After much investigation I found a place in East Acton who would be able to restore the tapes and transfer any recordings to CD. After baking the tapes for several days, the company phoned me to say they had found approximately two and a half hours of recordings on the tapes and offered to
convert some or all of it to CD. No knowing how much (if any) of it was relevant, I asked them to go ahead and do the lot (the full post of the second part of the story
here).
At the back end of 2009 I picked up the completed
CD's, and I must admit that I was a little
nervous when I finally came to play them.... The results were not quite what we were expecting, and it turned out a little bit 'good news\bad news'.... but boy, was the 'good news' part a shock! (for me anyway).
When we were told that there were two and a half hours of recordings on the two tapes, we naturally assumed that it would be two and a half hours of my uncles... sadly, it wasn't. There were family recordings of children reciting nursery rhymes, another family member playing the electric organ, and lots of random shows recorded off the radio... comedy programmes, chart rundowns etc etc All very interesting in its own way, but not quite what I was expecting! After over an hour there was no "Mick and Don". It suddenly dawned on us that perhaps these tapes once had them on, but were subsequently recorded over, leaving only a sticker on the box as a reminder of what they once contained.
I have to say I was getting rather anxious when after and hour and a half, the CD lurched into yet another show recorded off the radio... this time a BBC music show called 'The Talent Spot'. By this time I was only half listening, already convinced that no recordings of my uncles remained on the tapes.... then just as that moment, the host of The Talent Spot says these words....
"1961 was a great year in our business for brother singing teams. Of course the Everly Brothers were always near the top of the hit parade, and the Brook Brothers got into the hit parade. We on Talent Spot hope that 1962 will be a great year for two twin 19 year olds, who are about to make their very first broadcast right now. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Essex Brothers!"
It's them! It's really them!! singing a lively cover of 'Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen"! I never even knew that they had performed on the radio, and even if I had, I'd never of thought there
would ever be a chance of hearing it, but here it was!! and considering it had been sitting hidden in a loft for over 40 years, the sound quality was great! But the best was still yet to come... All the acts on The Talent Spot performed two songs, and right at the end my uncles
reappeared to play their second song....
"here now are The Essex Brothers with their own composition, and it's a very apt title for such a late stage in our show, Running Away!"
My dads face lights up, and a broad grin stretches from ear to ear.... "I wrote that for them" he calmly informs me!!! How come I never knew my dad wrote a song??!! One that was performed on national radio no less!!
After all these years of being told about my uncles being a singing duo, it was weird to finally hear what they sounded like. The name everyone used to say they sounded like was The Everly Brothers, and as it turned out that was pretty accurate, and the harmonies on these two performances were very 'Phil and Don'.
Since obtaining this recording, I've been busy creating
CD's of the whole show for the family. This episode has also resulted in me hooking up with long lost cousin
Mark (Don's son). Apparently we had met once before when we were nippers (and
my father has the
photographic evidence to prove it!), but neither of us remembers it. So it was an absolute pleasure to finally meet Mark and his family, and I look forward to keeping in good contact with them from now on.
In the downtime I've also registered my dad as a member of the Performing Rights Society (PRS), and formally logged him as the composer of 'Running Away'.
Well, there you have it! Not at all what we were expecting, but at the same time, far exceeding what we dared hope for. It was perhaps initially a little disappointing to only get two songs out of all that tape, but not in my wildest dreams did I expect to find a live broadcast of my uncles performing on national BBC radio!! Mondo summed it up brilliantly when I told him the news later that day... he said discovering an hour or two of home recordings would have been nice, but ultimately, may not have been something you would perhaps play over and over. However what we actually uncovered may well have been the highlight of their career, and it's now safely preserved in the family vaults at Piley Towers.
So, very nearly 50 years after it was first (and almost certainly last!) broadcast, here are The Essex Brothers!!
FURTHER FINDS
Whilst sorting out his old records, my uncle Tony found a 78RPM single recorded by my uncles, as well as a small 5" 78RPM that they made in a recording booth on Southend seafront in the 1950's as teenagers (he also found another that my father recorded in the very same booth!). He also discovered a mini album that Mick recorded sometime in the 1960's.
My Uncle Alan too managed to locate a 78RPM recording of The Essex Brothers, containing the songs 'Takes a Worried Man', 'That'll be the Day' and another recording of 'Running Away'.
Meanwhile my cousin Mark is convinced that a copy of the album they made still exists in an attic somewhere, and has upped his search for it...
Mick's partner Kath has unearthed a collection of 11 cassettes of Mick singing in the 80's and 90's. I'm currently in the process of transferring them all to CD for her, and there is some fabulous stuff on them. Mick really did have a beautifully rich singing voice, which matured as he got older. The sound quality on these tapes is really good too. Kath also found this letter that was sent to the boys in March 1962, thanking them for attending an audition:
My father also recalled that the boys were booked by (and performed for) the Kray twins when they had a nightclub in Soho in the early 60's.
BBC HISTORY
Since discovering these recordings I've done a little research into BBC radio at that time... It's hard to imagine now, but at the start of the sixties there was no commercial or local radio in England. All that existed were just 3 BBC national networks:
"Home" (a legacy that started with the Home Service, launched in 1939)
the "Light Programme" (launched in 1945) and
the "Third programme" (launched in 1946).
That was it!!! The British youth were not catered for at all by these stations, but the boom in 'pop' music forced the BBC to review their strict playlist policy. At the beginning of the 60's, the BBC started to experiment with 'specialist' pop programmes featuring rock n roll music with titles such as The Beat Show, Easy Beat, From Us To You, Here We Go, The Ken Dodd Show, On The Scene, Parade Of The Pops, Side By Side, Steppin' Out, Let's Go, Swinging Sound '63, Teenagers Turn and The Talent Spot. These programmes often featured live music from a selection of acts as opposed to playing records. As most of these shows were broadcast live, a large number were never actually recorded by the BBC.
History remembers The Talent Spot (which was broadcast on the Light Programme) more fondly than some of the others, mainly because The Beatles performed on it three
separate times. In fact, the
earliest known performance of the Beatles performing Twist and Shout was on
The Talent Spot in November 1962... a recording of which alas does not exist.
The Talent Spot was recorded at the Paris Theatre (also known as The Paris), 4 - 12 Lower Regent Street, London SW1. The BBC took over this former cinema during the war and converted it to a theatre. They were particularly keen on it as the auditorium was underground, thus broadcasting could continue when London was bombed. The Paris was the very first BBC performance studio to be equipped with stereo. The Beeb continued to use The Paris right up until 1995, when they finally replaced it with the purposed built Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House.
So what happened to those three BBC radio stations? Well, in 1967 "Home" was renamed Radio 4 and The "Third Programme" became Radio 3. All the 'pop' shows were taken away from the "Light Programme" for broadcasting by a brand new BBC station called Radio 1, after which The Light Programme was renamed Radio 2.
Here's the Beatles outside the Paris Theatre:
This photo was subsequently 'tweaked' to make the cover of the 'Beatles Live at the BBC' album:
And finally..... here's a picture that's been discovered of my dad (obviously on 'shore leave' from the Merchant Navy!) with the young twins.
Piley
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But I digress... whilst walking down the fizzy drink isle (yes, I WAS on my .jpg)
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Piley
What wasn't perfect though was the steady drift of people disappearing from the site from the moment he came on. Y'see 'ol Hugh has done it all wrong... He couldn't be bothered to apply for the X-Factor or some other reality TV show, and to me (and hundreds of other Basildon-ites by the looks of it) this shows his lack of ambition and lazy tendencies. Instead he took the easy route and cut corners via a 30+ year solid gold career consisting of no less that 26 album releases (incredibly 16 of those from his solo career). If you're not a singing dustman or a bunch of page 3 'stunnas' turned girlband, then frankly, Basildon is going to give you short thrift.
I expected to come away from this gig pleased to have heard some classic Stranglers tunes... I did that, but my lasting memory was actually that I'd seen an artist with some bloody great new material. On returning home I fired up his official website and downloaded his new album (Hooverdam) for free, just as he had told us we could (and you can STILL get it for free there now). It may well have been free, but believe it or not this album is up there with some of the best of his career work.
PS - since this gig took place I've read the excellent book "77 Sulphate Strip" by Barry Cain. The extensive 2007 interview with Hugh therein was a joy to read, and he comes over as a genuinely nice guy who remains every bit as passionate about his music as ever.
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