May-minded to the very last

 

What with recent posts about radio and today being the first of May, my fancy lightly turns to thoughts of Russell Davies (above). For many years Mr Davies hosted a weekly programme on Radio 2 until it was decided that retaining the regular services of this witty and literate musical authority was an expense too far for the BBC.

Once, a few years before that dread event, I analysed an edition of the show for pointers; I was considering a podcast equivalent of this blog. I didn't get much farther than buying a microphone but the exercise gave me a keener appreciation of that much-missed programme.

The Russell Davies Song Show, for those who don't know anything about it, was a successor to Benny Green's, aired in the same slot on a Sunday and taking a similar approach: concentrating on the Great American Songbook, drawing attention to forgotten or neglected numbers within that capacious tome and making unexpected connections between songs. During my short-lived quest to uncover The Secret of Broadcasting Man's Red Fire, I paid special attention to the way in which Mr Davies linked his musical selections together. 

Another, older, broadcaster, Ken Sykora (the young Paul McCartney had listened to his programme Guitar Club on the Light Programme in the 1950s), had come to my attention in the early 1970s when he joined the new independent station Radio Clyde, based in Glasgow. His show for Clyde covered many diffferent genres but he had found an easy solution to the problem of  imposing coherence on his choices: he called it Serendipity with Sykora, which meant that provided some associative process, however tenuous, could be cited then just about anything went. 

Serendipity with Sykora was my introduction to Spike Jones, among many others, and one of Jones's masterpieces of musical mayhem happened to feature in the edition of the Russell Davies Song Show I put under the spotlight, broadcast on Radio 2 on Sunday, the second of May, 2010.

Below are my summaries of Mr Davies's rationale for each selection, followed by some further observations I made at the time.

80@80 (Spencer Leigh autobiography)

 

 

I have just finished reading Spencer Leigh's autobiography 80@80: A Liverpool Life in 80 Chapters, which was published in February last year, and can warmly recommend it. As the title suggests it has eighty chapters to tie in with its venerable author reaching the milestone of his eightieth year, despite the still-boyish features displayed on the cover. (How does he do it?)

A thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish for the musically inclined, it covers a wide range of genres, as you'd expect from his show On the Beat, a former fixture on Radio Merseyside, but there is much else besides. I didn't realise, for instance, that broadcasting and writing about music had been, in effect, merely a hobby for him until the mid-1990s and that for over thirty years he had a day job as an actuary - and appears to have been efficient and well-respected in that entirely different field too. 

Personal chapters entitled "A Day in the Life" alternate in the book with those more focussed on music, though the distinction isn't a hard and fast one, as music is bound up with so much of his life anyway. The memoir draws on material in his many existing books, taking to heart the advice of his friend, Beatles press officer Tony Barrow, "Rework your catalogue", but the chapters about his day job and his schooldays also have considerable interest because of his knack for selecting the telling detail.

And the resulting work seems all of a piece: this is the life of an enthusiast who has written and broadcast only about the artists and groups who have interested him. And - possibly because he didn't have a long apprenticeship as a broadcaster and never had to play records which weren't his personal choice? - he never seems to have become battle-hardened, even if that youthful appearance could be attributed in part to the fact that he doesn't smoke or drink. 

As I've written elsewhere in this blog, the fact that he knows whereof he speaks means that his interviewees open up to him, apart from the odd determinedly awkward or cautious customer, such as the former Cavern DJ Bob Wooler, with whom he was attempting to write a book. When pressed about the date of his birth and his real name, Wooler is uncooperative, and matters aren't helped when Spencer goes to the lengths of producing a copy of his birth certificate, pleading:

We can't have this deception. If the book is published with wrong information someone who knows the real picture can tear it to shreds.

"No one knows," said Bob, "And you wouldn't have if you hadn't gone prying. I can't stand this. The book is off." (Silence)

No Off Switch: of Andy Kershaw and others

 

 I was sorry to hear of Andy Kershaw's death.  As he presented programmes on BBC Radios 1, 3 and 4 there will almost certainly be a tribute to him on one station or another in the coming days but in the meantime I can recommend his very entertaining, full-throttle autobiography, aptly entitled No Off Switch. 

I wrote about it in a 2012 piece about radio more generally, reposted below with some additional thoughts:

  

 Turn on, tune in, tape dropout ...  

 

There have been various programmes on the radio to commemorate the fact that it's now ninety years since the BBC started broadcasting. This post isn't going to be a digest of them all but one series, Music in the Air, might be of particular interest to readers of this blog. It's a comprehensive history of radio in the US and UK, presented by the Beeb's American import Paul Gambaccini (above); you can find available episodes here and listen to them via BBC iPlayer. [see note at end]

Episode Two, The Moondog Years, presumably concentrates on Alan Freed. It won't be available on iPlayer until after its transmission next Tuesday night, but I have heard Episode One, which takes us from the medium's very beginnings, with lots of archive audio, though the very first radio broadcast didn't survive and it seems we have to take the broadcaster's word that it actually happened. (Only a friend was listening, apparently.)

There's a bit of personal Gambaccini reminiscence thrown in at the beginning of the first programme - the shock of hearing his father swear and rush to turn the set off as rock'n'roll began blasting out, which had the unintended effect of causing the young Gambo to cleave unto the music ever after - but after that it's a more general account which could have been presented equally well by any number of people, so Episode Two, whose title promises a greater emphasis on rock'n'roll and the beginnings of modern disc jockeying, will probably be more interesting. And perhaps in a later episode there will be some insights into the Radio 1 environment which Gambaccini entered.

 

 

On a related note, I have almost finished reading Andy Kershaw's autobiography, No Off Switch. I have to admit I didn't read it in order, darting first to his experience of the wunnerful BBC youth station. Gambaccini was one of the few DJs looked upon kindly by Johns Peel and Walters and their unexpected offspring Kershaw (who sat, Oor Wullie-like, on an unpturned bucket in Room 318, there being no room amid the clutter for a third chair). 

Rock & Roll Man (musical about Alan Freed)

On Saturday I went to see Rock & Roll Man, an agreeable musical about Alan Freed, at the Cambridge Arts Theatre; this week it's playing at the Lighthouse arts centre in Poole, and if you are within reach it's worth a visit. As far as I know that will be the end of the production's short UK tour though it deserves a longer life. The show had a three-month Off-Broadway run in 2023; this British production has retained Constantine Maroulis as Freed, and the passion and conviction which he brings to the role are a big part of its success.

Neil Brand's radio play Stan repeated today on Radio 4 Extra

 

Not to be confused with a later television adaptation, Stan, Neil Brand's 2004 radio play about Stan Laurel, has just been broadcast again on Radio 4 Extra and will be available on BBC iPlayer for the next thirty days. Stan, the radio drama, is very good indeed and a natural for the medium; the TV version doesn't simply add visuals but has been considerably reworked: we see scenes from the pair's past rather than their simply being recounted by the elderly Stan. Nothing wrong with that, but the intimacy of the radio play, and in particular that feeling of luck and privilege in being magically present, unseen, at the last meeting of these two great clowns is diluted.

Crying My Heart Out For You: the flop which made Sedaka a hitmaker

 

Crying My Heart Out For You is one of my favourite Neil Sedaka songs. It's not wildly original, and was not a hit in the US or UK when it first came out - Italy is the only country which seems to have warmed to it - but for me the anguished wails which bookend this simple tale of love lost make the recording.

Leaves off Snodgrass (after posting the following supplementary observations)

 

If you've read the earlier post about alternative Beatles histories, here are more thoughts about Snodgrass, the short story by Ian R. McLeod which imagines the group achieving success without John Lennon.