033,Louisiana,King Koss

034,Blacksmith Blues,Birds of a Feather

034,Sing My Song And Pray,Birds of a Feather

035,It’s All Happening,Leapy Lee

035,It’s Great,Leapy Lee

036,Gonna Give Up Smoking And Take,Pipkins

036,Hole In The Middle,Pipkins

037,Wang Dang Doodle,Dr John

037,Big Chief,Dr John

038,Sacramento,Middle of the Road

038,Love Sweet Love,Middle of the Road

039,Goodnight Sweet Prince,Mister Acker Bilk

039,East Coast Trot,Mister Acker Bilk

040,Lucky Five,Russ Conway

040,The Birthday Cakewalk,Russ Conway

Strictly For The Unsquare, Paul Deacon aka Geoffrey Withers, 14 April 1977

Geoffrey Withers – he is strictly for the unsquare

I’m not entirely sure when Paul Deacon and I came up with the character “Geoffrey Withers”, but it was a long long time ago when we were very small.

For sure it was at my house, because the nonsense started when I played this track to Paul and we started riffing on the idea that an uber-old-fashioned DJ might consider the piece to be “strictly for the unsquare” and use it as his signature tune:

I’m pretty sure that Paul himself “christened” the character “Geoffrey Withers” and gave him his pompous voice. Paul has used this character on his radio shows, sporadically, for at least four decades.

I should get a few bob each time Paul uses the character but heck, life is too short and anyway it’s probably best to save up that potential law suit material for a big one downstream.

With apologies to those who believe in Santa and who believe that there really is a piece of music named “Strictly For The Unsquare”, but this piece is actually named “Pop Sequence” and is from an album named “Cine Mood Music”. How cool is that?

Well, it’s unsquare, anyway.

I’m not sure that Geoffrey was really born on 14 April 1977, but the diary says…

…Paul in afternoon…

…so it might well have been that day. I’ll guess it was around about then, anyhow.

Who’d have thought that such a mucking around session aged 14/15 would have led to a character who still (writing in 2018) pops up from time to time on Paul’s radio shows?

Weird. Warped. Awesome. Unsquare.

Pop Chart Earworms When Starting Alleyn’s School 50 Years Ago, Early September 1973

I remember little about my first term at Alleyn’s School. I didn’t start writing my diaries until January 1974. The fragments of memory that I retain are part-true, part-false and part-plagiarised, in that conversations with friends from that era tends to dredge stuff from the memory that wouldn’t otherwise have been dredged.

But a review of the Top 50 charts from the week that my cohort started Alleyn’s has certainly recovered some earworms for me. In truth, nothing that really reminds me of those vital first few days, but certainly a few that remind me of the summer and build up to that first term and some that I do remember being “very much a thing” during those early weeks.

Me? I was actually listening mostly to classical music by the autumn of 1973. My “golden era” of listening to pop/chart music relentlessly had faded in the latter years of my primary school education, as my parents desperately encouraged me to listen to “proper” (i.e. classical) music – mostly middle-brow stuff.

They (or perhapa generous uncle) bought me 36 remaindered ten-inch discs from The Great Musicians series – click here or picture link below.

I’ll write more on that separately when the mood takes me.

This article is about the charts in the first week of September 1973. Here’s the chart, with some comments and embedded files for you to see and hear:

Number 50, Snoopy Versus The Red Baron, Hotshots
Number 49, Angel, Aretha Franklin
Number 48, Gaye, Clifford T. Ward
Number 47, Nutbush City Limits, Ike And Tina Turner

In truth, this one is not an earworm from the late summer of 1973, but it is a truly wonderful record, so here it is, with a very 1973 vid:

Number 46, Natural High, Bloodstone
Number 45, Hypnosis, Mud
Number 44, Caroline, Status Quo

I definitely remember this Quo number stuck in my ear at that time…or was it a slightly different Quo song…or was it at a different time…

Number 43, Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree, Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando
Number 42, The Free Electric Band, Albert Hammond
Number 41, And I Love You So, Perry Como
Number 40, All The Way From Memphis Mott The Hoople
Number 39, Joybringer, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
Number 38, Skywriter, The Jackson 5
Number 37, All Right Now, Free
Number 36, Going Home, The Osmonds
Number 35, Bad Bad Boy, Nazareth
Number 34, Everything Will Turn Out Fine, Stealers Wheel
Number 33, Ying Tong Song, Goons
Number 32, Electric Lady, Geordie
Number 31, Our Last Song Together, Neil Sedaka
Number 30, Monster Mash, Bobby (Boris) Pickett And The Crypt-Kickers

This novelty record was for sure doing the round that first term. I have found a version with Pans People “dancing” to it…it wouldn’t be 1973 without Top Of The Pops and Pans People

Number 29, Life On Mars, David Bowie

In truth, this one is one of my main earworms from the summer before staring Alleyn’s. I remember Russell Holland (a friend from primary school) having a copy and we played it over and over one day when i visited his house that summer. I still think it is a truly great song:

Number 28, Alright, Alright, Alright, Mungo Jerry
Number 27, I Think Of You, Detroit Emeralds
Number 26, For The Good Times, Perry Como
Number 25, Touch Me In The Morning, Diana Ross
Number 24, I’ve Been Hurt, Guy Darrell
Number 23, 48 Crash, Suzi Quatro
Number 22, Oh No Not My Baby, Rod Stewart
Number 21, I’m Doing Fine Now , New York City
Number 20, I’m Free, Roger Daltrey, London Symphony Orchestra And Chamber Choir
Number 19, Fool, Elvis Presley
Number 18, Dear Elaine, Roy Wood
Number 17, I’m The Leader Of The Gang (I Am!), Gary Glitter
Number 16, Smarty Pants, First Choice
Number 15, Welcome Home, Peters And Lee
Number 14, The Dean And I, 10 C.C.
Number 13, Rising Sun, Medicine Head
Number 12, Say Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose, Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando
Number 11, Summer (The First Time), Bobby Goldsboro
Number 10, Pick Up The Pieces, Hudson-Ford
Number 09, Angie, The Rolling Stones
Number 08, Like Sister And Brother, The Drifters
Number 07, You Can Do Magic, Limmie And The Family Cookin’

Gosh – I’m not sure I have given this one much thought since that late summer/autumn of 1973, but it absolutely brings back sights, sounds and smells from those early days at Alleyn’s

Number 06, Rock On, David Essex
Number 05, Spanish Eyes, Al Martino

Why did someone give a tune named “Moon Over Naples” lyrics about “Spanish Eyes”? Had no-one heard of cultural appropriation back then? This was a rerelease from the late 1960s:

Number 04, Yesterday Once More, The Carpenters

I like this song. Yes it is a bit cheesy but that doesn’t stop it from being a good song:

Number 03, Angel Fingers, Wizzard

Roy Wood was off the scale weird. I only vaguely remember this one from that era:

Number 02, Dancing On A Saturday Night, Barry Blue

Why does Barry Blue sample Zorba’s Dance in the middle of this song, years before “sampling” was “a thing”?

Number 01, Young Love, Donny Osmond

It’s a shame that Nigel Godfrey didn’t start Alleyn’s the same year as us, as he would LOVE to be able to boast that Donny was Number One when he started, whereas the rest of us…

Tara pop-pickers, as that great man, Alan Freeman, used to say.

Pick Of The Pops Chart Rundowns, Probably 28 July 1968 & 4 August 1968, Possibly 4 August 1968 & 11 August 1968

I made my first tape recordings in November 1967, from the Radio One show Pick Of The Pops – I Ogblogged about it on the 50th anniversary here:

Pick Of The Pops Top Three, 5th November 1967

Only one other similar spool of that vintage survived, from the summer of 1968. The bulk of the tape comprises most of the top 10 from two consecutive weeks; there is therefore much repetition, but one of the great joys of this tape is that it has those two week’s chart run-downs, by Alan “Fluff” Freeman:

I especially love the way he turns the name “Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich” into a single word:

Davedeedozybeakymickandtich.

I also love the bit, in one of the two chart run downs, when he starts to say “Yummy Yummy Yummy I’ve Got Love In My Tummy” but has to abandon the second part of the phrase midway through because he is running out of time.

I explained in the November 1967 article how the BBC compiled its own chart from various other ones, so it is hard to pinpoint an exact date for the broadcasts. The Sunday early evening show – it was certainly those I recorded – was a rundown of the BBC chart broadcast the previous Tuesday and I’m not sure whether the BBC tended to lag the other published charts or was trying to pre-empt them.

Anyway, the first of the two, above, would have either been broadcast on 28 July 1968 or 4 August 1968; I’d guess probably the former.

The second of the two, broadcast one week later, I captured most of the top ten as well:

At 10, Simon & Garfunkle singing Mrs Robinson:

My editing had got much better between November 1967 and July/August 1968, although was still a little juvenile (I was five going on six). For some reason, I must have hated This Guys In Love With You by Herb Alpert as I edited it out completely from its Number Nine spot. I guess it was too slow and romantic for my 5-year-old ears back then.

Sorry Herb. I rather like the song now.

I have found a truly cheesy, uber-1960s video on Herb Alpert’s YouTube Channel, which accompanied the song back then, so I can present that to you here instead:

Tidy hair.

Anyway, at Number Eight…

…Cupid’s Inspiration with Yesterday Has Gone. Today the lyric might be seen as some sort of mindfulness anthem.

Number Seven was Fire by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown – which subsequently got to Number One:

Then at Number Six the bizarre MacArthur Park by Richard Harris. I must confess that the five-on-six year old me was totally taken in by the pastiche lyrics for this one. Ever since, I have lived in fear of someone leaving the cake out in the rain, thus wasting gargantuan amounts of effort and (for utterly inexplicable reasons) consigning the recipe as well as the cake to oblivion:

At Number Five, OC Smith with Son Of Hickory Holler’s Tramp. On hearing this song again, I do wonder how all fourteen children, when abandoned by their dad, would only care about mama’s chicken dumplings and a goodnight kiss before they went to bed. Wouldn’t several of these children have reached late adolescence or even adulthood by the time the last one arrived, or did the wayward couple spawn a handful of sets of quadruplets and quins in quick succession? The story is neither well nor convincingly explained. It feels like exaggeration or possibly even fake news to me:

At Number Four, the bubblegum song Yummy Yummy Yummy by Ohio Express. Now here is a truly meaningful lyric with which to grapple:

The Number Three song in the second week of my collection was Number One in the first week – Baby Come Back by The Equals. I really like this track:

Number Two was I Pretend by Des O’Connor. The official (at that time NME) charts have this song as Number One for a week, but two weeks of BBC chart recordings suggest that it never made the top spot on the BBC version. It is a well cheesy song:

Number One was Mony Mony by Tommy James And The Shondelles. Here we find the most meaningful lyric of all…

…fifty years later I discover that the name “Mony” was simply taken from the sign on top of the Mutual Of New York (MONY) Insurance Company building. Now they tell me:

I’ve managed to find a wonderful video for that Number One song – so uber-sixties it is almost untrue. Perhaps some of my more musical friends can tell us whether the band is miming or actually playing their instruments – I find it impossible to tell:

Finally, here is the second of those wonderful classic Fluff Freeman chart rundowns. Probably 4 August 1968 but possibly the following week, 11 August 1968. If it was the latter, that was my dad’s 49th birthday and I write this piece as we approach what would have been his 99th birthday.

By July/August 1968 dad was no longer directly helping me with these recordings, other than (probably) hiding spools of tape from me so I kept reusing the same ones for chart shows.

Why this spool survived is a mystery.

We went on holiday to Bournemouth soon after and perhaps I got bored with or forgot about recording chart shows after that.

It might have been for my sixth birthday that a heap of Beano Records arrived to try and get me interested in more serious music. That attempt succeeded, more on that anon, but my fascination with popular music of that 1960s and then 1970s period has lived on in me.

For now, as Fluff Freeman would put it:

Tara.

Pick Of The Pops, Most Of the Top Ten, 12 November 1967

Grundig TK35, Photograph by Michael Keller, from Rad-io.de.

Greetings, pop pickers.

Last week I Ogblogged recordings dad and I made exactly 50 years ago to the day, on 5 November 1967, including the Pick Of The Pops top three – click here, from Alan “Fluff” Freeman’s seminal chart show.

This week, I’m setting out the recordings I made of most of the top 10 from Pick Of The Pops the following week.

These recordings have more cutting in and out – probably a five-year-old’s attention span incapable of just letting the tape run and unaware at that stage of the wizardry that could be achieved post-recording in that medium.

The first extract actually has a bit of the Tony Blackburn show; the tail end of San Fransiscan Nights by The Animals therefrom. My guess is that it was my desire to record that better that sent me to Pick Of the Pops that Sunday evening, finding this song at number nine, then I kept going.

Next up – at eight – Long John Baldry with Let The Heartaches Begin:

At seven, Donovan with There Is A Mountain:

Then at six, the Kinks with Autumn Almanac:

Into the top five with The Troggs, Love Is All Around:

The least said about The Last Waltz by Englebert Humerdink at number four, the better:

Massachusetts by The Bee Gees at Number Three:

Zabadak by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich at Number Two:

…by which point I guess it dawned on my very junior indeed mind that I already had the top three on tape from the previous week.

Still, I wouldn’t want to keep pop pickers in suspenders, so here is a YouTube of the Number One from that period – Baby Now That I’ve Found You by The Foundations.

Does this bring back memories? Not Arf!

Tara.

Pick Of The Pops Top Three, 5th November 1967

As I write, it is 50 years ago to the day since Sunday 5th November 1967.

On that day, my father and I recorded Hare and Guy Fawkes, Ogblogged here, on our family’s trusty Grundig TK-35.

Grundig TK35; built to last. Photograph by Michael Keller, from Rad-io.de.

Our machine was still playing (although not recording) when I let the scrap merchants take it to a better place in 2012.

The very end of the Hare and Guy Fawkes recording segues rather elegantly into the top three from Pick of the Pops:

Zabadak by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich

…which is followed by…

Massachusetts by The Bee Gees

…and then…

Baby Now That I’ve Found You by The Foundations.

With the excitable tones of Alan “Fluff” Freeman between the tracks.

I have split the audio track into parts, but if you run the files contiguously they run entirely unbroken.

The segue works so well, I can only surmise that dad was experimenting with that recording after we had made the Hare and Guy Fawkes recording.

I am pretty sure I must have been watching him carefully and working out what it took to rig up the radio to the tape recorder and record from the radio.

The next 20+ seconds of tape is taken up with “gunk”, as I describe it in subsequent notes, which I think is my early attempts to work out to record, stop, pause etc. some done that evening, the rest the next day or just a few days later.

The following week I recorded the whole of the top nine from Pick of The Pops. I’ll up that material next week.

Don’t try to compare these charts with anything you see from the Official Charts; the BBC Pick Of the Pops charts didn’t work that way in 1967; they tried to second guess the chart standings by making a “chart of charts” from the NME, Melody Maker and several other chart sources which would all be published on different days and different ways. But the only logical dates for my recordings are 5 November 1967 top three, some gunk in between and then the 12 November 1967 top nine.

After that, I recorded a whole load of other pop music stuff to fill up that side of the tape.

It could only have been me making those recordings after the initial part of the 5th November recording; the cutting and hacking about is too amateurish to have been dad or mum. I also remember mum telling me in later years their mixture of horror and pleasure when they discovered me making my own clandestine recordings.

The reason this particular spool survived is because of the Hare and Guy Fawkes recording and also some other material which dad wanted to keep on the other side of the tape.

Most of the recordings I made as a child would have been wiped by subsequent recordings I made as a child. Tape wasn’t cheap.

There is one other tape of similar vintage that survived; with Pick Of The Pops from August 1968. Those recordings include Fluff Freeman’s fabulous chart rundowns, which the 1967 recordings sadly lack.

I’ll up the August 1968 ones when they reach their 50th birthday.

In the meantime, pop pickers, hit the above MP3 files for the Pick of The Pops top three.

Tara.