My Musical History Part 5

The Long Hot Summer

1976 was famous for one thing, the drought! It became the summer that those of us who could remember it have judged every summer against ever since. In the years before climate change it was a true outlier of a summer. It is true that the previous summer had also been very good, but there had been rain and cooler days interspersed with the higher temperatures. 1976 saw a hot, dry spell lasting from the start of June to the last week of August where temperatures routinely peaked above 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees centigrade) including a run of two weeks where temperatures reached 90 degrees in at least one place in the UK.

A Summer of Cricket

For me it was memorable for two other things. It was the summer after I left Junior School and, unbeknown to me at the time, it marked the start of 7 years of Secondary school where I was to hate every single minute of every single day. It was also the summer where the West Indies came over for what became one of the most extraordinary Test series in history. Tony Greig had promised to make them ‘grovel’, a remark that would have been ill-judged from any England captain but from an England captain brought up in South Africa at the height of Apartheid, it was incendiary. Greig subsequently, and often, apologised for the use of the phrase in later years, but the damage was done and one of the best Test match sides ever were determined to make him pay for those words. Across 5 Test matches they battered English batsmen with a barrage of fast bowling that was unrelenting, and their batsmen made hay on the hard flat pitches with outfields that were yellow instead of green. One batsman in particular stood above all others, the magisterial Viv Richards. His batting was otherworldly throughout the 5 tests and he eventually amassed 829 runs, including two double hundreds. By contrast, England’s best batsman, the redoubtable David Steele once again, managed just 308 runs including his one and only Test match century. He was dropped after the series and was never picked again, in an era when old men who hadn’t played cricket in decades chose the team. The first two matches were actually quite close and produced two hard fought draws, before the West Indies blitzed their way through the next three matches. In the Fourth test Tony Greig and Alan Knott both scored 116 in the England first innings and Greig scored 76* in a valiant rear guard in the second innings but the match was lost. The final Test saw Richards score 291 in the first innings in a total of 687!  Dennis Amiss replied with 203 but in a match where all the other bowlers struggled Michael Holding took 8 wickets in the first innings followed by 6 in the second. Towards the end of the match Greig decided it was time to make amends with the West Indies crowd if not the players, who disliked him for many years afterwards, as he got on his knees and grovelled in front of them! https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/0224092243/?coliid=I79PDPGQBMS5I&colid=24PLAUGYEG7O3&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Three Children’s TV Classics – in my opinion at least!

The TV year got off to a fast start for children with two very different programmes making their debuts on BBC1. Paddington, which replaced The Wombles in the 5 minute slot before the news, was an adaptation of my favourite childhood books. Paddington himself was a 3 dimensional bear while the backgrounds and the other characters were 2 dimensional. It was a very clever approach which put Paddington literally front and centre of every scene. The marvellous narration by Michael Hordern and the instantly recognisable theme tune made it must watch viewing in our household. The way that the adaptations managed to distil the essence of a one chapter story into 5 minutes was close to genius, but of course the real genius was the incredible Michael Bond himself who wrote stories that still resonate with children, and adults, to this day. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Paddington-Bear-DVD/dp/B0017SBDYG/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=paddington+bear+tv+series&qid=1621251047&s=dvd&sr=1-2

The next programme that captured my imagination and those of my classmates was Rentaghost. With a great theme tune sung by Michael Staniforth, who played the jester Timothy Claypole and, initially at least, very funny scripts it seems on the surface to be just a knockabout TV show. However, underneath there was a melancholier side to the programme. Fred Mumford, played by Anthony Jackson, a ghost who was only recently deceased, set up Rentaghost with Claypole and Hubert Davenport, a Victorian ghost permanently shocked by the modern world, played with an air of pathos by Michael Darbyshire. He set up the firm because they had all been failures in their lives and they finally wanted to succeed even if it was after their deaths. The first few series were underpinned by this idea of exorcising their failures, but after Series 4 had aired, Darbyshire died, and Jackson decided he couldn’t return. With just Michael Staniforth of the original trio still going the decision was made to turn it into a pantomime style romp complete with a pantomime horse called Dobbin. The magic of the first four series was never recaptured, but a children’s show that managed to fit in ruminations about mortality and purpose can be seen as quite a groundbreaking piece of television.

Later in the year came the frankly unmissable Multi Coloured Swap Shop. Well, unmissable for those who couldn’t stand Tiswas at least! There was a clear divide between the two shows with the smoothly professional Swap Shop being very much a BBC show for the ‘well behaved children’ and the anarchic Tiswas being ITV’s pitch for the ‘tearaway youngsters’! That is of course a simplistic reading, but there was definitely an air of playing up to the stereotypes of the core audience, once they had been identified. However, at their heart, both programmes were giving children something they wanted, not what adults thought they should have. From September 1976 onwards every single Saturday morning I was at home saw me glued to the screen for three hours of fun courtesy of Noel Edmonds, Keith Chegwin, Maggie Philbin and John Craven. For me, the combination of presenters, music, chat and cartoons was often imitated but never equalled. Swap Shop was the original and the best. On occasions, over the years, a song played by an artist on Swap Shop would send me on a Saturday afternoon expedition to my local record store, a place I would frequent more and more over the years.  

My First Singles

It was a less than spectacular year for music in all honesty, at least looking at it in the cold light of day. At the time, though, it was a year where I bought my first singles for myself. True, they haven’t all exactly stood the test of time (!) but from my early trips to the record shops I realised that I felt at home! My first single was King of the Cops, a reworking of King of the Road that featured bad impersonations of American TV Policemen together with dreadful jokes. Looking back, it was an appalling record, but we all have to start somewhere! However, on the B Side was an absolute gem called Bond is a Four Letter Word with a Sean Connery impression that was actually fairly near the original and a very funny set of lyrics. My second single by The Wombles featured a much better A Side, Womble Shuffle, but once again the best track was on the other side of the single, and again it was Bond themed. To Wimbledon with Love featured a tune that would have been at home in any Bond movie – certainly more so than at least half a dozen more recent efforts – and an atmospheric vocal that conjured up an entire movie in my head in a way only Mike Batt can. Ok, full disclosure, Combine Harvester by The Wurzels was next so you can see that I was obsessed with novelty tracks! What can I say? Even adults liked The Wurzels as Terry Wogan’s show attested to.

Swedish Magic

1976 was the year that Abba really hit their stride. They released three singles that all reached Number 1 and a fourth that ‘only’ got to Number 3. The year started with them finally knocking Bohemian Rhapsody off the top spot with Mamma Mia in the middle of January, then Fernando, Number 1 for four weeks in May and finally the biggest hit of their career in September. In an otherwise run of the mill year, Dancing Queen just exploded into your ears with the opening glissando and the immediately euphoric sound of Agnetha and Frida blasting out the chorus. If music was mainly grey that year, this was a splash of much needed technicolour. For me, to add to the appeal, was the video featuring the young Swedish Dancing Queens, one of whom I developed a real crush on at the time! It was a real favourite then and remains so to this day. Oddly though, the Swedish quartet were considered to be pretty naff at the time, and it was going to be many years before they became recognised as the true geniuses they are. When their final single reached Number 3 it was behind a record that was the other one I bought that year and one that I was more excited to see at Number 1 than any before or since.

Leicester’s Finest and the Stolen Christmas Number 1!

A very quiet year for Showaddywaddy indicated to many observers that their brief moment in the spotlight was at an end. Trocadero was the latest of their self-penned singles to completely underwhelm the record buying public. Then, a cover of an obscure rock ‘n’ roll song from 1961 kick started a run of 7 Top 5 singles with 7 cover versions. Under the Moon of Love was looking set to be the Christmas Number 1, but that particular year their three weeks at the top was ended in the final Christmas chart by the veteran American Johnny Mathis, with his Christmas standard When a Child is Born. Dave Bartram, Showaddywaddy’s lead singer at the time is still frustrated that the track wasn’t Number 1 on Christmas Day, but it sold 950,000 copies on its initial release and eventually broke the one million barrier nearly 30 years later thanks to downloads. So, all in all, they couldn’t really complain too much! In fact, it was pure luck that it was released at all because Mud had already recorded it, unbeknown to Bartram and he said they would never have done their own version if they had known! As I have mentioned a couple of B Sides already, can I recommend the Showaddywaddy original, Lookin’ Back? It is a brilliant track that could easily be an Eddie Cochran original.

Next Time

So, the year of the long hot summer is at an end. What will 1977 bring us? Well, it was a year that started with Johnny Mathis at Number 1 and finished off with Wings selling 2 million. However, punk was starting to rear its ugly head and music would never be the same again, not that I realised at the time!