The Early Radio London Fab Forties
Sunday 25th April 1965
New in at £29 – the song with the indecipherable lyrics
Last
This
Presented by Tony Windsor
Week
Week
7
1
King Of The Road Roger Miller
5
2
Bring It On Home To Me Animals
1
3
Ticket To Ride Beatles
6
4
Little Things Dave Berry
10
5
Pop Go The Workers Barron Knights
17
6
Oh No Not My Baby Manfred Mann
12
7
A Little You Freddie & the Dreamers
14
8
A World Of Our Own Seekers
19
9
Something Better Beginning Honeycombs
2
10
Here Comes The Night Them
3
11
Stop! In The Name Of Love Supremes
9
12
True Love Ways Peter & Gordon
4
13
I Can't Explain Who
28
14
Wonderful World Herman's Hermits
15
Once Upon A Time Tom Jones
36
16
Not Until The Next Time Jim Reeves
25
17
Make Me Know You're Mine Swinging Blue Jeans
11
18
The Times They Are A-Changin' Bob Dylan
15
19
Nowhere To Run Martha & the Vandellas
38
20
Come On Over To My Place Drifters
13
21
Catch The Wind Donovan
40
22
Blood Red River Silkie
16
23
The Minute You're Gone Cliff Richard
29
24
Casting My Spell Measles
8
25
For Your Love Yardbirds
26
I've Been Wrong Before Cilla Black
32
27
Don't Get Off That Train Tony Blackburn
37
28
Satisfied Lulu & the Luvvers
29
Subterranean Homesick Blues Bob Dylan
20
30
Concrete And Clay Unit 4 + 2
31
Poor Man's Son Rockin' Berries
32
I'm Gonna Get There Somehow Val Doonican
33
Come Back Tony Rivers & the Castaways
34
Comin' On To Cry/That's the Way it Goes Mojos
31
35
I Want That Boy Chantelles
36
Turn Your Eyes To Me Cannon Brothers
30
37
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry Frank Ifield
38
Hello Faithless Dora Hall
22
39
Three Rooms With Running Water Cliff Bennett & the Rebel Rousers
26
40
The Kind Of Boy You Can't Forget Little Frankie


19
9
Something Better Beginning Honeycombs PYE 7N15827

Something Better Beginning was the third attempt by the Honeycombs to follow up the international success of their Joe Meek-produced Have I the Right.

The band was formed in 1963 by Martin Murray – described on his own website as looking "more like an accountant than a guitarist and the leader of a chart-topping rock & roll band". Martin managed a London hair salon where Ann Lantree, known as Honey, was his assistant. Honey's brother John came in on bass, with Alan Ward on lead and Dennis D'Ell (aka Dalziel) taking lead vocals.

Offshore radio aside, none of the follow-ups to Have I the Right reached the Top Twenty, apart from the next release after Something Better BeginningThat's the Way.

Martin had already become disillusioned with the band by the end of 1964 and left, to be replaced by Peter Pye. The feature from which this photo is taken - it appeared in Teenbeat Annual 1967 - unfortunately does not identify any of the band members, but is presumably the Peter Pye line-up.




29
Subterranean Homesick Blues Bob Dylan CBS 201753

Kenny and Cash had endless fun with Subterranean Homesick Blues, running a competition for listeners to try and translate its indecipherable lyrics.With Knees Club Official (and friend) Mozz, I spent ages playing back a tape recording of the song that we'd made from the Kenny and Cash show, and unsuccessfully attempting to work out the words. I recall that all we ever managed to get out of the line, 'must bust in early May' was 'mus bus moolie may'.

With the Seekers and Silkie also riding high in the Fab, the Dynamic Duo responded to the current folk trend by running a Dylan vs Donovan competition, to determine which of the singers was the hero of the discerning Kenny and Cash audience. I'm prepared to stand corrected if anyone has evidence to the contrary, but I believe Donovan won.

Note that the pic sleeve at the top of the chart (kindly supplied by Gert), depicts Subterranean Homesick Blues b/w The Times They Are A-Changin'. In the UK, The Times... was the first Dylan release (CBS 201751) b/w Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance. Subterranean... was the second single (CBS 201753) b/w She Belongs To Me.

The Essential Bob Dylan is a double CD, 36-track compilation, which has all of the songs mentioned above, with the exception of Honey... as well as Bob's original versions of Mr Tambourine Man, The Mighty Quinn, All Along The Watchtower and You Ain't Goin' Nowhere. Click on picture for full track listing. The album The Times They Are A-Changin' (with the same cover photo as the one at the top of the page) is also available on CD.

DJ Climber:
Don't Make Me Over Dowlands Duncan Johnson
Climbers:
Tommy Twinkle


Alan Field remarks: "Twinkle must have been boy-crazy in those days. As well as Terry and Tommy, she also released a song called Poor Old Johnny, and another called Micky!"

Seems she had a thing about boys with names ending in 'y'. Hopefully, the others met happier fates than Terry.

(Right), Twinkle models the 1965 Big L teeshirt. Sadly, she died in May 2015.

'UK Tops the World'
Hans Knot has kindly provided a clip from 'UK Tops the World', aired during the Dave Dennis Show for today, April 25th 1965 and with the help of Martin van der Ven, has identified the show's theme tune. Swingin' 'Round the World by jazz trumpet player Jonah Jones introduced the 15-minute pre-recordedprogramme, which was sponsored by Miners Make-up and presented by Martin Locke.

Miners is a budget cosmetics range, still popular in the 21st Century. In the Sixties, the company targeted young, female music fans by not only sponsoring pirate radio programmes, but advertised on the back of EMI's Columbia, HMV, Parlophone and Stateside paper record sleeves. With bestsellers the Beatles, Elvis, The Dave Clark Five, Cliff and the Shadows, Herman's Hermits, Billy J. Kramer, Gene Pitney, the Fourmost, the Hollies and Manfred Mann all signed to EMI labels it was a smart move.

Promotions for 'Miners' Hit make-up' featured close-up images of 'dolly bird' faces resembling the top fashion icons of the day, with long fringes and massive eyelashes - er sorry, that should be 'lashes with dizzy dimensions'. The groovy Miners slogans include:
'Big hit now, lips all softly sheeny, POPSTICK's great new colours'.
'Miners for Pop pickers,switched-on colours, lots for eyes, extra hair-wise.'
'Hair goes wild, rich and beautiful. Miners Hair Colour Shampoo.'
and
'Big hit now, lashes with dizzy dimensions, Lash-on fibre mascara with spiral brush.'

One of the adverts featured 'Big M' - "big new shiny lipsticks' (left). Might the Big M (for 'Miners') name have been inspired by Big L?

Morphy Richards had a similar EMI record sleeve campaign promoting their hairdryers via a cartoon strip featuring a character called 'Fran the Fan' a teen obsessed with styling her hair and following a band called The Frantics.Thank to her skills with her hairdryer, Fran gets invited backstage to meet her heroes. Morphy Richards also ran monthly competitions to 'Design a Hairstyle' and win a Marconiphone stereogram worth £55. (I suspect most girls would have preferred a trannie, so they could carry their favourite watery wireless stations around with them.)


Tune in next week for another Big L Fab 40!


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