Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #77: December 27th 1971: Six Tins Of Bachelors Peas

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; Tango or Telstar?Yes, it’s that time of the year, Pop-Crazed Youngsters – we decide to do a Christmas episode, and then Christmas happens and gets in the way of everything, the bastard. Luckily, this episode – from Boxing Day – comes from a time when they did the festivities properly and didn’t hang it out like we do, so there’s very little in the way of tinsel and fake snow and turkey carcasses (and yes, it is Boxing Day, they did things differently then, don’t @ us). It’s from 1971, the Year Zero of the post-Beatle world, where a void suddenly opens and is immediately filled with an array of Sixties sorts who never got a look-in before and are making their grab for the big brass ring of Pop stardom. Tony Blackburn – the host of the Daily Mirror Hot Pants Ball himself – is at the controls in his belted-off cardie, and it’s safe to say that 1971 is his most Blackburny year ever. We take you through it, from the highs of debating the merits of wank mags with Lord Longford and having his own board game to the lows of having his photo ripped up by Bristol Prog bands and being stalked by the Heavy Music Brigade.Musicwise, it’s a fascinating trawl through the post-Mopfab landscape. Marc Bolan assumes his dominance in front of a floor manager who looks well Bullet Baxter. The Tams look like John Inman if he supported FC Barcelona. Benny Hill airs the Xmas #1 again. Slade take one massive stomp for a band, one giant leap for Glamkind. Pans People get out of quarantine and flounce about for Liverpool Jesus. The Stones ensure that every wedding do of the next 15 years will feature Dads dancing to one of the most brutal songs ever. Eight Ace and the Paedophile Information Exchange Horns celebrate their one hit for the last time on telly. We get to witness Diana Ross’s Armchair Thriller. And John Peel stares at the camera with a mandolin in his hands. Taylor Parkes and David Stubbs join Al Needham for a complete evisceration of the Sounds of ‘71, veering off on such tangents as the dangers of having a Raleigh Chopper in Leeds that was Flamboyant Green, a detailed breakdown of Tony Blackburn’s weekly shopping list, Britain’s Grooviest Granny, Rod Stewart’s Whole Lotta Rosie moment, and John, Paul, George or Ringo: who’s getting it first, lads? DO IT WHILE YOU’RE STILL YOUNG, POP-CRAZED YOUNGSTERS!     Video Playlist| Facebook | Twitter| Bluesky | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like this in time? Um... Chart music. Chart music. You pop craze youngsters, and welcome to the latest episode of chart music.

Mark Music, the podcast that gets his hands right down the back of the settee on a random episode at Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham, and standing with me today are Taylor Parks. Nice to meet you. And David Stubbs. To see you nice. Boys, come and sit on me knee and whisper in me ear all the pop and interesting things that have occurred of late.

Well, I have been fighting the good fight against fashion. Oh, have you now? I think everybody must have seen at some point these kind of great avenues of flags. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Staple to lamp hosts. And it's deeply, genuinely pressing. And I've seen them in two places recently. St. Mary Cray, which is a shit-hole near Orpinton. Hello, our Alpinton listeners. No, no, no, not Alpinton. Orpinton's nice. St. Mary Cray, absolute shit-hole, only sort of glued together really by its ethnic minority community. It feels like Nuremberg, 1933. It really does. It's deep. completely depressing. What's intriguing about it is it's not a kind of bottom-up initiative.

It's a top-down thing. You can really tell that. You can tell that this has been kind of financed, organised, organised from somewhere, I don't know, dark money from somewhere or whatever, by the fact that they kind of stapled an exact same method and the flags look exactly the same, whether it's St. Mary Creer, whether it's Rochester. And so anyway, I was up in central London. I went for a drink with my friend Bernard and, you know, we had a bit of a... A few shandies, yes. A few shandies. Anyway, I saw this union flag. and flag of St George that some asshole would like put up on those railings right dead in the centre of bloody London. I just thought unbelievable.

I just, you know, my blood was boiling. My blood was possibly slightly toxic. But anyway, you know, I clamoured up and I tried to get to that and reach down and I managed to, couldn't quite get the Union flag, but I managed to get the flag of St George. Garned, snap the handle across my knee. Oh, like Brian out of the sweet. Pretty much, yeah. It was a teenage rampage, wasn't it, David? Yes, well, yeah, I recognise my age, certainly.

Anyway, I just shout it out, no fucking fascist in my town. And this bloat nearby, I think that young Muslim, I was a bit quiz, because what are you doing? I'm like I can't explain, you know, I said that this is a sort of thing and said, oh, nice one, you know, high-fived, you know, so went home, did a kind of Facebook post, you know, garnered immense likes, you know, had a photo of evidence. Well, you know, sort of humble bragging almost, but, you know,

more, more, what a pride, really, deep pride. And, you know, well done, David, nice one. Anyway, the next day I happened to be coming back into town to see a screening of this film, Saipan, which is coming out in January. It's a story of the whole Roy Keene Mick McCarthy 2002 World Cup saga with Steve Coogan playing Mick McCarthy, actually. And it's not all bad. But anyway, so on route, I thought I'm going to have a look at my handywork. See if there was a blue plaque up there, yeah. Exactly.

So I went to the spot and, well, I could see that like the flag that I demolished, that had been removed. But the, you know, the Union Jack flag, that was. still up and it was fluttering above a mobile souvenir shop. Oh, fucking out. And that was all it was. These flags were just the market. These were just a souvenir shop. Obviously, it gets trundled away overnight and he leaves the flags there rather

rather than taking, you know, get the bother of taking them down. So, yeah, I did feel somewhat chastened. You know, I did think that perhaps what had happened here wasn't actually a blow in the struggle against fascism. But an attack on small businesses. Exactly. Well, it was an old man committing a mine. an act of criminal damage.

So, yeah, I took the wind up myself. And I had to sort of, I had to spill the beans on Facebook and a few hearty laughs at my expense. But there you go. Still, La Lucha Continua and all that. You didn't notice the little cartoon Bobby in the middle of the flag. Well, you're practically pissed on Princess Diana's face there, aren't you, David? Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. I think what we need to do is we need to make some flags of that picture of Dev and Deirdre snogging

that bed in Coronation Street. That would bring the nation together. Do it for Neil, Pop Gray's youngsters. He fucking loved that image. Yeah. Because all the fascists would be so turned on by looking at this picture that they just wouldn't be able to be fascists anymore. Exactly. Taylor, spill all the tea, mate, out of your flask.

You might have to forgive me if I'm a bit soft-brained this time around. As I spent the whole of September, October and November convalescing from some minor surgery that got complicated and a bit less minor and ended up hurting really a lot for a very long time. So I lost the whole autumn and first part of winter to the worthless dark enlightenment of perpetual agony. Like a medieval seer fasting or scourging

being granted entry to these visionary states that reveal only the grimace and least used. useful information, most of which you knew already. And it's not good for the brain. So apologies in advance. Obviously, the one positive aspect of this is that they gave me some hard-core pain killers

and got to spend a couple of weeks more doped up than schnaw bits. But we're not at to stop it. Got pretty rotten, pretty fast. Interesting fact about schnawitz, by the way. This is not well known, but Bernie Winters was a massive fan of the Who. And he loved the way that Pete Townsend,

to smash his guitar at the end of every gig. So for a while, every night at the end of his show, he'd kill snorbit. Like ripping her, throwing all their guts around in a barrage of feedback with a load of smoke bombs going off. But nobody ever knew because he did it in private. So then you'd get another dog that looked sadly the same

in the audience the next night. I'd never know the difference. But in the end, he had so many St. Bernard's on hire, purchase. It got so expensive His roadie would sometimes have to sit up all night gluing one back together so he could use her again

for the next gig where's that commitment in modern comedians Don't see it do you But you know I can't complain too much I've got series two with a Sweeney on Blu-ray Oh there we go I can now watch Patrick Troughton deliver the line

I've tumbled you Alan You're all bunny in high definition Still some joy left of this life Obviously, I'm still fizzing about the live show we did at the London podcast festival, which was skill, wasn't it, Dave? It certainly was. I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but Toodoo-Doo, as they say. No, no, it was another trial.

A lovely day, a lovely opportunity to meet some of the pop crazed youngsters. I do hope I got to thank all of them personally before they staggered away from the pub afterwards. It was a fucking mint day. Thank you for turning up. And yeah, let's do it again sometime soon, eh? Anyway, less of the past, more of the future, because you know how we go about on chart music. Before we do anything else, we stop, we drop, and we bow the need to the latest batch of pop craze youngsters who have got involved with Patreon of late and I've shoved a handful of shrapnel right down our G-strings.

It jabs, but it jabs good. Those people are in the $5 section, James Harris. Paul Kane, Ian Evans, Michael Douglas, Jay Fresh, Louise Duke, Handy Herbcock, Ewan Wallace, Tracy B, Mark Cowan, Legion AOD, EJP, Spotlight Kid, Padrakey Moore, Brendan, Andrew Lowe, Bohmper, Mike McLaughrin, Ali Bain, Steve Collins, Tim Woodall and Matt McMillan fucking oh you're gorgeous we love you Marvellous people Messied cricket applause And in the three dollar section

We have Russell Parsons Dominic Robottom Neil Francis JP Justin Thomas Chris Gilbert and Gavin Hogg Oh you're lovely too

Thank you so much Indeed And as always chaps If I've missed you out that's because you either joined us after this recording or I've mislaid your name. So please, please, please kick this ass for a man and I'll rectify. Oh, and by the way, a massive tar to Doug Grant and Daniel Sullivan for their little Christmas box that are sent to as well, more than little.

Thank you very much, chaps. You didn't have to, but we're so grateful you did. We are indeed. We're surrounded by lovely people, aren't we? Certainly are. I don't say surrounded, but, you know, three sides. And don't forget the pop craigs Patreon people get every new episode in full with no adverts days before Gen Pop does.

They get all the exclusive bonus content and they get to rig the chart music top 10 compiled in association with Gallup. Are you ready for the top 10 chaps? Yes. Hit the fucking music. We've said good. bite to motorhead Arrington. Right, said Don Estelle,

the goalkeepers of rock, my fucking car. And here comes jizzum. Which means non-up, three down, two non-movers and five new entries.

New entry at number 10, the cunt beast of Bodmin. New entry straight in at number nine, Narada. Brian Walden. Excellent. Another new entry thuds in at number eight.

Al Needham, the dancing fool. Down one place from number six to number seven, bummer dog. Last week's number three, this week's number six, ghost face, siller. Into the top five and no change at five for the provisional O-R-U-R-A. And it's no change at number four for the bent cunt who aren't fucking real. Into the top three and another new entry, David Van Day's Dex's Midnight Runners. Yes. It's finally happened.

Last week's number one, down one place to number two, the Birmingham Pistral, which means... Britain's number one. Straight in at number one, the highest new entry. Monster Munch Kemsex party And the universe of Chalk music has completely upended Because what a chart boy!

It's fucking out! Yeah, yeah The Ravens have left the tower Here comes Jizzam! They're gone! Yeah, they'll dry it up So chaps, those new entries The Cunt Beast of Bodman

I don't know about you, clearly Nubaham, I think. Yeah, oh dear, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, that flies. Narada Brian Wall I'm hearing a jazz funk version of Nantucket Slay ride there, aren't you? Yes. Lots of weak ars, but yeah, yeah. I'll need of the dancing for, well, obviously a white, bold Darrell Pandey.

David Van Day's Dex's Midnight Runners, I really don't want to think about it. No. Back in 60, Hayden a sweat. Oh, fucking hell, no. No. Excuse me, please, but you're standing in my space. You go over here and you're going to see how Karoo. as my works.

Poor old Kevin Rowland selling ice cream from a van. A monster munch chemsex party, well, I think it's electro clash. Yeah. Don't you? Yeah, sleazy avant-garde

hybrid. Yeah. A lot of sub-face. Yeah. And if you heard that and you're currently crying into your here comes jism silk scarf

and you want justice, well, you know what you need to do, sir or madam. Get in on Patreon and write that wrong straight away. Depending on what tier you join, you get the latest episodes

in full with no adverts long before everyone else and you'll also get access to the bonus episodes including the latest hit the fucking play button where me, David and our very special guest Pop craze Paul Putner rolled deep on the crop of the flop segment of the two roddies. That was a lot of fun wasn't it David? That was a belt of that one.

Everybody learned something that day I feel. And we got a few juicy ones lined up in the new year. let me tell you. So remember fingers, keyboard, patreon.com slash chart music, tips in the G string, makers jingle.

So this episode, pop craze youngsters, takes us all the way back to December the 27th, 1971. A very rare treat, don't you think, Chaps?

Because there's not too many episodes from 71 knocking about and most of them are presented by jingle nons. Even some of them have no sound in the presenter links, which will be an absolute ballache if we ever choose to cover them in the future. So save that every morsel of this one, Pop Craze Youngsters.

Yep. Panel, if I were to say to you, the music of 1971, what is immediately bursting out of your lovely heads? Like in scanners. I was just seven at the time. And one of the very first memories actually have off top of the pop to sing Paul McCartney performing Let It Be. obviously the Beatles basically So I just managed to intercept with the era of the Beatles

You know be conscious of that You got the arse end of the Beatles And you got the Moon London's And Mexico 1970 I know, I know I know yeah I wish I was old I know yeah

I got that all under my belt by the time I was like eight to nine definitely yeah What do we have Taylor the fucking space shuttle What a swizz I missed a space shuttle going up the first time Let's do a cross-country run Oh man But yeah in 71

I really keenly felt that like something had gone to miss, with the Beatles splitting, that this was going to presage an era of like decline. This would have this huge gaping hole and that all was lost. We'd have to listen to Freddy and the Dreamers. And it didn't matter, you know, there was plenty of good music around. It didn't matter. If there was no Beatles, all was somehow lost.

And I think that kind of permeated the popular culture. And you get the impression there's a sort of even weird like the music that, you know, the quality of a lot of that music, there is still a sort of underlying depressive sense that the 70s, you know, strap yourself in because this is going to be a really bleak, beetleless ride. And yet music-wise, there's an awful lot going on on all different fronts, whether it's in, obviously, the Zepp and Floyd end of things, or, you know, the kind of the Bowen T-Rex.

You know, there's things undreamt of by the Beatles are going to happen. And yet still, there is that terrible sort of feeling of lamentation that they split up. It's like the age of optimism is dead. The age of love is dead. Can you remember, David, the playground discussion when the beagle split? Do you know what? I don't think that my particular set of contemporaries were very conscious of it. I think it touched me personally because I actually associate the Beatles with London from where I'm in exile.

Because really, they fucked off in Liverpool the moment they could. You know, nothing against Liverpool. But they just had to, as they said, they had to get down to London. And they just associated them with London. I've been born in London. I felt exile from London. And I've been moved up to Leeds, you know, West Yorkshire, which I considered an absolute crap hole at the time,

a violent, sort of churlish craphole of a place. And I yearned, I'd watch Ealing comedies. You know, I wanted to live in London. And in my early, very early childhood, my grandparents on my dad's side, they lived in Wembley. And I remember, like, they had a dance set there. And I remember, like, a copy of Sergeant Pepper lying around.

And my uncle Martin and his little kind of, you know, little sort of zip boots and stuff. way boots. And all of those connotations, I thought, yeah, this is me, this is where I should be. And then, of course, they're fucking well moved up to Leeds, didn't they? My grandparents. So that was the end of that dream. So I kind of felt all of that as well as the Beatles splitting up. You know, I just felt that things were just going to be pretty shit for a fair few years. Taylor. Yeah, what's funny is how modern a lot of this music sounds. Not contemporary in style, but not archaic compared to, like,

like a top of the pops from the 60s where everything sounds really tinny and a lot more old-fashioned. The production of rock records specifically sort of peaked around this time, didn't it? It's only gone backwards since, like turning guitars into these massive washes of overloaded static to disguise the fact that the idiot playing them is just strumming away like a 12-year-old and there's no actual music happening. And in the process, you lose all the warmth and, power and space. But 1971 is a bit of a

classic year on the choir because there's still some connection between the Vanguard and the charts. There's a lot of good non-commercial albums and a lot of good commercial singles too. Decent times for soul and reggae. I mean it was before the drying out of the centreground

which begins in about 72. So by 1974, Top of the Pops has turned into a sort of freaky Valdunican show. It was when you run down the records in this episode, which were all big chart busters. It's not bad, is it? No, it's not.

I mean, yeah, you're right, David. 1971 has been depicted as a bleak year, you know, the first year of a world without the Beatles, who more or less packed it in on the last day of 1970 when McCartney sued the other three. But that meant there was suddenly a massive void which was immediately filled

by an array of acts, some of whom had been biding their time since the mid-60. and we're seizing the moment. I mean, practically all of the acts who are going to kick the decade into life are starting to make their moves in 1971. And we're going to see a lot of them in this episode. Yeah.

We're going to see quite a few 60s hangovers as well, but at the very least, they're trying to kick on into a new decade. Absolutely. And actually, the last thing we would have really needed was for the Beatles to carry on. At one point, John Lennon, in an interview, he once said,

if the Beatles had carried on, would be a bit like ELO. And yeah, I think they would be. They wouldn't have had much controversy. There were far, far better things going on. And it probably actually was good for music, but this monomaniacal tendency that they represented was finally shifted.

I think it liberated a lot of energies. Yeah. There's also, it's weird about this in 1971. There's a certain amount of, I don't know, hot pan energy. Oh, gosh, yes. Oh, yes. I say, you know. But it's obviously very ironic when you see young women swearing.

around in the audience. They'll all be in their mid-70s now. Probably still wearing hot pants as well. Yeah. But they're called incontinence briefs now. But yeah, my record collection is fucking Ramo with 1971. And you know, what's going on? Yeah. There's a riot going on. Al Green gets next to you. Yeah. This is madness by the last poets. Giving it back by the Isley brothers. Curtis Live. Just as I am by Bill Withers. Blue. Maggot Brain. Shaft. Pop Pants by James Brown, Roots by Curtis Mayfield. Fucking out. I mean, what a year it was for Black America.

The saviors of pop, as always. And it's ironic that in relation to the Beatles, there were even conspiracy theories that felt that the Beatles have been deliberately imported to stem the tide of increasingly kind of radical black music in the early 60s. There was a great deal of bitterness at Beetlemania in America on the part of a lot of creative black artists. They felt they'd been supplanted deliberately by manufactured Fab Four.

Until they got the royalty checks from those cover versions. Obviously, this is one of the Christmas episodes that you get around about this time of the year. And yeah, it is filled with people from the winner's circle. There's a lot of bangers in this one. So, yeah, I'm very much looking forward. I'm sitting here holding a knife and fork upwards and saying slew. So let's not fanny about. Onward!

In the news, Willie Hamilton, the MP4. West 5 causes outrage in the House of Commons when he coats down the royal family for being sponging minge bags during a debate over whether we should give them even more money and even goes on to describe Princess Margaret as a kept woman. Leaping to the defence of the crown is Winston Hughes, a 54-year-old dental technician from Northampton. I have written to Mr Hamilton challenging him to a fight, giving him a choice of weapons, but suggesting that we meet in a ring with the gloves on, says the former amateur boxer. I have put on some weight since my last fight in 1938, but I still pack a punch. When asked about the challenge, Hamilton says, I am not worried about this offer,

and I will not be taking him up on it. I have enough Tory nut cases to worry about without Mr. Hughes. A 17-year-old Peruvian student falls 10,000 feet from a plane that disintegrates after it struck by lightning and is found alive 11 days later when she stumbles into a lumberjack encampment. She goes on to become one of South America's foremost bat specialists. There's nothing about that story that could be improved. Great news for Les Mastabateurs of Paris, the Bluebell Girls. are finally getting some tit out. But the first time in their 37-year history,

the famous dancers at the Lido have gone topless this week and getting an extra £1.50 a night for doing so. Some of my girls decided they wanted to work with our bras in the new show, says head recruiter Margaret Keller, better known as Miss Bluebell. So why should I stop them?

It's the present trend, and we have to move with. it. A clockwork orange has its world premiere in New York. Alan Ball breaks a British transfer record when he joins Arsenal from Everton for £220,000, a whole 2.8 million in today's money. Yeah. But the big news this week, Santa's been. What did he get you, David?

Oh, I got a chopper. Oh! A big red chopper. You sure it's red, though, David? Are you sure it's not brilliant orange? Oh, yes. You know what? You might be right, actually.

Yeah. My mind might have reddened it over the years. Because I'm assuming it's a Mark I because Mark 2s didn't come out until a few years later. Yeah. And the choices at the time were brilliant orange, golden yellow, flamboyant green, Targa mustard and Horizon Blue. And I don't want to make any assumptions, David, but I'm assuming no lad in Leeds is going to want to be seen riding something that's flamboyant green.

Absolutely. correct. No. In 1971. Yeah, so I got a chopper a stubb's major. My younger brother, Stubbs Minor. He got a chipper as he fitted his junior status. My youngest brother, Stubbs Minimus. He got a little crappy little bite that used to be wrong to

Stubbs Minor with the words chipper painted across the And he was glad on it. He was glad of it. He was grateful. I'm grateful father. He said a full words to that effect, you know, seem to remember. Tears in his eyes. He still talks about it to this day. You know, it scarred him.

Poor old stubs on in us. Yeah. Whole life has been a sort of attempt at compensation, really, for a dreadful disappointment. You know, you just had to have your wheels back in a little village outside Leeds in 1970. Definitely. You know, you're out of the house and then back for tea time.

And in between. If you want to make deals. Well, yeah. You know, if you couldn't ride a bite, you were an ostracize. You were an unperson. You were an unkid. Yeah. And what was worse, though, is that in my village,

you had probably guardian reading parents who refused to have TV in the house. I mean, how could you be that cruel to kids? I mean, I'd slip my throat. I mean, it's just monstrous. I mean, people, it's the way it was sometimes people have moral panic about screen time. I guess that was a moral panic of the day about TV

and it was just like, it was ridiculous. On the cover of the NME this week, Alvin Lee of 10 years after. Merry Christmas, everyone. On the cover of Record Mirror, Mark Bowlin as Santa. Yeah, that's. more like it. On the cover of Radio Times, the two

Ronis. On the cover of TV Times, Barbara Murray and a fur-trimmed red cape with the headline, Who Killed Santa Claus? Fucking hell, TV Times. Traumatize a fucking nation of toddlers, why don't you?

The number one single in the UK this week is Ernie, the fastest Milton in the West by Benny Hill. The number one LP, Electric Warrior by T-Rex. Over in America, the number one single is brand new key by

Melanair and the number one LP. There's a riot going on by Sly and the Family Stone. Fucking yes, I love you Sly. So, boys, what were we doing in 1971? I would have turned

nine that year in the September. And it was the year that I developed sentience. What I mean about I kind of became conscious of things, the names of people, lists of stuff, and whatever. It became conscious of football in particular, politics to a degree. It was like knowing who people were and conscious of music, who was in the charts, who was who. But yeah, back in 1971, I could sit down, sit you down with a felt-tip pen

and write you down the names of the Stokes City First Eleven. I didn't give a toss about Stoke City, but I just had that retentiveness. I mean, these days, I couldn't name you four Liverpool players. I mean, it's beautiful, really. I was fascinated by cars. I could tell you the difference between a Zephyra and a courtina, which, you know, I mean, I couldn't do it. It's just white and grey ones now.

Trains I had an obsession with primarily because I never actually caught a train. They had no reason to it. It was bikes, buses, cars, walking. I even took a plane trip before I got on a train. No. I didn't get a train until I was 17, a trip to Lourdes, of all things, with the school. There were just no reason to. I once stood on a bridge and watched this fly.

scotsman like hurtle underneath it but um yeah yeah but it made me the age of the train for uh jimmy savel but uh not for me well talking to which david in the most recent hit the fucking play button you actually talked about meeting jimmy saul that's correct yeah train platform yeah maybe that's what put you off trains i mean i think you can get on a train then it was just some sort of event going on and um yeah he walked past me and my family on the um my dad game of a very very cold shoulder indeed actually. He said, Good morning. And he kind of walked on my dad every very cold, good morning

I think, well, replete with the idea that he hoped it was anything but good. And off he strode and he was just saying to himself over and over, good morning, good morning, good morning, as if he had to kind of remind himself how to be a kind of human being. It was shuddering now at the memory. Taylor, your 1971

not really up to much, was it? Yeah, no, obviously me, being such a young man while this was on telly, I was chilling in an amniotic sack. An early 70s one as well, mate. No indoor toilets for you. Yeah, it was

rough, but you know, those were the good times. No, but there were still elements of this world lingering into my adolescence and even young adulthood. This is what's weird, even in my lifetime. Something strange has happened to 1971. Because when you watch

this episode now, everything about it, not so much the music, but everything else about it has the feel of a faint decaying radio signal from another planet. But it was only a few years ago that this was only yesterday

and was discussed as only yesterday and had all the qualities of only yesterday. Like familiarity, common shared memory, lots of straight lines to the present. People would talk about it like it had only just happened. And then suddenly,

Without us noticing, it's jumped the fence, and it's joined those scratchy, squiggly, black and white silent films of World War I. And Edwardian Tea Part is in Round Hay Park. It's like a spooky portal into sealed off dimensions of unrecognisable and almost unimaginable experience. But it's only recently gone. Because I remember the trail of it, the lingering grime and the damp wallpaper. and the old English skin and what people's hair used to look like.

And all the physical leftovers, like the locked dark wood wardrobes in musty back bedrooms, piled up with discarded nylon blouses and boxed up ball games with crucial pieces missing. And the living Victorians like residual ghosts. So I feel like I remember this world, even though I wasn't in it. And that's the world in which all this, crazy shit is happening.

That unwashed dinge is what Mark Boland was bopping through. And what Slade were stomping on. And it's that extreme contrast which makes this period of history so interesting and so difficult to grasp for people who weren't there or almost there. Like on the one hand, it's all about tall brick schools full of violence, like looming over you. and dark 16mm film and lollipot men being automatically trusted and portentous warnings not to play near the mental hospital.

And, you know, lots of exposed wires and painted wood. And all that terrible received wisdom about people whose lives you couldn't begin to understand and didn't make the effort to. But also, in other ways, free and flamboyant, in a way that we can no longer even imagine. But as flamboyant as the paint job on a green chopper. Do you remember the thrill of answering the telephone by saying your own telephone number out loud?

I did. I remember, yeah. Barrican Elmitt, 376. And then pausing and waiting for someone to speak back to you. And you didn't know who it was going to be. A split second, pregnant with genuine mystery. Never such innocence again. Yeah, in terms of furniture. fixtures and fittings, I would have grown up with furniture that some of it was from the Edwardian age and the most up-to-date furniture was from about 1961. I remember we had a very

with it orange wardrobe. It was an orange wardrobe. Actually, going back to this thing about black and white, we've watched this episode and it's in colour. Yes. But practically everybody would watched it in black and white and I would have watched it in black and white. I would have seen it in colour. Would you? Yeah, we had Colatello. You'd have been a significant minority. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, not very many people had colour at this point. No. I mean, Taylor was talking about that sense of scratchiness of like, you know, pre, I don't know, 1920's silent films or whatever. And it's funny watching things on TV in black and white.

You felt a little bit at the time that there was something slightly kind of grainy and other about what you were watching on TV, whether it's the kind of weird sort of satellite intensity of watching, you know, foreign football like 1970 World Cup. Yeah. What's strange watching it in colour, oddly and to me is how it feels like it could have come from yesterday and it's over 50 years ago. Well, I've kind of tell you since about 1968. Wow.

Before I was born because my dad decided. that, oh, well, we're not going to go on holiday for the next couple of years, so fuck it. Wasn't the story that he got it because someone told him how amazing Batman looked in colour? Yes, yes. Yeah, it was, yeah, yeah. That was my dad's psychedelic experience

watching Batman chinning the Joker in colour. I mean, we still had an outdoor bog, and we still had a tint bath, but we had a colour telly. So, yeah, there's 1971 right there for you, watching colour teller in a tin bath. I mean, it's just as well that, you know, we've watched these episodes in black and white, because one thing that does strike me seeing this episode in colour is just how incredibly shit people dressed, you know,

like all the acts, all the bands or whatever. It's not just flares and things like that. I mean, flares aren't really quite a thing, actually. It's just poor colour coordination. It's thrown randomly together, you know, pinks, yellow, silvers, browns. And it's as if they've taken the idea of the liberation around to wear matching dark tapered suits, you know, like the mop tops wore and just grossly abused it. I mean, I just felt that the Beatles and they're late,

just dressed awfully once they felt the freedom to dress as they please. And I suppose at this stage, you know, things like glam haven't quite been kind of sartorily codified as yet. Well, as for me, I'm three years old and I'm living at number seven Plymsell Street in ice and green where we've been for the past two years. And at this moment in time, I've got two families on that street, my own, and the Jamaican family at the top of the street and whenever I got pissed off with my little sister which was often because she was a fucking baby

I would nip out unattended go up the cobbled street on this very steep hill and go and sit on the mam's knee or learn chess from one of her lads I think top of the street was massively exciting at this time as I've mentioned before there was a pub called the O'General and they had a statue of him in the top window and a week before Christmas

that dress him up as sand. And, you know, as soon as you saw that, you knew Christmas was on. And the best thing that's happened in Nottingham in ages is that a local brewery found him in a back room a couple of years ago in severe disrepair. I think one of his hands had dropped off. So they restored him and painted him up

and he now lives in the beer garden in a pub across the way from the train station. So whenever I leave town, I go there for a pint. Yeah. nip into the beer garden and I kiss him on the forehead and just realign myself with my glorious youth. So, yeah, if you're ever passing through Nottingham and you got time, go out the front entrance, just down on the left, there's a pub about 200 yards away called the Vat and Fiddle. Go in the back garden and say hello to the Ogeneral for me. Last time I was in Nottingham, we went, didn't? We had a grand old afternoon.

Oh yes! With pop crazed youngster Justin as well. Yeah, yes. I know. I mean, I can't remember what I got for Christmas, but I did ask my mum, and she just bridled at the thought of me not remembering Christmas presents from 54 years ago.

And said, well, whatever you got, it was fucking good. But I do know that my mom caught a hole in one of the boxes that came with. And I would put it over my head and pretend that I was on television. I do the opening line of the wooden tops. Do you remember that one? This is the story about the wooden tops. There was Mummy wooden top And the baby

There was Daddy wooden top Then there were Willet and Jenny The twins And last of all The very biggest spotty dog You ever did see One day And then I'd stop

Because it'd go into the story And I'd do that over and over again If I wasn't doing that I'd be there going This is the party political Broadcasting Company And doing a really bad impression Of the Education Secretary

at the time which of course was Margaret Thatcher, which I'm sure my dad would have loved while he was trying to watch Zed cars and I'm standing next to the telly pretending to be Margaret Thatcher. It sounds like me trying to recreate the music box from the start of Cambwick Green

with the top of a pack of J-cloth. I mean, top of the pops isn't in my life just yet. It's on far too late for me. Tony Bones' mom hasn't initiated me just yet. But having said that, this episode's on at Tea Time, And today happens to be my dad's 29th birthday. So he's obviously sleeping off a trip to the Ogeneral. So, you know, I don't know, maybe I did see this.

I hope I did. Yeah, I may not have been born, but I do know that these were the greatest days because I've read all about it on Facebook, London nostalgia groups and populated by people in their 70s. And what I've learned about London in this period is that there was no crime. No.

No woke. people were too tough to not use slurs or to mind other people using slurs against them and yes they may have been gangsters but they were honest English gangsters and at least

they didn't speak well chaps I do believe that it's that time of the episode when we retreat to the chart music crap room we riffle through some boxes and we pull out an issue of the music press from this week actually chaps I'll tell a lie

because it's last week's, it's the bumper Melody Maker Christmas issue from December the 18th, 1971. Shall we have a leaf through? Please do. I should say so. On the cover, John and Yoko,

with members of the Harlem Children's Community Choir during the recording of Happy Christmas, open brackets, war is over, close brackets, which is released this week everywhere but the UK due to a publishing dispute.

with Northern Songs. It'll come out over here in November of 1972. Luckily not a plagiarism dispute considering it's just got the same tune as the song Stew Ball, which is an old folk tune from the 18th century.

But they were the ones you could rip off. And I love how you love me. Yeah, that's true. Knowing John Lennon's taste, that's probably where he got it from, rather than, you know, Peter Paul and Mary singing the song about a horse. But, yeah. But the folk tunes are the tunes to rip off.

Dylan used to do it all the time. In fact, it's a shame John couldn't have passed this advice on to a friend who appears later in this episode. It would have saved a lot of bonner. Just a bunch of rip-off merchants, don't they're the Beatles? Oh, gotcha. In the news, Frank Zapper, who's already had to deal with his band's equipment being destroyed

after some stupid with a flare gun, burn the place to the ground. In Montreau, the week before, is spending Christmas in a Harley Street clinic after being pushed off the stage and falling 12 foot into the orchestra pit at the rainbow a fortnight ago. Suffering a broken rib,

crushed larynx, fractured leg, a fucked up neck and a cancelled tour. The assailant, a labourer from Waltham Stowe called Trevor Howell, said he did it because his girlfriend said she fancied Zapper. He thought he'd been looking at her throughout the gig and he felt that the gig wasn't giving him value for money. How would be jailed for a year?

Zapper ended up with permanent back pain in a wheelchair for six months, his voice deepening, and the Mothers of Invention splitting up. Oh dear. You don't have to feel sorry for him, actually, Zapper, genuinely, because this kind of broke him, really. Yeah.

He had a bit of a shit 70s compared to his 60s. I dare say that all others chipped in. Still, mothers of invention split up, so at least some good thing out. He's a picture of Trevor Howell from Walthamstow and he's really tall with long black air, moustache and a sole patch

and he's wearing a purple-ribbed polo neck playing a Gibson SG really fast. I don't know what she sees him. Yeah. The face's new LP and nods as good as a wink to a blind horse has been banned in America due to the free poster

inside the sleeve which distraud have called pornographic and have refused to handle as it's got nudie groupies on it. The British version of the poster, which came out six weeks ago over here, had been censored by Warner Brothers UK, but the Americans didn't bother, slipping out 400,000 copies of it before anyone noticed. They're still on sale in the USA and are being snapped up by people who think they've got to collectors item. Americans. Have you seen that poster?

Yeah. Yeah. It's Americans in it with their endlessly conflicted approach to tit. They're obsessed with them, but at the same time, I think they're evil. Talking of banned records, the new Bob Dylan single, George Jackson, which has been swept off the playlist of many American radio stations, will not be banned by the BBC or Radio Luxembourg, despite being about a Black Panther leader who was shot dead.

after trying to escape from San Quentin in prison and containing the shit word. We're not going to ban it, said a BBC spokesman. It will be played on Radio One programmes, but we may leave it out of things like Junior Choice. Yeah, it's really to be brave about something like this. It's odd, considering the things they did ban like Paul McCartney on various occasions.

But, you know, it's almost like an empty gesture, really. I mean, Diddy David Hamilton isn't going to play George Jackson by Bob Dylan. And even it'd been an innocuous song about a fictional sharecropper It wouldn't have got played either So it's all pretty academic I mean, right about this time They only just started to play my brother By Terry Scott

Of course Who looked grandad in the loo by my brother Band in the mid-60s when it came out For the L word Yes If you're hoping to spend that record token From Auntie May on the new Rolling Stones Greatest Hitch compilation Hot Rocks next month

It had better be big enough to afford an input because Decker have just announced that there are no plans to release it in the UK. But sit tight, it'll come out here in 1990 on a format that you would not understand in 1971. The big labels in London are still fighting like rats in a bag over the biggest free agent in pop, Mark Bolan, whose contract with Fly Records expired last month when Jeepster came out and he set up his own label, the T-Rex Wax Company, to put out his next single Telegram Sam and the LP Electric Warrior. CBS are laying it on particularly thick at the moment,

but he eventually goes with EMI, who helped him out with distribution. And Isaac Hayes has announced an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall at the end of next month with a 40-piece orchestra, only to be banned from the venue a week later, after a spokesman said, we are worried about the type of audience he might attract. Oh my God. This bloke, might as well have been on one man and his dog.

Jesus Christ. Yeah, because young black men are never more dangerous than when they've got their best clothes on and their girlfriend with them. Spokesman said, we are concerned about potentially disruptive levels of smoothness and their effect upon the fabric of the... building. There's also a danger that any passing children may be affected. Some of them could end up

having soul for the rest of their lives. Perhaps Mr Hayes should think about them for a change instead of muttering for eight minutes before the song starts. The speculation that the fears might stump from a James Brown gig at the venue early in the year, which allegedly incited riot. He eventually announces two gigs at the rainbow. And of course, Taylor, he eventually played the Royal Albert Hall in the 90s,

didn't you? Yes, and we were both there. What a gig that was. We were both there, but we didn't know each other at the time. Ships in the night. What a fantastic concert that was. I think that might be the best concert

I've ever been to. In the interview section, Roy Hollingworth swings by Teddington to drop in on the number one in the country this week, Benny Hill. After learning that he got his start as a drummer with a Southampton dance band called Ivy Lily White and her boys, he slaps on an old record of him playing the Paraguine harp and tells Hollingworth that he helped discover Donovan in the mid-60s by doing an impersonation of

him, but he's laying off the music piss takes these days because there's no real characters about. I couldn't impersonate Led Zepp or Ginger Baker because Mr and Mrs Jones of Castleford don't know what they look like from Adam but he really liked Pink Floyd when the driver from the BBC took him home after a recording for Top of the Pops Oh man, Benny Hillers Robert Plant though

Fucking hell, that would have been amazing But if you're all Mr Jones and Castleford They don't really give a shit about these kind of nuances You know, just bung a wig on and Go on to camera and that's rock music covered Slap my bold head till the juice runs down my leg The rock and roll revival is picking up steam and Lorraine Alterman is at Madison Square Gardens

to see one of the great survivors. Bo Diddley. He tells us that he's 42, he's still got his hair, he doesn't do drugs, he's upset with forebears like Jimmy Hendrix for not looking after themselves, and he demands payback for influencing

every guitarist that came after him. I open the door for a lot of people, and they just ran through and left me holding the knob. That's quoted a week, that. He's left holding the knob, especially at the age of 42 or older. Chris Charlesworth pins down the most elusive artist of 1971, Gilbert O'Sullivan,

and asks him why he's never played a live show, bar the recent BBC in concert performance, and he's told that it's no hurry for him or his manager, and he's happy doing TV, all over Europe. What I don't want to do is get three musicians behind me and perform like a group.

I think my lack of live appearances has built up a bit of mystique about there, which isn't a bad thing. We learned that an appearance at a record shop in Amsterdam caused a riot after fans block the street and he's not bothered about America. Riots in Amsterdam over Gilbert O'Sulliver,

my lord. He's sort of gingerly, isn't it? And he's not bothered about it. America which is just as well because Ray Coleman sits down with Elton John before he fucks off to France to record Honky Chateau for a rumination on the state of play of pop in late 1971 where are the new beagles and stones who are going to come along and shake us all out of our complacence there where are they it's all become so static so solemn I don't want another arches to come up but

Things are just terrible as they stand. I can see Lennon's still a teenage idol at Forte. I wish the scene would change and people would get young idols. It's crazy. Rod Stewart's in his mid-20s. Dylan and Lennon are 30s. Presley's an old man and even I am 24. Regé's the only answer.

And Paul Nicholas heeded the call. He's dead right, though. All the really big British stars that came through in the early 70s, including him, we're all 60s left over. Very much not teenagers when they hit it big. El and John, Ross Stewart, Mark Bowling, David Bowie,

Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Gary Glitter. And he's also right that reggae is the only answer. So a lot of questions, including what is the name of the musical style which originated in Jamaica in the 1960s

with roots in Scar and Rocksteady characterized by a distinctive emphasis on the offbeat. Practitioners include Paul Nicola's UB40, Ace of Base, the police, Judge Dredd. And the daddy of them all, the daddy of them all, Jonathan King, unless we forget Johnny Ray. Jonathan King. A great pioneer.

And Linda McCartney. Yes. I'd like to see anyone find a better answer to that question. Roy Hollingworth is raving about a new LP by a very earth. there, very driving, very funky band that he's been laying on his friends of late. Dog of two-head,

by the masters of heads-down no-nonsense group masturbation, status quo, who haven't been heard of since 1968. We learned that their organist Ron Lines split from the group by walking off a train in Stoke-on-Trent

and never being seen again. They fell off the scene so badly that they didn't get one booking in 1969, but they stuck it out, got the chance to play a track on whistle test the other week, and are back! We're taking our music seriously, says Francis Rossi. We may loon on stage,

but that's because the music is working, and the buzz is there. We'll wait until people come round to us. Fucking hell moaning about not being played on telly or radio even then. And Roy Hollingworth gets, the plum gig of the issue, spending a day at the Queen's Hotel in Penzance with Lindisfarne, who have spent the entire year gigging round the country,

and it's fucking killed them. While Saikal lifts up his jumper to display the shingles that have criss-crossed his torso, Ray Jackson, who played mandolin on Maggie May, tries to explain the year they've had. Imagine having a hairy night, and having to travel 200 miles the next day, and having to be capable of spewing out of a truck window at 70 miles an hour. Go on chaps, think about that.

Spewing. We did a lot of spewing in the 70s, isn't it? You don't get spewing these days, do you? No. Bloody Genzy. Meanwhile, Alan Hull photographed eating a sandwich with a bottle of brune at his feet in what must be the most glamorous photo in a music paper ever tells us Southerners can't build chips, can't make fish and chips and can't write songs.

London can spawn good players' mind, but Southerners spend too much time being proper groups. They spend too much time being it, being the good boys, the boys who matter. There's too much of that crap around. Still, they reveal they've been invited to America to support the band, and there's two tables of sandwiches and crates of Newcastle Browns. provided gratis by the brewers to get through

before it's off to Luton. Oh man, Southerners can't do anything. They're fucking useless. That photo of him, yeah, sat there with like, his hair drooping down and he's got like a tash with a triangular sandwich with a big bite out of it. And, yeah, a bottle of beer.

That photo could only look more like that photo if he was sitting on a toilet. Yes. He's fine. before becoming ensnared in that protracted legal dispute to demonstrate their sole ownership of some fog off of a funny river. Walking into court with little sealed jam jars full of fog.

Dimo label maker stickers on them saying, Alan Hull. You see? That you see? Single reviews. Roy Hollingworth is in the chair this week and although a melody maker doesn't appear to do singles of the week just yet. He started with Morningers Broken by Cat Stevens.

Can you remember Morning Assembly with the girl's PT mistress playing piano to dots and the geography master shouting eight keys flat? Well, I feel very sure that you and I used to sing this tune. A good song, perfect single material. I'm going to say it's too pretty, but I'll leave this building whistling it. In a few days I'll dig it. and next month I'll hate it cat is no fool

and this will win fucking oh you did didn't it we used to sing this at fucking assembly fucking Eden saw play what the fuck does that even mean I still don't know the northern soul boom is in full effect and Hollingworth welcomes

the re-release of baby do the filly dog by the Olympics with open arms there were so many fine soul records kicking around in 1965. They were to use that word, ever. They all had an awful

lot of raunch and poke about them and they were made to be played lad and endlessly. Were they that good? Yes, they were and I'm going to play this again right now. It's a fucking tune that song. But it's a coat down for

Have You Seen her by the Chai Lights. What? It's what one might call unemotional over-dramatics. For a start, it relies on the sadly spoken lyric, like a black version of deck of cards. Sickly crooning, domestic dog production, no bones and a gummy bite.

No, mate, no, no, no. Yeah, black people ripping off the idea of talkovers on records. Yeah, moving off Matt Spigerraig. There's loads of new reggae about, but Hollingworth doesn't reckon any of it. Girl called clover by young Al Capone is dreadful. Mahalia Saunders' cover of Peace of My Heart is a great number thoroughly ruined with flaccid production.

And Licking Stick by Desmond Decker is trash. Licking stick. Alan Randall, the officially designated George Formby impersonator of the nation, has put out where does Father Christmas hang his stocking. Possibly hangs it in a place that I'm not. allowed to mention in Melody Maker for a fear of offending some of you, writes Hollingworth.

That's the joke. Yes. Fucking keep up, Hollingworth. Jesus, keep up with Alan Randall. I know it's tricky. He did a review the next year. This dingling that Chuck Berry keeps thinking about must be my dirty mind, but I can't help him as he's thinking about.

He's John Thomas. Someone should have warned him before he recorded it. Saved him a lot of trouble. Bell and Ock, the band formed from the cycle. psychedelic ashes of Skip Biffiter, has released She Belongs to Me, and Hollingworth digs it, man. Like most of Dylan's songs, it's as lasting as a fine building. There's an unmistakable, spontaneous approach to it. It gets frenzied, anguished, and pushing, and it's excellent. Give it Airplay.

Our song, the debut single by Stray, is warmly welcome by Hollingworth, as he deems them one of the better varieties of live bands around. What I like about it is that it's a song and not just a lengthy jam, a clean, valid four minutes of tune. And Stray, of course, would go on to be managed in the mid-70s by... Charlie Cray!

Have you seen that clip of him? Yeah, on BBC archives. Yes, the great BBC archive. It shows him walking down Valence Road in Bestonel Green, which is the street where the craze grew up, which is right near where I live. And it's meant to illustrate the bleakness of the East End. But I'll tell you, it looks a lot worse now.

Now that you need to be a multi-millionaire to buy a house there, it looks like a fucking pigstyne. No, artisan bakers then, though. No, it's not like that. Ron and Reg would never have allowed that to happen. They would have had a word. They would have sent the boys around to slash the dough in a nice wheat sheaf pan.

I'll give you a crispy here, you slag. And as it's Watney Party 7 season, Hollandworth reviews the maxi single, The Rock and Roll All-Stars play Party Rock, with five cover versions of oldies and a cover of Get It On for good measure. Sounds as though it was recorded at St Pancras during a busy evening. These lads aren't bad players,

but if you've got the originals, you'll wonder why the hell we need poorer versions. Get It On sounds like a Woolworth's cover version. Have you heard their version of Get It On, Chaps? Yeah. I've got a theory about the lead singer. Yeah. Shaking Stevens.

Comrade Shaky himself doing Get It On. It really could be. Yeah. But it's so generic. It's hard to tell. Hit the fucking playbook. That sounds like Shaky to me. It does.

My shaking antennae aren't exactly quivering. You could be right. I mean, a lot of people sound like that, don't they really? But fucking old chaps, imagine if glamour had been started by Shaking Stevens.

Oh, do you remember that time when Shaking Stevens appeared on Top of the Pops with strips of denim stuck to his face? Those cover version albums are always fascinating. Yeah. Always.

Like, you know, on the Pickwick Records' Top of the Pops albums, the lead vocals on all the Roxy Music tracks, and only the Roxy Music tracks, were performed by a Brian Ferry obsessive from St Albans called Bert. Every time Roxy Music had a hit, he was just waiting by the phone, cracking his knuckles, spraying his throat from one of those little bottles with a tube coming out with a squeezy bulb on the end.

But no, I'm always a sucker for those Sound-like records. My favourite sound-like tracks that I've heard recently are from the super hits series, which is performed by a group calling themselves Kings Road, which really do sound like they were recorded in a church all on a Walkman. It's unbelievable. Yeah, they do covers of a couple of steely down tracks of all things, which are amazing. They do it again, the highlight of which is their attempt at the electric sitar solo. Oh, which sounds like it's being pissed into the snow while running away from a crocodile. And they also do reeling in the years,

which, let's just say that Donald Fagan and Walter Becker might possibly have requested a second take, maybe a slight adjustment to the microphone placement. Considered harmonies on the chorus seem to be coming from the opposite end of the Scout Hut. I don't think any audiophile ever tested their new hi-fi system with a copy of Super Hits Volume 10. That's all I can say.

I'm still looking, by the way, for the Kings Road Beatles tribute album, which I've never heard, but apparently it includes a version of Mother by John Lennon, which I would dearly love to endure, if anyone can help. Both my grandparents blighted my 70s Christmases with the old top of the pop songs, which obviously considered to be tremendous bargains.

Yes, you're the envy of everyone on your... estate, weren't you? That's right, or my neighbourhood, yeah, yeah. If I were to say to you, chaps, that one of those top of the pop's albums actually got to number one in the album chart this year, 1971, would you believe me? Yes. Well, I'd be lying out my ass because two of the fuckers did. Wow.

Yeah? I didn't think they were allowed. I thought it's like the reason that, you know, wrestling net never gets reported in the sports pages. They were just considered not legitimate. No, they had to change the rules. Yeah, they changed the rules in 1972. Right. Songs that would be sold below a certain price weren't allowed into the LP charts. So there we go. Yeah.

Yeah, there was this fear that otherwise the charts would be dominated by cheap vocation albums and it would make everyone look ridiculous. They only got round this in the 80s when they started to get albums like, you know, now that's what I call music and, you know, Raiders of the pop charts where you got the actual recordings on it. In the LP review section, well, the pick of the bunch this week is music. Carol King's follow-up to tapestre, and Richard Williams really wants to like it. She now spends much of her time writing lyrics which refer to her own situation

rather than speaking to her audience as a whole. That's okay, but just occasionally I can't help feeling that something is being lost. That's pretty subjective stuff, though, and it's still one hell of a good record. Santa's left something special in Chris Charles was stocking this one. week, Brain Capers, the fourth album by Mott the Hoopal. It's back to rock for Hoopal after their comparatively liked last album, with the group obviously attempted to cash in on their live success by issuing a set of tracks virtually recorded live in the studio.

If their younger fans can afford the two quid, then this could be the turning point. Three Dog Nights are one of the best American bands of their type, begins Jeff Brown in his review of their new LP, Harmony. This latest effort, which has made the US top 10 albums chart, lacks two things, pretence and decent cover notes. Not all of the tracks work. In fact, the one that least appeals is the one that's been released as a single over here. Old-fashioned love song.

But don't be misled. There are plenty of tracks on this album infinitely superior to it. It's a strange thing to say, lax pretense. It's a very unorthodox 70s opinion. No, they mean it, man. I find it very hard to believe that these tracks are infinitely superior. And I only got GCSE maths. Imagine what Gaille Cantor would have made of that claim.

Sarcastically worded letter in the issue dated January the 8th, I'll be bound. But it's a coat down for soul to soul. the soundtrack of the film of the Concert of Garner's Independence Day celebration last March featuring Wilson Pickett, Ike and Tina Turner, Santana and the Staples singers, to name but a few. Any thoughts that this might be soul's answer to Woodstock are quickly dispelled by the title track, an undistinguished song performed in undistinguished fashion by Icon Tina, Sniffs Alan Lewis. He likes Roberta Flack singing Freedom Song Acapell. in the dungeon of a former slave fortress in Cape Coast,

but is it impressed by Wilson Pickett? This may have been a great event. If it was, the album doesn't do it justice, writes Lewis. What did he fucking want Wilson Pickett to do? Be actually chained down in a slave ship and being whipped while he's singing in the midnight hour. Roy Hollingworth is massively confused by Barbara Jones Streisand, the new LP by Barbara Streisand,

before he even got. gets it on the turntable. Any album with a cover like this, I thought, can't be bad. I mean, I really fancy the woman for the first time. But if you had to plan a stereotypical Streis and 71 album, it would come out like this. If you've already got tapestry, this is simply excess baggage, old-fashioned songs, old-fashioned arrangements, and suitable singing is what she's about, and she should leave rock and roll to those who are not.

understand and feel it. That might sound fascist, but it's true. Yeah, don't be a fascist. Suggests rock and roll is better played by people who understand it. That's what Hitler thought. Yes. Just play it safe by rating albums by female artists based on whether or not you fancy them on the cover, lacking even feeble 90s self-aware irony.

The Doors might be without Jim Morrison, who snuffed it, months ago, but they're still lashed to their contract with Elektra. So here comes other voices, the follow-up to LA Woman. Did someone say Terry Reid was joining the doors? Asked Michael Watts. Well, he should. They need him. This album is so unmemorable for the eye of difficulty in remembering the title.

The songs are colourless and there's nothing to get excited about. Just stifle a yawn. Take your copy of the doors or stretch. days from the shelf that make believe this record never happened. Was Terry Reed going to join the doors? Probably not. No. Imagine if they got Terry McCann.

Father, I want to thump you. Mother! Hold on here comes to season. Play this after Sunday lunch while the red wine is still warming the body. Before the chicken has been digested, and while relaxing with a lady in the aftermath of something deeply satisfying, begins Chris Charlesworth in his review of Barclay James Harvest and other short stories, the third LP from the cream of the old and prog scene.

There are flashbacks into early memories and yearnings for early roots, a pub around the corner, a good wife, dinner on the table. The whole mood suggests how Yorkshire Barclays long for home Where they can escape the trendy pop world And return to steak pie and chips A pint of teclays or Barnsley bitter Concludes Charlesworth Whose review's going to be ruined

With the creation of Greater Manchester Three years from now I mean, fucking hell man Who has ever wanted to have a shag After a big Sunday dinner While the chicken's still being digested Oh, that's your dirty mind That's your dirty mind. Relaxing.

All you want is a kib and to be woken up just in time for Bullseye. Sorry, that might be just me, but I think I'm right there. Interesting, though, how he's addressing both straight men and lesbians. It's quite progressive for the time. Islands by Kim Crimson isn't the master album Robert Fripp has been threatening to produce for years, but it can't be far off, according to Michael Watts. Jeff Brown thinks you should hang around the record shop and listen to a live in concert by the James

gang before you part with any cash. Alan Lewis is delighted to see the Pied Piper by Bob and Marcia comes in a gatefold sleeve, but it's very soft lad reggae. And an unknown writer laments the fact that Elvis sings the wonderful world of Christmas is a long way from all shook up.

But he does like the cover image of Elvis as a snowman. Gig guide, David could have seen Al Green at the Q Club in Paddington Mott the Hoopool supported by Gallagher and Lyle at the Roundhouse Steele-E-I-SPAN at the London College of Printing, Cole Douglas and the Gonzales band at the Q-Club,

status quo at the red line in Leytonstone or Nazareth at the Boat's House in Q but probably didn't. The rest of us are absolutely fucked because there's no gig guide this week and all the adverts are for London venues. Shame on us. In the letters page, the main topic of conversation this week is the aftershock of the spat between John Lennon and Paul McCartner,

where Macca gave an interview a month ago for the maker and said he just wanted the four beacles to sit down and sign a piece of paper to officially split the band, and he thought that John's coat down on how do you sleep was silly with the headline, why Lennon is uncool, which led to Lennon writing too massively bitchy open letters to the paper, accusing McCartney of being a naive liar who started the diswar in the first place on ram. John Lennon is a genius, states Neil Mooney of Greenock. As for his attitude to McCartner, I don't blame him. McCartney's one of those who, me, I don't want to hurt anyone, guys, he makes me sick. with his good guy attitude.

Give me Lenin's morals and music any time. Keep going, John. I'm with you. He's practically holding his coat there, isn't it? All you need is love. That's a laugh coming from John Lennon, counters Elizabeth Houton and Orwin Williams of Stockport. Practice what you preach, John.

Why can't you and Paul stop acting like a pair of catty schoolgirls? Oh, melody maker, spare a thought for the old. uninformed masses. I could have gone on believing forever that Paul was the beautiful, innocent crooner of yesterday, and John the rakish daredevil of a hard day's night, writes Laura Beggs of Weymouth. In one fell swoop, you have shattered all my illusions. They are as human as everyone else. And the final word on the matter for this week goes to Barbara D. Hallett

of Broms Grove. I am fed up to the back teeth with articles on John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I was just thinking, you hold on Barbara, I'm sure in 50 years time there will no longer be a suffocating glut of those articles. Some of them

the only work I can get, so do you shut up. Taylor, where do you have stood as a young head over this frackar between London and McCartney who's side of you are mate I mean there's a young head like you can't help

but beyond John Lennon's side because he seems like you know like edgy and Paul McCartney's just done Mary had a little lamb and all this sort of stuff but as an older gentleman who knows a lot more about the circumstances

like he's just want to knock their heads together yeah David As a kid Paul McCartney he's a teenager John Lennon as a bit more grown up Paul McCartney and then as an old man, I agree with Taylor. A couple of months ago,

I was watching a hard day's night around my mate's house, and he's probably the straightest man I know. And halfway through it, he just turned around to me and just said, if you had to fuck one of the beagles, which one would he be? And I instantly said, Paul, as if I've been thinking about it all my life.

Which is fucking menthol. As a kid, Paul McCartney, as a teenager, John Lane. if I personally had to fuck one of the people it was Paul McCartney because he's still alive well yeah that helps but it's because he looks like a girl because I'm a straight man and Paul McCartney is the one

who looks the most like a woman so it's not really a proper answer to the question oh have you seen that photo on Facebook of Paul McCartney as a woman fucking hell he'd get it I can imagine I'd like to make him go woo although if I was a woman he would be my last choice. Come on, you get a better slamming off Ringo, let's face it. You just would, right?

With that out of the way, it's back to the traditional standby topic of letters, pages in music magazines, the rubbishness of Radio One. The deficiencies of radio coverage of rock in England are to me too obvious, writes P.L. Watson of Sheringham Golf Club, Norfolk. The sounds of the 70s programs are feeble.

They so often degenerate into John, Bob and Alan's Little Garden party, where rock replaces chamber music. Where is the evil that Mike Harding used to pick up so well gone? Mike Harding. That Mike Harding, the Rochdale Cowboy, yeah. Isn't it time we stopped slagging Pete Townsend, T-Rex, Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and point out guns at the record companies, asks George Davis of Cricklewood.

Following another increase, it now costs nearly £2.50 for a single LP. I ran that through the inflation calculator, chaps. You know how much that is? In today's rubbish money? £2,000. Possibly even more. £31.90.

Yeah, that is pretty bad. I think the last time that we took the piss with CDs was 90s, wasn't it, when they were about 1799 or something like that. Before the internet, of course. And Richard Butterworth of Harrow has a special message of goodwill. Quote from the M.M. interview with Terry Knight, manager of Grand Funk. When Mark Don and Mel stand on that stage,

Mark says, this is my guitar. People say I can't play this. Well, screw them. I'm here, and you can be two. Right on, Terry. I sure I can be there and you know how? One, by playing the most predictable, empty, formulaised crap ever to be mistaken for music and two, by having behind me one of the biggest record companies in the world, coupled with a publicist

who, with his clever stream of verbal diarrhea, can brainwash a gullible public into believing I'm playing music of now. Come off it, Terra. Either you're the most naive. human being ever connected to the Muzak business. Or you just want to make a fast couple of hundred thousands. I think the latter is the case. 64 pages, 7p, I never knew there was so much in it.

So what else was on telly this day? Well, BBC One commences at 9am with Watch with Mother, presumably Dad's having a lion, followed by Golden Scy. A Clip Show of Ancent Slapstick, presented by Michael Bentie. Oh, that was great, was that? Then it's the 1964 comedy A Hard Days Night, the Wilfred Bramble film about an Irish pensioner who takes his grandsons in consequential pop group down to London for the weekend.

Way too early to be on. I can't believe they put on Hard Days Night at that time, 9.40 a.m. That was, you know, the Beatles film was on. I remember when Helt was on in about 1974. It was just like, it was a massive. of events. Yeah, this is outrageous. This should have been a tea time film on fucking boxing day, not something to shut the kids up at while you're sleeping off the Christmas speedball. It's disgusting, pissing this away before the winter sun's come up. It's the best thing

on telly all day. Yeah. Outrage. Well, you know, the BBC one and the Beatles on Boxing Day, I think they've got the fingers burned, didn't they? In 1967. By the way, if you had to fuck one of the Beatles, which one would it be? It's worth thinking about, isn't it? Fucking up, we've invented the new pantomime horse here, haven't we? Bring back pantomime horse. There's your parlour game for this year, Polkrae's youngsters. If you had to fuck one of the Wurzels, which one would it be?

I would say whichever one of them had most recently washed in a barrel. Three men attempt to climb an outer Hebridean hunk of rock called the nose in the documentary Rock Island Climb. Then Robert Robinson, the owner of the most impressive combover in Istra, hosts Asht the Family. I actually spent a lot of time studying his comb over of late. It's astonishing. Why don't the comb over has come back? Yeah. Second best comb over the seventh is after Donnie MacLeod.

Oh, really? Yeah. Above Bobby Choltenham, even Ralph Coates. Yeah. And those were pretty straightforward, weren't they? They wasn't really a tonsorial creation? like Robert and Donnie. At noon, it's two and a half hours of holiday grandstand

with football preview, the second off of Leeds versus Wakefield with Eddie Wearing, racing from Kempton and motor racing from Brands Hatch. Holland, Belgium and Italy, face off against Blackpool at the Avivore Centre for It's a Christmas knockout, and then the Virginian investigates some sinister goings on in the town next door.

It's a Christmas. knockout. Sadly, title does not refer to somebody's dad catching up with Stuart Hall. Another of those 70s British weirdos ruining it for all the other weirdos by actually turning out to be all the things that people suspected weirdos have been. It's a real show. Although it's a funny thing when you look back at it, all the 70s weirdos who still seem charming now like Tom Baker were difficult but passable human beings and the ones who were actually scumbags are the ones who seemed like cunts even at the time and seem even more like cunts when you see the old footage today and the only exception being rod hull yeah who i have

no reason to suspect of anything untoward other than using a puppet bird as a fig leaf of violence and occasional groping. I was watching a documentary about Rodham recently, and it's really terrible how miserable he seems towards the end of his life. Yeah. Because he lost all his money by being stupid enough to blow it all on this absurd mansion in Rochester

where he lived, like the size of Buckingham Palace. So he tied himself into these mortgage payments as though clumping your beaked hand over Michael Parkinson's mouth and pushing him off his swivel chair was an endlessly renewable source of income that would just go on forever.

I think he's subconsciously wanting to fall off that roof, didn't it? Yeah, I don't blame him. You see these later interviews with him, he's all droopy-faced and completely broken. And God forgive me, I'm sat there giggling because all I can think of is the phrase Rod Hull and Emo. BBC 2 finally bothers to do something at 11 a.m.

with play school and then shuts down for five hours and ten minutes. Fucking hell. They've just started surrender to Everest, the documentary about the 1971 International Everest Expedition, which started with 24 climbers from 12 different countries and ended with seven of them giving up, 11 being hospitalized and one Indian major getting killed. Wait, wait, wait, is that what they called the expedition?

surrender to Everett? Fuck you know, I would never have signed up for that. Gentlemen, our plan is to scale the north phase of Mount Dignitas. I'll be there. The purpose of this expedition is to see if we can find any trace of last year's expedition. Yeah, no way, no way. ITV opens a shop at 5 past 9 with origami. Then Rupert the Bear gets stalked by a bad Chinese imp.

After Atamant and the Superman cartoon, A massive plant attaches itself to a rocket ship in Lost in Space. Then it's till I end my song. A documentary where a camera crew goes up the Thames and films people pissing about on boats and working by the river. After nearly two fucking hours of boring horse racing from Weatherby and Wincanton, it's, Hey, Cinderella! A Canadian TV retelling of the fairy story with a groovy edge

featuring Belinda Montgomery, Robin Ward and Kermit the Frog. And they're an hour and 20 minutes into the courage of Lasset, the 1948 film featuring Pall and a 14-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Surely they didn't name a brand of dog food after the actor who played Lasset.

Could have been worse. They could have named a brand of dog food after they actually played Champion the Wonder Horse. All right then Pop Craze Youngsters. Finally time to plunge the fist of knowledge deep into the ring piece of 1971. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget. They've been on top of the pops more than we have. 25 to 5 on Boxing Day, Monday, December the 27th, 1971.

And yes, I know I said Boxing Day, but that's the way it was when Chris. Day fell on a sat day with the 26 being known as Christmas Sunday and top of the pops has come to the end of a very rocky year. It's still one of the flagships of BBC Light Entertainment pulling down 11 million viewers. It's already racked up 406 episodes and it's got Johnny Stewart, the originator of the format, back on the tiller after a two-year layoff of sorts and he immediately knobbed off the album section. which took up 10 minutes of precious pop time. But, as we mentioned in great detail in chart music number 38, the show was in crisis after the death of a 15-year-old girl who was a regular audience member of Top of the Pops,

who died of a drug overdose and left behind a diary, claiming she had consorted with various presenters and pop stars. Obviously, chaps, the papers piled right in on that. Here's a column by Barbara Grimmons. in the Daily Express dated April the 7th. Could anything have been more predictable than the top of the pop scandal, which is now blown up in the BBC's face? It picks a bunch of delicious, new biolical dollies in their early teens.

It introduces them to a heady new world of famous DJs, pop singers and TV technicians. That everyone falls about in astonishment when people talk about about the pretty little dollies and the TV men. The BBC is considering chaperones now. I should have thought that it was an idea that might have crossed someone's mind a bit sooner. And yeah, get used to that word dollies, by the way, Paul Crazy Juxes, you've got to hear it to a lot in this episode.

It's strange to that really because it seems to sort of hold a kind of mix of kind of content, but perhaps it's sort of like a welcome duty of care. Yeah, and oh, you know 15 years, old girls and 57 year old lighting rigors. They turn a girl's head. In the wake of a report in the news of the world earlier this year after they received a letter signed a BBC producer, Radio One, which claimed that DJs and producers were being supplied with prostitutes in return for playing certain records, including the quote, I suggest you hit some of the guilty ones like Tommy Vance, who is the king of the orgies. the BBC have clamped right down.

Article in the London evening news date in April 15, Big Check on Top of the Pops' dollies. Dolly girls in hot pants were questioned as they arrived at the BBC's Top of the Pop studio last night. Uniformed officials checked that none of the girls was under 15, the program's minimum age limit. Two officials scrutinized tickets and questioned teenagers. The BBC said

the only way people can get in is to have a ticket. We are taking our usual precautions to prevent anyone underage from getting in. And chaps, I do believe that's what the goodies were getting at a couple of years later with that superstar episode. You know, the one where Tim and Graham try and break into the top of the pop studio to shag up Bill's appearance as Randy Pandey and they're confronted by

security guards with machine gun nests and a sign that reads Top of the Pops tonight. Girls only must be over 16 and under 17 with big knockers. So they dress up accordingly. And yeah, I've got to say, Tim Brooke Taylor is a red-ed strumpet. That has to be number two in my bloke's dressed as women. I weirdly fancy sheet.

And I'd say gunner parking as a busty blonde. In it ain't half-opt-mom. That's at number three. So there we go. Luckily for the BBC, however, the Sunday people has found a solution to Top of the Pop's age problem. Article dated September 5th. Is she Britain's gruviest or wackiest granite?

At 67 she's the toast of a city's night spots. And not amongst the sedate set with their blue-rinsed perms either. No, Edith Percival's scene is right here amongst the swinging youngsters. In hot pants, floppy hats, and all, you can find her dancing the night away with the best of them. The fact is, she said, I haven't grown up. I'm still a teenager at heart. As soon as I hear the music, I get switched on inside and I can't help dancing.

Something comes over me. Anybody who knows the Birmingham scene knows the Go Go Granny at the Barbarella, at the Lacano, at Rebecca's, at the Birdcage, Edith is an enthusiastic regular. Mind you, she said. Keeping up with the latest fashions is a bit difficult when you're living on a pension, but I think of creations and set to making them.

Needless to say, Mrs. Percival, who has 12 children and 30 grandchildren, is well up on the top 20. Her favourite group, Mungo Jere. Favorite singer, Tony Christie. Favorite DJs, Emperor Roscoe and Tony Blackburn. But the whole scene is definitely a big miss as far as her husband, Sam, Seventa, is concerned. He goes his way and I go mine, she said.

He's content with his beer, darts and dominoes. He has his own room and does his own washing and cooking, and I live my own life. Of course we speak to each other, but that's as far as far. as it goes. He doesn't appreciate all this modern pop music. Fucking hell, I bet he doesn't. And the article's accompanied by an astonishing photo of Edith having a rave up in one of of Birmingham's discothex, dressed as if she's in Erezia.

And I'm afraid to say, the facial resemblance between her and me is an absolute dagger of ice down the spine. You go and look at it. Fucking hell. You know how you look at photos of yourself and you always see the worst? Well, this is what I'm seeing. now she looks like a really bad photo of me with my mouth not held right and yeah definitely not on my list of men in drag i want to have sex with like let me tell you yeah what's it 12

children and 30 grandchildren i mean did she live in a shoe or what i mean bloody hell i know yeah husband does his own washing in the toe cap i believe but also in april i tv finally got its shit together and put out a music show of it so on a Saturday tea time, Whittaker's World of Music, starring the Anglo-Kenyan whistling sensation and featuring a massive non-more 1971 set, a group of dolly dances in hot pants called Pieces of Eight,

a blatant nick of the Lady Birds, the top of the pop's female backing singers, and acts such as The New Seekers, Rolf Harris, Lulu, uh, Slade, Georgie Fame and Alan Price, Shirley Basset, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Sandy Shaw, Matt Monroe, McGuinness Flint, the Dubliners, Freda Payne, Blue Mink, Dana, Stefan Grapelle, the Beege's, Sasha Destel, Davy Jones, Val Dunican,

the Tremelows and more Roger Whittaker than a person would actually need. Always ending in a well-supervised freak out at the end to let the sun shine in. Boys, if you see that show. It's very interesting, isn't it? Yeah. It's like watching Estonian TV or something. A real funeral parlor vibe to it. Yeah, but that version of Jimmy Smith's

Walk on the Wild Star by the Peddlers that's on it is fucking astonishingly skilled. You heard that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's the end of the year and this is the second of three episodes of Top of the Pops in a space of a week. It's also the second part of the traditional roundup of the

year where the champions of 1971 stand on the top deck of the open top bus holding aloft their gold discs. The first one was, of course, on Christmas Day, presented by jingle nonce and sadly unpreserved, but

shall I run down the track list, chaps, while you make noises of reaction to see how it compares to this one. So, I hear you knocking, Dave Edmonds. Stoned love by the Suprees. Oh, yeah. Baby jump. by Mungo Gerr.

Double barrel by David Ansel Collins. Nothing rhymed by Gilbert O'Sullivan. Tap turns on the water by CCS, which only got to number five, but there's a reason why it's here, which will be revealed later. I'm wearing my KPM sweatshirt right now.

Knock three times by Dawn. Granddad by Clyde Dunn. You're not so bad to yourself. A whiter shade of peasant. by Procol Haram. Why was that on? I had no idea. I think it was re-released.

The push-bike song by the mixtures. Fuck off. Churpy, chirpy cheap, cheap by middle of the road. Where's your caravan? And Hot Love by T-Rex. Oh, well, yeah, there you go. It's a mixed bag, but there's some fucking proper tunes in there. It is, yeah, distinctly.

They definitely preserved the right episode, though. Yes, definitely. We're immediately hit with a tight. title of the 60s Top of the Pops logo which leans hard on the Mexico 68 font with a ribbon and bow

accompanied by what appears to be a special theme tune even though a whole lot of love has only been pressed into service a month ago. This isn't a 70s theme tune at all, is it? No, it's like some sort of Pearl and Dean type variation

isn't it? Yes, it is. And I swear down I've heard it before on Top of the Pops'bubour. For the life of me, I can't remember where. They didn't do this in 72, or 73, I don't think. No, God, no. Then we're thrown into a shot of the kids,

raving it up in the studio as footage of a speedboat is screened on blue screen slats in the background, giving off the impression that we're at a disco on a fair air. It's very martini advert, isn't it? Yeah, definitely, yeah. Images of the good line.

Yeah. We then get the usual poor composition shots of tonight's Bill of Fear with the close-up of the kids. There's a very distinctive typing pool at the office party vibe here, isn't that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, first of all,

I love this period of top of the box. Yeah, me too. And I desperately wish that more of these episodes are surviving. Oh, God, yeah. So when you compare it to mid-70s or late-seventy's episodes, it's simultaneously more and less slick. Yes. And both in precisely

the ways you'd want. Like, the whole thing is held together with sticky paper, you know, and it's quite loose and quite unpredictable. But the same time a bit of thought and effort has gone out there and it's not just you know stick noel edmunds on a podium and try to land the plane before they turn the lights off in the studio which is what it soon became yeah like the people making these early 70s episodes do seem to have taken a bit more pride in their meaningless work which is what all good TV is about

really and here's one way you know it's a six-fence's episode of top of the pops attractive young people in the main. You know, this is how top of the pops would get over the age barrier, my, the later on in the 70s. They will have younger kids in, but really dowdy younger kids. Dowdy and also a bit glum. I mean, you know, there's a certain energy level that you've got in this episode. But by 1976, it's like they're being kind of worn down by the decade. And there's some fantastic Soul Rail Replacement Service scenes down on the dance floor in this intro as well. Oh, gosh. Yes. There's a lot of world-class aimless shuffling down in the pitch. Like the exceptions as usual in this era are the go-go dollies.

Yeah, most of them here, thankfully about 21, who they've put up on the higher level, supposedly to raise them above the riff-raff and showcase their dancing prowess. But actually it's obviously just so the cameras can look up their micro skirts. Yes. But at least they can dance in a very basic, groovy kind of way. whereas everyone down on the studio floor is moving around like a pensioner on a boat.

Yeah, well, it's not really about dancing anymore, not particular dances. You don't see ready stand you go, you see the mashed potato and the holy gullet and all that kind of stuff. By 1971, it's less about dancing, more about raving or grooving. A lot of wispy arm gestures. Your host this afternoon is Tony Blackburn, who's quite a bit. possibly at the peak of his powers in 1971. Four years into his position as host of the breakfast show on Radio One, 59 episodes deep into his top of the pop's career

in a pool which consists of only him, Jingle Nantes and Ed Stewart. No longer the thrusting young pirate of the 60s, but not yet the national joke of the latter half of the 70s, don't you think, chaps? Ultra safe hair of hand. Safe to a fault, really. Oh, fucking hell, what a year he's had. Chaps, would you care to join me on a journey through Tony Blackburn's 1971?

We would. Sounds amazing. Hit the fucking music. In January, Tony begins the year defending his profession against the accusations of Paola, currently swirling around the British radio community. I have never been affected by this, and I would warn any Paola crew that the stairs of broadcasting house are very steep and they would take a big tumble.

Meanwhile, a new ad campaign for BOAC Youth Adventure Holidays fills the newspapers of the nation and there's only one man who confront it, Tony Blackburn. Get round to your BOAC travel agent right away. Get it on the most fantastic travel opportunity ever. Do it while you're young, a copywriter says on his behalf. Wow. He's like Noel Edmund's always on the public sector gravy train when such a thing was possible.

In February, Tony puts NASA to shame by choosing to do something for the oldens. Article in The Thadet Times. Thannid teenagers have been asked to raise enough money to buy 60 television licences for old age pensioners with a sponsored three-wheeled race next month. After an appeal from Southern Television and Radio One disc jockey Tony Blackburn, the teenagers in South England to collect money to help buy the licences.

He's a Southern television personality in this article because he was the host of the Southern TV pop show Time for Blackburn two years ago. This is a time! Time for Blackburn! When is it not time for Blackburn? But then... In March, Tony has taken ill with a... abdominal pains, yet still soldiers on with the breakfast show against medical advice.

Eventually, he is rushed into a nursing home, and upon release, he is told to go home not to travel and not to work with his breakfast slot being given to Dave Lee, Travis. After an operation, he is kept away from top of the pops for five weeks. In April, it is reported in the Western Day. daily press that the Bristol prog band Squint with two D's are ending their gigs by burning photographs of Tony Blackburn on stage. But then, in May, Tony lands a gig at the Lyceum in London as the compere of the happening of the year, the Daily Mirror Hot Pants Ball.

He'll be presenting Tina Charles, Pants People, Chris Barber, the Tremelows and the Ray McVeigh Show Band. But more importantly, he'll be handling the Miss Hot Pants' 1971 contest. Meanwhile, on the other side of the channel, Mick Jagger marries Bianca Perez-Morri-Massias in Santa Pei with a strict door policy at the reception. All invited guests, including the Stones, Paul McCartner, Ringo Starr, Julie Christe,

Roger Vadim and Brigitte Bardo have to wear a badge that reads, turn on to Tony Blackburn. But then, in June, Tony, who has just appeared on Jimmy Saville's Radio One discussion show, speakees debating the rights and wrongs of pornography with the editor of Forum and Lord Longford, is about to make an appearance at the Stonehouse Nightclub in Longstratel. Rutland when a letter is sent to the Peterborough evening telegraph threatening to kidnap him and put him on trial for playlist related crimes the verdict even now will be unanimous and he will be most severely punished yes he escaped us in

Oxford Street London three months ago this time there will be no mistake we have nothing against a Stonehouse club all the people who who go there, but be warned. This is no joke. The reason for letting you know beforehand is that it will make the kidnapping more exciting. You're sincerely the heavy music brigade. While his agent tells the media that his client

has been shaken up by the threat and the owners of the club announced the precaution to being taken, tone air just like the Israeli government, refuses to make any concessions to terrorism and announces he will go through the gig after consulting local police despite an anonymous phone call to the venue

which claimed that he would be beaten up on the premises. Well, this is the venue take precautions. What precautions are they put Ron in front of his dressing room door? That's all they did. Apparently they got some bouncers to dress up as the kids. Bit like carry-on camping. The personal appearance goes off without incident and later in the week four lads who were caught bragging about it to some schoolgirls

are questioned by the police but released without charge and the manhunt for the heavy music brigade continues and then in july tony sits down for an interview with dorothy newton of the kent evening post for a frank discussion of his political views uh oh he states that he doesn't feel in the least bit guilty about the money he earns as he worked hard to get where he is before turning his attention to the economy. I believe in the principle of the profit motive and I hate inefficiency.

If someone can't tackle a job, get rid of him. That's why Britain's in a mess. Some firms aren't sufficiently profit-minded. Nor should this government continue to subsidise flagging industries. Hard luck, I agree. on the workers who go to the wall. But if you have proper management, you should be able to produce profits.

If not, it's no use pouring money into lost causes. Says the man whose only job is to talk and who cannot complete the sentence. After pointing out that he'd like to see more women taking up positions of power, he's asked if he's a supporter of women's lib. Oh no. I don't believe in treating women exactly the same.

as men, equal paying opportunities, of course, but I still like women to be feminine, domesticated, and happy to stay in a home and rear children. After pointing out that he has no affiliation to any political party, he states that all politicians are stupid and out of touch in any case, and they should be retired off at the age of 40. I remember meeting one man who is very high up in the present cabinet. When I said, I had a show on Radio One, he said, what's that? I had to explain that the old light and third programs had died and there was a new radio system.

That man could not have read any newspapers. A week later, Tony demonstrates how in touching the world he is when he describes middle of the road as a hot new band from Spain. And then, in August, at Stanford Magistrate's Court, A 24-year-old bus conductor and garage labourer pleads guilty to causing wasteful employment of the local constabulary and causing needless anxiety to the manager of the Stonehouse Club in Streaton and is unveiled as the ringleader of the heavy music brigade. According to a statement he gave to police, Derek Lee admits to writing the letter to the Peterborough Evening Telegraph with threatened a punishment beating. to Tony Blackburn and he and a friend actually did see him on Oxford Street but they didn't

talk to him or go near him. I just added it to the letter to add a bit of spice to it, he said. He was fine 70 pounds. And then! If you walk down through the woods today, you won't believe your eyes in an old log cabin on the Great Whale River underneath the road. In September, songwriters Nikki Chin and Mike Chapman have found a hot new talent to emote their latest song, Chop Chop, Tony Blackburn. Released on RCA, it's about a lumberjack called Woodrow, which was clearly knocked back by the suite. Sadly, it's immediately banned by the BBC, who refused to play any singles made by their talent until it gets into the charts, which it doesn't. doesn't.

In October, Tony announces the release of his new board game, created by the makers of Socorama. If you like the pop music scene, you'll love Chart Buster, he says, in an advert. Chart Buster creates all the thrills and excitement of the pop world. It makes you the pop star getting bookings, recording and trying to get your songs into the charts. It's a great game. copies are still available on eBay for £90 in its original non-blackbird endorsed edition. In November, Tony, who has just presented the 400th episode of Top of the Pops with Jingle Nons, Sandy Shaw, Alan Price and Clive Dunn, poses for the camera astride and ice cream biking overalls

and a peak cab as he reprises his role as a Bournemouth ice cream salesman for a Daily Mirror article about the former jobs of celebrities. He's accompanied by Jimmy Young as a baker, Cloda Rogers as a schoolgirl, Jonathan King as a student, and Sandy Shore as a shop girl, with her foot cacettishly perched on a massive wheel of cheese in a shoe, thankfully.

And in December, Tony, along with Pete Moray, Ed Stewart, Terry Wogan and Jimmy Young, are rewarded by the BB. with a new three-year contracts and a 25% pay rise, the longest contracts the BBC have ever given to their radio talent, which has absolutely nothing to do with the advent of commercial radio in the UK, which will launch in October of 1973.

And the year ends with him celebrating the announcement that he is the top Radio 1 DJ in the Revely DJ Pop Poll. And that was Tony Blackburn's 1971. Oh man, he's at the top of his game here, isn't it? Yeah, that's as sweet as life got in 1971. And although Tony does get the party started in fine style by clapping hard with the mic in his hand

giving off a barrage of thusses. I've got to say that this could be one of his more professional performances, mainly because the links are kept short and he's kept off camera quite a lot, isn't it? Yeah. It's better because there's less of him. And what is he wearing, chaps?

A belted knitwear. Like a woolen jerking. Yes. He looks like Robin Hood on the front of a knitting pat. It's an off-white, very tight cardigan, which does look pretty sensible at first in this head and shoulder shot, doesn't it? Yeah. It's in vogue, but it's not wacky, and neither is it jazzer.

No, it's studiously neutral. Yes. He's also an earlier doctor of the so-called gender bender trend. Oh, is he now? Tony here is wearing disconcertingly prominent eye maker, almost sort of J.D. Vance-ish. And with one eye slanting weirdly and almost closed up, as if on Christmas Day he was playing with his new chemistry set and carelessly wiped his hand on one eye. I can't work out why it's like that, right? Maybe syphilis or maybe he just did his own eye makeup and jabbed himself in the teeth.

Deer duct with a cold brush. Excessive winking. Yeah, one or the other. But he should see a doctor really, but obviously it's Christmas, so he might just have to go down to casualty, like I did last year on Boxing Day. Oh, mate. Always a delight. Yeah, it was bad.

Stab myself in both tear ducts simultaneously with two cold brushes. Oh. Tragic. Tragic scene. But he must have been sitting in casually quite a lot lately, because although, as you say, his links aren't quite a stumbling, as they usually are. He doesn't seem to have spent that much time

preparing what he's going to say on this very important 15 million viewer, festive episode at top of the pops. Wouldn't it be good to go back in time and say to him, Tony, in 54 years, some people who are currently small children, one of them still in utero,

will be on a podcast. It's like a radio show, but on a computer talking about you presenting this episode. And they're doing it for a selective audience. And yet they'll spend 10 times as long preparing their comments about you doing this as you spent preparing for the actual programme. We're like the heavy music brigade.

Shit. We've turned into monsters. But of course, if Tony was smart, his response to that would be, sounds like I'm the winner here. Oh and then he'd say By the way, am I still alive in 54 years

time? Because I'd be almost Don't tell him. Don't tell him. No, we'd have to. I'd say, let me just check. Yes, actually. Perfectly healthy and still working in radio, still earning many times what we are earning. Which wouldn't do a whole lot to counter his claim,

I suppose. Oh, and then his next question would be just out of interest. What happened to Richard O'Sullivan? and that's the point where you've got to say too many questions and just get back in the time. Although not before grabbing a Mars bar because in those days they were nine feet long, so they say. Yes, that's right, yes.

Curly Whirley was three yards long. Yeah, you could lean a curly whirly up against the garage and climb up onto the roof. Yes. I mean, yeah, you talk about the links. I mean, they are the smallest of small talk, aren't they? I mean, I said earlier, you know, a safe pair of hands to a fault. And it just seemed to be that that's some kind of ultra-cautioners at work here.

I mean, in my storied profile and meeting with Tony Blackburn back in 1986, I described him as the only vegetarian I know who's made love to over 250 women. But if his chat-up lines, if his sort of verbal inducements were on this part, I mean, God knows how he got any kind of result at all. David, did you not ask, so if you're a vegetarian and you've been with 250 women, what's your standpoint on going down on women? That's a vegetarian. Good question.

Didn't ask. Well, he didn't tear chunks off with his teeth and swallow it. Oh, true. Actually, I don't know. Maybe he did. But his encounters with the population of Earth in this episode, they are a little bit awkward. Yes.

I mean, we'll maybe discuss them when we get to them. But he's not exactly a smoothie, is it? No, no, certainly not. But he's not a ruffie either. It's odd. No, but I mean, his competitions, Ed Stewart and Jimmy Saville at the moment, so. Hello. Hello and welcome to Christmas Top of the Pogs Part 2.

I hope that you saw the programme on Christmas Day and I hope very sincerely that you're having the most gorgeous holiday full of plum pudding by now I expect and I hope that you're having a really lovely time. Sit back and relax and enjoy the show because if you saw the Christmas Today edition of the show then we're looking back at some of the fabulous number one records that we had last year.

Here is the only group to have two number ones last year. You saw them singing on Christmas Day and here's the other one. T-Rex and get it on. Tony welcomes us to the show and hopes that we had a gorgeous time with loads of Christmas pudding because in 1971 Christmas is absolutely done by now and this is a bank holiday Monday so he instructs us to stay in the armchair and witness the only act to have two number one singles this year T-Rex with Get It On. We came across T-Rex in Chart Music 63, the post-Christmasmas 1972 episode, but 1971 was the year that Mark Bowlin blew up.

He started the year with Rider White Swan, the first single by the Electrified T-Rex, standing at number six in the first week of 1970, but it rallied in the charts and surged back up to number two in mid-January, still unable to do. dislodge granddad by Clive Dunn. But the follow-up, Hot Love, didn't fuck about, sweeping aside baby jump by Mungo Jerry and spending six weeks atop the summit of Mount Pop before giving weight a double barrel by Dave and Ansel Collins. This is the follow-up which penetrated the chart at number 21 in July that sought 17 places to number four and a week later assumed its rightful position at number one, ending the foul five-week reign of chirpy, chirpy, cheap, cheap by middle of the road. And here they are back in the studio. And chaps, it's difficult to work out in this episode. What is a new studio performance and what's a repeat? Because you don't

get any sweeps from Tony to the stage to let you know that, oh, look, here's this band and look, there they are over there. Yeah, I think that's deliberate. I think they've just, you know. works really well. Because if you did get the kind of the band sweep, you'd think, okay, well, where's the band sweep on the other? Exactly, exactly. Because out of the 10 performances we're going to see this afternoon, only four of them are new.

And the only way that you can tell is that the older ones, the repeats, they still have loads of girls who are still wearing miniskirts while performances like this are festooned with hot panted crumper tree. Yeah. And chaps, I know we've touched on this before, but oh, hot pants, eh? the dolly's got to show off their gamaroos

without flashing their drawers and the fellas got to see even more leg plus hot pants they kind of brought the ass into play a bit more didn't they it's a curious phenomenon because it erupted and it was ubiquitous and then they go you know very much like I've got sort of Cloder Rogers type phenomenon

it's called fashion yeah but it burnt intensely and then seemed to sort of snuff out overnight and the downside of hot pants particularly in the case of the All In Ones that are supposed to look like sexy Ladakhos A lot of the maidens of 1971 including one or two in this episode They just look like giant two-year-olds, don't they?

And like me, chaps, I'm sure there's one question that's just burning in your brains at the minute. What do the Radio 1 DJs think of Hot Pants? Well, that was a question that was answered by the London Evening News in February of this year. quote, girls are taking to hot pants like hot cakes

and the bottom has fallen out of the maxi market. But what do the fellas think? In the main, it seems that they are all to a quickening heartbeat, four hot pants. Fantastic, fabulous! Came down the telephone from all the radio one disc jockey when I breathe the word hot pants. Tony Blackburn likes them to be very.

tight and very brief. If you're going to wear shorts at all, you might as well wear them short, he said. Ed Stewart thinks sat in hot pants can turn any man on. They are a really good substitute for the minare and I hope the birds won't wait till the summer to wear them. He also reckons hot pants look better walking away

than advancing on him. Yeah, that's lucky for him, in it? They're a gas, said Emperor Rosco. but I'm not certain if I like them more than the minet. And Dave Lee Travis hates them because they play such havoc with his hormones. He does often seem to have trouble with that. There are naysayers, though, amongst the celebrity community.

Henry Cooper doesn't think they're dressy enough for his taste and he doesn't think his wife will wear them out, although she might round the house. Norman Hartnell thinks they should be called cold pants as they look a bit chilly and it's still February. Peter Osgood hasn't come to a decision because he hasn't seen anyone actually wearing them yet. And Roy Hood thinks are a bit kinker

and he prefers the max air as it's more mysterious. So there you go chaps. Any thoughts on the men in hot pants? Yeah, on the way back in that time machine should have picked up Henry Cooper, take him to a UFC fight and go, look that, hot pants in the ring.

Obviously Tony is going to be pro hot pads because as we've already mentioned he was the compare of the Daily Mirror Hot Pants Ball this year and I know I'm overdoing it on the newspaper quotes chaps but there's so much fucking gold lying about

I can't leave gold lying on the floor can I? Article in the Daily Mirror date of May the 5th grooving with a G on the end. DJ Tony and the girls play it cool of the Mirror's great hot pants ball

Without question, they were the coolest collection of girls you could ever wish to meet. The hot pants girls had come to town, and what a knockout bunch of birds they were. Hundreds of girls turned London's licey and ballroom into the hottest spot in town. There were hot pants everywhere. Satin ones, cotton ones, red, white and blue ones. For a start, there were 50 of the ones. those Miss Hot Pants girls who've pictures of brightened the pages

of the mirror over the past few months. They came to London with their escort, i.e. pissed off boyfriends and protective moms as the mirror's special guests and they got a slap-up champagne dinner at the ball and accommodation

at a West End hotel. Sun-tanned compare Tony Blackburn soon had the party going with a swing. He took one look the audience and joked. It's like a department store. Something interesting on every floor.

Anyway, finally, music, T-Rex. What a fucking year! Yeah. T-Rex turned up on that Christmas episode we did before, as you said, right? 1970s. And in terms of groups reappearing on chart music, I always say that if a group's records are sufficiently varied,

there's something different to talk about every time. Now, while I truly adore T-Rex, Variety was never their strongest suit. But there are some major differences between this performance and the one we already covered from a year later. The main one being that Mark has chosen not to get hopelessly pissed before this appearance, which tells you something about how his attitude to stardom shifted over the course of their all too brief heyday. Because here he's still determined to sell himself.

and he's conscious that there's work to be done. Whereas by Christmas 1972, he basically feels he's ascended above such petty concerns as effort and professionalism. Sobriety. Yeah, simply allowing the masses to gaze upon Mark Boland should be enough for them, you know, even if he's struggling to stay upright

and his eyes are so puffy, looks like he's been fished out of a canal. And this version does work. a lot better, I have to say. Even though, yeah, mixing a shiny silver jacket and shocking pink trousers is a bold decision even for Mark Bowling. Yeah, I think that's a ten minutes a very good point about Mark Bowlen, as opposed to Bowling. Bowling is very much a changeling, whereas with Bolan here, that image is kind of frozen in time that image of him because he doesn't ask about with his appearance as such. And I think, again, actually having the benefit of

seeing this in colour, this really, really feels like might have been made yesterday, might have been made tomorrow and I still think that this actually would stand up in 2071 you know if there's a 2071 I think this would feel just as kind of close the present day yeah I was in awe at this point of T-Rex and Bowie in the similar sort of way but I wouldn't have contemplated going out and actually buying a T-Rex record or engage with them further any more than I would trying to chat with a 16-year-old girl something like that when I was only nine years old it was that kind of relationship it's almost like I felt it was too good it was too evolved for the likes of me.

You know, there are other groups that were perhaps more at my level and we might hear one or two of them later on. Jimmy Osmond's not coming just yet, David. Yeah. Here he is reprising the moment, the fucking golden moment when he put on a bit of spangle under his eyes

in March of this year on top of the pops. And create one of the greatest music genres ever. Nice little callback here. But also at this stage, you do sense that it is kind of an inaugural glam moment, but it's almost like sketching out or kind of creating a foundations for a kind of fully blown glam moment.

You know, there's still this kind of sort of downbeat, boobyish element to the sound of it all. As far as the actual song goes, I've got to say it's the T-Rex single of 1971 I would least want to put on the jukebox. But that's probably because I've heard it so many more times than the other two. My relationship with Mark Boland, by the time I was aware of him, he'd practically been and gone. And I only knew him from the 1977 Granada TV Kids Show. But then in 1980, there was that magazine,

The History of Rock, which came with a free album, and Rideau White Swan was on it, heard it and went, fucking hell, this is skill. But, oh, I shouldn't like it. So I'll play it really quietly on my dad's music centre in case anyone comes by. This has become their biggest number, hasn't it? Yes.

Over the years. And you can sort of see why. Even though it might not be that many T-Rex fans' favourite T-Rex song, you can see why. Because there's just a lot more effort gone into it than a lot of their other stuff. He's even putting effort into the lyrics at this point. I'm a big defender of Mark Boland's lyrics, right, even at their silliest. But you can always tell when he's put some thought in,

as opposed to when he's just sat there with a bottle of champagne and a bireau and passed out and woken up six hours later and found some words scribbled down on a soiled napkin and just shrugged and said, all right, book Trident Studios. This is actually quite a neat lyric because who wouldn't be fascinated by a girl who's dirty and sweet

and has a cloak full of eagles? It's silly, but it's not quite as silly as some of its stuff. And also the playfulness of the words sits perfectly with the playfulness of the music. There's a sort of rhythmic wiggle and bounce to this,

which is something people often miss about T-Rex because as a line, lifelong R&B obsessive, Mark Bolan understood, you're onto a winner if your song has got its own distinctive rhythmic momentum. Where if the band just played one chord with no singing for one minute,

you'd still recognise what song it was meant to be. And it would still sound good. And that's not true of every T-Rex track, but it's true of their best ones. And especially this one. Yeah. You know, it's not like, oh, some of their other songs

are more emotionally powerful, you know, or more soaringly original. Like, they're not. They're all pretty similar. And yet some are clearly superior to others. And that's usually why. It's because the groove is better. Same as most Bo Didley songs are basically the same, but some are clearly better than that. Yeah, I think rhythmically, textually,

this is a kind of a world unto itself, this track. And I guess another thing that happens, you know, it's outside of time in lots of days, really. We talk about maybe proto-glam and all that, but it feels outside of time to me. But again, another reason why I think with Mark Bowen is the fact that he died so young. There are other images of Mark Bowen.

I mean, there's photos that have come to light over the last few years of him as a mod, you know, looking really kind of immaculate there. But really, I think that Eddie Bid, in the moment you think of Mark Bowen, you think of the Mark Bowen right here on this show. And of course, there's a special guest on the piano. Elton John, making the first of two special appearances by Music Biz celebrities. Yeah. His 1971 was a bit quiet.

He scored a number eight hit in February with your song, but he's definitely. Not yet the behemoth of the 70s he'd become. And he didn't even play the Glissandoes. The only piano bits on the record, because that was either Blue Weaver or Rick Wakeman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because according to the story,

Wakemer was absolutely on his ass and he didn't have any money to pay the rent when he bumped into Boland on Oxa Street and was invited to drop in on the session. Only for him to hear the track and protest, there was absolutely no need for any piano, only for Boland to say, well, you want your rent, don't you?

So, yeah, he got nine quid for running his fingers across the keyboard, which is a 115 quid in today's rubbish money. But I think he was wrong. You need that glasando, both sonically and visually, because, you know, Elton stands up and knocks the piano stool back. Yeah, and I love the idea of getting Rick Waitman to do it. It's like getting Joe Satriani into strum and E-cord, then giving him a tenor and telling him the fuck off.

It's so beautifully insulting. We're going to see another special guest. appearance in a bit, aren't we? Think about Elton John in this is that he doesn't exactly capsize the performance with his celebrity. I think quite a few people would actually recognise him at this point. The camera does focus a lot on him. It's obviously a, hey, you see who this is element to it, but it wouldn't overshadow. I mean, to be honest with you, the thing that stood out more to me was the shot between the crack in the flats in the corner of the stage where there's two

blokes, two technician, grooving along. Yeah, it's all about this. this gorgeous innocence of a time when covering the back of an upright piano with Bakeo foil transported us to a sexy space station of the mind which is the difference between modern day fans of T-Rex and the original fans because for the original followers

this magic was all real it was authentic wizardry and the universe to which T-Rex would transport you was a real place where elves and unicorns were coexisting with hot rob mommas in leather boots and you shut your eyes and you'd be there whereas for anyone following T-Rex now

from a distance the fact that not only was that not a real place but in fact all this flim-flam was side by side with Brentford nylons and on the buses that's part of the appeal looking back you've got this defiant jewel somewhere that it shouldn't

have been do you know what I mean like as you say in this clip when they pan the camera all the way around towards the stage but a bit too slowly so it spends too long pointing into the dark gap between the scenery flats yeah there's a a bunch of stage hands or whatever they are there's a little bloke who looks like a brummy rocker with his skinny legs and big hair and attach there's a big bloke who looks like a coach driver and the two of them are like frugging gamely Yes. And then there's a dower, bearded Mr. Baxter type leaning on something which looks like a monitor speaker or a packing case,

looking like he's desperate for the hometown bell. You've got a bottle of Haig stashed in there that's keeping his emotions in check. So these geysers are right there. And then just inches away, this otherworldly elfin superhero is casting a spell in front of a deck. in front of a decorative row of highly sexualised girls hovering somewhere around the age of consent. So we're only a couple of minutes into this episode and it's already the most 1971 version of 1971

that you could ever see. You know, silver microphones, white go-go boots, Elton John with 50% of his air there. You might as well have had Ted Eth on there, like measuring up John Perkway for a pair of hot pounds. The reason why this is the most well-known tune It's the only one that actually got into the top ten in America Oh yeah, yeah

As far as the Yanks are concerned This is a one-hit wonder performing their one-hit Yeah, you mean Dexies Silly Americans Yeah, they retitled Banga Gone Because Get It On was too rude for American radio Yeah Yes

But this really is the blazing heart of 1971 For better or for worse And what he doesn't know is that this is the peak. This Christmas is the pinnacle, the top of the hill. This is the momentary weightlessness in the stomach before the downward slope. And it's the bargain that he made like the monkeys. You embrace the possibilities of extreme pop and you get this sudden magnesium flash, but it lasts a year or maybe two. And then you're fucked. And that's the rule.

Bit like hot pants. Just like hot pants. Yeah. But what a year? or maybe two fucking out. Good start. Really is. So, Gettison would spend four weeks atop the summit of Mount Pop

before giving way to a single we're going to hear in a bit. The follow-up, Jeepster, is currently the Christmas number two and would stay there for five non-consecutive weeks. They begin 1972 properly with telegram Sam smashing into the chart at number three in the last week of January

and then getting to number one for two weeks, followed by Metal Guru getting to number one for four weeks in May. And they rounded off the year with two number ones on the bounce with children of the revolution and solid gold, easy action. Fucking hell, what a run. This was the number one hit this year. Hey, girl, don't bother me from the towns. After the screen fades into a seasonal wash, we're thrown straight into,

Hey Girl Don't Bother Mayor by the Tams. Formed in Georgia in 1952, the four dots started life as a vocal group, playing in local bars for $1.25 each. Desperate for a look, they pulled their wages in order to buy a set of Tam-o shantas, which led to their following, referring to them as the Tams, the name stuck. In 1962, they were discovered by Atlanta music publisher Bill Lowry, who hooked them up with Joe South and paid for a recording of a song he'd written for them called Untimmer. After Lowry took the recording to the Philadelphia label Arlen Records, it got into the top 20 of the Billboard R&B Chots.

After Arlen Records went out of business, they were snapped up by ABC Records, and in 1964, the single, What Kind of Fool Did You Think I Am got all the way to number nine in the Billboard chart? This single, the follow-up, failed to chart in America when it came out in 1965 and did nothing over here, and the group faded into obscurity. But in 1970, two things happened. First, their 1968 cover of the sensational epic single, Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happen. was put out over here and got to number 32 in March of this year. And secondly, the phenomenon, which was starting to call itself Northern Seoul,

was beginning to put itself about, which encouraged British record companies to take a punt on the oldies. And when Polydor released, I'm Gonna Run Away from You, the 1965 single by Tammy Lynn, and he got to number four in June, ABC dusted this single off and put it out on the first. their probe label. To the astonishment of everyone,

it entered the chart in the last week of July, and three weeks later, when it was at number 19, pants people bothered us sensually with it, catapulting it into the top ten at number nine. And three weeks later, it deposed a single we're going to hear later to make it to the summit of Mount Pop. This is a repeat of their studio performance

they made on October the 7th, even though the single had dropped one place by then to number two, but fuck it, it's the Tams, and here's another chance to see it. A lot to talk about it, chaps, but the obvious first question is, we're in a new decade, there's loads of new acts bursting upon the scene, so why are so many people looking back? Because remember, 1971 is the year of Malcolm McLaren and Vivian Westwood opening Let It Rock, and the Rock and Roll Revival show at Madison Square Garden,

And Northern Soul is booming. Chaps, why? Why so much looking back? Yeah, I mean, that really kicks in about two or three years later when you get this kind of full-blown rock-and-roll revival. Yeah. It's as if, for the first time since the beginning of, I know, rock and roll history, it feels like there's a very slight hiatus. It feels like maybe the sort of forward momentum,

the forward propulsion of things, has slowed briefly. And there's almost like a time, you know, where the dust is slightly cleared, especially again, with the Beatles are reforming and perhaps a sense of hiatus created by that. maybe people are just decided let's go back and recap. A lot of what was passed under the bridge and so yeah you get that first stirrings of nostalgia

and obviously in nostalgia mode ever since really. I mean it is weird because Pete Townsend once said that in the 60s, bands like The Who were being dragged along by the expectations of their audience who wanted something new and advanced and by 1971 that's gone the other way around. Marvin Gay of 1971 does not sound like Marvin Gay of 19. 65. So the audience is going, can you just slow down a minute, lads? We just need to go back and pick up

these things. It's like the 60s are a burning house and people are still returning to get all the good stuff. Yeah. And you know, things like this and I'm going to run away from you, which is a fucking tune. They were really released in the UK when they first came out to the British audience of 1971. These are new tunes. It's not that they sound a bit older. They just sound totally different from what's going on today. Yeah. They look a bit older as well. Got to be honest.

The Tams look so fucking old. They do. Oh, God, yeah. Normally, famously, black guys don't show their age quite as brutally as white guys. Black don't crack. Yeah, but this don't look like giant tortoises. And their average age here is about 36,

which would be young for a six music act these days. Yeah. So it would remind that, Beyonce is 44. There's people playing in the Premier League at 36. I mean, these lads must have a paper round in the Gobi Desert. And the singer's hat looks older than he does.

There's a bit in the front that looks like a baboons had a go. Yes. Do a Jewett with Sylvia. Do you have a tattered hat off. The tune's fucking mint. Everyone knows it. It's fucking skill. We don't have to say any more about it.

It's your classic mid-60s soul record, isn't it? It's fucking beautiful. A worthy number one. That's all that you need to say about it. Let's move on to the outfits. Because fucking hell. They're in jackets and trousers of purple velour and red patent leather with matching Baker Boy's caps.

And the lapels are huge. The cuffs are voluminous. And the flares are fucking heft air for 1971. Let's face it, chaps. This shop, tailored song, is being performed by Dick Dastardly's Pit Crew in Wacky Radio. isn't it? Fuck me. I mean, they were lucky that when they went into

Foster Brothers, they had five of those suits left, all in the right side. At the very least, though, some thought has gone into this ensemble, whereas I actually get impression with a lot of people, like, even like T-Rex, no thought has gone into how they've just flings of trousers and jackets of various colours

randomly together. Well, this is a thing that dates them. They've still got this sixes attitudes as if the lead singers wear in summer, every fucker else has to wear the exact same thing. With the little very variations. And in a podcast chaps that has praised the achievements of Black America to the skies, and rightly so, I have to ask the question, is the popularity of Flares in the UK their fault? Because I've been, like Simon, I've become Flairfinder general in this episode, and I've been

keeping a close eye on the width of the trousers. And yeah, Black America's leading the way on this. They've given us some very challenging sartorial choices throughout the 70s. And I believe that this performance could be the beginning of the slippery slope towards the likes of sheer elegance, the most wrongly titled group in the history of top of the cops. In the case of the prosecution, I present to you now the sleeve notes to the 1986 Kent Records compilation, the Funk and Soul Revolution, written by the great Harborough Horace. Okay, I've never been down on the old funky handshake, but in 1990, In 1974, I was known to do a northern all-nighter at weekends and grooved down a Soho funk dive in the week.

The soul barriers had not been erected. It was a minor minority music and clubs welcomed punters for their listening taste rather than their fashion sense. Just as well, when you consider the outfits our heroes used to sport. I remember raving about the chai-light, slick, soulful sounds to alien black sabbathans at the college I was that, only to cringe with embarrassment when they hit the top of the pop stage resplendent in lime green dungarees and Diddy Man hats. Black America laid it on thick, didn't they, in the early 70s? Yeah.

And yeah, they looked so fucking old and so tired. Yeah. It's extraordinary. Do you know what's strange, though, is that this completely passed me by at the time. Really? I was amazed, yeah, this had been number one. Every other track on here, you know, I would have known by heart, I would have known very well at the time and yet this

perhaps I was a racist I don't know as a kid who knows but it just passed me by completely made no impression on me no impact on me at all and why are they wearing Baker Boys caps and not Tams it's the 70s lads come on get yourself a big Scottish audience

oh yeah yeah they were a bit rubets as it is but that would have basically oh god yeah this is old black rubets isn't it yeah yeah absolutely I guess another aspect of all of this is that around 71 Top of the Pops was perfectly prepared to have black artists on. You know, it certainly didn't operate a colour bar.

But I think it probably had to be pretty non-threatening a lot of the time. I mean, there's a lot of... I mean, you know, the vanguard of black music at this time, I mean, of America, whatever, is, you know, it's pretty militant, you know, when it's Curtis Mayfield, you know, there's elements of Slystone and stuff like that. Reggae is about three or four years old, and obviously there's an edge to that,

and reggae artists bitterly complained, you know, that the BBC wouldn't give them any sort of coverage whatsoever. You know, if it was Johnny Reggae, that's all right, you know, Jonathan King. But this has... the advantage of being kind of non-threatening, I suppose, really. Yeah, because it's old, it's been. Yeah, yeah.

So this is being re-released because of Northern Soul, right? Yes. Yeah. Which is really weird because it doesn't sound like your standard Northern Soul song. It's slow-paced, isn't it? Yeah, it's much more sort of like early Motown. You know, it's got that sort of soul ballad feel to it. It's not actually my favourite by the Tams.

I had a copy of this single. In fact, the B-side on this single was Takeaway, which I assumed for years was the A-side because it just seemed better and more interesting, you know. But there's something about this that almost feels a little bit stiff and generic. Although a lot of Northern Soul type stuff is generic,

which is why it's such an easy genre to rip off or pastiche. You know, you just work out the chords to heat wave and play them a bit slower with a loud tambourine and make the drums either go, do, do, do, do, do, do. Or maybe and you're there already,

but the thing about genres that operate in a very small space is that you have to fill the track with your own life and imagination to make it stand out like punk or 12 bar blues. So this reissue may just be a bit of a cash in

but I'd rather have this sort of cash in resurrection than the Tams' 1980s cash in resurrection. We'll come to that in a moment. Oh, we're right. I'll mention that in a bit. So I once owned a copy of this single, but what I never owned was the album that this was on, which was an album called Hey Girl Don't Bother Me,

which is really not an album title, is it? No. And this was the track listing. Side 1, Track 1. Weep Little Girl. Track 2. Go away, little girl. Track 3.

What kind of girl are you? Track four, hey little girl. Track five, why did my little girl cry? Track six, hey girl, don't bother me. Side two, track one, silly little girl. And then just abruptly they run out of songs with girl or little girl in the title. And they have to sort of limp towards the finishing line with songs like melancholy baby. And my lady Elena, which fire all round.

the target rather than hitting it. Sounds like a really fucking spiteful WhatsApp conversation, doesn't it? But there's nothing more frustrating than a half-hearted concept album. And this one just loses wood and drifts off in the second half worse than

the who sell out. I say have the courage of your convictions Tams. Yeah, look, just fuck off, won't you? Little girl. Yes. So, hey girl, don't bother me. Would spend three weeks number one before giving way to a single we're also going to hear later on they also became the

first black group to get to number one in ireland billy preston was the first black person if you count him as being part of the beaclers and get back and no i'm not getting into it so fuck off and the first black solo artist was freed a pain with band of gold in 1970 by the way chaps would you care to guess what the christmas number one is in ireland in 1971 I don't know, Jack in the Box. Oh, Holy Knight by Tommy Drennan and the Monarchs. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was on tip of my tongue.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the Irish charts tended to go their own way for quite a while. They can, like, fall into line with the UK by the mid-70s. So, there we go. Sadly, the follow-up, a re-release of what kind of fool did you think I am, failed to chart, and this would be the last ever appearance of the Tams on top of the Pops. even though they resurfaced in

1987 with There Ain't Nothing Like Shagging Which got to number 21 in November But was banned by the BBC for Well, you know I bet Tony Blackburn played you on Capital though He'd have fucking loved that There ain't nothing like shagging little girl

Yeah it's not quite Well their other single from that time was called My Baby Sure Can Shag And it's like I mean this can't have been Coincidence this can only have been the work of someone determine their songs should not chart in Britain like some last gasp of revolutionary war defiance

aren't they they still go in the Tams with two different line-ups what's disappointing is that I think there's one or two original members still in both of those lineups right I like it when all the originals have been phased out is it the same band is it a new band it's what's known as the broom of Theseus or triggers ship. Oh, yarn of the town. It's nice very on that one again, isn't it? Are you having a lovely Christmas? Fabulous. Lots of lovely presents and everything.

Yes. And you've had lots of Christmas pudding? Oh, yes. Lovely. Okay then, right. We're going to go, well, that was a number one record of, oh, sometime back, and we have some most fantastic number ones for you to see. This one's still at number one for about the third week running, Benny Hill. You could hear the off-beats pound as they raced across the ground. And the clatter of the wheels as they spun round and round. And he galloped into Market Street.

He's badger upon his chest. His name was Ernie. And he drove the fastest milk cart in the west. After another festive wash, we cut back to tone air, flanked by crumpeterre. And discover that his sensible cardi has actually been adorned with a brown belt, which is well, fucking thing. Why would you want to belt off a cardigan? that defeats the object. Starsky never did that.

No, but in Star Trek the next generation, you know, centuries onwards, there's a lot of belted cardigans and things, aren't they? Oh, really? Is there now? Well, there we go then. Pioneer. He turns to a maiden of the studio floor

wearing an old gold all-in-one hot pants ensemble which is cut way too tight in the crutch and asks her if she's had a lovely Christmas. Then asked her if she had some lovely presents and asked her if she had some Christmas pudding. when this searing cross-examination into the mind of the youth of 1971 has concluded Tony says, lovely, okay then, right, we're going to go, well, that was a number one record of ooh, some time back,

and we have some fantastic ones for you to see, and continues to bumble fuck his way into Ernie, the fastest milkman in the West by Benny Hill. And as a wise man once said, If someone can't tackle a job, get rid of him. That's why Britain's in a mess. Fuck me. But it's typical, eh, lads.

You try and talk to women, you get one word answers. They don't ask you a single question in return. Yeah. Nothing ever. I know. Seriously, Tony talking to women, or in this case, girls, is always quite interesting to see because they always look at him with wide-eyed awe,

like trembling and giggling at everything he says, as though in the presence of the smoothest and most effortlessly charming dreamboat while he stammeres and blusters and says stupid things and just clearly can't wait to end the conversation and turn back to the camera where he feels safe in the reflection of his own golden glow. But this is the thing, I mean it's just like, have you heard lots of Christmas pudding? Oh yes. Yeah, he's leading into the pudding motif again, isn't it?

But is this the calibre of his chat up? lines. I mean, you know, would he, like I say, did he, I mean, in real life, would he follow up with like, fancy some lentil soup and a fuck? Yeah, he says, did you get lots of lovely presents? And you expect to know, say, yes, I got a trite. But in fairness, bearing in mind, Tony's 1971, it is easy to understand why he might be a little bit nervous, interacting with a very doled up girl, a very indeterminate age, but almost certainly under. There was the option of not actually doing the eye.

Talk to a bloke, Tonya. But it's just so awkward. It's excruciating. He's so nervous. It feels like he's biting my nails. It's suddenly in a room with a naked child and it's beaming parents. It doesn't know where to look.

And he really wants to get this over with as quickly as possible. And I can't blame him. Because I want him to get it over with as quickly as possible. We've already covered Alfred Hawthorne Hill, who was born in Southampton in 1924 and his tale of a blood feud between a milkman and a bread delivery man when we did the 1972 post-Christmas episode of Top of the Pops

in chart music number 63. It was actually written by Hill in 1955 as the theme song for a mooted film about his real-life experiences as a milkman in Eastleigh and was pulled out of the draw when he defected from the BBC to ITV in 1969 and used during the 1970 series of the Benny Hill Show. A year later, when he signed a deal with Columbia Records, he rewrote some of the lyrics,

and it was released as the lead-off single from the LP Words and Music. And four weeks after it entered the charts in the second week of November, it became a surprise number one, knocking off another song we're going to hear later. It's still there at the top, the Christmas number one of 1971 and here's another chance to see the video

which has been re-shot in Maidenhead as the original film on the ITV series had to be shot in black and white due to a technician strike at Thames Television. Bloody Union smash them David, me and Taylor

have done this already so I'm offering the floor to you if you want it. Yeah and if there's one thing you don't associate with Benny Hill it's constant repetition so yeah you go yeah the only thing i'd say about this is it's sometimes i've got to work out is this ernie himself narrating from beyond the grave you know because it's all in the third person or you know who is this narrator if not ernie himself it's a bit like the monster mash isn't actually the monster match it's a song about the monster mash which is an unknown thing etc and all of that

similar elements of that really but benny hill generally he did a whole whole range of voices of characters but i always felt he did them all slightly badly and always at the heart of it was just this perpetual expression of kind of gurning puzzlement which you know i just always found him disappointing just as a comedian really in a way that i don't find say that bernard manning disappointing actually purely technically as a comedian he died practically the same week as frankie howard and i remember alexey sailor wrote a piece in the observer in which he tried to reclaim ben hill as it were because obviously he was part of and ben elton were part of the whole alternative comedy thing.

They once the kind of Scotts perception that they really had this serious downer on Benny Hill and perhaps slightly overpraised it at the end and they said that Lexington that he felt that Benny Hill was superior to Frankie Howard and all I would say is that while Frankie Howard only has one character I just found far more comedic wealth

in that one character than did in the entirety Benny Hill's output. One strange thing was once, I was in New York I was on a job and I was at the Gramsty Park Hotel in the bar and had a big screen and they were projecting Benny Hill sketch in which he was doing a take off of Molly Weir, you know, he used to do the flash adverts, the Scottish woman.

And there was this old American couple who were just sort of, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. They were like laughing and giggling away, but surely with incomprehensible, there's no way that they would get the reference to Molly Weir. No. It was all astonishing that Benny Hill had this kind of enormous following in America. You know, was it just sheer exposure because, you know,

so much of the stuff was parochial like that. Yeah, I've looked back at some of his 60s, stuff when he was on the BBC and he's very Dick Emery. There's lots of man on the street interviews and stuff like that, loads of him in drag. Very different to the Benny Hill, me and Taylor would know. No crump it either. No. Or at least not as much.

Yeah. Not as blatant. And quite a lot of imagination too. I mean, there was one thing though he did at that time. He did a Chinese character. I remember this woman saying that her mother-in-law was Chinese and she always really loved when Benihil did this character. As if to imply, so you see all these kind of political correctness,

you don't know what you're talking about. She's Chinese, she loved it. And the point is, she might well have liked it just for want of any other representation on TV, but she deserved a hell of a lot better. She deserved perhaps someone that was actually Chinese for a start. Well, yeah. Who's buying this? It's old folks and kids and that.

Yeah, the typical Christmas audience. Well, in fairness, when Sir Henry Irving, the great Victorian actor, was on his deathbed. The legend is that somebody said to him, Henry is dying hard. And he replied, no, dying is easy. Comedy is hard. I mean, do people even laugh at comedy anymore?

I was thinking about this the other day. Do they? Or just a video on their phone of a panda doing a forward role. Is that it? Comedy seems to have faded out of view. And it's hard to explain to younger people. how different it was, like the role that comedy played in your life, television comedy, back in the old days.

When I was growing up, it was simultaneously a link with the adult world, like an explanation of how things worked and how people thought about them, and a tantalizing mystery, because all the conventions of mainstream comedy on TV were so weird and so unlike anything that I knew. sometimes because they were things that were still in place from the musical and were totally archaic and only understood by people of middle age and above. And sometimes just because they were so middle class that they didn't connect. Like I grew up watching those two Ronnie's party sketches

where there's a cocktail party in someone's front room with about 100 people, blokes walking around in golf club blazers. like spirit and mixer in a wine glass, randomly introducing themselves to each other with an outstretched hand. Have you met the wife? And I'd never been anywhere like that. So I thought it must be a preview of adult life.

And that was a depressing enough prospect until it turned out that adult life was actually worse than that with a lot less wife swapping. Also, just the idea of middle age people having a party, I fucking wish. You're right, that the comedy had, all of these kind of stock conventions and of course stereotypes, some of which were, you know, obviously something's being very offensive. And one of the great breakthroughs in the post-aut alternative

comedy era was that it attempts to dispense with all of these stereotypes and try and make a comedy that reflects the way that people actually think and feel. And I suppose what you then get is that kind of more naturalistic style of comedy and of course the decline of the laugh track. And what Taylor said about does anybody laugh at comedy anymore? You kind of kind of resonates really because things like the detectorists or whatever, isn't people just sort of engage with them in a sort of Ryan Rufel sort of way, but you know, you're not getting the big old laughs anymore, you know. There's possibly an argument for the restoration of the laugh track. It's funny, though, I was raised on that old stuff, those quite rigid comedy templates.

To the extent where, for instance, I might think of stupid, supposedly funny things to say on this podcast, but it doesn't feel like I've created anything or really written a joke because to me it's not a joke unless it's structured as a joke. It's just flippant bullshit, right? Like, the only time that I feel like I've earned my corn is if I think of a line that I could once have sold to Les Dawson for 25 pounds. That's the only time it feels like I've done some work. I've thought one last week, I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for my wife. I'd be at home with the kids. That's a fucking joke, mate. None of this shit about John Chrysostom and Tony Blackbird's eyeliner. If I'd been knocking out lines

like that in the 70s, I'd have been living in a detached bungalow in Berkshire with a rover in the pebble drive and a cocktail cabinet shaped like a glow I would have been having boozy chain smoking lunches in Soho with Johnny Speight.

Do you realise, I could have written the script for the film version of George and Mildred. Do you have any idea what easy money that would have been? Then when I died at 59 they'd all be out from a funeral, pictures in the daily mail of Dennis Norton dabbing his eyes.

Sound of Barry Cryer laughing in the background. As opposed to reality, when I go, they just have to leave me outside and hope the council will take me away. Actually, no, I might write it into my will that when I die, I want to leave my body to necrophiliacs. Just because nobody ever does anything nice for them. It's poor bastard. Mind you, though, in some of the lesser sitcoms,

People aren't actually structuring jokes to get those kind of big periodical laughs. Sometimes people are just saying something like, chance to be a fine thing, you know, big old laugh. Those audience seem to be terribly easily amused. They've been sort of primed in some way. Oh, wait, here's one. You're like this one. I haven't spoken to my wife for three years.

Say, why not? Why not? She doesn't like being interrupted. Yeah, that'll do. Kelly Montiefel had took your hand off there, Taylor. I told that one in Cabaret and the entire audience rose to their feet as they walked towards the door. Bloody woke.

It's pathetic. It's like David said in his book, it's all been ruined by political correctness. I say, bring back the innocent, patriarchical heteronormitivity of Ben Hill. It's like David just said, at least that stuff reflected the real world. Yep.

Because I was chasing a bunch of bikini-clad women around a park just the other day. But because we now live in this joyless, woke society. I had to wear a ski mask while I was doing it, so nobody would recognise me. But it was just a genuine, spontaneous compliment. It was so spontaneous, in fact, that I was halfway through clipping back the branches on the horse chestnuts. So I was still carrying the chainsaw in one hand when I started running after. Didn't have time to switch it off or put it down, which I admit might have looked bad, but it wasn't. And with the other hand, yeah, I mean, I was fiddling

with my trousers, but, you know, I was running and these things happened. But luckily, when the police arrived, they took my side and sent me on my way. So there's still some common sense left in this topsy-turvy bonkers PC world. So Ernie, the fastest milkman in the West, would spend four weeks at number one, eventually being usurped by I'd like to teach the world to sing by the new seeker's next week. He would never trouble the chart again, although Ernie rose from the grave in May of 1992, when it spent two weeks at number 29 in the wake of Hill's death. I say, I say, I say. My wife's gone to Indonesia. Say Jakarta. Jakarta? No, she went on an aeroplane. It's over 7,000 miles away.

You fucking insane. Of course I think Carter. I just thought. Just thought. Fuck's sake. Benny! And he drove the fastest milk car in the west. Here's one that used to be number one. It's called Cause I Love You and it comes from The Slane. I won't laugh at you when you boo-hoo-hoo-hoo because I love. Because I love...

We go from Benny Hill directly into the next act while Tony appears in a starburst of top left like the price tag on a nightie in a Bremford nylon sale. Here's one that used to be number one. used to be number one, he hopefully says of, because I love you, by the Slade. Formed in Wolverhampton as the vendors in 1963, then the in between us in 1964, then Ambrose Slade in 1969,

Slade a fucking Slade. After being picked up by Chas Chandler in 1969, the band had put out four singles and an LP to Lickle response and began 19. 1771 with a reputation as a skinhead band who were bound for the dumper. But when Chandler decided to play to the band's strength as a sledgehammer live act and transfer that vibe to vinyl, they put out a cover of the 1967 Little Richard single Get Down and Get With It, which finally put them over the top, getting to number six in August.

This is the follow-up, which was written in half an hour by Noddy Holder and Jim Lee, after Chandler said they ought to start writing their own material. When he heard it the next day, Chandler said, I think you've written your first hit record. In fact, I think you've written your first number one. Problem was, the band to a man hated it. Feeling both the music and lyrics were massively soft-ass and a huge diversion from the winning formula

that stumbled on with Get Down and Get With it. And after an argument in Olympic Studios, with Chandler, they compromised by adding foot stomping and hand clapping and amending the title to something that would be written on a bus shelter in Blocks, which they were rushed into the top of the pop studio the week it came out, which helped it enter the chart at number six in late October. It then soared to number eight a week later and a week after that it brushed aside a single we're going to hear in a bit to plant their first flag into the apex of Mount Pop.

And here they are in the studio for an encore performance. And chaps, already the pieces of the Slade we know and love are falling into place, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, they're getting there. They're sort of nailing down the foundations of glam, you know, without being fully blown glamours. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Dave Hill's got his little fringe there, whatever. It's all beginning to sprout. But, you know, you've also got the aspects of Slade, like the rigid stomp, you know,

the sort of the chant element. And that faint overlap with football terrace culture, which I think is something that's starting to pervade music at this point. You know, we'll see a bit more of that, I think, later on. I mean, again, that's the sort of, well, I say progressions, and not some people might say regression, but it's certainly kind of very different from, you know, the sixes or whatever, where the Beatles didn't give a shit about football. There wasn't really that kind of overlap. But you're starting to get that now, and it's almost like that terrace culture is beginning to pervade pop music. I mean, I kind of think of Slade as pop music, really, I have to say.

I think that they're Chas Chandler's second great stroke of genius, you know, after Jimmy Hendricks. Yeah, David, I'm guessing where your peers on the playground were standing on the Slade-Bowland divide in 1971. It was a bit popular. Oh, no, we're pro-slade. See, this is the thing. So Bolan, I thought, was like a 16-year-old girl, you know, you just feel they've got no chance, you know, that they're far too good for the likes of me. But Slade, no, they were kind of on my level, you know, I could appeal to Slade, you know, could all get down and get with it. Sartorily, they're not yet full-on Slade.

Noddy is starting to look like a tramp of the future and Dave is beginning to branch out both tonsorily and sartorily with in a long powder blue duster coat with massive letters on the back over a dark blue and I want to say dress but I'm not exactly sure Flares weren't that big in 1971 is he wearing a dress? Is he some kind of ginger beer as my dad would say?

Yeah I don't know but Noddy is wearing a pair of red and yellow platform clogs which look like his namesakes car What are the letters on Dave Hill's back all about? I was trying to spell them out and hoping it was a bit sweary but just letters, isn't it? I don't really care, do you?

No, that's a joke nobody's even going to get anymore. News cycle moves much too quickly. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just incomprehensible, jumble, isn't it? Which is what Slade kind of are at the moment. They've got the foot stomping, but they've got the violin as well.

Well, yeah. And you know who plays violins, don't you? Walter, the soft air. Maybe so. Maybe at this point, it's 1970, one of those years where no one is quite sure what's going to happen next. You know, and maybe violin solos are going to be the sound of the 70s. Yeah. I mean, what's interesting is that Jimmy Lee is kind of to the fore

because there's always been that tendency with Slay to think of them as primarily Noddy Holder and Dave Hill. Yes. Although, of course, the songwriting partnership is Noddy Holder and Jimmy Lee. It's a bit like people think of the Beatles as like, you know, as being primarily John Lennon and George Harrison. Yeah. But I think that's the way that Jimmy Lee's always liked it. You know, I mean, he's just quite happy to sort of catch its enormous check every Christmas

and say how they're the limelight. That was Dave's thing, wasn't it? Whenever they used to raise an eyebrow is more excessive outfits, he would say, you knowdy and Jim, you keep writing them, I'll keep selling them. Yes. And Don Powell still looks massively unconvinced by the new director. direction, actually looking like the kind of bloke who's just a bit too old to enjoy the early

70s, you know what I mean? He may well be the first musician of his kind who always looks as if he hates the kind of music that his own band plays. It's just that Wolverhampton type face, you know. It's a town of miserable people lacking the subtle dry humour of Brummies. And, you know, and this is exactly the same kidderminster as well, so I'm not being partisan. and Renato couldn't have come from Wolverhampton, could there? I know they're Caddick through and through.

Yeah, they can tinsle up as much as they like, but they're never ultimately going to be able to expunge that Wolverhampton with. Yeah, but that's what's probably going to sustain them over the next few years. They're a lad band. I mean, the one thing about this is something that gets me, actually, and it always did at the time, those kind of brother chivalrous lyrics. You make me out a clown and you put me down. I still love you.

I just like the things you do. Don't you change the things you do? and I always puzzled me as a kid. You know, surely he loves her despite some of the things she does. And surely, I thought the lyrics should have gone. You make me out a clown, then you put me down. Nevertheless, I love you. I love you despite certain things that you do.

Yeah. I love you, but perhaps considered changing the things you do. I mean, that would have made more sense. I mean, you know, I've got a rocking rhythm to it. I'd have got the kids going. Yeah, but David, it's 1971. And I'm guessing the things that she does that makes him love. aren't the downsides that he's

mentioning here. I'm of the opinion they're a bit more fanular if you know what I mean and I think you do. The implication to me in this lyric is yes you're a fucking nightmare but also yes I'm getting me end away with you. Well generally it's kind of

weird that this was their first big hit because it doesn't sound like proto slayed it sounds more like someone you'd do after a couple of years of here to get away from the sort of stomping stereotype sound. If you heard all Slade singles jumbled up with no idea of when any of it happened,

you'd probably place this with stuff like how does it feel? Yeah. As Slade trying to broaden the palette a little bit. Yeah. But no, it's from before they established the signature sound, which is, I always say it's one of the very few regrettable things about Slade. Could they perhaps have been. a little bit more varied and adventurous

even when they were knocking out top five singles every few weeks I mean they had the talent to do it but I understand why they didn't want to take the risk but that's why Slade are only a great group rather than elite tier I mean not that should really concern

anyone because they're fucking Slade but they're doing it here you know they could have done more of this speaking of how does it feel I watched Slade in Flame again recently Oh, really? And it wasn't quite as good as I remembered,

partly due to the rather overstated performance by Alan Lake, which clashes a bit with the, let's say, naturalistic acting of the members of Slade, which is obviously just them being wooden because they don't out like, but it works really well. But the grimness of that film really highlights the contrast that made Slade what they were. Yeah.

Like they're a good time band who weren't, straight-faced about themselves but who really cared about stuff they cared about music and were really good at it and they wanted to create something of some actual value despite the fact that it was made out of tinfoil

which is why they were so brilliant which in a way was always more an American thing right in America whatever else was good or bad about it they didn't have this artificial separation between quality and entertainment you could combine the two

and take pride in it without being seen as some sort of hypocrite or something, you know. It's like the Beatles have sort of mainstreamed that in this country, but the process still wasn't complete in 1971. And in a way, it's like this stuffy island culture of highbrow versus lowbrow is what gave us an eerie staccato minor key song featuring a violin that sounds like demon birds swoop. been down to peck off your soul performed by men

who mixed tart and flares with hoops up. I always thought that Slade were a reaction to the sort of the airs and graces and conceits of Prog Rock and Led Zeppelin and that kind of sense of elitism, you know, that they would never release singles, for example. And I mean, people would talk about, you know,

like the comparison of Beatles and Oasis as if that's, no, the frame of comparison should be Slade versus Oasis and with Slade being far superior as far as I'm concerned. Do we get the feeling here that we're watching a band who are going to absolutely dominate the charts over the next two years? I don't know. It's easy to see in retrospect that this is going to be a smash it group. I don't know if you'd have known at the time. It's like subdued

in lots of ways really, you know, compared to the sort of energy they put out later on. So yeah, I don't, I wouldn't feel like this. I think they're just one of a number of competing prospects. This is one of my favorites though. This is a genuinely fantastic record. Yes, it is. And yet today it's almost the great lost Slade single in a lot of people don't really know it even though it was a number one hit or at least you know they didn't know it until it was on an advert a few years ago but it captures everything that was great

about Slade that isn't included in Merry Christmas everybody you know because there was always that hard edge of Slade which only showed sometimes this sort of murky industrial Midlands understanding that everything that's real has got a shadow. But in this case, the sun was behind them. So you saw the shadow first. So you get this dark terrace stump, you know,

which even starts with them literally stomping on the stage to set the tempo. Which sounds more like a Russian or a Jewish folk song. And yet it's completely natural and logical and digestible to a pop audience in 1971. which is partly down to Slade having that knack, partly down to the cultural openness of the time period. But in a way, that shows more of a Beatles influence than anything else. Like more than noddy holder singing like Lenin or whatever, is that willingness to take advantage of an open-minded moment

and create your own space to try new things. You know, compare and contrast to Oasis, the sub-slade and what they did when they had a chance to do something. It's interesting to think that this single would probably just about hold together and stand up and be coherent without the violin solo. I mean, the violin solo is fine.

I'm perfectly happy with it. And the kids are really into it, aren't they? Yeah, there's a girl in a red play suit dancing. Like one of those sort of bright red Ladahosen style, short trousers nylon dungarees, worn over and colourful nylon blouse. with white tights as thick as rhino hide. Fuck.

And clump shoes. Yeah. So she's totally mummified against the air. Yeah. It's such a peculiarly British thing. Like no Italian woman of that period would ever have sealed herself so completely into man-made fabrics like this. It's not so much an outfit as a thrush machine. But, you know, in those days, just got on with it.

But the lady in the audience who comes off best here is the world. woman who looks a bit like a queer clubgoer of the present day. Right. She's got the 1950s trad wife look. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like she looks like out of a far side cartoon. Yes. The big blonde sort of beehive mulling.

Oh, with the deirdre glasses. Yeah, deirdre glasses and like an old-fashioned alien dress. And she looks about 50 from a distance. Yes. But in closer, you can see she's about 20. But her dancing to this is a... She really does look like someone in the far side. She's doing a dance, which is the best kind of thoughtful amateurism.

It's not really proper dancing. No. But she's doing a kind of rubber-legged, like hips to the left, hips to the right, which has a distinctive pattern and it stands out and it makes perfect sense with this music which is similarly rigid and expressive. So if you can't move like a soul train audience, at least do something joyful and individual and imaginative. same as if you can't play and sing like a soul train act do something joyful and individual and imaginative

you'll be fine yeah she dances like um chris morris taking the piss out of jarvis cocker doesn't she so cause i love you would spend four weeks at number one before being stood down by earner and is currently the christmas number three one place below jeepster one above theme from shaft by isaacase fucking out what a top four that is. The follow-up, look what you'd done, would get to

number four for three weeks in February of 1972, but then they notch two number one hits on the bounce with Take Me Back Home in June and Mama were all crazy now in September and finished off the year with goodbye to Jane getting to number

two in December and then they became really successful in 1973. La la la la la la la la la there back in February this year one of my favourite records i think i had uh one favorite record george harrison's and uh... dinah ross the two favorites we've got the dinah ross one a little bit later right now pans people to dance to one that came out in february and shot right up there to the number one slot one of the most beautiful records ever released george harrison and my sweet lord here it is now

toni flanked by two more young but not that young ladies tells us that not only is the next single in his top two of the year, but it's also one of the most beautiful records ever released. My Sweet Lord by George Harrison. Look at how wait till he is, he's so fine. Born in Liverpool in 1943, George Harrison joined the quarryman as their guitarist at the age of 15, and then became an apprentice electrician.

From 1960, he was in a band called The Beacles, spelt B-E-A-T, who teamed up with Tony Sheridan to take a cover of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean to number 17 in the Finnish pop chart in 1963. After finding himself at a loose end in 1970, Harrison, who had already dabbled and put out a couple of experimental LPs in the late 60s, had a go at a solo career. and this single, his debut, is the lead-off cut from the LP All Things Must Pass, which came out in November of 1970. It was originally offered to Billy Preston and came out on his LP encouraging words in September of 1970, but Harrison decided to cut a version for himself. It was initially released only in America in November of 1970, where it spent four weeks at number one, with no plans for a release here.

But constant radio airplay and public demand encouraged Apple Records to put it out in the new year. It smashed into the charts at number seven in the third week of January and a week later it sent Grandad into the Care Home of Pop becoming the first solo single by a Beagle to get to number one. He's far too busy promoting the release of the LP of the concert of Bangladesh in America. which will go on sale over here next month for £5.50,

which is just over 70 quid in today's money with the big-haired man on it. So here's a repeat of the original airing of the single, emoted to by the people of Pan. The award-winning people of Pan, I'll have you know, chaps, because in July, they, Stanley Dorfman and the singer Lansler-Golt won the Golden Sea Swallower of Konokka in. Belgium. Very interesting thing. Every broadcasting nation's allowed to send over some people

to make a TV show, but they get limited rehearsal, they're not allowed to have an idea, and they've got to do it all on the spot. And yeah, it was essentially some bloke, singing some foky, bluesy nonsense with pans people frugging about in the way that they did. Yeah, well done to them. I know, the bloke who ended up as the curdle in the 18. Did he? Yeah. Fucking hell.

Obviously they also spent a lot of time in the newspapers demonstrating hot pants and Louise, my beloved Louise, actually posed topless sort of on page three of the Daily Mirror. She covered her jubbies up with her hands, but whore, blime it. I say. I can't believe the BBC let them do that. But the question hangs in the air chaps. Why are we getting an old pants people performance? Well, here's an article in the Christmas Eve edition of the Daily Mirror, TV.

dancers stranded. Television's dancing dolly girls, pans people missed a vital recording session for their Christmas show yesterday. They were stranded in Mombasa, Kenya, entertaining the crew of the aircraft carrier Eagle.

The plane that was to have flown them back to London on Sunday couldn't take off because of technical trouble. The six girls are now expected back today too late to record their Christmas Day appearance on top of the Pops, an old film will be used instead. And yes, that old film was Tap Turns on the Water by CCS, which is why it's in the top of the Pops Christmas Day episode, even though it got to number five.

It was actually filmed at Walton on Thames Pumping Station. So you can just imagine how erotically charged that was. And it seems that they're still in quarantine because we've got another repeat, which is a crushing blow. for Daddies' faction because this is a religious song they're not going to troll up about in hot pants so it's your standard flick Colby flounce about in red, white, black and gold paneled maxi dresses with overlays of George Harrison

looking old Jesus here and I'm pretty sure that as a three year old child I would have seen this and I would have thought they were dancing for Jesus. I mean it is it's a very very stop maneuver isn't it so arms up and down circle around stride about as unerotically and unsuggestively as possible so as not to skill their beauty and their charming matching frocks and at the end a little light jumping up and down

arms still in the air yeah that's it really yeah not much satisfaction there yeah they're dressed like supermarket own brand chocolate biscuit bar just walking up and down waver their arms in there this desultory mooching just highlights the fact that George couldn't be bothered to be there it's just too important for this Like he's off doing coat with Eric Idol or something. The worst thing is, you can understand it when they're dancing to an American record or a record by someone who's dead.

But it's less than an hour's drive to television centre from George Arison's mansion. And he will have been right there at home while they were recording this. Just doing a bit of gardening and smoking a joint on the boating lake. Just fucking do some work, man. You still want to be a pop star, fucking act. Exactly. No, can't be bothered. Or do a video.

Yeah, steady on. Let us turn to George Harrison. And yeah, I'm sorry if anyone's tucking into a buffet at the moment. But I feel the need to return to my witch beagle, would you fuck question? Because I've reflected deeply upon it. And I've got to say, no matter what he looks like, I've got to put George Harrison right at the bottom of that list. So still at the top is Paul, particularly if he made an effort to look like a girl. but also because he'd understand that neither of us wanted to do it.

But he'd pull me through, though, like he did with the others, joined the making of Let It Be. And yeah, every now and again, it even turned round and give me a meaty thumbs up of encouragement. So, yeah, Paul at the top. Second place, Ringo. I was down on him at first, but again, I sat back and thought, well, out of all of them, Ringo would be the most forgettable fuck of the foret. And forgetting's really important in this case.

Third, John. Yes. I mean, if you believe Albert Goldman, he'd probably be the most up for it. But I feel he'd be dead sneery and sarcastic. He'd insist that Yoko was there. She'd probably be screeching in me town. And at the end, afterwards, when it's all done, he'd probably want to go off and do an erotic lithograph of me bombing him,

which, no, I'm not having that. So, yeah, George at the bottom, yes, he is good-looking, and yes, he has got good here. But come on, let's face it, he'd be miserable. as fuck all the way through it, wouldn't it? And he'd probably say, whatever it is that will please you, I'll do it. And then he'd start

chanting Harry Rahma halfway through it and putting me off my stroke. So yeah, yeah. That's, sorry, George, you're at the bottom. But in a busy year for the Beatles, George Harrison, he's at the top, isn't he? He's one 1971 hands down. Yeah. I mean,

he just built up that kind of vast battle which results in all things from his past, you know, being a double, triple album, obviously with the life sides as well. You know, I think he's probably maturing to a certain point as a songwriter and finding it harder to get a look in. That's why he probably got on with Eric Idol and all the Python's movie because everybody else wrote collaboratively and Eric Idol wrote solo

and perhaps they had a sort of kinship as a result of that. But in Abbey Road, he does write like something and here comes the sun, you know, which are like two of the very best tract. He's probably his kind of creative height around this particular time. Yeah. For sure. And there are certain people beginning, you know, during the 70s, would begin to assert that in fact the two most sort of creative and interesting people in the Beatles were John Lennon and George Harrison and Paul McCartney in third place, you know, because Paul McCartney

really, really went out of fashion, you know, throughout the 1970s. Yeah. But a thing like George Harrison, right, I mean, yeah, I agree. He's the beetle I would least like to fuck. Because in my case, he's not as elaborately reasoned as yours, but just because he wasn't a very nice man. And I do value niceness in a shag, I think, you know. And he claimed to be immune to the enticements of the material world Then whines about having to pay his taxes

Yeah, and they're jets off in his fucking lotus Yeah, he preaches about love and peace on earth And goodwill to all mankind But he deliberately bought a huge remote property Because as he explicitly put it, he didn't want to have to deal with Or meet people It was a mizzenthroat Well, you can see why, considering what happened in the end

Well, I mean, you do have to wonder when it was some carmetic revenge that he was set upon by that intruder at his house All right, fair enough, I mean, sure, he did organise the concert for Bangladesh But then again, Bob Geldof organized live aid. And he's a bit of a git by all accounts. There was also, and I've tried to Google this, but Google is so in shittified. I couldn't.

But in his solo years, someone who idolized George Harrison maintained a fanzine dedicated to him. But which he had to cease publishing because the problems he faced with Harrison himself being such an asshole about him, that he left him completely discouraged and disillusioned. I thought he was running his fan club.

Oh, is it his fan club? Yes, maybe it's his fan club, yeah. He was definitely an unofficial thing. But yeah, they're editorial in the final issue. So we can no longer sustain putting out this publication about such an unpleasant person. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Something like that. You're right. He's winning 1971, no doubt. But I just wonder if he did kind of judder to such a kind of an abysmal halt in the 70s, you know, pretty early on in the 70s that ultimately this wasn't enough about him as a man. You know, for someone into spintiartiality, you know, perhaps it's just this lack of spiritual wellstrings of creativity. You know, he was a twat.

Yeah. Listen, can I go on and on and on about George Arison for a bit? Yes. Like, okay, look, before we get on to any the other stuff, let's just talk about musically. George Arison is one of those people, and this is a common phenomenon, who was underrated for so long that when finally

the pendulum swung back, he became absurdly overrated. Yeah. At least in some quarters. I've heard people say that George was the most talented beetle, which like, I mean, he might be your favourite, but you might enjoy his contributions, but

to describe George Harrison objectively as the most talented beetle, it's like getting a facial tattoo that says, I don't really understand music. He was always underrated as a guitarist, this is true, partly because his early

solos sound so horrible because the rock and roll solos played on a country guitar, like a big Gretch with a country twang going through a clean Vox amp with no distortion. So they all sound like someone pinging an elastic band and they've got no rave up power at all. You listen to the solo on You Really Got Me or the Stones version of I Want to Be Your Man. Yeah. And then you listen to any solo played by George in 1964 and the difference is embarrassing.

And that clean sound really exposes mistakes as well. So like Jimmy Page would be off his head and make 12 fluffs in a 24 bar solo. But the guitar was so loud and distorted you could barely tell. Whereas when George just doesn't catch a string quite right or he slightly misjudges a bend, that tiny mistake is spotlit right in front of your face. And it's a shame because in fact, if you watch the Beatles on the Royal Variety show in 1963,

right at the beginning, a 20-year-old George play, a solo on till there is you which was beautifully smooth and fluent and you can tell he's actually really good and the other thing about George as a guitar player people look back at 60s and 70s guitarists and just see blokes with screaming Les Pauls playing blues scales yeah the whole point is George didn't just string together ancient blues riffs like most of them did his league guitar parts are carefully worked out melodic pieces yeah if you play the solo from something. It's great, but it doesn't remotely suggest itself. Just from the note choices and where they all sit on the fretboard, it's obvious that this didn't just come naturally or spontaneously.

He's really worked on it, whereas mostly guitarists by that time, it was all about spontaneity and improvisation like Clapton or showing off your chops, which George could never do. He was too methodical. Paul could do it, which is why whenever you hear a ripping, freak out solo on a Beatles record. It's Paul doing it in one take like Taxman or Good Morning, Good Morning. George was a craftsman, which is really sweet and good. But as a songwriter and a singer, let's be honest,

if he'd never joined the Beatles and had formed a band with himself as the leader, we would not be talking about him here and now in this context, if at all. And what's weirdest about George is that he wrote about six or seven genuinely great songs in his life which is six or seven more than most people but he wrote them all in one 18 month period between summer 68 and the end of 69 before and after that his songs are sometimes pretty good but mostly mediocre it's like he spent years working up to being a

really good songwriter and then when he got there he just instantly went off the boil and never return. But lately we keep hearing these weird puffed up overestimations of his talent. I don't get it. As if he was some sort of overlooked genius and we're all somehow missing how great you like me too much is

or only a northern or the LP gone troppo. It just baffles them. It's like people telling you Clifford T. Ward was as good as Lenin and McCartney. Fuck on. Those drawbacks, there's limitations to refer to about his guitar style is one of the reasons why the Beatles as a whole were eclipsed

in the late 60s onwards you know why people like everyone from jimmy page jimmy hendricks clatt you know you know pete tans and whatever you know he did evolve a guitar style that was the kind of volume appropriate for the era yeah but that kind of guitar playing makes the song superfluous that's the thing if you had one of those in the Beatles it would have kind of wrecked it because he'd just have been wanking off over the you know the nice tunes yeah there were never that kind of band yeah so what have the beaples been up to in 19? Well, Paul's put out his second solo LP, RAM, formed wings, put out their first LP, Wildlife, and is currently getting ready to tour again.

John's moved to New York, put out the Imagine LP, and is bitching with Paul via Melody Maker, and Ringo's had a big hit with it, Don't Come Easy. It's currently appearing in the Frank Zapper film, 200 motels, and generally doing a lot of ring-going. But George is clearly the main man at this time, isn't he chaps? You know, thanks to John and Paul knocking back his songs in the late 60s. He's got a backlog of songs that were never recorded by the Beatles. And unlike John and Paul, he's not having to deal with the loss of a songwriting partner

or being burdened by the way of expectations. And on top of that, thanks to the concert for Bangladesh in August with his mates, Ravishankar, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Ringo, and the first live appearance by Bob Dylan in five years. He's come as far out of his shell as he's ever going to, isn't they? Yeah, there's no, yeah, it's obviously no deny. Of course, the people of 1971 weren't to realise that he's absolutely spunked his creative load on his first album, and it's diminishing returns from here on him.

But at the moment, yeah, George Harrison, of all people, is the dominant beagle. Yeah, enjoy it while at last. I'll tell you what, none of this posthumous overestimation of George Harrison is half as bad as the attempt. to now paint him as a rock and roll sage. This is what really pisses me. People talking about is spirituality and his deep wisdom without realizing they're just telling on themselves. Because I can't for the life of me understand why anyone sees this

as anything other than what it obviously was. A bloke in his early 20s, a former apprentice electrician with very little formal education and not a lot more informal education. taking some drugs, hearing about Eastern religion, falling for the kind of money-grabbing Charlotte and Guru, who's basically one step up from El Ron Hubbard, who, in fact, the Maharishi was a big admirer of,

which isn't suspicious at all, and then instantly clambered onto his psychedelic soapbox and fucking lecturing the rest of us about how ignorant and small-minded we are compared to him for engaging in scepticism and critical thinking or for knowing some stuff about science or psychology or the history of religion. And it can get really embarrassing

when you listen to some of these songs because his newfound so-called spirituality did not make him gentle and non-judgmental. And the preening moral superiority and pompous finger-pointing of George Harrison's religion just songs, especially at a time when he was cheating on his model wife almost every night.

And yeah, preaching about how possessions are meaningless and the spirit is all that that matters while doing everything he could get out of paying his fucking taxes. And then a bit later, preaching Ari Krishna while shoving Coke up his nose. And just the smug, pious tone of it is horrible. And it's

tempting at first to let him off because you think, well, there was a lot of that about at the time. which is true, but why was there a lot of it about? Because of him. Nobody got into Harry Krishna stuff before the Beatles popularised it. Except, you know, a few burnt out businessmen and nervous breakdown victims. And then George picks up a sit-ar and suddenly we're all surrounded by hairy young idiots,

like seeking a deeper truth man through solipsism and mythology. And we still see it today in various forms that like nobody is more certain. of their own rectitude and philosophical superiority than the gullible and the semi-informed. But I think that very particular kind of ignorant, groovy, rock-and-roll piety, it wasn't a feature of rock culture or rock music before him. Nobody admired Cliff for his deep spirituality, did they, right?

So in a way, because there was no precedent, you can't blame George for not knowing any better. But on the other hand, you didn't see Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr doing this shit, did you? Even John Lennon tried it for six months and then worked out the Maharishi was a con man. And when even John Lennon can work out that he's being taken for a ride, you know he's really been taken for a ride. It wasn't hard to gull that fucking rude, was it? And Jane Asher realized within 10 seconds, is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's why I can't watch documentaries about George Arison, because it's just a load of fools going on. about how wonderfully wise he was. Even as we're sliding into a second dark age, thanks to the various forces of God, there's still people cheerleading this fucking medieval insanity. It's awful. You're right, though, Taylor, this is really a landmark

in the unsavory vogue of God Rock, even though it's not about lovely white God. George Harrison obviously didn't start this. You know, you could take it back to Spirit in the Skod. Guy by Norman Greenbaum. And in the UK, a Northern comedian called John Paul Jones could easily have had the Christmas

number one in 1970 when he put out the man from Nazareth with the assistance of 75% of 10cc. Sadly, a strike at the record plant held it from release and it only got to number 25 in January but fucking up. What a song, and what a top of the pop's performance.

Video playlist, everyone. Fuck me. I love it. They put it out in January. they didn't think to wait to Easter. It's only a few months. I know. Menkel. But also the first London runner God spells currently happening at the Roundhouse

before it moves to the West End next month with David Essex's Jesus, of course. So up yours, Paul Nicholas. Jesus Christ's superstars currently on Broadway. But it has to be said the curse of the trendy vicar is already taking a hold on the nation's youth. And the finger of blame has to be pointed at George Harrison.

Article in the Nottingham Garden and dated April the 8th Girl's Church jig. A girl dressed in tights and a blouse danced down the chapel aisle in front of the congregation to the sound of a pop record.

But it was all part of the service. The girl shapely 19 year old dance teacher Alison Willett was helping the Reverend Stuart Burgess illustrate his sermon. I wanted to add a new form of expression to my sermons, said Rev Burgess.

Alison has appeared four times in my sermons, but not as a gimmick. She is a symbol of freedom and the joy of living. Some see it as too much like television's top of the pops. Even a few young people are opposed to the idea, but some members of my senior congregation reveled in it. One old chap of 70 told me he thoroughly enjoyed the service. So, yeah, there we go.

Nottingham, the tabernacle of pop, if you will. Anything else to say about this? Because, yeah, as far as George Harrison goes, all his songs in the Beaclers were always a sonic piss break for me. And the fact that he started to dominate a bit in the latter stage of the Beacler's career, that just reminds me why I just don't like the Beardles. Anything after the White album, mate, I'm not interested.

Yeah. They should have split up after the White album. fucking out. Paul McCartney would have probably put out the greatest LP ever George Harrison's LP would have been even better and he could have got two decent LPs out of it. I don't know I like Abbey Road if just

the idea that there's a great rock album made by people who look like they were members of the gunpowder plot thing about God rock right obviously there's been a huge amount of wonderful religious music made over the years but not

rock and roll because Rock and roll can only exist underneath an empty sky because it's a fully and necessarily secular form. It's carnal, it's impulse driven, it's all about sensation in both senses, and it's fundamentally a replacement for this absent cosmic parent, except that rather than trying to substitute something else for God or daddy,

it redirects you back towards yourself as an animal and it celebrates transience and the intensity of the moment and it teaches you to live as what you are which is to say a spark that's going to go out any time now so when people try a poor religion in the Western pop music it always fails unless they're extremely oblique and allegorical

which let's face it George Erison never was right I can listen to some of Bob Dylan's religious songs like slow train off his born-again Christian album, right? But as far as I'm concerned, it's a semi-listenable comedy record. There's nothing profound about it. It's the shallowest stuff he ever wrote. It wasn't that Bob Dylan has always progressed to a deeper, wiser philosophy. It's the point where people realize that however creative

and, you know, insightfully might be in some ways, on a basic level, Dylan didn't know very much and could actually be quite thick. Yeah. Have you heard that? There's really appalling lyrics on that album. Yeah, I bought it at the time. Good God.

Of course. I mean, you could argue maybe in a sense it's not actually a rock album in the full learned sense. But yeah, it just shows that Dylan is just as weak-minded as George Harrison. Yeah, he swallowed all the American Christian shit in one mouthful.

There's stuff on that record where he goes, he's singing about like, There's pornography in the schools and all this sort of stuff. This is about how he hates Arabs and how young women these days are all whores, you know. And in fairness, I have a sanctimonious George Arison got. And if you listen to some of his 70s albums and managed to stay awake,

you'll realise that was pretty fucking sanctimonious. At least he never became a Hindu nationalist or something like that. Just a Tory. Oh, despite the fact that nowadays, the money demanded by, the Transcendental Meditation cult goes to the Maharishi's surviving family in India who donate large sums

to Narendra Modi's fascist Hindu nationalist BJP. So perhaps some of the royalties from here comes the sun did eventually end up paying for the persecution of religious minorities. Although speaking of politics, did you know, George

tried to get the two other surviving people to stand as MPs in Liverpool for the natural law part. Yeah, for the 1992 general election.

So like right at the point when Liverpool needed serious regeneration after the economic assault on it by

Thatcher in the 80s, it would now have three MPs committed to the promotion of yogic flying. But,

yeah, it's funny enough, Paul and Ringo weren't that interested in doing that. Too busy watching family

fortune. Although, I don't want to sound like I'm slagging George off too much, because there are

things that I like about. Oh, handmade films. Yeah, I think he might actually have been the beetle that certainly in later life it would have been the most fun to hang out with because he wasn't a guarded egomaniac like Paul and unlike John, he wouldn't suddenly lamp you if he had one brandy too many. Which is just one brandy. He would not take his dream. And I like his dry humour and cynicism about the Beatles phenomenon. It makes a refreshing change and I don't even mind that he'd moan

relentlessly about everything because that's what sexy people do right let's not pretend he was some sort of village elder or wise man you know he was a good but not great guitarist a reasonable

songwriter and one more victim of populist religion you know like a screaming imbecile in an American mega church but but just a bit mellower. So, my sweet lord would spend five weeks at number one, eventually being betrayed and crucified by Baby Jump by Mungo Jerry.

It became the biggest selling single in the UK of 1971, flogging 890,000 copies over here. But as early as February of this year, a lawsuit was filed by Bright Tunes Music Corporation, claiming that Harrison had completely ripped off the 1963 chiffon single, He's So Fine. And when the country singer Jodie Miller had a top 10 hit in America with a cover of He's So Fine that slipped in the opening riff of My Sweet Lord,

the litigation was ramped up, lasting all the way to 1998, and ending with Harrison paying the new owner of the song, Alan Klein, nearly 600 grand in exchange for the rights to He's. He's so fine. As John Lennon said, he could have changed a couple of bars in that song and nobody would ever have touched him, but he just let it go and paid the price. Maybe he thought God would just sort of let him off.

Yeah, John Lennon should know. What's funny is how pissy George got at being called out on this as well. Like the entitlement was absurd. And it's not the first time he behaved like being. a Beatle meant that you could just stroll in like Lord of the Manor and take what you fancy. He did a solo album in

1969 or something called Electronic Sound which in the self-indulgent spirit of the time was literally just an album of him fiddling with his new Moog synthesiser. Except it wasn't even that. One side of the album was him tinkering with his new

Moog synthesizer. The other side was a recording of a bloke called Bernie Krause, demonstrating how it worked. That's right. For George's benefit, which George recorded without telling him and later put out as one side of this album credited to Chaldares. Yeah, because who gives a fuck? Who gives a fuck about ordinary people?

Harry Kreshener. And the terrible thing is it's one of his best solo albums, is now. The follow-up, Bangladesh got to number 10 in August, But his next single, Give Me Love, would be his last top 10 hit in 14 years when he got to number 8 in June of 1973. But My Sweet Lord would be re-released in January of 2002 in the wake of his death and enter the chart at number one, making it at the time of recording the first and last solo Beatle number one.

And of course, one of those dancing dollies, Bab's Lord, would go on to marry Jesus himself, Robert Powell. It may have this year, this one got to number two in the top 30, fabulous song, the Rolling Stones and Brown Sugar. We're wiped transition straight into the next act, and it's another bigon, the Rolling Stones with Brown Sugar. We've covered the stones only once on chart music, chart music number 42, non-stop erotic cato meat,

when they took Start Me up to number 7 in August of 1981. After surviving the 60s, they started the new decade by Downing Tool singles-wise while they tried to get out of their deals with Decker and Alan Klein, releasing the live LP, get your yaw-ya's out, and Gimme Shelter the film of the Altamont gig. Their only new single of 1970 was cocked, sucker blues, their attempt to give Decker an unreleasable song as their final contractual obligation,

forcing Decker to release Street Fighting Man for the first time in the UK instead, which got to number 21 in July of this year. They began 1971 by setting up their own label, Rolling Stones Records, and put out their ninth studio album Sticky Fingers in April. And this is the League Cup from that LP, which came out a couple of days previously as a follow-up to honky-tonk women, which got to number one for five weeks in July slash August, 1969. It was actually recorded at Muscle Shoals in December of 1969, played out at Ultimate and on their European tour of 1970, and with the assistance of a top of the pops area in the week before its release,

it entered the chart at number 21, then soared 17 places. to number four. And a couple of weeks later, it dug in at number two for three weeks, unable to dislodge knock three times by dawn. And here's a repeat of that top of the pop studio performance, a rare return to the UK from here on in, as they've just been informed

that they actually haven't paid any tax in the UK for the past seven years, so they've nipped off to the Coat Desior to live as tax exiles, where they did this, bitch and wild horses as part of Top of the Pops' album section. And chaps, we've coated down that album section

for fucking about with the formula. But it's got to be said there have been some fucking blinding acts on there this year. Curtis Mayfield, Labby Sifre, chairman of the board, Stevie Wonder,

fucking gold, mate. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the time, the problem is not with the performances. It's just with the fact that it breaks up top of the pops It's going to really ugly and unnecessary.

But anyway, chaps, the stones, they're back. And now that the Beatles are out the way, who's the fucking daddy now, eh? Yeah. The thing about the Beatles is that the key word about them is love. You know, despite all of their kind of shortcomings that we've already touched on as characters, love is something they project in a very real kind of way.

I think that, you know, domestic lives, I think all of them ultimately found true lifelong loving relationships. I think even when they fell out with each other, at Ringo Starr at the time said something I always hurt the one you love and we love each other and ultimately they did all kind of eventually reconcile and you back together

if not ever fully. Now I mean with the stones obviously when they tried to do their kind of response to Buzz and Peffrelly really, we love you I mean you don't love us you don't love as anyone and Led Zeppelin loved it Although that song was a sarcastic message to the establishment

that had just put him in prison Yeah that's not what they're about That is something that they can't sort of carry they're heading to the 70s, they can't say to take up that particular banner. But yeah, here they are starting the 70s as they mean to go on, which isn't surprising really,

considering this song was recorded a mere six months after honky tot and women and they've been sitting on it for 16 months. This is still Stone's 1969, isn't it? Yeah, and... Yeah, this song. Obviously, no offence to present company, including myself,

but at one point previously we were scheduled to do this episode at Top of the Pops for a chart music that never happened and it was going to be me and Neil and I miss Neil most days in one way or another but the idea of a lengthy discussion with Neil who had that great eye for racism in pop and wrote so well about it talking about one of the most celebrated

and in many ways most brilliant songs by his all-time favourite group which also happened to be the most spectacularly racist rock song ever to attain classic status. I'll be missing that chance forever. Exactly. Only followed up by some girls later on,

which was banned by various black radio stations. What are you saying about racer? What's wrong with being racy? I know. But imagine if you were in a group today and the singer came in with a sheet of paper and said, right, I've written some lyrics for that new song, What do you think?

As camera pans across the rest of the band sat there with jaws on their knees. Because I think if I were tasked with writing a more offensive lyric than this as a creative exercise, like something which didn't just sound like an obvious over-the-top parody of racism, I would really struggle. I don't even know if it would be possible to simultaneously exalt and degrade black people to this level, which is probably how they get away with it. Well, yeah. It manages to turn the slave trade into a cackling dirty joke.

It sexualizes black women in the most reductive way that would be humanly possible. And to boot, it rips off the music of the descendants of American slaves in order to do it. The only missed window here is that this song is at least in favour of miscegenation, which is something, I suppose. I mean, look, there won't be anyone listening to this who's never heard Brown Sugar, but there may be one or two who've never paid full attention to the lyrics. So very briefly, just in case anyone doesn't know, it goes like this. Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields sold in a market down in New Orleans.

Scarred old slaver knows he's doing all right. Hear him whip the women just around midnight. Brown Sugar, how come you take you? taste so good? Brown sugar, just like a young girl should. Drum's beating, cold English blood runs hot. Lady of the house wondering where it's going to stop. House boy knows that he's doing all right. You should have heard him just around midnight. Uh, get down on your knees, brown sugar. How come you taste so good? Brown sugar, just like a black girl should. And it goes on for a bit like that. And these are quite well written

lyrics as well, because they're from that period where Mick tried quite hard with his lyrics. So it's not just like, oh, we were drunk in the studio and we didn't really think it through. No, this was all deliberate. Listening for the first time, as I did in kind of like the mid-80s,

it was just like, well, what's this? Is it about licking black women's fanies? Is it about heroin? Is it about the glorification of torture? Is it about paedophilia? And the answer is, yes, to all of these. And it was one of the most popular songs of the decade.

This got played at wedding dudes. I swear Dan, every wedding I ever went to, all the way through to the mid-80s, if there was a band book for the do, this song got played. The kids had skid on the knees across the dance floor. Dad had loosen his tie and undo his waistcoat and do his Mick Jagger impression. And the band told us about how mint it is to lick fanny. Fucking hell, what a time to be alive. I bet Punch knew it back to front.

They'd pitch up at a fucking working men's club in Gipton and the chairman had come out and ask them, oh, do you do the one about lasses getting whipped? The Rolling Stones don't play brown sugar on stage anymore. That's right, yeah. As of just a couple of years ago, yeah. Only two years ago. That's like women in Switzerland only getting the vote in the 1970s.

Yes. Well, Keith Richards is on. record disagreeing with the decision to drop it from the set list. And he said, quote, can't they see it's a song about the horrors of slavery, which would possibly make a bit more sense if musically, Brown Sugar were not the most exhilarating and celebratory sounding rock song anybody's ever heard. Because even if you've got a migraine, you could barely hear the first four bars without wanting to pump your fists in the air

and wiggle your ass because sonically it's like doing a line of coke that stretches from here to the Grand Wizard Shack and also that particular kind of raw, brutal sexuality of the sound because it's also one of the sexiest sounding

rock songs ever in quite an aggressive kind of way that ties imperfectly with the roar and brutal but sadly non consensual sexuality of the lyrics and it underlines that rather than undermines it. So yeah, I mean, brown sugar conveys the horrors of slavery in the same way that white, light, white heat conveys the horrors of methamphetamine.

Keith Richards also said Taylor, I'm trying to figure out with the sisters what the beef is. And he would have said that in about 2000, wouldn't he? The 70s are going to be the decade of mandingo and roots And this is setting the tone early, isn't it? Because it's essentially saying, yeah, I know this is bad shit here, but come on, it's only black women we're talking about here, isn't it? Yeah, it's setting up mandingo and roots by saying, OK, black people, now the ball's in York.

Yes. Because in the early 80s, I used to go around a mate's house after school and play dance in his dad's garage. And one night we came across this filing cabinet And it was absolutely rammed with 70s grots. And I came across a copy of White House from the mid-70s. And practically every page of the fucker is burned into my brain even now

because it was like staring into the open wound of male sexuality. There was this double-page picture spread of all the different types of sexually transmitted diseases you could get. There was an advert for vasectomy club tie and blazer badge sets, which you were supposed to wear on nights out in an attempt to convince women you didn't need to use a john air. There was another advert for a vacuum pump, and the slogan was, has your partner never said, stop, you're hurting me.

But most of all, there was this piece of erotic fiction about the crew of a slave ship going absolutely berserk and ravaging a shipment of African women in the most fucking horrific manner before they threw them to the sharks that made Sven Hassel read like Barbara Cartland. And yeah, that was what Smut was like in the era of the Yorkshire Ripper. But the implication was pretty standard throughout a lot of media. You know, it's unfortunate, but come on, at least they're not white women because no one got othered in the 70s as much as non-white women.

It's astonishing, like, you know, that people just kind of utterly oblivious to all of this, in 19th century. Like I say, a few years down the line, you know, with some girls and the kind of horrible lyric in that, that did create a sort of fury and rightly so. And with Taylor, I was thinking about Neil, you know, and isn't the fact that his favourite group of all time, you know, weren't public enemy or whatever, as he might have expected, that they were the Rolling Stones. No. But I would love to have heard him, and I'm sure that he was deeply alive to the, to the kind of the contradiction of a song like this and what is the most overpowering aspect of this that's able to kind of a stench, even of the obnoxious racism, is,

the sheer power of the song that Taylor's already sort of alluded to. You see, I was never a Stones. It's like I was a Wiz kid and not a Chip High. I was a Beatles boy and not a Stones kid. And I think this might have been because I first saw them on Top of the Pops about 1969 when it was only about

six years old. And I remember being pretty traumatized because there was a sort of, you know, it was getting pretty rowdy and it was a sort of stage invasion of like, you know, these kind of pop crazed kids and, you know, pandemonium you don't normally associate with the top of the pops. And, you know, I think it traumatised me as a kid. I felt like, you know, something was being breached here in front of my very

eyes. And maybe, you know, maybe that put me off from being fully involved, died in the wool fan, you know, knows every trap and every album. Much as I'm not a Stones kid, I do appreciate them immensely. I can hold the thought of like, as article it by Taylor Lewis on, just what a spectacularly racist song this is. And yet, if you think, remember in the ruttles, Eric Idol goes out down to the deep south and he finds, you know, this kind of blues here. And he says, like, what, he said, I started a little. listen to the ruttles and that really got me turned on to the blues. I think it's perfectly appropriate for a young

African-American kid to be turned on the blues and be inspired by the Rolling Stones to play and I think they have that authenticity. So the actual studio performance, clearly a huge deal for the BBC. They've emptied the studio out. We don't see any kids. It's just the band.

And at this point the stones appear to be Mick and the Kens. Everyone else is pushed to the side while he's well in the fore for and he his shiny pink suit, pink t-shirt with a number eight on it, and a big holoquin cap. He's foreshadowing Timmy Mallet here, isn't it? Yeah, doing his rock'em-sock and robots down.

Yes. Like he's cross-country skiing on the spot. Yeah. I never really felt that he could dance. I mean, apparently, there's someone that Tina Turner taught him to dance, which perhaps explains a lot, but, you know, just always reminds me of that Seinfeld episode, sort of the little kicks to where Elaine in Seinfeld does this kind of weird little jerky sort of dance and everybody kind of stands back

and then Joey Seinfeld says sweet fancy Moses. So they always end up saying sweet fancy Moses whenever I see Mick Jagger dance. This is a year that Jagger, one of the most famous people on the planet, becomes even more famous. The wedding with Bianca in France was a huge

media event by mistake because they had to get married in a public place. So it just absolutely swamped with paparazzi and he's being credited with dragging pop stardom right up into the levels of modern aristocracy. And in a time where

his peers of the 60s are either stepping back and going on a farm or being bogged down in litigation or dying. He's still going. He's rising to the top. Yeah. True professional. Yeah. I mean the stones weren't the Beatles, but yeah, he is this

great 60s survivor, yeah, and he is carrying on at that sort of level of energy. Yeah. It's a good performance. Yeah. They look kind of you know, suitably sulky and dissolute. Keith is all gothic and vultuous.

Midway into his transformation into Count drugular. It looks very Claudia Wincommon here, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. The one thing that's a little bit unfortunate is that the black sax player is down on a lower level. He's not allowed to stand on the podium

with the stones. There wasn't even a black sax player on the actual record. It was a white like Bobby Keyes, but I think he was probably allowed to stand on the same floor as them in the studio. It's like when you see the shadows in the late 70s and they've got a bloke filling in on base who's not one of the original members. So they make him stand right at the back. So he is quite literally in the shadows. But it's a bit unfortunate here because the optics are already so bad.

I'm putting this flat guy like, no, you stand down there, mate. The thing is, before we get hung up on this song, and like, you know, as if like the Rolling Stones were like a proto screwdriver or something. First of all, there are lots of other brilliant Rolling Stone songs which are almost as dodgy as this, right? And I'm not talking about stuff like, you know, under my thumb or any of those like casually misogynistic songs which are obviously wind-ups. Stupid girl.

Yeah, like meant to be a kind of joke. Yeah. I think in a song's like, you know, Stray Cap Blues, which is more explicitly about sex with very underage girls than any other song ever written. And if you think she's young on the record, you should hear the live versions. And it does not sound like it's meant to be a song

about the horrors of predation, to put it mildly. Or even Midnight Rambler, which is about a sex killer and that one's not celebratory, but it's got that sort of video nasty, sensationalism to it, a giggling shotback. He's not regretful, is it? No, but it's what a lot of this stuff

is with the stones. It's edge lordship before its time, right? It's a deliberate attempt to extend that old bad boy image into the new extremes that were being opened up by societal change because having collar length hair and not wearing a tie

wasn't enough anymore to make you outrageous, you know? It was a deliberate move to remain outrageous but in an era when people hadn't yet worked out the shape of the new society or where the boundaries were so like you know this is a time when there was some debate over whether the paedophile information exchange should be alongside gay helplines and women's refuges in the small ads of time out you know like there was you know maybe a chance this could be something constructive and forward looking we just don't

know yet. And it's impossible to imagine now, but that's really how it was for a lot of people. So if you're edge-lording it in that climate, I mean, we're almost lucky you didn't get something worse. But the thing is by this point, the stones now

are all about decadence in their art and in their lives. And the nature of decadence is that pretty quickly everything turns to meaningless sludge. You know, it's all a joke and nothing is more serious than anything else.

So you can do a song about an orgy on a plantation in the antebellum. Yeah, very non-consensual orgy. And it's a party song. Lighten up, right? But it's obviously not because the stones were pro-slavery

or pro-rape or pro-violence against women. In fact, part of the reason they fell out with Brian Jones was his relentless woman beating. There's those stories of a groupie turning up in the morning with two black eyes and Keith sending the bodyguard

around to Brian's room to return the favour. Right, yeah. Because let's face it, the funny thing about all of this is that there were very few white Englishmen of this generation who were less racist than the Rolling Stone who worshipped black American

musicians and to some extent black Americans generally and desperately wanted to be like that. What is on the level at which their songs are happening, they just don't care about anything. So everything's up for grabs and let's see how far we can push it. And it's like anything else, when you're operating on the edge of what's acceptable in your own time, you can't predict for sure whether in the years ahead the cultural currents

are going to follow you and your daring will seem ahead of its time or whether things go the other way and in a few years no one will be able to believe that you will. ever said or did something so crass or appalled. I'm sure we all wrote something in the 90s that if we saw it now, there would be a sharp intake of breath, right? Not quite on the level of brown sugar, perhaps. That's a thing, if it is intended as a provocation, then it appears to have had very, very little pushback at the time as if there's no cognitive framework whereby people would sort

of go to deconstructing something like this. It would just wash over people, you know. like brown sugar like a Bruce Springsteen verse I think there were a few more political black people who weren't keen on it but yeah you're right there was no major outrage but I think even in the let it all hang out

six fences maybe this should have been tucked back in again and probably should have been obvious but the best and only defence here is just the usual defence for unimaginably crass pop songs, which is welcome to a universe with different rules where none of this stuff really happened

and ideas are all that exist. But understandably, when you apply that to things like slavery, not everyone is going to do a Fonsie shrug and put aside their objections. You know what I mean? Even when it's as great a record as this, which let's face it,

this record is fucking amazing. Yes, it is. Let's not spend that. whole of this just going all, it's a bit racist because it fucking is. But it's also an incredible record. There's the edge on the slashing guitar is eye-watering. And Charlie leaning into the tombs and bass drum every time the verse kicks back in, which is presumably meant to subliminally suggest African drumming, which is a little bit

dubious. But it sounds fantastic. There's one of Mick Jagger's best ever vocals, right? And even though Mick Jagger was a terrible singer, he was a brilliant vocalist, and I don't know how anybody anywhere could ever resist the sound and feel of this record. Yeah. Just the sound and feel of this record. Unless they were fully dried up.

It's like if somebody went back in time and people asked them, this jargon term of the future, problematic, what does it mean? And you said, well, perhaps it would be easier to explain in some. one particular song. It is the stonesiest stone single ever, isn't it? Yeah. And ultimately, people will let the stones off almost anything.

Yeah. They don't get a lot of the same scrutiny, shall we say, but their peers got for doing exactly the same stuff because as well as being an incredible band, they are still weirdly avatars of freedom and the flight from responsibility.

Like obviously back then they were vitally important psychologically for a lot of people who were bumping up against like the still existing limits of society because most of those people never got to follow that trail all the way out. So the stones were two things. They were a symbol of hope in the moment and then as time went on, reassurance that being allowed to make all your own mistakes might not in fact be paradise. at least not all the time, right? But nowadays, I think they still fulfill that role in a different way. They sort of hover over the modern world, reminding us all of the sapping emotional labour that is demanded by the necessity of caring.

That's ambiguous enough that on the one hand, they seem inspiration, and they can lighten an unnecessary load. But then on the other hand, there are all these great, caution retail. But fucking hell, what a moment for Top of the Pops. This is pretty landmark, isn't it?

And it appears that the Rolling Stones might have a bit more mileage in the tank. Who knows? They might even last as long as 1975. I'd say Keith Richards was asked in 1978, you know, at this point, Rolling Stone, you've been around 15 years now. Do you still see yourself being

active in another 15 years? 1999. Yeah. And the fucking rest. Anything else to say. Just one thing. I knew it. Yeah, while we're on the stones, because I may never get this chance again. I have to share something that was recently served up to me by Facebook memories, something that I apparently posted many years ago.

But this is a true story for what it's worth. I had a rock and roll dream last night. I was supposed to be playing rhythm guitar for the Rolling Stones at some big outdoor show, the stones being roughly 40 in this. dream, so neither in their pomp nor in the present day. But I'd lost my black telecaster backstage, so I couldn't go on. Keith Richards offered to help look for it. So for about half an hour, me and Keith went into different rooms in this backstage area,

asking people if they'd seen a black telecaster. At one point, I thought I'd found it, but no, it was actually somebody else's guitar. Later, I picked up what I thought was my guitar, but when I looked more close, it was actually a banjo. All this time, Mick and the lads were waiting on stage in front of the audience, who were now becoming impatient. Occasionally, you could hear the rest of the band tuning up, increasing the tension even further.

A slow hand clap began. But backstage, people kept saying, no, sorry, mate, I haven't seen your guitar. In the end, I decided that it must have been stolen, and I probably wouldn't see it again. some people say that all the joy goes out of life when you hit middle age but at least we still have our dreams yeah wait to you the dream we're out to fill in on keyboard for it bites

so brown sugar would go on to sell 360,000 copies in the UK finishing the year as the 18th bestselling single of 1971 one above stone loved by the Supremes one below for All We Know by Shirley Basset. It would do even better in America, getting to number one for two weeks in May, and Sticky Fingers would spend five non-consecutive weeks atop the summit of Albumberg.

It immediately became a nailed-on staple of the Stones' live set, originally as the opening song, and then graduating to the finale, with Jagger eventually easing out the lyric about whipping. And in 2021, they announced, It had been dropped from the set list since 2019, with Jagger saying there were no plans to bring it back. The follow-up of sorts was the Decker release of Street Fighting Man,

which had never been put out over here, which got to number 21 in July. But the proper follow-up, tumbling dice, got to number five in May of 1972. down and down trying to go down you need around to the that's the sound of the running stones I can see you at home eating your nuts and your chocolates and everything who's over eaten here over Christmas have you you all have to go on a dart after us but meanwhile just enjoy yourselves okay this year we had a fabulous

new group who came onto the scene and do you remember this one called Resurrection Shuffle from Aston Gardner and Dyke Tony a side another shy slip of a girl tells us that he can see us at home eating our nuts before he turns to the girl and fat shames her for cramming Terry's chocolate oranges into her cavernous moor before restructing her to go back on the comp plan and limits in the new year, but allows her to enjoy herself for now. Then, he tells us of a fabulous new group who came onto the scene in 1971,

Ashton Garner and Dyke with Resurrection Shuffle. Formed in Liverpool in 1958, the Remo 4, were a beat combo who became regulars at the cavern in the early 60s who went through myriad line-up changes throughout the decade as the Mersey beat boom waxed and waned. While they watched their contemporaries dominate the music scene, their only chart success came in 1964 when they were billed as Tommy Quickly and the Remo 4 and took Wild Side of Life to number 3 in November of that year. In 1967, George Harrison gave them the rub when he recruited them as his backing band for the Wonderwall LP. But a year later, when they were working as Billy Fury's new backing band,

frontman Tony Ashton and drummer Roy Dyke left the group and linked up with Kim Gardner, who had played the bass with the birds, with an eye, and the creation, and then were joined by guitarist Mick Lieber, formerly of Python Lee Jackson. This is the second single they released, the follow-up to Maiden Voyage, which failed to chart when it came out in 1969. And although the band were insistent that the song, I'm Your Spiritual Bread Man, should be put out, as it featured George Harrison on guitar,

their new label Capital changed their mind while the band were away supporting Deep Purple, and released this in November of 1970. It entered the charts at number 45 in January of this year, then soared 19 places to number 26. And four weeks later, it began a two-week stand at number three. And here they are in the studio. But before we took into the delights of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke,

got to go back to what Tony was saying to that girl about diet and everything. And it made me wonder. So what's your diet then, Tony? And look, look at Lear, I managed to locate Tony Blackburn's shopping list in 1916. It's in an article in Jackair from September of 1971 In the Bachelor Boy section Allow me to quote chaps Once a week Tony Blackburn go shopping

From his flats near Regent's Park He walks down the street And into a small supermarket Picks up a wire basket And selects his goods Every week he chooses the same products six tins of bachelor's peas six tins of salmon

one carton of milk one packet of biscuits and then I sometimes get a packet of that water ice stuff I am very fond of that and like to have a packet in the fridge and that's it apart from the occasional box of eggs

this is as far as Tony's shopping goes Since his illness, Tony has had a stomach virus for the past six years and has had three operations in the past four months, Tony has been on a diet. He's lost one and a half stone in weight and he's now down to ten stone. I feel much better for it, he says. I no longer eat bread and I've cut down on potatoes. In fact, I don't eat very much at all,

apart from cooking myself omelets, scrambled eggs and opening cans of salmon. And then Chaps, he goes on about his bachelor life. And yeah, it's lonely being Tony Blackburn. My relationships with the opposite sex always go wrong. It's like Peyton Place. It's a pity because there's nothing I'd like more than to settle down and get married and have children. I love children. It's probably the environment I'm mixing, but I only seem to meet actresses and girls like that.

They tend to be a bit unstubed. mainly I am on my own a lot of the time. Yes, I suppose I am lonely. It's just my character. I don't like parties. I don't like standing around talking a lot of nonsense. I can't bear those parties where you have a lot of people standing around just like a holiday camp. I don't find it easy to talk to people in any case.

Several times I've had to walk out of parties within 10 minutes of arriving. Yeah, he said to them, so did you get lots of lovely presents? Eat lots of delicious pudding. You don't have any problem talking to me when I interviewed him, that's for sure. You're not an actress, though, David. It did strike me as perhaps a slightly needy soul in lots of respects. Despite the fact that actually there's only two people that in the context are doing an interview, you know, professional job whatever.

It involves stepping out onto a pavement temporarily and being in the public and both of them being mobbed. And there's only two of them. That's Tony Bennett and Tony Blackburn. But even for all that public love, you do sort of sense perhaps lonely on the inside. And yet you see them out there in the top of the pop studio. And the way those girls look at Tony is truly unsettling. It's like he created them.

Yes. My sweet Lord. And in a mere year's time, he will be marrying an actress, of course, Tessa Wyatt. So anyway, Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, here they are in the studio, giving us a taste of the real 19-20s. 71 I feel because fucking hell the state of it Yeah yeah you watch this and you

Understand why the following your mouldy old dough came as such a breath Of fresh airs Where do we start chat well we've got to talk about Tony Ashton because fuck me He is the dead spit of eight ace Isn't it? Absolutely Jesus Christ

Yeah it really is another case of I see your uncle finally got to make his record Yes Truly is the unacceptable smell of 1971. God, yeah, very much so. His fucking seven-ace there is this Larger

than life character. He is horrific. He looks like his bed sheets stink of old kebab meat. But all of these fuckers are on the Dennis Waterman diet of Chewborg and tinned ham. Yeah, a fucking shower. A shower,

ironically enough, being something none of them have ever experienced. Once Fortnite they get in a bath. with no bubbles and sit there until the water gets a scum on it. It's just horribly redolent, isn't it?

You just think of like lard-like blobs of blue cream on the side of jet black sideburns. It's just it's the mud after the snow. It's the sludge. It feels like a kind of

manifestation of a sort of cultural sludge. Basically, you look at these cunts and literally the only crimes you couldn't imagine them being arrested for are secure is an investment fraud and impersonating a police officer.

Anything else, I would believe it immediately. Tony Ashton is holding centre stage, of course, as he's a singer. He's sitting behind Elton John's Baker foil piano, which has been wheeled back on. But it's now been adorned with the kind of hat that Marcel Marceau would wear if a flower was stuck to it. But in this case, there's a balloon staple to the top. And he's wearing frayed double denim and brown monkey boots, looking every inch, like your dad's dodgy mate that your mum really doesn't like. I won't let in the house.

There is so much that's happening. There is these kind of physical and metaphorical cultural conditions that are sort of horrible and wet and brown or whatever at the time. You sense so much what Topler Pops is trying to do is just offer some sort of escape from that, some sort of sense of lightness and counterpoint to all of that. But here it's almost like they're just revelling in it. Listen to this and watching this. It's like when you face rubbed in dirt outside a flat-roof-pub.

So, Kim Gardner and Mick Lieber, the guitarist who's also a permanent fixture in the band, but doesn't get a credit in the name. They look like how Lenny and Squiggy would look if they were in the Liverbirds instead of Laverne and Sherlock, wearing jeans that have clearly not been washed in the 70s, if ever. Because when the camera pans round the back of them, you can clearly see those telltale creases around the backs of the knees and you think, them jeans have never seen the inside of an electro-lux. But the brass section, fucking hell. The paedophile information exchange horns, if you will.

Imagine if James Brown was caught short and needed a last-minute replacement, eh? Jesus. He'd be flashing the $5 fine signal so fast and hard. He'd have fucking carpal tunnel syndrome before his first knee drop. Yeah, the brass section is a man in disson. disguise a prison gardener and a French broom salesman. Who needs it? But then everything about this record, who needs it? This is the thing. I don't understand what they think they're doing. What is the purpose, who this is for, what pleasure they get out of making this music. Because it's not even that it's

terrible. It's like making all the effort to open up a sandwich shop. But the only sandwiches you're selling a corn beef on white bread. And you've got people coming in going, have you got tuna, if you've got cheese and tomato, can have it on a granary roll? No, we've got corn beef on white bread. Thousands and thousands of them stacked up behind me.

Buy one or fuck off. With a hand imprint still in the bread. It's not doing anyone any serious harm, but what's the point of going to that trouble? It's like an enormous painstaking, assembled matchstick sculpture of a potato. Well done.

Thanks for your contribution. Shame you didn't spend all those hours inventing new medicines or finding out what shampoo is. But it is the symptom of the time. Musically, the tail end of that six-fanties obsession

with the band and by extension rustic roots music. Other people's roots. People whose favourite Beatles song is Don't Pass Me By That's these people He's like the singing butcher of Coventry

But lacking even the skill of butchery Why would anybody care about any of this? All of the songs, pretty much all of them They would have taken up lifelong lodgings in my head Having first exposed them in 1971 At a point where I was just really opening up to the world But this, I think I would have just zoned out at the time it would have just been too depressing about the reality that I sort of spent pretty much every day of the week experience.

But anyway, no matter what we say about it, the kids are doing their absolute best to do the resurrection shuffle, even though they've got very little to go on, you know, you put your hand on your hip and then you let your backbone slip, like you do with every other fucking dance of the 60s. But yeah, they're getting into it, particularly your woman in the day of dress. She's having a right go. She's a proper rave as she is. his core. They're a lot more game, aren't they?

The 71 top of the pop's crazy. Yeah, they'll dance to vote. Doesn't feel like they'd be busting under sufferance or anything. You know, they're giving it a go. But you're right about the song, David. I fucking hate it. And I've hated it ever since there was a toddler. And I just don't know why.

It was one of those songs that was on the radio right throughout the 70s, long after it's sell by date, along with stuff like, you know, I gave it up for music and the free electric band. And it's just like, what, you're playing this? for when there's racy to be had. But going off that opening drumbeat, you can easily imagine some young Ted lads in Leicester

listening to it and sucking a thoughtful too. And maybe that's why I dislike it actually, because if I'd hear it at a school disco years later, as I did, I'd hear that drumbeat and prepare to throw myself on the floor and do a press up to the hardcore rockabilly

of some girls or dancing party tonight and be sadly denied. So yeah, not in favour of it. I love how they're using that fashionable new firm of solicitors band name template without worrying that nobody has a clue who Ashton or Gardner or especially Dyke even are you know you call yourself Crosby Stills and Nash as an advertisement so people say oh I know those names and they take an interest but this is like inventing a cocktail and calling it Churrabiloo wheat gloss and triple water.

It's a clunky name. It doesn't appeal to anyone. And it's basically just a litany of nothing. Nobody's got a clue. There are no Baxter Wallard and Rod, are there? I was watching this. Desperately trying to keep my brain busy so that it didn't try to remove itself

from my skull in protest. And I was thinking, I don't know whether being in Ashton, Gardner and Dyke would be fun or not. Because like compared to being a sewage farm attendant, it was probably a top-notch life. But it still sort of looks like what it must have been like playing for Leeds United around this time. Do you know what I mean? An uncommon level of success, but not enough to lift the shit cloud of early 70s gloom.

You're basically still Jack Charlton and Billy Bremner with pints of bitter. playing dominoes in the pub, swathed in fag smoke, just like their dad, but with bigger sideboards. Yeah, I'm thinking of that other grim clip on the BBC Archive YouTube channel, have you seen it, where Colin Welland hangs out with the Leeds team in about 1971 or 1972. It's worth watching. Put it on the video playlist.

It does not look like an especially glamorous life, put it that way. Especially the bit where Colin Welland gets a so... Whoopy massage from Don Revy looming over him, like red-faced with the steam from the communal bath. It looks like the last thing Brian Clough saw before he woke up screaming and sat bolt upright in bed. Resurrection Shuffle might as well have been playing on that. I think it's the soundtrack to compulsory enthusiasm.

I think that's what gets me about this. You know, like your sort of overbearing aunts, knees up. Or enforced masturbation. So Resurrection Shuffle would sell over 345,000 copies in the UK. It would be their only hit, though. The follow-up, Can You Get It, has already failed to chart. And when their next single did likewise, they split up in 1972, with Dyke and Gardner joining the rock band Badger and Ashton joining Medicine Head,

then family, then being one third of Pace Ashton Lord. Oh, and Dyke, the drummer who looks like Gilbert O'Sullivan in a wig, he went on to marry Stacia. Yes, that's Stasia. Wow. Blime. And here's another former number one, the very beautiful I'm still waiting from Diana Ross. With minimal pissing of business.

about we go straight into the next single, I'm still waiting by Diana Ross. Into her first full year as a solo artist after she left the Supremes, Diana Ross has spent much of 1971 branching out into television with the TV special Diana and cinema. She's currently getting ready to film Lady Sings the Blues. But while her singles are not doing what Motown expected them to in America, she's a lot more popular. in the UK. When this was put out in Yankee Land as the follow-up to surrender, it only got to number 63 on the Billboard Hot 100,

and Motown decided not to bother releasing it over here, assuming the Brits wouldn't be arced with a year-old album track. But then, a man of vision and impeccable taste strode into view with a shopping basket full of bachelor's peas and salmon, Tony Blackburn, who played it. relentlessly on his breakfast show and told Motam that if they released it in the UK he would make it his record of the week. It entered the charts at number 16 on the last day of July and three weeks later bend off get it on and reach the top of most of the popermost. And here's another chance to

see a common feature of six finties top of the pops the in-house proto golden oldie picture show video which is yeah it's one of them isn't it yeah it's some animation which looks like the opening titles to an early seventh is supernatural anthology series

called depths of fear like T.P. McKenna as a professional dog walker with a tedifying secret yeah it's a montage of all paintings of rabbits and grapes and lots of you know that kind of art shit with someone in a cape whitened out and multiplied while they're dancing about and overlaid

onto the artworks. Very armchair thriller, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was watching that thinking, uh, Susan George is being plagued by mysterious telephone calls from a stranger who knows too much about her life. But yeah, it's pretty standard fear for Top of the Pops roundabout this time, isn't it? I mean, I think we've seen Madder, you know, that Barry White one and Wedding Bell Blues with that miserable girl swinging some flowers about. So let's move on to the song chaps because never mind what's going on or where I'm coming from by Stevie Wonder, the two big LP releases from Motown in 1970.

This is what Barry Gordy wants Motown to be in the 70s, doesn't it? You know, the move to Los Angeles is well underway. Diana Ross is going to be a movie star by any means necessary. And yeah, the label is desperate to grow up. And if you want the sound of Young America, well, fuck off to the. the record shots of your token and get Motown chart busters volume six because you ain't going to get that kind of shit from Motown anymore but in the meantime apart from this song the other big motown hit of 1971 was the re-release of heaven must have sent you by the elgin's which i think got to

number five or six or something like that so there's a craving for old motown but motown's not having it mate this is who we are now yeah i suppose just look at them to evolve in a different way because obviously at the same time he's got all of his tension with artists like you mentioned where i'm coming from, which is Stevie Wonder's attempt to do what's going on, and of course, what's going on itself. And of course, you know, the increasing mood of militancy. And I don't think that very good is necessarily awfully keen on that. I mean, you do have to admire this song in terms of its contours, its grace, you know, and it's got this soulful high gloss about it. And, you know, this diaphanous quality or dianaphanous quality, as you might say.

Oh, very good. Having said that, I'd have gone out and played football in the road, which you could do back then, you know, like cars going down that street every 10 seconds. now but in 1971 they went down every 15 minutes so you could get a good solid session in you know before you had you know curly whirlies for goal posts and all that yes indeed yes and I would have played with my leather football which was my 1970

present was it still in good neck in 1971 yeah it wasn't too bad yeah I mean it'd been kicked around but it was a pretty durable you know you just couldn't head it that was all but that's all right I was never a header of the ball you had a casey yeah what's interesting at this time black pop like the very commercial

big selling end of black pop is peeling away from white pop and vice versa. Like there's this new smoothness and this new interest in texture and harmonic subtlety, which is the exact opposite direction to most popular white musicians who are now doing heavy blues rock

and pretty basic country rock and glam rock and somebody else's roots music. You know, it's like the two sides were moving towards each other and now they've crossed over and gone past each other and just kept going. And now the white musicians are accelerating away from complex melody and songcraft and, you know, the sort of classical stroke colporter tradition. And the black musicians are accelerating away from rhythm and grit and sonic boldness.

So this is the period or one of the periods where that ongoing conversation between black and white American music, which began long before. rock and roll but was always key to the ongoing development of popular song suddenly goes quiet for a few years and both sides are off in opposite directions at least when it comes to the chance and i honestly can't work out how much i like this song and the same is true for a lot of this slightly schmaltzy stuff from around this time that harmonically it's great the chords are brilliant and the arrangement is quite musically sophisticated but there's something slightly soupy about it which just wouldn't have been there a few years earlier or a few years later and although this isn't like pure schlock

it is the beginning of diana's descent into schlock high-class schlock until she was saved by disco and it's all about centering her voice as well and i'm one of the heretics who doesn't think her voice was all that really i mean it's better than mine, especially in its current horse and ragged state. And I do like her singing, but I think it's more distinctive than effective, you know? Yeah. But then I'm also the kind of heretic who thinks the post-Diana Ross Supreme singles average out as better than the ones they made with her in the group.

Not that I don't think you keep me hanging on is amazing. But you know what's even better up the ladder to the roof? Yes. Although it's interesting. I mean, I don't think that, I mean, Diana Ross is, yeah, she ain't Aretha Franklin or whatever. And I don't think that with her, her stardom was, like, based in the quality of her voice. Although, obviously, she's a capable singer, and she can deliver her sort of pop, believe, maybe it might seem occasionally slightly bland or whatever.

But, you know, there's always a sense that she got far too big of her boots within, you know, the Supremes and, you know, she did the others down. But whenever you do see them performing, Diana Ross and the Supreme, she exudes so much more twinkling, so much more star quality than they do. They're kind of standing in that sort of delivering. and his harmonies, almost in a sort of passive-aggressive sort of way, but not really exuding much star quality in their own right. I mean, she had that in absolute bundles, and they didn't quite frankly. Yeah, Cindy Birdsong, F-T-W.

And of course, Tony is very pleased with himself for being the puppet master of the charts of 1971. For the second time I'll have, you know, do you know what the first one was? The other number one single in 1971 because of Tony Blackburn? Oh, go on. Churpy, chirpy, cheap, cheap. Oh yes he discovered it on radio one and played it to death

Anything else to say chaps Yes there is Diana Ross also gets a mention in that Youth Culture Bible of late 1971 The Fab 208 annual 1972 right I went through my copy and I discovered within its hallowed pages

A double page feature called Sugar and Spice Which in its own words, takes a look at six girls who have made it right to the top and sees just what each one is made of. Like sugar and

spice. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. It examines what these girls are made of, what their success is made of, and what their happiness is made of it without actually asking any of them. It's conceptual though, right?

Sugar and spice. And you can't say it's sexist because it was written by a woman called Judith Wills, who later became the food correspondent for the Daily Express. Oh, well, there you go then. Editor of Slimmer magazine. An author of the books, The Diet Bible, the Omega Diet, Six Ways to Lose a Stone in six weeks, and Judith Wills is Slimmer's cookbook. Right.

No stranger to Rive Eater, this girl. No, fuck no. Go on, Judith. Treat yourself. Put some cottage cheese on it. Anyway, this feature sugar and spice. First off, we learned that the lovely, lovely actress Judy Geeson is made of the very heart of England.

Hair, the colour of corn, and eyes like cornflowers. Of the energy that is a zest for living. Of a five-foot-three-inch slim-lined figure that we all envy. Oh, Judith, you and your wend. one-track mind. I thought we're going to say eyes like cornflakes for a second, and apparently Judy Gieson's success is made of a training at the Corona Stage School in London. She passed the physical.

From being pretty and acting better than the others. See, that's the kind of insight you get from the author of Six Ways to Lose a Stone in six weeks. although a human brain only weighs about three pounds so I guess that can't be the explanation whatever this piece might suggest other girls who've made it right to the top include the nation's sweetheart Silla Black who we learn is made of

the essence of Liverpool the cavern the Mersey and some other things I've heard of but her associate with Liverpool She's also made of the tough and the poor Of spindle legs and arms And a raucous laugh That sets the world smiling

Oh god, yeah Apparently Silla Black's happiness Is made of being skinny And making people happy Maybe someone should write some books Which might possibly help other girls attain that special happiness which only comes from having spindle legs and arms.

Yeah. It's just a thought, Judith, and the fab two-eight millions finally dry up. Anyway, look, pale blonde girls may be slightly overrepresented in Judith's feminist Wonderworld, but she is not, as they used to say, prejudice. Or even racialist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because Diana Ross is also included in this list.

So whatever else you can say about this article, No accusations of blundering racism here. Good. So her entry begins. Diana Ross is made of milk chocolate. Oh, fuck it out. And brown sugar. Chocolate eyes and hair,

chocolate skin and a rich chocolate voice. Now, a charitable reading would be that Judith has entered a state of psychosis. from the drudgery of munching on celery sticks, taking cold sloth, slices a nimble with a crust calf, and has just become obsessed with the thought of chocolate. So let's just pass over that and read on and discover what Diana Ross's happiness is made of. Diana Ross's happiness is made from being loved,

from being black. Yeah. She wakes up every day. day looks down at her hands and goes yes get in from her home in LA from playing tennis and basketball

from knowing she helped an unknown group to world fame the Jackson 5 who she discovered in 1968 which is of course a myth put about by Barry Gordy who actually discovered them yeah and if Judith Wills who is still alive

happens to be listening I'm so sorry and if you ever do a podcast, presumably about slimming. Please don't read out any articles that I wrote in 10 minutes decades ago to which time has not been kind. Or I'll come around your house and eat cream cakes in front of you while saying, I just don't understand it. I can eat and eat and eat and eat and I just never put any weight on.

Munching on a dairy milk saying, oh, that reminds me. What's your favourite Supreme single? You said it, Judith. You fucking said it. Judas Will's also wrote a couple of other articles in this annual actually. There's one called Four Beautiful Seasons

which tells girls what to do in each season of the year. And in case you're interested, that is summer, tanning, autumn, skin protection, winter, the party

season and spring slimming. People often look back at pictures of film with the early 70s and go, oh look, everyone's so slim, aren't they? And some people put that down to the lack of processed foods or the fact that people used to walk more. But I think really it was just because they had Judith Will's bearing down on them just relentlessly and tirelessly.

But, you know, whatever work. So I'm still waiting, but spend four weeks at number one before it was deposed by Hey girl, don't bother me. That's kind of poetic, isn't it? Like the times are saying, look, Diana, just fuck off. I don't fancy you.

It would sell over 420,000 copies over here, making it the biggest selling Motown single in the UK. A record it would hold for seven years until it was topped by three times a lady by the Commodores. The follow-up, surrender, would get to number 10 in November and she'd be a constant chart presence throughout the 70s and 80s, but she'd have to wait 15 years for her next number one with chain reaction in March of 1986.

That nearly thought us with her camera on that one. I thought she was in midstream though. That's Diana Ross. Do you remember that a very beautiful number one? This gentleman here has been dashing around with this. I've just got to burst it. Would it really upset you if I burst that? It wouldn't, would it?

Oh, that's made my evening. Here comes the never-ending song of love from the New Seekers. I've got a never-ending love for you. From now on, that's all I want to do. Tony, who's clapping very gingerly and has clearly missed the front. floor managers countdown to this link, stands next to a youth sporting eight Aces hat with a balloon and pops it because he's a cunt. He then throws us into never-ending Song of Love by the New Seekers.

Formed in Melbourne in 1962, the Seekers were the first Australian band to breach the UK and US charts, pulling down two number ones with I'll never find another you and the carnival is own. and four more top 10 hits, as well as winning the Australian of the Year award in 1967. A year later, however, lead singer Judith Durham announced she was leaving to start a solo career, and their final performance was on a BBC special that July. But guitarist Keith Polga decided to stay in London and start anew, recruiting a new band and lifting the Seekers' name. Although their first LP and single flopped when they came out in 1969,

they were approached by Scottish television to make the TV show Finders Seekers, which was broadcast throughout the ITV network. Their next single, a cover of Melanies, Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma, went all the way to number 14 in America, but only managed to get to number 38 over here, and their next three singles did Fock All in the UK. But the next, this one, a cover of the Delaney and Bonnie LP track, which they didn't bother to release as a single over here, ripped through the charts in July,

and would spend five weeks at number two, held off by Get It On, and I'm still waiting. And here they are back in the studio. And chaps, I believe that this performance commences with one of the greatest camera crashes into the audience in the entire history of top of the boss. It's fucking glorious, isn't it? Starts with a camera on a crane

which like swoops down and piles towards the stage as the kids clearly alarmed get out of the way like the Illinois Nazis and the Blues Brothers. Yeah. It would have been great

if there was just one kid he did like a Tiananmen Square. Yes. Well, there is one who doesn't react, Taylor. It's that girl in Tony's Diana Rossling who just stands there. holding herself like the girls in the herring screws you up atvers, still traumatised over Tony calling her a grotesely fat pig.

Poor girl! It takes a while to recover from a face-to-face encounter with the enchanting child star Tony Blackburn. It's such as good about, I mean, you know, after initially starting out with this kind of veneer of bland ingratiation, Tony Blackburn, yeah, first of all, the fat-shaving. And then what does it say about his mentality's mindset, that he sort of resists the urge to pop.

a balloon. Perhaps this is what he would do with all these parties that he ate it, you know, just wander around on his own, not talk to anybody just like pop up all the balloons he could with his cigarette end, you know. Did you leave Tony or were you asked to go? Give this choker a wood shampoo. But anyway chaps, as

it's still the 27th of December, them annuals are going to be the freshest coinage of the day, aren't there? Sadly, there's not much in the way of pop annuals just yet. Music Star hasn't happened, but I do have in my hands the very same 1972 Fab 208 annual that Taylor has.

Oh, what an artifact it is. A very fetching jigsaw design on the cover, prominently featuring the Jackson 5, Paul Newman, the Osmond's and Cliff, with smaller picks of Robert Plant, George Best, Lulu, Err, and Captain Kirk. And yeah, after the most difficult picture quiz ever, which is two pages of front doors,

with an invitation to guess which pop star lives there. How the fuck are you supposed to know that? But after that, you get to a, this book belongs to page. And this year they've actually done it as a questionnaire. And fortunately, mine's been filled in. I'm not going to give a name out. But I think this is a glorious insight to the mind of the youth of 1971. So my name is redacted.

And I was born on the 13th day in the month of Feb in 1957 in the town of Middlesex in the county of Islington, in the country of London. I now live at 34 Bellingham Walk in the town of Reading. I am blank feet and blank inches tall. My hair is blank, my eyes brown. My mum's name is Shirley Ann, my dad's Albert Charles. My first school was Cales Grove infants, and I have since attended high-down school. I work as sales assistant. My own special interests are pop animals, no comma, so she just likes pop animals.

Popping animals. She works. She works as a sales assistant. She's 14. Children are actually useful in those days, days. like now he's sit around on their phones and all that my favoured group is new seekers and the most super personality on the scene is

Steve McQueen the most handsome film stars she's put an S at the end of star in the world is Elvis Paul Rob I assume Paul Newman and Robert Redford or it could be I don't know could be Paul Henry out of crossroads and Rob Rob Alfred

and the most beautiful Elvis Presley The best DJ on Radio 1 is Jimmy Savile On swinging looks here Left blank My first boyfriend was called Kevin Perse And my ideal man is six feet Zero inches tall

With brown hair and brown eyes I hope to marry at the age of 18 and have two super children, one boy and one girl. This is my private book. Not any longer, duck. Signed and sealed on the 25th day of December, 1971. There you go. I did a bit of Facebook stalking.

I believe I found her. There was one photo of her with a tarantula in her hand, which, since I'm terrified of tarantulas, and saw my first one only earlier this year, I salute her for that. I couldn't do that. I hope she's still with us and doing well. Thank you, Doug.

Thanks for the annual. So yeah, somebody likes the new seekers, but not me. No. Bring back the old seekers, that's what I say. But alas, the carnival is over. Yeah. But they are the giant shoulders that guys and dolls will be standing upon

in the near future. And to my mind, this really is the sound of the six-fenties. You know, a repackaging of the hippie. ideal for pub sing-alongs, don't you think? Yeah. Yeah, that's probably true. It does have a hippie element feeding into it, yeah. So I'd have come back in, sweating from like five, three or four minutes playing

football while Diana Ross was on, clock this, and so, oh, fucking hell. And turn it like, don't you use language like that? Sorry, Granddad. Yeah, I don't know what they're meant to be seeking, but if by any chance it's a huge pile of shit, then stop seeking. It's got that kind of surreal quality. of a kind of extinct kits, you know, sterilised, it's starched.

It's a world of Kay's catalogue and Tupperware parties. But as you say, with this kind of wide-eyed sort of inane idealism, you know, sort of in ear of all of that going on. But I just think there's probably not a person alive left in the world who would listen to this today. Probably not even our sales assistant friend. Out of choice. Yeah.

I just think it's an extinct music. Yeah, it is, isn't it? David, do you remember that advert for us deodorant round about this time? No, I didn't really bother too much with deodorant when I was nine and in the north. No, David. Wash once a week, whether they needed it or not. But there was an advert roundabout this time for us, deodorant, which of course was unisex, which was very much the start of the day.

Yeah, yeah, it's ringing about. And it featured a group singing a song called You're Okay With Us, You're Okay With Us. Yeah, practically the New Seekers. In fact, I'd be very surprised if it wasn't the New Seekers. Yeah. But that's what they're doing. It's the portrait. family but with a bit more

hair in the groinel area there they are slapping other guitars in their Kings Road finery and washed probably already had a shower fitted in their pads as it's ecological isn't it man yeah they're a weird bunch the bassist looks like Julian

Cope after electroshock therapy this big vacant wide mouth grid are these Jesus people again because as soon as I saw I don't think so. Their groovy sexlessness, right? The God alarm went off again.

And the Schlager sound. It's like Jesus umpah, in it. It's like the upbeat interlude on stars on Sunday. Jess Yates tapping her toe. Yeah, they're not even cool enough for CU Sunday. You know that program? No, no. Or even the Sunday gang.

Yeah, totally. You touched upon CU Sunday in the last episode of Chommy. Tell us more, wise man. Oh, did I? Yeah, it was a swinging, very ecumenical religious magazine program from the mid-70s, hosted by Alistair Piri, later of Rasmataz. Yes. It was like sort of a religious magazine show for heads. It was like a pious old grey whistle test.

In fact, shot in the same bare studio as whistle test. Yes. It tries to be sort of cool. and broad-minded, like to the point of incoherence. Like they got features on like, that's right, the children of God. That's how it came. Yes. And then they'll have some Muslim burlesque dancers or something.

And then an interview with Greg Lake about his profound faith in full preterism or whatever, right? It's an amazing program. Pure mid-seventies confusion. What I like best about it is the theme tune that's got this wah-wah guitar. on it like going to church is a bit like being shaft who's the Jewish private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks

Christ he's a complicated man no one understands him but his father and it's co-hosted by this woman called Alex Dolphin Dolphin yes that's almost up there with Gary Gibbon isn't it

and we're getting disappointed Oh, you're not an aquatic mammal, are you? You're just a woman. Looking through Gary Gibbon's eyes. At the start of the series, Alex Dolphin looks like she's running a church jumble sail, right? She's just this pure, nice, sweet, C of E Frump, you know, old before her time. And then in the last episode,

she's wearing a low-cut burgundy velvet smock with a giant silver crucifix and loads of makeup. So some things clearly happened and we never get to find out what. If there'd been another series should have come on in a latex nun outfit. Dave Hill.

Rogering Alistairi with a goat on. It's all on YouTube this. I don't know if it is. Dark web. Yeah, I'm still looking for the clowns for Christ of Nottingham. You used to go around Nottingham and the Clown game telling everyone about Jesus.

I've seen it on BBC. see genome, but I just can't get to it, I can't find it, man. I'm desperate to. Have a word with me after the show I might be able to sort you out. This is better than talking about the new seekers, isn't it? Because the thing is, as a critic,

this stuff just stops you sure because it's barely even music, so it's really hard to judge it. But a while ago, I was watching Miss Yorkshire Television 1985 and one of the contestants was a beauty therapist well I mean probably more than one was let's face it but I don't remember the others she was being interviewed and they asked her why she liked being a

beauty therapist because that's the sort of probing interview you get on miss yorkshire television in 1985 and she said I really want to tell people what they're doing wrong That's not why anyone becomes a critic in the first place, but it is a part of it and it should be. Because who else can you take advice from, but lonely, crepuscular figures living insecurely in tiny rented rooms, right? Because you know who's best at telling you what you're doing wrong,

losers. Because people who succeed in life only know their own story in which they're the hero. So they assume that if everyone else just does the same things that they did, it would be champagne all round. Yeah. Because they're oblivious, because they understand nothing about failure. Whereas I can tell everyone precisely where they're going wrong because I'm a fucking expert.

You know, like people often ask me how to fail. And I say, well, it's easy when you know how. And it's even easier when you don't. But here are some rules of thumb. Don't work too hard for no pay. never degrade yourself by schmoozing don't be a scummy sharp elbowed prick avoid compromise

and make sure you're not in the right place at the right time a good way to achieve the latter is to stay away from cunts and the people say oh thank you I'll forget all that advice and grab old of the first shitty train that passes by and hang on for dear life

while my pockets fill with gold and I never see them again. And you know what? I say good luck to them. Well, I know that, you know, as the chronicler of Crout Rock, that The Onion got it right when they said that rock music is the one example of where the history is written

by the losers. Yeah, I mean... Oh, shit, that's me. Ah! Oh, well, never mind. I've had fun along the way. Well, look on the bright side, the entire series of Alan Bennett's on the margin has been wiped. to be seen again, but we've still got the new seekers on top of the pops doing, stick it up

your exit wound or whatever this song's called, intact for future generation. I mean, the new seekers, they came and went really quickly. By the time I got to the point of my life where I could remember things, the only thing I can remember about the new seekers is seeing them on Crackerjack around a pinball table doing their cover of Pinball Wizard. And for years afterwards, I thought Pinball Wizard was a new seeker. song. Not even an Elton John song. I thought the new seekers had written

Pinball Wizard and it was like pinball's fucking skills. So it was like oh God, they're all right. They made it a new seeker. Yes, they did. In fairness. They did come back later like in I think the late 70s because my dad

who bought about one record a year had a single by the new seekers. Did he? Yeah, from much later on. They returned like COVID, like mutated. with a slightly different lineup and a slightly different sound. The one that he had was called

Anthem Brackets one day in every week, which is an a cappella record until the horrible drums come in at the end, which is why my dad liked it because he liked anything that had just voices on it. Right. He went on to buy only you

by the flying pickets. Right. So I went to YouTube and I listened to it again and I was crestfallen because one of the first lines in it goes, she's living a life of luxury. Tuesday's a cottage by the sea.

But for my entire childhood, because of our crappy speakers on our record player, I thought that when she's living a life of luxury, Tuesday's cottage pie for tea. So whenever we had cottage pie for tea, I used to think, fuck it, we're living like royalty. And I never learnt otherwise, because he left the single in his car in the summer and it warped.

And nothing sounds worse, warped than an a cappella record. So it never got played again. And it's not one you hear very often on the radio or TV. So I never heard it again. Why do people leave records in cars, man? Yeah, people didn't understand. One thing that breaks my art like David Cassidy seeing a bird with a broken wing is seeing CDs and especially vinyl that's been lobbed out in the street.

I just see it and just go, oh man, someone loved that one saying it's been chucked out. But I've got to say it would be even worse to see vinyl warping in the back of the car. You know what I mean? I'd think, well, what you've done that for, mate? You know what's going to happen? What's the story? Unless it was actually, what's the story more than glory by Oasis, in which case, you know? Yeah, well, in that case, yeah.

Just cut down a nearby tree removing any shade just to make absolutely sure. I mean, if it was something decent, or. career like say, I don't know, a mint copy of lost punk rockers. I think I'd have to smash at least one window and then stand there and wait for the owner to come back and claim my reward for being a responsible citizen. So, never-ending song of Love would shift over 421,000 copies over here, the eighth best selling single of the year, one above I'm still waiting, one below the push bike song by the mixtures.

The next single, Tonight, was originally written for them by Roy Wood, but when he decided to nick it back for the move's first single on Harvest, he got the hit with it. And their next single, Good Old Fashion Music, only got to number 54, but they finished the year by glomming onto the jingle for the new Coca-Cola advert. Put out, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, which sold 96,000 copies in one day on its release, December is currently at number four in the new chart that came out yesterday and next week

will smash a Coke buckle into Ernie's face and begin a four-week run at number one. Fucking out, another guys and dolls thing, isn't it? Doing a television advert. That's the new seekers and that one was at number two for four weeks and it just wouldn't go to that number one slot. The new one though, it's going to go straight to the top. top. I predict that one. Right, this one was at number one for five weeks. Rod Stewart and Maggie Mae. Do you remember it?

Tony, surrounded by the youth, including the D'adry woman, calls his shot on the next new seeker's single, a rare example of a top of the pop's presenter, actually being right. He then ass as if we remember a single that has been hammered non-stop on the radio for months. Maggie May by Rod Stewart. Yeah, do you remember it? Yeah, Tony, I think people in Christmas 1971 probably will remember Maggie May by Ros. Considering I wasn't even born and I remember it perfect. Yeah, it's not like it was released in 1961, is it?

Do you remember this summer? We've covered Little Rabbit Arse a time or two on chart music, but this is the single that brought him to. the dance. He's actually been a solo artist since 1968 when he signed a solo deal with Mercury, but couldn't do anything in the studio and had to wait until previous contracts ran out. And when they did, he was tempted by Ron Wood to join him as the replacement for Steve Marriott in the Small Faces, who changed their name to the Faces, so he divided his time between them and his solo career. While the Faces were ticking on at Gardner in a

reputation as the latest lad band, Stuart's solo career was a procession of cover versions that got nowhere near the charts. This single, his eighth, and the first written by Stuart himself, about the woman he lost his virginity to, started life as a track on his third LP, every picture tells a story, and was put out in late July. But as the B-side of another cover, this time a version of Tim Hardin's reason to believe, possibly because his label Mercury thought radio stations wouldn't play something that lasted nearly six minutes. But those radio stations didn't give a toss, flipped it,

and after his debut performance on top of the pops in mid-August, it entered the charts at number 31, then leapt to number 19, and three weeks later it surged past Haygill, don't bother me, to plant a lion rammer. And the rampant flag, a top Ben Chartis. So here's a repeat of the performance on October the 21st with Rod doing a pre-record

like the Rolling Stones with the faces and a very special guest on Mandolin. And we'll get to that later. And yes, chaps, this is in pretty much the number one slot in a average episode of Top of the Pops. And I've got to say rightly so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ock-Ey. It's Bonnie Rod from the wee clackers. on the glen they call

London. Hastie back to Archway Road. And it's nice to have Rod Stewart and Tony Blackburn on the same show because it provides a reminder that not everyone who's sexy is good looking and not everyone who's good looking

is sexy. Like the start of this program, they flash up a picture of Rod unshaven and he looks like a raddish sculpture that started sprouty. But if you met someone who fucked him in 1971, your first thought

would not be, for God's sake, why? Let's face it. I can see objectively the merits for this track, Maggie May or whatever, but I just really always really dislike Rod Stewart intensely. Even then? Yeah, yeah. I found him very alienating because

of his hair, that short spike in us on top and then long at the size, because I knew kids at school, you know, who were like that, this is perhaps a little bit further down the line, and they always had names like Skinner and Stott and they always hung around with like, you know, the school bully and flank the school bully and this horrible little spindly swamps. The coat holders.

Yeah, he just felt like their patron saint to me in some way. I just think he looks like the kind of the love spawn of Jimmy Savile. Oh. There's a definite savallness. There's a civility. A civility, yeah, definitely a civility. And then plus obviously he's crappy politics, you know, is taking a tax exile and all that.

And doing the Enoch type thing in the mid-70s like Eric Clapton. These days, you know, he reckons we ought to get. of that fellow Farage ago, you know, that's his current political analysis. And his most popular work sailing baby Jane, I just think for me they're just some of the worst records ever made, certainly in my world anyway. I can actually objectively see the merits of Maggie Mae, but only begrudgingly. Yeah, I mean, this might not be the best single of 1971, but it's fucking close. And personally, I love everything about this record. I love the unique sound of it. I love the vivid scenario. Yes.

I love the semi-authentic representation of a world that I was born into, but never really got to experience because I was too fucking weird. This rough-ass Saturday night world of, you know, pro-romance and all that stuff, like hard men and harder women, lads going to their dads for relationship advice, you know, fixing the car on Saturday morning, right? I missed all that, all the joy of it and all the, reassuring limitations. I couldn't live there and I wasn't allowed to.

This Rod Stewart world where love and sex is enough for you, you know, even when it hurts. Yeah, I feel exactly the same way, actually. He represented a kind of masculinity, a sort of community, a sort of outlook, a sort of ladishness that I could never feel parlor and just felt very, you know, distant from. Yeah, but I always knew that it was preferable to always running after the expanding edge of your own,

imagination and never reaching it, you know, like a dog chasing trains and ending up here. There you go. But I mean, Rod, who was not a genius lyricist, but he was a decent one. He was literate and he made an effort. He had a real knack for writing about that life, like a post-war British Saturday night fever. Yeah. And even when he already started making money and living the high life, he's kind of believable in that.

It's only when you get to the white suits and Britt Eklund and champagne on the QE2 version of Rod Stewart, that it starts to sound like shtick. Yeah, I mean, you're right about the vividness, Taylor, because lyrically, this is, it's essentially an episode of play for today on a single, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Or a heterosexual version of the killing of Sister George with Rod as childy. Yeah. It's really strange to see Rod in the role of the younger partner in a couple.

But a great story nonetheless, even though it's not exactly true. A quote from his autobiography, at 16, I went to the Buley Jazz Festival in the New Forest. I'd snuck in with some mates via an overflow sewage pipe. And there, on a secluded patch of grass, I lost my not remotely prized virginity with an older and larger woman who came on to me very strongly in the beer tent. how much older I can't tell you but old enough to be highly disappointed by the brevity of the experience which lasted

about three seconds and left a stain and when pressed about this woman in an interview a few years later all he would say was she was a big girl a big girl she was a big girl period

which is all very whole lot of rosé I'm sure she was delighted to read his memories of that occasion it's a great song and it's a great lyric as well isn't it although his career options aren't very good are they i've heard worse scrape a living writing for melody maker and it's dying days yes fucking hell yeah but but nick in your dad's cue and making a living out of plain pool no rod no get into snooker and just bide your time for about 10 years you could be the next ray rid and in your leopard skin dinner jacket you could be the

the subject of the largest ever audience on BBC 2. But anyway, the performance, it's very similar to the Rolling Stones one. They've done it in seclusion with no kids lying about. Clearly just spilled out of the pub. Yeah, a bit too clearly. And we've obviously got to talk about the special guest on Mandolin, John Peel. As we've already pointed out, it was written and played by Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne, but there's been ructions, I'm afraid.

Rod would only pay him a session fee. which led to Jackson suiting for royalties, which led to Rod writing, The Mandolin was played by the mandolin player in Lindisfarne, the name slips my mind in the sleep notes for every picture tells a story. So, yes. Gracious is ever.

I think that probably, I just wonder, John Peel might have been just about as recognisable as Elton John at this point. Well, yes, yes. And it's interesting to see what Mark Boland would have thought his old mate who has turned his back on, appearing on top of the pops for the end song.

Yeah, with a hairstyle that makes him look like he's searching for the holy grey. Yes. Wearing a gauntlet and waving a goblet. Was it musicians' union rules or something? Like you had to have someone on stage miming the mandolin and Ray Jackson just would not answer the phone. Or he was otherwise engaged in the courts trying to prove legal ownership of fog. Well, Peel had been a champion of Rod since 1967,

but he was banging to the faces. He fucking loved them and actually jumped back on the wagon with them from 1970 onwards. He forgot alcohol for years. But, you know, when Ron Woods lining the drinks up, man, you've got to get involved. So when they were penciled in for a studio performance for this, I don't know whether they had to have someone playing the mandolin or not, but Rod Stewart insisted that the mandolin should be played by John Peel. that caused a huge mind

that with the musicians union, which only abated when Peel guaranteed them that he wasn't being paid for the appearances. And as well as that, Rod had got wind that the camera crew had been instructed to keep John Peel out of shot for the entire performance

because he was still persona non-grater on BBC television after his doomed attempt to present top of the popps in 1968. So Rod responded by getting as close to Peel as possible, even leaning over him at some point. So he'd being shot.

And that could be the reason for the bit in the middle where Ron Wood nips off and gets a plastic football from behind one of the flats. And they have a bit of a kickabout on the stage. I mean, because that again is sort of the impingement of like football quite literally here. Yes. You know, that merging of a sort of laddish terrorist culture.

I mean, you know, he mentioned Mark Bowen. I doubt that Mark Bowen ever kicked a football in his life. I'd actually like to think not. I don't necessarily want, I love music, I love football, I don't necessarily want my pop heroes to be sleeping into football. I'm quite happy, you know, for them not to give a shit about football. Fine if they are, fine if they're not, I can take it or leave it. But certainly, Rod Stewart was clearly very much into his football,

as was John Peel, who, I mean, although it was slightly premature, maybe in some respect, because John Peel would always talk about how he'd insist at Reading Festival on reading out the football results. Yes. And it always gets barretted and shouted down. But then that all changed in the 90s. Obviously because it's the early 70s, it's a Telstar ball,

which is a fucking beautiful design. And I wager that it's a frido, you know, fresh from the garage. It's got that garage football likeness about it when they ping it about, not very well, I have to say. Yeah.

They're not very good footballers. Ron Wood, you could have just clattered the fuck out. Well, yeah, true. True. It never stopped George Beck. It's very bloke's cover. coming out of the pub, coming across a kids football game and taking it over, the vibe, isn't it?

What's best, chaps, Telstar or tango? Tell Star. Really? Oh, yes. No, it's not even in question. Yeah, I think I'll go with Telstar, yeah. Have you ever seen the bad weather, Telstar? Like the orange one.

Oh, yes. With the black, oh, God, yeah. It's the most beautiful object. But yeah, it's a big year for John Peel. He's not in the John Peel slot just yet, because that's being handled by Radio 2. But he dominates the weekends on Radio 1. He does top gear on Saturday afternoons,

his own slot on Sunday evenings, and is a regular presenter of Sounds of the 70s in midweek. And never mind Mark Boland, Tony Blackburn must have been hugely fucked off at the sight of John Peel hogging the camera as their rivalry was his absolute pinnacle in 1971. They spent the past four years seeing each other as the absolute personification of the worst elements of Radio One

and sniped at each other at any chance they got. And that reached a peak in April when Peel handed over to Blackburn, who had spent the past week in at Radio One sitting on rubber rings, what is hemorrhoids, by playing a snatch of chop, chop, chop, which, as we'll recall, he's not allowed to do on Radio One until it's a hit, and it wasn't. And then he said, Tony B with piles of former and future hits, take it away, Tony.

Yeah, there was definitely a lot of waspishness, and you get the impression that there were kind of polar opposites within Radio 1, and still, yeah, the late 70s there's a lot of discrimination, especially when Tony Blackburn had just sort of become this signifier of a complete banality, like gurgling banality by this point. But they did, no.

Yeah, I dropped later on, he said, actually, you know, he's got a decent sense of irony as Tony Blackburn. And I think you also appreciate it, one thing about Tony Blackburn, unlike say David Travis, is that he was a genuine lover of music. Actually, David, I can pinpoint the exact moment that John Peel changes his opinion of Tony Blackburn. In the Simon Garfield book, The Nation's Favorite, which is mainly about the Bannister reformations, John Peel was talking about having to do the Radio One Roadshow one week in the late 70s,

and he said it did have its compensations. Perhaps the finest moment for me took place in Birmingham in something called the Dickens' bar. Lots of dark wood booze full of people who no doubt travelled around the country selling Dickens bars to each other. Tony Blackburn got up with Paul Williams, a radio

one producer who played the piano reasonably well, and sang for half an hour. There was massive indifference to his efforts, if not downright hostility. Yet he went through the whole thing as if he was Barry Manilow at the Copa

cabana, as if everyone was absolutely adoring everything he did. He sawed in my estimation after that. I thought he's not such a tosser after all. Because it's only about a year or so earlier. He'd seen him riding back in a speedboat with a one wall. And I think that just defined the serality, as it were, of the whole Radio One culture at that time.

It's a decent performance of this. I could do without the kicking of football around. It's just, you know, come on. our lads, you know, and, you know, they look all right. It's funny, Rod's always got a scarf on. Yeah. Even under studio lines. He's always got something wrapped around his neck.

All them love bites, mate. Yeah. It's like he once got his throat cut, but survived. You know what I mean? The only thing that's slightly sad about this clip, because it's the faces in this clip, right? And this is not a faces record. People assume that it is partly because of this clip being shown so often,

but it's not. It's a Rod Stewart's solo record. It's got Ron Wood playing guitar on it and Ian McClaghan on organ. That's it. The real hero of this record and the great lost talent of this period of Rod Stewart's career is Martin Quittenton, who nobody's ever heard of. He's the one I've always been fascinated by. He plays the other guitar on Maggie May, and he also wrote the music.

And then he did the same again on You Wear It Well a year later. and then effectively disappeared for the rest of his life. And it wasn't to live off the royalties like cackling with his feet up on a poof. It was because he was a very insecure, mentally ill bloke. He just like animals and plants and being on his own. And he turned down Rod's offer to join the faces and work full time with them. And instead spent most of his life struggling with eating disorders, which is apparently what finally killed him.

And I can't help finding people like this a bit more intriguing than the hellraises sometimes. You know, as people, even if the actual story of their lives might be less interesting, because three quarters of it will be empty space, as tends to be the case with introverted mentally ill people. But, yeah, he was one of the great mysterious, classically trained pop guitarists

who appeared and abruptly disappeared, along with Morris D. Bank, of felt and Lawrence Juba of wings other than that it's really nice. Apart from the preponderance of lemon yellow crimson and grey

which must have been the in colours in 19701. Again black and white TV was such a mercy. Yeah even with Peel looking awkward playing the mandolin just because it cannot be missing on the stage although nobody was made to mime the

base on the Slade record when Jim Lee was playing the violin. So bass on that record, Dave Hill would play it live, I think, but nobody was miming it. So I guess bass was one of the invisible instruments as far as early 70s audience. People knew it was there,

but they didn't really notice it, so they weren't looking for it, unlike the mandolin, which is a bit more of an attention-seeking instrument. Speaking of missing things, what always fascinates me about Maggie May, this record contains the strangest musical illusion that I can think of.

On the last verse, they bring in what I think is a road to electric piano, just going this little chiming noise like a xylophone on every chord change. So it just goes d'ing, d'ing, and it's turned up so high that it's almost the loudest thing

in the entire mix. And yet you can go 40 years without even noticing that it's there. This is creative production. It's the stuff you don't hear is doing half the work. And all the early 70s, Rod Stewart Records, the secret of why they're so good is they've got this strange production with a mix that is spatially baffling.

They all sound really loud and really quiet at the same time because nothing ever peaks. It's all on this very flat level, totally muffled, but really punchy. It's all mid-range frequencies, right? Like the opposite of my horrible voice with the scooped out mid-range, which is all low frequencies and high frequencies, Rod Stewart records are all what's missing.

It's that warm, reassuring middle, the sort of umami, like the most pleasant part of the sound spectrum. And that's all you can hear on this. And the reason it works is because it framed Rod's voice perfectly, because the most curious characteristic of his voice is it is simultaneously loud and quiet at the same time. It's really powerful and well projected and it's so croaky and horse

that he's barely making a sound. So when you set that in a musical landscape where all the other instruments are like that too, the effect is really interesting and it's a really distinctive sound that's radically unlike any other records ever but certainly any records being made today. And the problems begin for,

Stuart when his records stop Saudi like that. And he switches to a more commercial mid-70s production and all the magic drains away. And suddenly he's just another shouting man who sounds like he's just eaten a ship in a bottle with some stomping rockers in the background and I lose interest a bit. But this sound, which he stuck to for about three years,

was perfect for him, just maybe, I guess, a bit less perfect for large-scale American mainstream. dream success. Yeah. It's funny we're talking about the invisible instrument, like the bass. My ex-wife could never recognise

bass on a record when she heard it. You know, like a chic record. You know, like, do, do, do, no, couldn't pick it out. It was just a body of sound and the idea of picking out individual instruments, particularly the bass, she couldn't do it.

I'm sort of jealous of people like that, though, where music is just magic to them. It's just like a magic spell. Yeah. It's the downside of playing musical instruments is that you can hear what's going on in things. So Maggie May would spend five weeks at number one, eventually giving way to because I love you by Slade.

It would sell over 615,000 copies and finish the year as the second biggest single in the UK in 1971. One below my sweet lord, one above chirpy, chirpy cheap cheap. As a matter of fact, it's still in the charts this week at number 35. The success of the single, which also got to number one in America, would propel every picture tells the story to number one in the album chart in late September and would stay there for six non-consecutive weeks. Meanwhile, Rod spent the rest of the year working on the face as LP

and nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, nudie poster insert and all, And they're currently at number 43 in the single chart this week with stay with me. But he roared back with his follow-up solo single, You Wear It Well, which got to number one for a week in August of 1972, and then it was leopard print trousers and blondes all the way through the rest of the 70s. That's the sounding right, Stuart. Thank you very much for watching.

I hope that you have enjoyed the show. Enjoy the rest of the Christmas holiday. be back with us on Thursday for another edition of Top of the Puffs. See you then. Bye-bye. Tony, who appears to be thinking very hard about swinging his microphone about like Roger Daltre, holds back his urges, tells us that he hopes we've enjoyed the show and that we had a nice Christmas.

Fucking hell. Stop talking about Christmas, Tony. It's 1971. It's done, mate. And tells us there's another episode coming up in three days' time. And Taylor, I do believe. of it's the one that you claim is the worst top of the pops episode of all

time. Do you know the one I mean? Oh yeah Ed Stewart. Yes. Introducing Val Dunaaker and the theme from the Anneeding line. Yeah, it's incredible. Tony Christie is this the way to Amarillo? Congregation softly whispering, I love you.

Sleepy Shores by the Johnny Pearson Orchestra. The newsseekers again with I'd like to teach the world to sing. I want to go back there again. by B.J. Arnau. Oh, fucking mother of mind by Neil Reed. Jesus. Stoney end by Barbara

Streisand. Mourne in by Baldunican. The number one which is still Benny Hill. And finally, pans people dancing to Jeepster. Thank God. It is the 70s after all. Fucking Nora. Wall to wall, M.O.R.

Granny is all over the country stamping their slippers and screaming, what the fuck is this? When's the wrestling? on. And we conclude with the kids mugging and a frugging as the credits roll. Yeah, it's quite intriguing. I mean, not just this kind of virtuoso array of fonts and this backdrop of skiing.

Martini advert again. Yeah, it's almost like the light entertainment department don't quite yet conceive of pop music as a sort of distinct entity. But it's just one of a range of leisure options. You know, after you've been to the pictures, perhaps you could go out to an Indian curry house and then perhaps go on to the discotheque, you know, it's almost like that. It's just one of like multiple things. It's very odd really, it's almost like they don't quite even now in 1971, it's like

they don't quite grasp the culture. Although this is basically the scene that every London indie nightclub that thinks it summer has been trying to recreate since 1992. Like they would have had old stock footage of a down hill

skier up on a massive green screen behind the dancers too if they could. The one I've really feel sorry for is the woman who turns round, sees Tony Blackbird is right next to her, looks overjoyed and then he immediately bumps into her and knocks her backwards off the podium. Yeah. That went out on telly at Christmas, like presumably her one and only television appearance. God, seen by 14 million people. Nice for her. I piss ripped out of her at every family gathering for the next 20 years.

Yeah. You do always think about that. These kids that get interviewed. I guess that's the kind of the great thing about it. In some respect, they maybe think they kind of hit the lottery. But, you know, it's national exposure. Yes. Everybody will see them. You know, it's quite frightening, really.

Well, imagine if they did this nowadays, though. There'd be kids absolutely fighting with each other to get in front of the camera next to a celebrity. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Probably have their phones out as well. Yeah, kids pushing to the front, saying, like, if you've ever thought of starting a website, Squarespace offers that, yes, like, paid them 50 quits. We were shy back then, very excited and very excitable, but we were fundamentally shy.

I think that's been lost. Tony, say, there's some loud like, so what did you think of that one? Well, Manscaped is the number one name in below the waist grooming. And that closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One kicks on with the news and then Valerie Singleton, John. Noakes and Peter Purvis present Disney time

Disney time Good Lord Dixon of Doc Green has to look after an abandoned bay bear then it's a screen of a brand new hour long episode of Dad's Armour Battle of the Giants

where Captain Manoring gets shamed up for not having any medals and is goaded into challenging the Eastgate platoon to a test of initiative fucking hell chaps imagine living in a world where there's a double length brand new episode of Dads Army that you haven't seen 48 times. Jesus,

what a time to be alive. Yeah. At 8 o'clock it's the TV premiere of Carry On Cowboy. Then Warren Mitchell and Rolf Harris joined Petula Clock for Petula and Friends. Yeah, yeah, Petula and Friends.

Right, her dear friends. Like, hey, Petula, why don't you have a nervous breakdown and see how many of them ring to check in on you? Right, I reckon The only one who'd pay a visit would be Rolf Harris. If you, all the others, you ring them up, they just turn their phone over, roll their eyes.

Say, oh God, it's but you. I'm not the time for this. Get on with the order. Ralph was the nicest of the nonces, wasn't it? Yes. He really cared. After the news, Omnibus covers a life in times of Humphrey Bogart. Then it's the weather, and they close down at 25 to midnight.

BBC 2 gives us abracadabre. A short cartoon about an evil magician who nicks the sun and the four kids who try to put it back. Then the Canadian Children's Opera House, the National Ballet of Canada and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra do Hansel and Gretel. Afternoose on two, Horizon ripples through the patents archive, pulls out some of the maddest inventions of the last century

and gets Heinz Wolf to create them. That's followed by 30 minutes. minute theatre with Sam Wadamaker in the Saul Bellow play, A Whem. Pete Jewell and Ben Murphy have some mither with Sally Field in Ailius Smith and Jones, then it's Robert Robinson again in Corn My Bluff, and they round off the night with the 1954 film Three Coins in the Fountain. ITV runs the pilot of It's Ken Goodwin, with the giggly mainstay of the comedians hosting his own show, featuring Elaine Delmore and the Black Abbots,

then it's the news and five minutes of Laurel and Harder. At six, Huey Green presents the Opportunity Nogs Variety Club special, then it's the Christmas episode of the Irene Handel and Wilfrid Pickle's sitcom for the love of Ada, about the blossoming relationship between an old dear who lives with her daughter and son-in-law and the grave-digger who buried her husband. Ken Barlow gets a new job at its deputy head in the local junior school

and Annie Walker takes offence at actual Bernard Manning in Coronation Street then it's the 195 Alfred Hitchcock film to Catch a Feat starring Carrie Grant and Grace Keller Yeah it's definitely that over Carry On Cowboy in my imaginary 1971 house right Carry on Cowboy

a lot of people disagree I think bottom third of the carry-on films too much perkway. Right. Whereas this is one of Hitchcock's most lightweight films, but it is still Carrie Grant and Grace Kelly kissing in an open top car in the south of France, which is, I think, precisely the spiritual rehydration

you would need after Ashton Gardner and Diet. Or Bernard Manning in the Rover's Return. Bernard Manning. Imagine if he was around now, bet his Twitter would cause some consternation. After the news at 10, it's a special 60 minutes of music and comedy in another Edward Woodward Hour.

No, not another one. Look, I'm sorry to keep butting in, like Eddie Large, when you're trying to finish this so we can go home. Do your deputy dog impression, I'll fucking kill you. But have you ever seen the Edward Woodward hour? It's the worst idea that anyone in television ever had, except for a few ideas involving Jimmy Sam.

I've not seen another Edward Woodward hour, but I've seen the Edward Woodward Hour. Edward was very famous at this point as the star of Callan giving a harrowingly brilliant performance every week as this terribly damaged human being trapped in his career as a spy and a government hitman, which is eroding his soul. He's a neurotic surrounded by psychopaths. And it's one of the greatest and most subtle sustained performances in British television history. And then suddenly he's hosting this hour-long family variety special. Yeah. Like introducing middle of the road singers.

He performs in these comedy sketches that are like something the sales team put together for the works Christmas party. You know, and he does a bit of crooning, you know, all with his wig on. It's fucking miserable. It's like casting Ted Rogers as Macbeth. That's followed by Dowager in Hot Pants, a documentary about the people and places of Hollywood, and they finish up with Outlook 72,

which looks forward to possible developments in Rhodesia in the new year. So, boys, what are we talking about over the handlebars of our new bikes tonight? Because I love you, primarily. Get it on, you know, T-Rex. I'd be a bit averse the stones because I think I was a bit scared of them still after the 969 trail

Maybe I suppose Maggie May Yeah who was that dickhead on the mandolet Yeah What are we buying with our record tokens Because I love you And that's it I don't know I mean if you knock off the supposedly

New Seekers And Ashton Gardner Dyke Cuthbert Dibald and cock I'll have all of it I'll have all of it Which is greedy but it's Christmas pre-oil crisis

shovel it in I'm sorry I'm thinking in terms of like when it was nine now I'd obviously get the old T-Rex and stones and all that And what does this episode tell us about 1971 Hot Pants

But it isn't in between Eering which he sense that nobody is quite certain what's about to happen What's going to happen next Which direction things are going to go in Trement amount of uncertainty I think the one certainty Is that the 60s haven't just finished

temporarily but spiritually. And, you know, we're just sort of entering into a slightly darker, browner, more, and I don't mean that in terms of skin pink vegetation. Ere, and I think that one's kind of in the dark about what it's going to be about, where are we going? Yeah, whatever our privations

and whatever the state of our hair at the back, we're living in a golden age of Western culture and nothing can possibly go wrong from me. And that, Pop Craigs. youngsters brings another episode of chart music to a close usual promotional flange www.w.chart dash music.co.uk, Facebook.com slash chart music podcast. Reach out to us on Twitter at Chart Music TOTP. Fuck off Elon Musk, you dirty bastard. Much better to reach out to us on Blue Sky at Chart Music TOTP. And of course, money down the G.

string, patreon.com slash sharp music. Tor very much, David Stubbs. Yeah, thank you all. God bless you, Taylor Parks. Day warm. My name's Al Needham and 2006.

Get your stuff and fuck off, you're already shit, mate. Chart music. Nowadays, when you think of radio, you've got to think, of course, of disc jockeys and record shows and all the rest. And I must be honest,

I love to listen to record. shows myself as long as the records they play happen to be mine there we go turn your radio on listen to the music that they play turn your radio on tune in each day to a record show listen to a DJ you all know entertain everyone

Turn your radio on Turn your radio on Listen to the music loud and clear Turn your radio on And you will hate Tony Blackburn live Telling you a joker four or five On radio one On radio one

Turn your show Oh wasn't that fabulous there was David Hamilton And Hattie Jake's singing a number called Strangers in the Night I remember the time that I made a record the record company took so long to release it the hole in the middle actually healed up anyhow we'd just like to apologize to the lady who last Monday sent in for the Jimmy Young recipe and I don't know how it happened but by mistake we sent her a knitting pattern so far we understand she has turned out a straw remose with sleeves

right back we go to the music and here's the ladies from Val Boonegan I'm totally sorry we seem to got it at the wrong speak let's see we can get it back for the right speed for you shall we This'll sound better, sure. I recall a gypsy woman. You know, I'm not so sure. I think I preferred at the other speed again. Turn to me up. Turn uranium.

They in wrecks. Who are foul? Which one has to wake at the break of day? That's me. Chatting up housewives just suits us fine. They join me at seven. I wake him at nine. We lay every one.

wants records. So why not mine? Oh, that does it. Good, oh. All my favorites like Elton John. And Kiki A rock winner at Kempton Park. Came home at three.

We plug every pop star's latest song, so we promise your next one can't go wrong. And it just so happens, I brought it along. That does it! We're going to be.