Category: Music

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.

London St Johns Hill at Clapham Junction geograph-3072833-by-Ben-Brooksbank

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.

You Don’t Have To Be Madrigal To Learn About Music Here, But It Helps: Madrigals Of Love And War From The Radio, 4 June 1974, Plus The Top Five From That Week To Worm Their Ways Back Into Your Ears

Sony TC377 Reel-To-Reel

Music At Alleyn’s In Spring/Summer 1974

Although my 1974 diary fell silent for a few months in April 1974, I recall some aspects of my musical education from that period rather well. Alleyn’s School played a major part in that, but not the only part.

I started learning the violin in that first year at Alleyn’s, Mostly I learnt that the violin was not the instrument for me, to my mother’s chagrin, as that type of bowed instrument (including, I later discovered, the hand saw) was purportedly in my blood:

Turn It Up To Max & Spit: The Baltic Origins Of My Mother’s (Marcus) Family Revealed

Pop Kennard, our Alleyn’s music teacher, did not do a great deal for my singing voice that year either. I recall him getting us to listen to and then try to sing Schubert’s Das Wandern in an English translation “To wander is the miller’s joy…”, which did not sound like the following in our unbroken and untrained voices:

“Take me to your lieder” – that’s what I would have said had I been familiar with the word “lieder”

My contribution to such singing in those days would have provided enthusiastic volume but would have lacked desirable sound, I am pretty sure.

I have subsequently been taking singing lessons by Zoom with “Miss Honey” since early in the pandemic and have improved beyond measure – my early efforts at improvement blogged about here:

Hitting The High Notes With Lydia White, 5 May 2020

Spring/Summer 1974 – Music At Home

I noted in my diaries early in 1974 that my dad invested in a high quality hi-fi at that time. He plumped for that ahead of a colour television set, which we did without for another couple of years while he saved up for one of those as well.

A fair chunk of dad’s enthusiasm for a hi-fi will have been to do with my musical education and the sense my parents will have had that my most impressive musical skill would be listening to music rather than performing it.

I’ll write separately about the small but neat collection of classical gramophone recordings my parents acquired for me and helped me to acquire. Mostly middle-brow stuff, getting me familiar with the conventional classical canon.

But one evening, dad spotted a concert being broadcast on BBC Radio and decided to get busy properly rigging up the hi-fi so that the concert might be recorded to a (then) high quality on the reel-to-reel for future listening.

Connect this beauty to the tuner and the speakers and the Sony TC377 depicted above. Simples.

Monteverdi’s eighth book of madrigals – The Madrigals Of Love And War – performed by the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under John Elliot Gardiner.

It transpires that this vague memory of mine must relate to the evening of 4 June 1974. Here’s a link to the BBC genome record for this broadcast.

The concert concerned took place on 6 October 1973. It was well received, by this Telegraph account at least:

Madrigals of Love & War 6 October 1973Madrigals of Love & War 6 October 1973 08 Oct 1973, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Why dad was so keen to record this particular broadcast I don’t really know. I think he liked the sound of Renaissance music but found it hard to relate to sacred music from that period. High quality secular music of that period was not to be heard on the radio every day.

Dad made this recording on a 5 3/4 inch spool which I still have in a dungeon somewhere and have digitised along with all of the other spools from the Harris collection.

If you want to hear what those madrigals sound like, the following recording by the Consort of Musicke is a very decent quality version – frankly more to my taste now than the Eliot Gardiner style.

Anyway, fact is that this stuff became my ear worms at the end of my first year at Alleyn’s.

What Were Supposed To Be My Ear Worms In Early June 1974? The Top Five In the Charts, That’s What.

To close this piece, here are the top 5 UK chart hits from that week in 1974.

5: There’s A Ghost In My House by R Dean Taylor became an ear worm of mine many years later, when I got into Motown and Northern Soul, but I doubt if it even entered my consciousness in 1974:

4: The Streak by Ray Stevens went on to be number one for a while and was certainly the subject of our schoolboy chatter back then. “There seems to have been some disturbance here” was a catch phrase that did the rounds then, along with the Monty Python ones. I wonder what Pop Kennard would have had to say about the music therein:

3: Hey Rock ‘n’ Roll by Showaddywaddy was most certainly an ear worm back then. This number had entirely escaped my consciousness until I reheard it just now. Now it is stuck in my ear again. It was a seriously retro number even in 1974, although not as retro as Monteverdi madrigals, obviously:

2: This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us by Sparks. In truth, I don’t remember this track from that 1974 period. A few years later I had a copy of this track on a compilation album and then sought out a copy of Kimono My House (the album from whence it came) which was and remains an all-time favourite of mine. Kimono My House was very much my earworm in March 1981, when the story described in the following ThreadMash performance piece was live:

The Love Letter, ThreadMash Performance Piece & Review, 4 March 2021

In short, I think this Sparks track is wonderful:

1: Sugar Baby Love by The Rubettes. Another ridiculously retro sound topped the charts that week.

How did that get to number one in the charts in 1974? Yet – listen closely. Do I detect a variant of the folia progression in there? Is Sugar Baby Love, in a sense, a setting for six voices based on a tradition pioneered in 17th century madrigals? Might Paul de Vinci of the Rubettes possibly have been related to Leonardo?

Monteverdi and Pop Kennard might be turning in their respective graves.

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.

My Second Taste Of Classical Music In The Early To Mid 1970s: “The Great Musicians” And Few Other Classical Records

Image from Discogs, where you can buy the record(s) and (at least in the case of Mozart Part One) look at more images to read all of the learned information.

You can read about the source of my first taste of classical music, Beano Records aka Tale Spinners, through this link or the image link below.

My First Taste Of Classical Music & Dramatised Stories: A Clutch Of Beano Records (aka Tale Spinners), Perhaps Early 1969

“The Great Musicians”, Around 1972

The next batch of classical records that came my way was a job lot from a series named “The Great Musicians” – click here for the Discogs listing of the whole lot of them – 84 I believe.

These items were a combination of a 10″ disc with one or more great classical works on it and a magazine which talked about the composer, the piece(s), the historical context and all that. Some of the musicology was well beyond me when I was a kid…possibly still is…but I loved reading about the composer and the history and the context, as well as listening to many of the pieces.

I think this batch arrived while I was still at primary school, perhaps my 10th birthday. I have a feeling they were a gift from Uncle Michael and Auntie Pam, but I might be mistaken on that point. Perhaps dad found the remaindered batch (as was his wont) and the aforementioned couple chose to fund dad’s purchase as an avuncular gift. They weren’t expert at choosing presents for a kid and/but might well have relished the opportunity to gift me something my folks deemed appropriate.

Here’s the list of my batch of 36, with the series number alongside. I shall provide links to the Discog listings where and when I am able:

Here is a link to the playlist I have made up with as many of the above recordings as I can find in YouTube Music. Don’t be put off by the strike-through you might see on this link – anyone can click through and hear this music, but you’ll get adverts if you are not a YouTube Music subscriber.

Several years later I added a couple to my collection of The Great Musicians through Record & Tape Exchange, but soon realised that I wanted more modern recordings of pieces, especially those I hadn’t steeped myself in with the older recordings:

A Few Other Classical Albums, Mostly “Greatest Hits”, c1972-1975

The rest of our…or I should say, my…classical collection of records was tiny during my chidhood.

I think “The Great Musicians” sparked enough interest in me that I occasionally chose to spend a bit of my pocket money/birthday money on such records. Mum advised and encouraged me towards budget-priced items in W H Smith, several from a Columbia/CBS series badged as “Greatest Hits” albums.

Mum was very keen on Chopin and also liked Bizet – especially after I had “starred” in Carmen for the Putney Operatic Society, type-cast as one of the chorus of urchins. More on my opera career when I find the incriminating photographic evidence…in a box somewhere it is…I think I know where…but not to hand right now.

Anyway, here are the first 12 classical LPs in my catalogue, which I know for sure takes us up to 1975, when I was given a box set of Tchaikovsky Ballet Music and the Berlin Philharmonic “Tchaikovsky Works” album for my Bar mitzvah, by Arnold & Leatrice Levene. Yes, they who educated me in arthroplasty also advancing my interest in music – they were those sort of people.

A Private Lesson In Arthroplasty, Hockey, Supervising Entrance Exams, Viola Mooted, A Field Trip To Kew Gardens & Far Too Much TV: Alleyn’s School & Beyond In The First Half Of February 1975

I suspect that the above record got more play than any of the others. Mum loved it and if I wasn’t playing it or some other record, she might have been playing it herself.

I played all of them a lot, apart from the second side of the Britten and the rather thin compilation albums I have numbered 006 and 010, which I recall never liking. I have managed to source all the stuff I listened to a lot onto a YouTube playlist – click here – do not be put off if you see a strikethrough on that link, you can still click through and listen if you wish. The Tchaikovsky Ballet Suites box set are on the following separate link – click here, tracks 61 to 119 of the canonical Tchaikovsky recordings by Eugene Ormandy & the Philadelphia Orchestra, while Herbert’s “Tchaikovsky Works” record brings up the rear on the main playlist link:

Just three works…not THE works.

My First Taste Of Classical Music & Dramatised Stories: A Clutch Of Beano Records (aka Tale Spinners), Perhaps Early 1969

Images from Discogs, where some of these Beano Records might be bought.

By the summer of 1968, when I turned six, I think I was probably driving my parents a little bit nuts with my enthusiasm for pop music, which I would tape onto the faithful family Grundig reel-to-reel and play relentlessly:

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

I think it was fairly soon after that summer perhaps autumn/Christmas 1968 or early 1969, a stack of Beano Records arrived in our household. I still have them. They were children’s stories and classic novels, dramatised and set to famous classical music in the background.

My research for this Ogblog piece has uncovered the fact that they were formerly known as Tale Spinners and had been released initially (late 1950s and early 1960s) on Atlas Records and/or, in the USA, on United Artists Records. Here is the Wikipedia entry about them.

The Beano Label releases of the same material came later in the UK, 1965 from what I can gather, with 24 of the original batch (most of them) making the cut for Beano.

I ended up with 12 of them, although I think I started with a batch of 10. My guess is that dad bought them as remaindered items at the Slipped Disc in Clapham Junction. Possibly, knowing dad’s sometime trading methods back then, he swapped some of his dead stock of cine films for some of the Slipped Disc’s dead stock of records. Exchange is no robbery, as South London merchants were want to put it.

The cast was stellar – or better to say that many were proto-stars: Maggie Smith, Alec McCowen, Donald Pleasence, John Wood, Cyril Shaps, Paul Daneman, Derek Hart, Anthony Woodruff, Judith Whale, Tony Church, Geoffrey Bayldon, Ralph Hallett, Marjorie Westbury, Denise Bryer, Peggy Butt, John Baddley, Alan Rowe, Mary Law, Jocelyn Page & Robert Hardy, to name not all, many of whom went on to great fame and acclaim afterwards.

Here’s the list of my dozen Beanos, each with a link to the Discog entry, either for the Beano Record or for the original Atlas release. The latter tend to contain details on the fabulous cast of actors and actresses who performed each story. Sometimes the cast is listed, sometimes the images contain the cast list, occasionally neither is present:

An example cast list and script – these were not included in Beano versions

The stories and the dramatic telling captured me, I have no doubt. But it was also the music – I think my parents main purpose – that got me hooked and I remember asking my parents what the music was and wanted to hear more of it. Here’s the list again with a quick note on the music of each:

  • Robinson Crusoe – Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony
  • Puss in Boots – Vivaldi (mostly The Four Seasons plus some horn concerto stuff I think)
  • Hansel and Gretel – Tchaikovsky Francesca da Rimini and some Nutcracker Suite
  • The Brave Little Tailor – Mozart Eine Kline Macht Musik – don’t be deceived by the record sleeve that reads “Gluck”. Mozart and Gluck would have both had a hissy-fit about that mix-up.

Oh how I loved these records – some of them I’d listen to over and over again. At first I focussed on the children’s stories, possibly encouraged to leave the more “grown up ones” to one side for a while.

I especially remember being frightened by the Hansel & Gretel one, which is a really creepy, no-holds barred telling of that story. Francesca de Rimini is quite creepy music and the voices are American on that record. The mother…or evil step-mother…drones “something better be done, husband, something better be done”, to encourage the weak-willed spouse to go along with her plan to abandon the children. I had some nightmares about that aspect, yet I recall i wanted to hear the story over and over again, perhaps because, despite the nightmarish scenario, the children somehow get themselves out of trouble and into clover. One further memory about the Hansel & Gretel one. I remember my mother on one occasion, probably when I had been a bit naughty and aping the voice that she had heard countless times, saying, “something better be done, husband” to my dad and me having the collywobbles at hearing my mum say those words in that style.

I remember all of them pretty clearly and had a deep affection for those records.

Soon after, my parents sourced more records, several of which contained the music I had been listening to with these stories, which got me well and truly hooked on serious music, to supplant my interest in pop for several years.

I have pulled together a YouTube Music playlist of my twelve, mostly for my own convenience and/but you are welcome to use it. Do not be put off by the strikethrough on the link – anyone can access my playlists but if you don’t have a YouTube Premium account you’ll get adverts.

Alternatively, you can go to the source I used for that Playlist, where an enthusiast has pulled together all of the Beano ones into a YouTube channel named Beano Records Reboot. Finding that channel today (1 March 2025) has quite literally made my day, not least because I have lost much of the day wallowing with pleasure in that rabbit hole…not that Alice In Wonderland was one of the one’s I owned!

Which did I listen to the most? Hard to recall, but I remember with particular affection from the earliest times Puss In Boots, which I heard again today with great pleasure:

Latterly I recall wallowing in Treasure Island and dreaming of such adventure…

…which is a bit odd really, as my favourite true story about myself reveals me to be a landlubber who is a ludicrously timorous sailor whose timbers are all too easily shivered.

Nicaragua, Morgan’s Rock to Mukul, 16 February 2016

I wasn’t the only kid on our street with some of these Beano Records. I remember listening to some that I didn’t own, I think at the Cedar house or possibly the Benjamin house on our block. The Three Musketeers one, for example, I remember someone playing me at their house, just as I often played mine when friends were round. Those Beano Records were a wonderful part of my childhood, and that of many other youngsters of my generation.

On reflection, I am pretty sure that the purchase of these by my parents was about the music more than the drama. Someone must have recommended them for that purpose and I am grateful to that person, whoever they might have been.

Reflecting on my parents’ irritation at my pop music habits, I suspect that it was my mother who was angling hardest for a solution. Perhaps she even said:

…something better be done, husband, something better be done…

…to encourage my dad to get the records!

Thanks again to Ben at Beano Records Reboot @BeanoRecordsReboot – for his unwitting but hugely valuable help with this piece.

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.