Calling fellow music lovers!

Hi David,

Music has played a big part in my life. One memory that makes me smile is trying to record the Top 20 on a Sunday night with a cassette recorder. Hoping Mum didn’t come in and start talking! Finger hovering over the stop button towards the end of the song, then over the start button. Hoping the DJ wouldn’t talk over the music!

I have just found three programmes from concerts which I attended in the 1960s. A centre stalls seat on row D, to see the Beach Boys, cost 12/6d and the supporting acts included David & Jonathan ("Michelle" and "Lovers of the World Unite") and Lulu who sang "Shout". I also saw Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas (cost 10/6d) in May 1964 and their supporting acts included Millie, singing "My Boy Lollipop", The Purple Hearts, The Five Embers and Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers. Pride of place in my collection is the programme from a concert starring The Beatles which took place at the Odeon in Leeds. The Vernon Girls, The Kestrels, The Brook Brothers, Frank Berry and Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers also appeared. I cannot remember anything which the Beatles sang as most of the girls in the audience were screaming and drowned out the music! Those were the days! 🙂

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As a kid growing up in the fifties the go to device was my parents Ferguson Radiogram. This gigantic chunk of furniture was to me a piece of genuine magic. I remember turning the massive Bacolite dials and hearing disembodied and foreign tongues for the first time materialising out of thin air. Radio Luxembourg which famously faded in and out, my mate Martins Mum said it was because of the wind! There was a compartment at one end of the radiogram which held a bunch of 78’s. These comprised everything from Elvis and Bill Haley to classical music.

The Ferguson was in our household for years and was key in cultivating my love and appreciation for all types of music. By 1967 of course, Bacolite had given way to vinyl and my life changed when I bought Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, places it upon the Ferguson deck and lowered the needle, not a stylus, a needle that was basically a 1 inch nail, onto the disc. The sounds that came out of that 12” speaker completely ‘blew my mind’ to use the parlence of the day and this was before I experienced stereo! What that needle did to my albums (my collection grew rather quickly) doesn’t bear thinking about but then it wasn’t about sound quality, it was all about the music.

The question, ‘what was the first record you ever bought? is always a good one to ask. In my case I saw a film by Stanly Kubrick called Grande Prix. I loved the music and sought out the soundtrack. The only place that sold it was my local Rumbelows. They had one of those revolving carousels with LP’s on board, mostly of the Music For Pleasure variety. There was the album entitled Grande Prix. Back home I eagerly went through that long lamented ritual of removing the album from the bag, the sleeve from the cover, the record from the sleeve and finally dropping the needle on the record. No music was forthcoming but various recording of F1 racing cars speeding around circuits at various locations around the world.......even that was fascinating to me, that these sounds could leap out at me from this piece of plastic and fuel my imagination.

These days my passion for music has seen me try my hand at songwriting, recording and performing my songs, live to an audience. It all started with that radiogram.