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Top Gear (radio Show)
''Top Gear'' is a BBC Radio programme broadcast between 1964 and 1975. It was known for its specially recorded sessions in addition to playing records. ''Top Gear'' began life in 1964 on the BBC Light Programme and was revived with a progressive rock focus in 1967 on BBC Radio 1, running with that format until its end in 1975. ''Top Gear'' was similar to ''The Old Grey Whistle Test'', a BBC 2 TV programme which also focused on non-chart and progressive music. Origin and format It was one of the BBC's few attempts to compete with the pirate radio stations and Radio Luxembourg, who had attracted large audiences of young British pop music listeners in the absence of an "official" alternative. This was made explicit in the programme's title, which evoked the 1960s fascination with fast cars, jet planes and high-speed travel, but also the use of "gear" to describe fashionable Carnaby Street clothes and the 1960s Liverpool term "fab gear", popularised by the Beatles as an expressio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Top Gear (1977 TV Series)
''Top Gear'' was a British motoring magazine programme created by the BBC and aired on BBC Two between 22 April 1977 and 17 December 2001. The programme focused on a range of motoring topics, the most common being car reviews, road safety and consumer advice. Originally presented by Angela Rippon and Tom Coyne, the show saw a range of different presenters and reporters front the programme's half-hourly slots, including Noel Edmonds, Jeremy Clarkson, Tiff Needell, William Woollard and Quentin Willson. The programme proved popular during the late 80s and early 90s, and launched a number of spin-offs, including its own magazine entitled ''Top Gear Magazine''. By 1999, viewing figures in ''Top Gear'' had declined after the departure of notable presenters, leading to the BBC cancelling the programme in 2001. While a number of presenters and production staff moved over to Channel 5 to produce a new motoring programme, Clarkson and fellow presenter Andy Wilman convinced the BBC to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, Pop music, pop and dramatic Ballad, ballads, with chanson, French chanson, Country music, country, and Jazz music, jazz also in her repertoire. During her 1960s peak, she ranked among the most successful British female performers on both sides of the Atlantic. Her image – marked by a peroxide blonde bouffant/Beehive (hairstyle), beehive hairstyle, heavy makeup (thick black eyeliner and eye shadow) and evening gowns, as well as stylised, gestural performances – made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties. Born in West Hampstead in London into a family that enjoyed music, Springfield learned to sing at home. In 1958, she joined her first professional group, The Lana Sisters. Two years later, with her brother Tom Springfield and Reshad Feild, Tim Feild ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randy Newman
Randall Stuart Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist known for his Southern American English, Southern-accented singing style, early Americana (music), Americana-influenced songs (often with mordant or satirical lyrics), and various film scores. His best-known songs as a recording artist are "Short People" (1977), "I Love L.A." (1983), and "You've Got a Friend in Me" (1995) with Lyle Lovett, while other artists have enjoyed more success with cover versions of his "Mama Told Me Not to Come" (1966), "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" (1968) and "You Can Leave Your Hat On" (1972). Born in Los Angeles to an extended family of Hollywood film composers, Newman began his songwriting career at the age of 17, penning hits for acts such as the Fleetwoods, Cilla Black, Gene Pitney, and the Alan Price Set. In 1968, he made his formal debut as a solo artist with the album ''Randy Newman (album), Randy Newman'', produced by Lenny Waro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sounds Of The Seventies
''Sounds of the 70s'' is the name of BBC radio programme, currently broadcast on Sundays by BBC Radio 2, with the ''Sounds of the Seventies'' name also having been used by BBC Television for a number of themed music compilations, now repeated on BBC Four. ''Sounds of the Seventies'' (Radio 1) The original ''Sounds of the Seventies'' was a Radio 1 programme broadcast on weekdays, initially 18:00–19:00, subsequently 22:00–00:00, on during the early 1970s. Among the DJs were Mike Harding, Alan Black, Pete Drummond, Annie Nightingale, John Peel (who alone had two shows per week), and Bob Harris (who started presenting the show on 19 August 1970 by playing Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl"). For contractual reasons one of Peel's two weekly shows was known as ''Top Gear'', but the format and content of the show on every weekday were in essence identical for most of the early 1970s. Unlike most other Radio 1 programmes, ''Sounds of the Seventies'' concentrated on albums rather than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Walters (broadcaster)
John Walters (11 July 1939 – 30 July 2001) was a British radio producer, presenter and musician. Initially a schoolteacher and a jazz enthusiast, he played trumpet in The Mighty Joe Young Jazz Men and the 1960s pop group The Alan Price Set before joining BBC Radio 1 in 1967, where he was John Peel's producer from 1969 to 1991. Biography Walters was born in Long Eaton, near Nottingham. He read Fine Arts at Durham University, where he worked under Victor Pasmore and as a student had his paintings exhibited alongside the works of David Hockney. He then taught at a comprehensive in Kenton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, wrote a jazz column for the Newcastle ''The Journal (Newcastle upon Tyne newspaper), Journal'', gave evening classes in jazz history, played the trumpet with local bands and met Alan Price, then organist with the Animals. When Price quit to form his own group, Walters was recruited. He featured on five of the Alan Price Set's British hits, and played the Albert Hall and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004. Peel was one of the first broadcasters to play psychedelic rock and progressive rock records on British radio. He is widely acknowledged for promoting artists of multiple genres, including pop, dub reggae, punk rock and post-punk, electronic music and dance music, indie rock, extreme metal and British hip hop. Fellow DJ Paul Gambaccini described Peel as "the most important man in music for about a dozen years". Peel's Radio 1 shows were notable for the regular "Peel sessions", which usually consisted of four songs recorded by an artist in the BBC's studios, often providing the first major national coverage to bands that later achieved fame. Another feature was the annual Festive Fifty countdown of his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pete Drummond
Peter Drummond-Hay (born 29 July 1943), known professionally as Pete Drummond, is a British voice artist and former BBC and pirate radio disc jockey and announcer. Biography Early years and pirate radio He was born in Bangor, Wales. His parents were Geoffrey Francis Drummond-Hay and Margaret Felon, married in 1936. His father fought in World War 1. As a child he lived in Australia and France, before attending Millfield School alongside later BBC Radio 1 colleague Tony Blackburn. He trained as an actor and toured the US, where he realised that, following the "British Invasion", English accents were in demand on radio stations. He worked as an announcer in Wichita and Topeka, Kansas, before returning to Britain in 1966. He then joined the staff of pirate station Radio London, where he had his own shows during the station's final months on air. His nickname was “Dum Dum” and the music he adopted as his theme tune was the 1966 track "Marble Breaks, Iron Bends" recorded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Vance
Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston (11 July 1940 – 6 March 2005), known professionally as Tommy Vance, was an English radio broadcaster. He was an important factor in the rise of the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM), along with London-based disc jockey Neal Kay, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Vance was one of the first radio hosts in the United Kingdom to broadcast hard rock and heavy metal in the early 1980s, providing the only national radio forum for both bands and fans. The ''Friday Rock Show'' that he hosted gave new bands airtime for their music and fans an opportunity to hear it. He used a personal tag-line of "TV on the radio". His voice was heard by millions around the world announcing the Wembley Stadium acts at Live Aid in 1985. Early life Born Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, on 11 July 1940, his grandmother owned a travelling repertory company, his father was an electronics engineer, and his m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Progressive Rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Initially termed "progressive pop", the style was an outgrowth of psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop traditions in favour of instrumentation and compositional techniques more frequently associated with jazz, folk, or classical music. Additional elements contributed to its " progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of "art", and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening rather than dancing. Progressive rock is based on fusions of styles, approaches and genres, involving a continuous move between formalism and eclecticism. Due to its historical reception, the scope of progressiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Wynter
Mark Wynter (born Terence Sidney Lewis; 29 January 1943) is an English singer and actor, who had four Top 20 singles in the 1960s, including "Venus in Blue Jeans" and "Go Away Little Girl". He enjoyed a lengthy career from 1960 to 1968 as a pop singer and teen idol, and developed later into an actor in film, musicals and plays. Career With his early musical career on a proper footing, Terry Lewis decided to change his name to lessen the confusion with the American comedian, Jerry Lewis. He was entered as one of the contenders for the UK's place in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961, with "Dream Girl", but finished fourth behind The Allisons. His cover version of the American hit by Jimmy Clanton, "Venus in Blue Jeans" (1962), was his biggest success. Although he recorded a number of singles for the Decca and Pye labels in the UK, he made few albums. Some recorded material came to light in 2004 when Wynter discovered old tapes. On 8 April 1968 Wynter escaped from a burning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernie Andrews
Bernard Oliver Andrews (17 August 1933 – 11 June 2010) was an English BBC radio producer, who was instrumental in the careers of many emerging rock and pop bands from the 1960s onwards, and responsible for producing such programmes as '' Saturday Club'' and John Peel's shows. Early life Born in Woolwich, south east London, Andrews was raised in Eltham, and completed his national service in the RAF. After working as a Post Office telephone engineer, he joined the BBC as a technical (tape machine) operator in 1957, later being promoted to producer. In the early 1960s, he began producing ''Saturday Club'', one of the few programmes on the BBC Light Programme to feature pop music, and frequently booked and recorded The Beatles, along with many other leading groups and artists of the time. He also booked The Rolling Stones; the group failed their first BBC radio audition, but Andrews used them as a backing band for Bo Diddley and re-recorded their performances of some of thei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann were an English rock band, formed in London and active between 1962 and 1969. The group were named after their keyboardist Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band. The band had two different lead vocalists, Paul Jones from 1962 to 1966 and Mike d'Abo from 1966 to 1969. Prominent in the Swinging London scene of the 1960s, the group regularly appeared in the UK Singles Chart. Three of their most successful singles, "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Pretty Flamingo", and " Mighty Quinn", topped the UK charts. The band's 1964 hit " 5-4-3-2-1" was the theme tune for the ITV pop music show ''Ready Steady Go!''. They were also the first southern-England-based group to top the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 during the British Invasion. History Beginnings (1962–1963) The Mann–Hugg Blues Brothers were formed in London by keyboard player Manfred Mann and drummer/ vibes/piano player Mike Hugg, who formed a house band in Clacton-on-Sea th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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