THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST 26th February 1974

Tracks in audio;  

01 Area Code 615 - Old Grey Whistle Test (Stone Fox Chase)
02 Canned Heat - One More River To Cross
03 Fleetwood Mac - The City
04 10cc - Old Wild Men
05 Alquin - The Dance
06 Hot Tuna - Soliloquy for 2
07 Bill Haley & The Comets - Rock Around The Clock
08 Canned Heat - We Remember Fats
09 Van Morrison - Caravan (Live at the Rainbow)

Bob Harris introduces the programme and the first item by talking about Canned Heat's current tour. Canned Heat, in BBC studio, perform 'One More River to Cross'. Harris then talks about Fleetwood Mac's new album and introduces 'The City', sound only, accompanied by black and white archival film of congested New York streets. Harris talks about how group 10cc are one of the finest bands to emerge in this country during the past year and follows with Footage of 10cc filmed at the Hard Rock, Manchester, performing 'Old Wild Men'. Harris talks about Alquin's new tour and album and then Alquin, in BBC studio, perform 'Dance'. Harris introduces the next item, Hot Tuna 'Soliloquy For Two', sound only, accompanied by experimental animation. Harris introduces a clip from film ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK featuring Bill Haley and his Comets, with band performing the title track, although they are only seen in the background, with dancers in the foreground. Harris interviews Bill Haley in BBC studio, talking about when the film was made (1956) and how it was five years after he had actually started making recordings, also having had at least eleven hits before 'Rock Around The Clock'; his move from Essex Records to Decca in 1954; his early recordings, especially 'Crazy, Man, Crazy', which combined  country and western with rhythm and blues, and thus breaking barriers between black and white styles of music; how he never gets tired of performing 'Rock Around The Clock'; and how he still has a number of members from the 1950s band in the current line-up of his group. Harris introduces the next item, Canned Heat, in BBC studio, performing 'We Remember Fats', a medley of Fats Domino numbers. Harris closes the programme and introduces the final item which is Van Morrison, with backing band, performing 'Caravan' live, filmed at the Rainbow Theatre, London, in 1973.

THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST 24th February 1974

Tracks in audio;  

01 Area Code 615 - Old Grey Whistle Test Theme (Stone Fox Chase) 
02 Babe Ruth - Cool Jerk 
 03 Argent - Gonna Meet My Maker 
04 Loggins & Messina - Thinking Of You 
05 Loggins & Messina - Your Mama Don't Dance 
06 Cheech & Chong - Basketball Jones 
07 Cousin Joe - Beggin' Woman 
08 Bonnie Raitt - Write Me a Few Lines 
09 Babe Ruth - Gimme Some Leg (Live)

After the main titles, Bob Harris introduces the programme and apologises for the non-appearance of the group Canned Heat who were due to appear. Owing to permit problems, the group had not arrived in the country and would now be appearing on the following week’s programme. Harris introduces the first item, group Babe Ruth, in BBC studio, who perform ‘Cool Jerk’. The band consist of guitar, drums, bass, and a female singer. On ‘Cool Jerk’ they are accompanied by a trumpeter and trombonist. Harris then talks about Babe Ruth’s touring and introduces the next item, a track from Argent’s new album ‘Gonna Meet My Maker’ in sound only, accompanied by experimental animation(mistakenly introduced by Harris as ‘Meet My Maker’). He then introduces Loggins and Messina in footage taken from the US television show Superstars Of Rock. Loggins and Messina, with backing band, perform ‘Thinking of You’(mistakenly introduced by Harris as ‘You’ve Got Me’ & ‘ Thinking of You’). The other members of the group are introduced, these being Al Garth, Jon Clarke, Merel Bregante and Larry Sims. Loggins and Messina then perform ‘Your Momma Don’t Dance’. Harris talks about Cheech and Chong’s hit US albums to introduce the next item. Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong perform ‘Basketball Jones’, sound only, accompanied by a piece of animation produced especially for the song by Lou Adler. Harris talks about how he has recently been in the US to record a series of interviews for the programme by way of introducing the following item; an interview with Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe, conducted in New York on the current tour of group Yes. Wakeman and Howe talk about the previous evening’s concert at Madison Square Garden and the tour as a whole; the size of the tour and the numbers of people involved; the logistics of the tour in the US and the problems encountered owing to its size; how they concentrate on the music in a long three-hour concert; whether there will be a new Yes album that year; Wakeman’s cutting of his own new solo album; and what they will be doing at the end of the tour. Harris introduces Cousin Joe who, says Harris, will perform three songs (Cousin Joe only performs two songs). Cousin Joe, in BBC studio and on piano, performs ‘Begging Woman’ and ‘I’ve Got Problems’. Harris introduces track from Bonnie Raitt’s new album, ‘Write Me a Few Lines’, sound only, accompanied by experimental animation. Harris closes the programme and introduces the final item, Babe Ruth, again in the BBC studio, perform ‘Gimme Some Leg’, with programme’s credits over latter part of the number.

OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST MEMORIES

Continuing on from my last blog, I thought I would share with you some compilations that I have made for my own amusement over the years.

One of my favourite programmes of my youth was BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test. A relative late-comer to the programme, I joined at the stage when 'Whispering' Bob Harris was beginning to lose control of, what until that point had been, his own private TV music show. No longer was the programme showing the prog rock dinosaurs of old. The youthful new bands of the mid-seventies were beginning to take a much larger foothold of TV's only real alternative to 'Top Of The Pops'. Although perfectly relaxed with the 'new wave' of music that he now presented, the introduction of excitable Annie Nightingale as co-presenter obviously irked the reserved Harris, quickly forcing him to leave the programme completely. 'Young upstart journalists' David Hepworth and Mark Ellen, and DJs Andy Kershaw and Richard Skinner, alternatively carried on banging in the nails and digging the grave, of this fine TV institution until it lost firstly it's 'Old Grey' pre-title and inevitably it's soul. By 1987 the programme was little more than an overriding title for live concerts and was dropped completely.

The influence of the 'Test' over the years can not be exaggerated, and it certainly introduced me to hundreds of acts that I would otherwise have missed. In 1980, the BBC released an album of tracks that had featured on the programme over the past few years, and the album became a regular visitor to my turntable at the time. Tracks on 'Test Pressing' were;-

1. Police - Can't Stand Losing You
2. Tubeway Army - Down In the Park

3. Willie Nile - Across The River

4. Yellow Magic Orchestra - Cosmic Surfin'

5. Simple Minds - Chelsea Girl

6. John Etheridge & Ric Sanders (credited as '2nd Vision') - Ice Bells

7. Blondie - Eat To the Beat

8. Jo Jo Zep & the Falcons - Shape I'm In

9. Landscape - Sonja Henie

10. Selecter - Missing Words

11. Alda Reserve - Some Get Away

12. Genesis - Please Don't Ask

13. John Cooper Clarke - Beasley Street

A fantastic album that I can recommend to anyone.

30 years later, I found all these tracks along with the theme tune to OGWT;- Stone Fox Chase by Area Code 615, and then went on to create my own album of personal memories of the programme.

Grey Memories:-

1. Patti Smith - Dancing Barefoot
2. Monochrome Set - 405 Lines
3. Devo - Jocko Homo
4. Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
5. XTC - Radios In Motion
6. Frank Zappa - Baby Snakes
7. Bruce Springsteen - Rosalita
8. Meat Loaf - Bat Out Of Hell
9. Ellen Foley - What's A Matter Baby
10. Kansas - Dust In The Wind
11. Elton John - Tiny Dancer
12. Roches - Hammond Song
13. Santana - Black Magic Woman
14. Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing
15. Peter Tosh (with Mick Jagger) - (You Gotta Walk) Don't Look Back
16. Frank Zappa - City Of Tiny Lights
17. John Etheridge and Ric Sanders - Dancing Circle
18. XTC - Yacht Dance (Live on 'Whistle Test')
19. Patti Smith - Because The Night (Live on 'Whistle Test) 
20. Al Stewart - Year Of The Cat (Live on 'Whistle Test)