Kenny
Everett (b
Maurice Cole)
25th December 1944 4th April 1995
Q:
How did you get on Radio London? |
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Q:
Wasn't it sponsored by Bassetts...? No, we'd never met before, I remember getting on the plane to go to America, and I heard Paul McCartney's voice saying, 'Which one's Kenny Everett?' and we introduced ourselves and that was it. |
Q:
I believe you also edited their Christmas records (Webmaster's note: Kenny's editing skills were utilised on the two final Beatles Fan Club Christmas flexidiscs, #6 in 1968 and #7 in 1969. On #6 (top right) 'Kenny Foreverett had a nice time mucking about with the tapes and deserves to be called producer though this is an unpaid position'.) Q:
How did that come about? |
Q:
I was going to ask you about that... is there much of interest? |
Kenny's credit on the final Christmas disc #7, 1969, (sleeve above) reads, 'soldered into a collective disc by the iron wrist of Maurice Cole'. |
Q:
Did you go the clubs with the Beatles in the 60's? Q:
Did you get to be really friendly with John in that period? Q:
I believe you met Brian Epstein a few times? |
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Q:
Yes, I'd heard John was a little bit... Q:
Weren't you the first DJ to play Sergeant Pepper? Q:
I believe you were involved in John and Yoko's message to the world
in about 1978? Interview, copyright Richard Porter, Beatle tour photos, copyright Ron O'Quinn, all used with permission |
Webmaster's notes:
It was
probably because he was a young, an innovative broadcaster and came from
Liverpool that Alan Keen chose Kenny to travel with the Beatles on the 1966
US tour on behalf of Radio London. Jerry Leighton landed the enviable job
of representing Caroline, while Ron O'Quinn was Radio England's reporter.
The Fab Four had once made the mistake of telling their fans they loved
jelly baby sweets and had been regularly bombarded with the things on stage
ever since. It was, therefore, appropriate for the nightly Everett Beatle
tour reports reports to be sponsored by Bassetts jelly babies.
The way in which the reports were received in the UK for broadcast on Big
L, was about as low-tech as anything could get- especially as there was
no method of phoning the ship! Kenny would ring Paul Kaye, who had to come
ashore from the Galaxy in order to be standing by a phone in Harwich at
the appropriate time. Kenny would play his report down the line from the
States by holding the speaker of his tape machine against the phone mouthpiece.
The already-poor-quality material thus crossed the Atlantic to emerge from
the earpiece of the phone in Harwich, and be recorded a second time by Paul.
He would then rush back on the tender to the Galaxy to splice the recording
together with a few records and a handful of Bassetts commercials, turning
the whole thing into a sponsored programme. By the time anyone heard the
result of Paul's efforts via 266 metres on the mediumwave band from the
tiny (and tinny!) speaker of their trannie, it is surprising that anyone
could decipher a word of what Kenny (or indeed the Fab Four) was saying.
However, a clip posted on the Pirate
Radio Hall of Fame shows that the quality was not as bad as might have
been expected.
The whole concept was very exciting for Big L listeners! Our favourite DJ
from our favourite radio station had been chosen to accompany our favourite
group on a tour of the US!
Radio London did, of course, obtain an 8-day UK exclusive on the 'Sgt Pepper'
album by rather unusual means, airing it on Friday, May 12th, 1967, but
Kenny had already left the station, on March 21st of that year.
Brian Epstein's personal assistant, and Kenny's one-time partner, Peter
Brown, is quoted in David Lister's biography 'In the Best Possible Taste
the Crazy Life of Kenny Everett' as saying that although Kenny loved
the Beatles, the talented DJ never realised how much the Beatles admired
him. John Lennon is reported to have told Kenny that the line in
'I Am The Walrus' about getting a tan from the English rain was sparked
by an LSD trip the pair took on a soggy golf course in Weybridge. 'Strawberry
Fields Forever' remained Kenny's lifetime favourite Fab Four track and he
specifically asked for it to be played at his funeral service.