The Spirit of the Radio

 

For reasons I have from time to time spoke on on here and on the other blog, my life has tended to be punctuated with periods of hospital visits and much time spent in bed being a sickly child and these days adult but pretty much child.

I have a lot of memories I'd sooner of never experienced being either in the school sick bay frequently, off from school being at home or outside of term time being at home in bed being sick, often literally with a bucket beside me with just the odd visit from Mom for company.

So for me, the radio and the presenters were company with it put on quiet often during the day as I'd lie there praying it would all stop.

Often it would tuned to station had 'oldies' hours, dedicated 'gold' stations were a bit late in taking off so I'd hear songs from the last decade and a half typically from about 1956 to 1969 with snippets about the events of say one year and it's hits.

That concept sometimes get taken with commercial compilations like the EMI The Greatest Hits of 19xx series with the years hits and background notes of facts and figures about the year.

Thus while I grew up with first hand memories of music from the tail end of 1969 and into 1970, I heard and developed a liking for that which had gone before especially the pre-Beatles era with the likes of Bobby Vee, Del Shannon, Peter, Paul and Mary and Cliff Richard.

It was announced this Sunday Don Everly of the Everly Brothers had died aged 84 following on from Phil Everly in 2014.

The Everly's music was a mixture of Country, Appalachian Folk music and a hint of rock and roll spirit which was massive in the late 1950's until the Mid 1960's where the British Invasion lead rock sounds made everything before seem out of date even though they did record with England's The Hollies the "Two Yanks in England" album .

Songs like Cathy's Clown, All I Have To Do Is Dream and Ebony Eyes have an otherworldly feel to them that you seldom got from other artists while Wake Up Little Suzie and The Price of Love were more up beat even if some radio stations banned the former.

These songs were amongst those I learned and loved during that time having a small collection of recordings that cover the hits.

One thing that no one expected to be announced Tuesday was the death of Charlie Watts, the drummer of the Rolling Stones as many us had felt it was going to be Keith Richard who would go first given his issues with addictions in the past.

Charlie, pictured on the far right of this picture at the drum stool was the straight forward family man who had studied Art at Harrow College and got a job as a Graphic Designer before playing drums in Jazz band and encountering Brian Jones who was the founder of the Rolling Stones and Bill Wyman and walked out with a job of group drummer.

Unlike them, the rock and roll lifestyle wasn't for him preferring to spend time with his family, breeding Arabian horses, collecting classic cars and the like outside of recording and touring.

His drumming wasn't flash but it provided the beating heart of their music, more than capable of keeping up with their style as the group mixed in country and funk elements in the seventies and with clear indications of his jazz influenced technique.

Their early hits were played by my older brother and again on the radio so by the time I'd moved on from my likes of the early seventies to explore more 'mature' music their albums and the odd single were things I bought for myself.

The common denominator in all of this was The Spirit of the Radio to borrow a phrase from Rush because they all were a part of the soundtrack of my life and of no doubt of many others too which is why I already miss them so much.