Radio 1 and Radio Luxembourg Music Shows Archive Status.

[Alan Turrell]

Iv'e just listened to the first show on radio 1 with Tony Blackburn from 1967 and apart from this one and a Noel Edmunds show from 1973 , i was wondering about the survival of all other radio 1 music shows from 67 to the mid 80s , and also radio Luxembourg music shows from the 60s through the 70s , i can't seem to find much info about them my apologies if this has all been covered before.

[Dan S]

May 10, 2014 18:52:37 GMT Alan Turrell said:

Iv'e just listened to the first show on radio 1 with Tony Blackburn from 1967 and apart from this one and a Noel Edmunds show from 1973 , i was wondering about the survival of all other radio 1 music shows from 67 to the mid 80s , and also radio Luxembourg music shows from the 60s through the 70s , i can't seem to find much info about them my apologies if this has all been covered before.

I'll wait for someone in the know to give a definitive answer, but I'll say that I wouldn't expect the BBC to have a large amount of 60's & 70's Radio 1 material. Apart from keeping a few sample shows I image they wouldn't have considered them worth keeping. Occasionally I hear stories of the BBC being offered recordings of that type of stuff and them not being interested.
Of course there are shows circulating among collectors and I imagine some of the BBC's current archive of Radio 1 60's & 70's recordings comes via off-air copies.

I've no idea if there's an official Radio Luxembourg archive anywhere. It's possible RTL may have retained some stuff?
As usual, there are recordings that circulate among collectors. Quite a bit of 1930's stuff survives (because it was preserved on disc), but there's almost nothing from the 40's & only a tiny bit of 50's material, and only a small number of 60's recordings.

Nick Abbot once told a story about how when he was working at Radio Luxembourg in the 80's, one day when he came into work the corridors were stacked floor to ceiling with discs, 78's, in piles 6 feet high with the bottom 3 feet crushed and damaged under the weight of the top 3 feet. Then they were all shovelled into skips for disposal. He said he kept a few discs as mementos. (Don't bother contacting him about it though, I already did that. The discs he got weren't transcription discs but just normal 78's).

[Alan Turrell]

Thanks for the info Dan i'm not really suprised , i didn't really hold out much hope all those shows probably thousands all gone , it don't bear thinking about , i was wondering is the first show actually complete , the one i have listened to seems to cut off before the end .

[Richard Marple]

IIRC some Radio Luxembourg shows were recorded in London & taken over to Luxembourg for broadcasting.

Do any of these tapes survive or did they get the use once & wipe treatment?

The same with Radio 1's In Concert shows, at least some were recorded for TV & seem to survive.

[Alan Turrell]

Interesting Richard i didn't know that , i guess there wouldn't be any reason to re broadcast these shows again making it even more a reason for not keeping them , after listening to the opening show i for one would love to listen to these again , they knock spots off of today's radio and give you a real insight as to the pop music of the day.

[Richard M White]

The first Tony Blackburn show I have is complete (not that I was born then) so I know there is a full version around. As for In Concert, I acquired a Sade one from 1984 many years ago (basically performing the Diamond Life album in a different order).

My archive of chart shows is certainly bigger than the BBC's and I've collected interviews, shows, documentaries etc. from the period you mention as well as stuff I recorded at the time.

[Tony Walshaw]

Yes, there is more than one version of the first Tony Blackburn show. The full version was on You Tube in several parts.

May 12, 2014 13:20:54 GMT Alan Turrell said:

they knock spots off of today's radio and give you a real insight as to the pop music of the day.

Yes indeed. Rosko, Kenny Everett, Stuart Henry, Tony Blackburn, Alan Freeman etc - they had an innocent (rather than nonchalant, as now) irreverence that absorbed the audience. It took you somewhere. Also, they just got straight on with the show and didn't tie it in with other non-music issues.

[Alan Turrell]

And they were playing the real thing records not pressing a few buttons and playing mp3s at random like it seems alot of radio stations do today with a load of meaningless chatter in between cheap but not cheerful.

[Deleted]

As has already been suggested, I'd doubt that any Luxembourg broadcasts were officially archived as such and the BBC probably only have a handful of actual radio shows in broadcast quality as transmitted from the '60s through to the '80s. They have things where individual producers (e.g. Bernie Andrews) kept reels featuring people like The Beatles and they may have a few complete programmes that were recorded domestically off-air by listeners which were donated later. Other than that, the things which will exist will be the music sessions from various shows (although these are patchy from earlier on) and things like the radio "In Concert" programmes (but, again, although some exist, there are big gaps).

The "In Session Tonight" book gives a rough overview of what survives from across the years and when policy changed with regard to music sessions etc. The BBC probably saw little point though in recording shows which consisted purely of "records and DJ chatter", although there may be the odd example here and there. Just guessing here but radio is even more poorly archived than television. Fortunately though, more people had audio tape recorders than they did video from quite a long way back and so there are a lot of recordings floating about out there.

[Richard M White]

For example, Radio 1 hardly kept recordings of any chart shows, they just weren't deemed important. Thankfully a lot of people out there (not me I have to say) did record and keep them.

[Richard Marple]

I've got a few extracts from ones around 1986-7, which mostly survive because I hadn't mastered the use of the pause button to cut out the links, & so just left the tape running.

[Tony Walshaw]

When the 'home-taping boom' was on, the thing was to erase, or not record the DJ links at all. You just wanted the record.

But retrospectively, this approach has removed the vibe of the times, because old radio shows are a social history, and not just for the DJs. We are reminded of life aspects that were common, but have now gone.

In between the Four Tops and Georgie Fame, we hear requests from listeners working in factories and high street shops, staple employers of the time. Or the housewife, already married aged just 21, wanting a record for her husband. Competition winners have their addresses read out in full, from counties now changed or gone.

Some shows can be listened to as stand-alone pieces of work in their own right. The irony is, like missing TV, they could now attract a commercial re-sale value.

[Alan Turrell]

When you think about literally thousands of these shows have gone , we are talking about shows that were on day in day out every week not only radio 1 and Luxembourg but i guess other pop shows from pirate stations like Radio Caroline as well and what about shows from the light programme and others like it , although i know alot of these probably were not so pop orientated.

[Stephen Byers]

There are loads of shows available for downloading, admittedly mainly from the off-shore pirates of the 1960s. Some off-air recordings of shows have been reconstructed by enthusiasts using the original dj links but with the music replaced using original vinyl. Reconstructing John Peel's shows have been problematic though because he often show-cased obscure music recordings that have not yet been tracked down. Radio Luxenbourg certainly features in the archive(s). And there's an amount from the early days of Radio 1. But ... knowing folks' propensity to get such sites shut down I will not tell you where the archives are just that they do indeed exist.

[AndyWalmsley]

Where Radio 1 sample shows were kept my understanding is it was practice to keep the links only and fade out the music. ROT tapes, i.e. full records of transmission, were kept for so long (30 days?) and then wiped/re-used.