"A record by Max Romeo"

[robchapman]

Listening to Gambo presenting Pick of The Pops this Saturday lunchtime (verdict so far : not as good as TB who was in turn not as good as Dale - bring back Dale!) it was August 1969. Gambaccini made a big deal at the top of the show about playing Je T'Aime. A-ha went my memory. Let's see if he plays the really controversial record from that same chart, the one that went 'lie down gal let me push it up push it up' the one that Alan Freeman could only announce in the chart run down as 'a record by Max Romeo'. Of course he didn't actually play Wet Dream but to be fair to Gambo he did say the title when he got to the number 13 spot, and he mentioned it again in the chart run down. BBC enters 21st century shocker. Whitehouse will be spinning in her grave.

[Tony Walshaw]

Interesting how they handled these things. Je T'aime was a record that wouldn't go away. It also had a cracking tune and a radio-friendly version was recorded by the session group Sounds Nice. Hence there was a way around the controversy for broadcasters. Funny how when the major company Fontana (i.e. Philips) dropped it in panic, it was assumed by Major Minor who otherwise had been hand in hand with Radio Caroline when they broadcasted in defiance of the Marine Offences Act. This connection will have seemed inappropriate to the BBC, perhaps more than the record itself  .

Around this same period, John Lennon's 'Cold Turkey' single was banned by the BBC I believe, or at least did not get sufficient airplay. Although a story was spun that John & Yoko had suffered stomach upsets after their Christmas dinner in 1968 , it received a low chart-placing for a 'Beatle family' single.

By contrast, Max Romeo was a comparative nobody, so the BBC just did not mention his record at all....