For those suffering from chart anoraxia, Alan Field notes that the #23 and #24 positions in his chart are the reverse of the order shown in Brian Long's 'The London Sound', i.e. Brian has Tears Tears Tears at #23 and Walking In the Rain at #24. Wolfgang Buchholz in Germany concurs with Alan's version, as do Geoff Posner and Hans Peters. As previously mentioned, Brian took much of his information from the chart issued by the Radio London Curzon Street office, which had frequently changed by the time the Fab Forty was aired. There's many a slip 'twixt shore and ship!

Music-wise, April and May were momentous months in the life of Big L. Not only did Radio London obtain the exclusive preview of the Sgt Pepper album, but it was the first station to air A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

Deram's promotions man, Tony Hall, had been played a worn acetate of the single by its producer, Denny Cordell. Although Cordell loved the single, he thought it completely non-commercial, and was convinced it wouldn't stand a chance of being a hit. Hall, however, was 'blown away' by it. He saw it as a smash hit, but he had difficulty convincing Cordell. Hall phoned Big L's Programme Director, Alan Keen, and arranged for the record to be given a trial play on Radio London. Mark Roman spun the disc at around 4.00pm on a Monday, (probably April 17th) telling listeners if they liked it, to call the Curzon Street office. When the office was inundated with calls, Alan Keen realised they had a hit single aboard the ship. However, it took around four weeks to get the record on sale in the shops.

The Roman Emperor admits that he was so amazed by the record, it practically left him speechless. Very unusual for the Emperor! Interestingly, the single was never awarded official climber status, merely appearing in the Fab from nowhere on May 14th.

A Whiter Shade Of Pale was also a massive success during the Radio London 'Holidays With Deejays' promotion. Cardboard Shoes, Mark Roman, Chuck Blair, Tony Blackburn and Ed Stewart spent a week each in the Spanish resort of Estartit, accompanied by Big L listeners who had paid £28 apiece for the privilege. Travelling abroad on holiday was a relatively new idea to the British public, and package tours were just beginning to become popular, so this was a forward-thinking venture for the station. According to Stewpot, who went on May 27th, the now-massive Estartit was a, "One-horse, very quiet resort" in the summer of '67 and the accommodation was, "A bit of a tip".

Pete Frame, writing in ZigZag magazine, 27, December 1972, and quoted on the Procol Harum website, 'Beyond the Pale', wrote:

Everyone in the world bought that single (backed with Lime Street Blues on Deram 126), which topped just about every chart in the Western hemisphere – and quite rightly so. (That was a great single, was it not? How well I remember the first time I heard it, on Radio London... I couldn't believe it – never heard anything like that before).

According to 'Beyond the Pale', A Whiter Shade... had additional verses that were not included on any recording, but were often included in live performances. Appropriately for a single pioneered by offshore radio, one of the missing verses is all about sea, shore-leave and mermaids. The only nautical reference amongst the familiar lyrics is to something horribly familiar to offshore jocks – feeling kind of seasick!

Procol Harum's Gary Brooker, guested on a show during Radio London's final day, August 14th. He appeared on pre-recorded sponsored show, The Juicy Fruit Spectacular, which was broadcast between 1.30 and 2.00pm.

In 2007, the famous song's authorship was under legal dispute. Organist Matthew Fisher issued court proceedings against Gary Brooker and Onward Music Limited, claiming a share of royalties for his alleged co-authorship. Brooker argued that he wrote the song with Keith Reid before Fisher joined the band. The outcome of the case, which ended up before the House of Lords before being decided in Matthew Fisher's favour, is here.

Matthew Fisher writes, "I have always treasured this page as the one reliable account of the Radio London preview of A Whiter Shade of Pale. The truth is that without Tony Hall and Radio London, A Whiter Shade of Pale would have been consigned to the dustbin!"

Secrets of the Hive: The Best of Procol Harum is a 35-track double CD. Naturally, A Whiter Shade of Pale is the first track on there, but it's good to be able to enjoy the lesser-played ones such as Conquistador and Homburg. Click on the picture of the CD sleeve to see a full track listing and purchasing information.

Alan Field on another Deram track:

Outer Limits included Jeff Christie in its line-up. He wrote Just One More Chance, and subsequently penned Yellow River and San Bernadino for his eponymous group of the early Seventies, both songs charting in the Nationals on either side of the pond.

–

22

When I Was Young

Eric Burdon & the Animals

MGM 1340

"From 1955, if it was Friday and five to five, that meant only one thing: CRACKERJACK!" So says www.whirligig-tv.co.uk

The lyrics of When I Was Young, which talk about smoking at the age of ten and meeting girls at thirteen, were deemed unsuitable by the BBC for a children's TV show. Eric Burdon & the Animals were banned from performing the song on Crackerjack. Between 1973 and 79, the popular programme was hosted by Big L's own Ed Stewart.

(Yes, we can hear you all shouting "Crackerjack!". So, how many of you actually got to appear on the show and did you end up with a prize or a cabbage? Click here to let us know)

Kinks manager Robert Wace and renowned producer Mike Leander collaborated on three singles as Marquis Of Kensington. Written by Leander, The Changing Of The Guard appears to be an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the New Vaudeville Band, currently riding high with Finchley Central. Although the vocals are Wase's, (Dave Davies described them as a "kind of mixture of Noel Coward and Buddy Holly") it's Leander whose face appears on the picture sleeves. However, when the record became a continental hit, a young man with a passing resemblance to Donovan (below, right) was recruited to mime to the song for TV appearances. Unfortunately, his name is unknown.

Or, as a Google translation of a German site so picturesquely puts it, "While his voice for singing at the disposal of, occurred as a figure of the Marquis on the record covers only Leander."

The single's B-side, Reverse Thrust, credited to 'The Marquis of Kensington's Minstrels' is the backing track of the 'A' played backwards.

Leander was responsible for producing/arranging Fab Forty hits too numerous to mention. As Tears Go By, In Thoughts of You and First Cut Is the Deepest are just three of them, and he can also take credit for the lovely string arrangement on the Fab Four's She's Leaving Home.

The Changing Of The Guard appears alongside many other Fab Forty alumni on the soundtrack of Peter Whitehead's 'Beautiful People' documentary, Tonite Let's All Make Love in London.

Aboard the Galaxy this week May 21st Lorne King hosted the evening slot from 1800. Spy movies were still in fashion and the latest cinema release starring Yul Brynner and Britt Ekland, 'The Double Man', was receiving heavy promotion. It received no less than three plugs during the first hour of Lorne's show.

May 23rd
Willy Walker was Keith Skues's Coffee Break guest. He had left on July 8th 1966, but returned to the Galaxy after an absence of ten months, to replace American, John Yorke (sometimes spelt 'York'), who had quit the station after being aboard for around two weeks. Yorke was allocated climbers for the weeks commencing April 30th and May 7th, but nobody has ever managed to obtain any further information about him.

May 25th
A High Court ruled that Radio 390, based aboard the Red Sand WWII fort in the Thames estuary, was within territorial waters and therefore, illegal. The station was given eighteen days to lodge an appeal, but it closed for good on July 28th.

May 26th
The Daily Mail printed a story concerning talks between soon-to-be outlawed offshore broadcasters and Radio Andorra, operating from the small independent Pyrenean Mountain State. The Mail named management of both Radio London and the just-declared-illegal Radio 390, as interested in joining with Radio Andorra to launch a new station operating on similar lines to Radio Luxembourg. In his memoirs, Big L's original Programme Director Ben Toney explains why the project failed.

Ashore

May 26th
Ed Stewart was the first of the Big L jocks to depart for Estartit on a 'Holidays With Deejays' package. Commercials were still being aired for subsequent trips, which presumably had yet to sell out.

Besides climbers that were played at the time of the broadcast of the Sunday Fab Forty, Alan kept a note of others he heard later in the week and incorporated them into his list.

Two new climbers added June 2008
Alan Field observes: "For Pete Drummond's climber I have listed the Small Faces' new Immediate release, Here Come The Nice, instead of Patterns which was brought out at the same time by their old company, Decca." However, a recording of the Lorne King Show broadcast between 1800 and 1900 the same day as this chart (21/05/67), reveals that Patterns was also played as a Big L climber (unallocated to a DJ) during the same week. It seems the Small Faces were in competition with themselves, as seven days later (28/05), Patterns arrived in the Fab Forty at #29 while Here Come The Nice was held back as a climber. Then on June 4th, both Small Faces releases tied at #17, while their eponymous LP held the Album of the Week slot. Whether or not the rival record companies went off to fight it out with their lawyers is unknown, but after one week of glory, both singles sunk wihtout trace. The band bounced back on July 30th, with Itchycoo Park selected as Ian Damon's climber.

It seems that E to D, the B-side of Patterns, written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, had been in the vaults for a while, as Brian Long notes that the original contract for the song with Leading Music Ltd, was dated 25th March 66. In '67, the track was assigned to Pall Mall Music for the princely sum of one shilling (five new pence). The Pall Mall connection probably explains why two Small Faces singles were competing for Big L airplay. The Decca single is extremely collectable and can command between £60 and £100 - or twice that if you happen to have one in a promotional picture sleeve.

The Ultimate Collection is a 2-CD, 50-track set, containing both Patterns and Here Come The Nice. Click on sleeve photo for full track listing.

Also announced by Lorne as a climber, is Lola by Los Brincos, which enters the chart on June 4th. It is a completely different song from the Ray Davies-penned Kinks release from 1970.

Alan Field has noted I Get The Feelin' played as Disc of the Week, with a subtle shift in favour of the other side, I'll Come Runnin', over the next two weeks. Brian Long has I'll Come Runnin' listed as DoW instead, while Wolfgang Buchholz has noted hearing both sides played during the week. I Get The Feelin' was receiving heavier airplay at this time, being the only side played on the Fab 40 show. It would appear that either someone did not label the pre-release copy sent to the Galaxy correctly, or the record company was still dithering over which side was to be promoted. The single was not released till two weeks later on June 2nd and the label reads I'll Come Runnin' on the A-side and I Get the Feelin' on the B.

Both sides are Neil Diamond compositions that had previously been UK releases for the composer and I Got the Feelin' had already appeared in the Fab Forty. I'll Come Running had been the UK B-side of Cherry Cherry, issued September '66 and I Got the Feelin' followed it in November '66. It was picked as Kenny Everett's climber and took Neil to #21 in the Big L chart for 27th November.

The full title of Neil's US release is I Got the Feelin' (Oh No No). It lost the 'Oh No No' when issued in the UK on the London label and somewhere mid-Atlantic, I'll Come Runnin' acquired a 'G' at the end

Both sides of Cliff' s UK Columbia 45 differ from the Diamond UK releases. The label reads I'll Come Runnin' on the A-side (restoring the original US Diamond title) but on the B, Cliff amended Diamond's US title and lyrics to 'I GET The Feelin''. This is not a typesetting error; Cliff is singing 'get' rather than 'got'. (Perhaps this was considered to sound 'less American'.)

Looking at issues of Cliff's single from various countries, it seems I'll Come Runnin' occasionally has a 'G' at the end, as per Neil Diamond, but mostly it does not. I Got the Feelin' never has a G ending and always has the amended title of, 'I GET the Feelin', as Cliff sings it.

Cliff's I Get The Feelin' was released on the album Rare B-Sides 1963 - 1989 and all tracks are available as a download.