4/08/67

25/08/67 (both)

Unreleased

01/09/67

11/08/67

4/08/67

11/08/67

25/08/67

18/08/67

01/09/67

11/08/67

18/08/67

04/08/67

25/08/67

18/08/67

Brian Long lists the last Album of the Week as Piper At the Gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd, but Alan did not hear it announced as such. It was likely there were so many records to get through in the final Fab that the announcement simply got missed. The album was certainly aboard the Galaxy, as John Peel played two tracks from it during the last Perfumed Garden. Brian says:

"I've just looked at the last Field's Fab 40 – fascinating stuff. It illustrates just how difficult it can be to come up with the definitive playlist. Here are a few examples of what I mean.

The last Fab 40 chart issued by the station was a 4-page document. I attach a scan of page 3 which contains the climbers etc. (I hope you can read it, it is rather old and faded in places). You will note that the album of the week is listed as Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Off-hand, apart from John Peel, I can not recall any deejay playing tracks from it, although I suspect Pete Drummond would have done. As the chart was typed up during the week, there is no mention of the Radio London World Exclusive – Dandelion/We Love You – by the Rolling Stones. This only reached the ship on Saturday, the day before the Fab 40 was broadcast. The David Garrick single is listed with the wrong title, Alan has corrected this on his chart.

One climber not included by Alan, but shown on the list, is the Electric Prunes, Great Banana Hoax. This received a surprising amount of airplay from all deejays. During the last 9 days of the station new records were being shipped out all the time to be billed as climbers. This explains why the Helen Shapiro single is correctly recorded by Alan yet is not shown on the official list. Another one was Theodore by Silver Eagle, which Chuck Blair described, on air, as rubbish (you could tell it was nearing the end of term).

I'm afraid the only way to get an accurate number for the records on the playlist is to listen to the whole of the last 9 days broadcasting and count them, but with John Peel playing hardly anything from the Fab 40 on the Perfumed Garden, and the freedom deejays had to choose album tracks, the number of different songs played post the final Fab 40 must have easily reached treble figures."

The producer of the Oldies Project Forty Years Ago programme, Kees Brinkerink and his friend Rob Mesander, had been wondering for a while why Radio London never played The Flowerpot Men's Let's Go to San Francisco or the Herd's From the Underworld, both of which became national Top Ten hits. This led to an investigation of the release dates of some of the records on the final Radio London chart. These are usually obtained from the weekly UK release sheets of the era, issued by Francis Antony. However, by the nature of the music business, the record companies were bound to have amended some of these dates. Like the Fab Forty, there are so many variables - not to mention human error. (The Francis Antony lists do contain disclaimers regarding errors and omissions.) The dates printed on labels of promo copies cannot be regarded as always accurate either, for the same reason.

Dates must have got changed for simple reasons, e.g. because Decca might release a single by artist A, so Pye would bring forward the date of their version by artist B. Minor releases being pressed initially in small quantities (which probably applied to many of the climbers) might get pushed to the back of the queue for available presses if there were big demands at the plant for say, a new Beatles single. We also seem to hear of a lot of cases of lost sales because of industrial action or other problems relating to pressing plants and distribution. Incense by the Anglos and Strong Love by the Spencer Davis Group are good examples of the public wanting to purchase records they had heard played on Big L, but finding them unavailable in the shops.

In Radio London's final few weeks, the record companies were clamouring to have their latest singles played. With most of the offshore stations closing, Caroline's future far from certain and Radio One not opening till September 30th (and in any case, still subject to needle time) airplay of any new releases was bound to be restricted and competition for a few final Radio London plays would have been fierce. As Brian says, records were being shipped out daily. An amazing 73 singles were crammed into the last Big L playlist and we believe that others were aired that were not on the list. Three records that had been high in the previous week's chart were suddenly relegated to the Soul Set and Ballad Box to make way for others to enter the Fab 'Forty'. As Brian has pointed out, it becomes evident that it is virtually impossible to know precisely what was played during Radio London's final days.

Let's Go to San Francisco saw its official release on 04/08/67 and From the Underworld, on 11/08/67, but other singles that came out around the same dates – some of them not on sale till September – did feature on the final Big L playlist. We can but speculate as to why some made the list and some did not, but in a lot of cases, sheer luck must have played its part.

It's possible that the record companies were unable to rush pre-release copies to the ship in time and also possible that the office received them, but failed to send them out there. It must have been a chaotic time, both on the ship and in the Curzon Street offices. With huge sacks of farewell mail arriving daily, the Big L offices (and probably the Galaxy) were undoubtedly swamped with it. Quite a lot of things must have got lost!

Kees says:

"Rob Mesander spotted one instance of The Last Waltz (how appropriate!) by Engelbert Humperdinck being played on Big L, although the song seems not to have been a climber. It was released on Friday, August 18th, the same day and on the same label as We Love You by the Rolling Stones.' (See item below)
 
"Let's Go to San Francisco and From the Underworld were both played a lot on the Carolines, although they may not appear in the incomplete charts that we have from that time. First evidence is my own memory: after August 14th, I listened to Caroline during the day because for me it was the only station left worth hearing (apart from Veronica, but my very old radio didn’t receive it!). I remember hearing both tracks quite often. Further (and of course better) evidence can be found on several recordings of Caroline South, North and International, of which Rob has made lists of the songs that were played.

Looking at my own notes from some Caroline recordings, I find that Let's Go to San Francisco was a Caroline Sure Shot in the week of August 12th and was at no. 22 on September 2nd."

The dates above highlighted in green are those that Kees now believes to be the actual issue dates, based on evidence other than Francis Antony. In several cases, releases would appear to have been brought forward.

highlighted in green

'Monty's Diary' (See Fab Forty for 010167 Alan Field says: Monty did not transcribe the Fab 40 for 6/8/67, but left some rough jottings on scrap paper tucked inside his notebook. It appears that he heard a Robert Knight song played in the final week. We assume it was Everlasting Love, which was scheduled for release on 11th August 1967, but Monty has not written down the title. He hasn't indicated the record's status either, but we think it's significant that it's not marked in the same way as other records that were known climbers. As Brian has already said, Radio London was airing a number of new releases outside the playlist in the final week, and we haven't listed records that were not officially included. Accordingly, we're leaving Robert Knight (like Engelbert Humperdinck who's mentioned above) as a footnote to the final climber list rather than an entry in it.

I don't speak a word of Danish, but I have deduced from the above that the Lollipops were given some good early exposure on Sweden's offshore station Radio Syd, and that I'll Stay By Your Side was written by Torben Lundgreen, the band's lead-vocalist and lead guitarist, and his brother Jorgen, (vcls, rthm gtr).

Per Alarud then very kindly sent me the following proper translation, plus a photograph of a Lollipops' picture sleeve:

"The Lollipops were introduced to the Swedish audience by the pirate station Radio Syd. In record time they had received idol worship and fan hysteria never experienced before.

In 1967 the English group Shiralee recorded a version of the Lundgreen brothers' 1965-hit I'll Stay By Your Side."

Per says: "I was living in the southern part of Sweden at that time, but I couldn't pick up Radio Syd at home. But when I visited my Grandmother in the city of Malmo, I always tuned in to Radio Syd. I remember the Lollipops very well and I believe I have one of their singles somewhere."

The band has its own Wikipedia entry (English translation).