OT - "Top of the Pops from London with Brian Matthews"

Small clarification (which might help). It's Brian MATTHEW (no S).

I had him to dinner once.

Thanks, I am sure this makes a lot of difference to you.

I don't think that any BBC World Service output has ever been easily available in the UK; at least I've never found it. When I encounter it abroad, it is usually quite different in outlook to what we get here, and I have always assumed that that was a deliberate decision.

These may be track listings for the shows (I'm not entirely sure) - you may see an episode that you recognise so that you can confirm.

That depended on where you lived. Since about 1980, there was medium wave service from the Suffolk coast (Orford Ness), easily receivable to the east of a line between The Wash and the Solent (approx). Nowadays it's on DAB.

Am 29/05/2024 um 17:46 schrieb The Hanging Baskets of Babylon:

These end at 1977, but I am positive I was listing to TOTP episodes well in the mid 80s.

There is an 'email me' link on the homepage of that web site. It might be worth asking using that. I'd guess that this is a person who knows something about the program.

You are right: it was never broadcast in the UK (the same applied to the World Service in those days, though you can get it on the Sky satellite now).

The "Top Of The Pops" programmes were circulated on 12" 33.33rpm vinyl discs. Many of them escaped into the wild and as a result, live versions of many recordings by guest artistes were heard for the first time in the UK. On the other hand, some specified recordings used on TOTP were also shared around UK programmes of the day, especially Saturday Club (host: Brian Matthew) and Easy Beat (Sunday mornings) (host: Brian Matthew).

There were other similar programmes. Pete Murray used to host a series for use outside the UK: "The Star Show". I have a few digital dubs from such LPs (TOTP and TSS). Recordings from exactly that sort of source were the material from which the Warner Music (neé EMI) "Live At The BBC" series of CDs were issued a few years ago.

It really all goes back to Radio Luxembourg, which used to run similar short segment shows recorded in London (that was OK) but broadcast from... er... The Grand Duchy. A bit more ephemeral, though - sent from London to Luxembourg on 7.5 ips tape (mono).

Fifty years ago, the BBC Light Programme (it might have been R2 by then) used to play out tapes supplied by RAI in the "Night Ride" programme (12:00 midnight - 02:00).

Some of the recordings featured Italian ace jazz guitarist, the late Franco Cerri. It was made clear by announcers that the recordings were not available to buy. Years later, when I was no longer in the first flush of youth, I was able to purchase Franco's CDs while over there on holiday.

As someone of very modest musical ability, I have always had tremendous respect for jazz players. It is something I know I could never do, no matter how much time and effort I put into it. There seems, to me, to be something transcendent about it.

Once "Sailing By" and the Inshore Shipping Forecast had finished on Radio 4 (a little after midnight), the Long Wave transmitters carried World Service programmes until (circa) 6 AM.

I think that "easily available" is a fair statement, since some people claimed they would receive 198kHz transmissions via the metal fillings in their teeth.

I was in London already in 1995 (not as a permanent resident at the time) and all I needed was an AM radio and tune to 648 to pick a very strong signal of the BBC World Service. I even went to the BBC World Service House, if I am not wrong not too far away from the Strand.

I basically grew up listening to the World Service (on NW at night and SW during the day) because it was the only English speaking radio that I could pick from Italy (we are talking of pre-www era) and the language used was very plain and grammatically correct (unlike modern day UK media).

From the early 1980s that was possible.

Yes, indeed. In the Aldwich - at the east end of the Strand. It's not there now; i's in BH near Oxford Circus

The Voice of America SW radio network started using ‘Special English’ in its news broadcasts in 1959; it’s now called ‘Learning English’. If you had a SW radio back then for BBC WS broadcasts, you would have been able to receive VoA too.

Special/Learning English has a limited vocabulary, is characterised by short sentences and being read at one-third slower delivery rate than usual.

Yes, I used to listen to the VOA but not for the "Special English". My English was not so bad. The good thing of the old BBC-WS is that it was clear but not dumbed down.