Sounds of the 60s
Sounds of the '60s is a long-running Saturday morning programme on BBC Radio 2 that features recordings of popular music made in the 1960s. It was first broadcast on 12 February 1983 and introduced by Keith Fordyce, who had been the first presenter of the TV show Ready Steady Go! in 1963. From March 1990 until February 2017, the presenter was Brian Matthew. Tony Blackburn has hosted the show since 4 March 2017.
| Genre | Music |
|---|---|
| Running time | 2 hours |
| Country of origin |  |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | BBC Radio 2 |
| Hosted by | Keith Fordyce (1983–1985) Various (1985–1988) Simon Dee (1989–1990) Brian Matthew (1990–2017) Tony Blackburn (2017–present) |
| Produced by | Tom Du Croz, compiled by Tony Blackburn, Phil Swern |
| Recording studio | Broadcasting House, London (1983-2006) Wogan House, London (2006-present) |
| Original release | 12 February 1983 – present |
| Audio format | 88–91 FM, DAB digital radio, TV and online |
| Ending theme | Foot Tapper by The Shadows (1983-2017) |
| Website | Official website |
Presenters
In the mid ’80s, the format changed and each week the programme was presented by a different artist from the Sixties. Many famous names were involved, including: Alvin Stardust, Eddy Grant, Herb Alpert, Graham Nash, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tom Jones, Neil Sedaka, Donovan, Mike Stoller, Bruce Welch, Duane Eddy, Bill Medley, Roy Wood, Mike Berry, David Crosby and many more. "I Love SOTS" car stickers were given free to listeners.
In December 1988, the then producer Stuart Hobday re-discovered Simon Dee, the first voice to have been heard on Radio Caroline in 1964 and persuaded him to present a listeners’ all-time-favourite Top 20. The response from the public was so great that Dee was booked for a three-month run early in 1989. His success led to another three-month contract later in the year, but his constant demands for the show to go live and to move from Bristol to London, along with a growing list of complaints to BBC top management, meant that his contract was not renewed.[1]
Subsequently Brian Matthew, who had introduced Saturday Club on the BBC Light Programme until 1967, took over as regular presenter.
Brian Matthew
Matthew first presented Sounds of the '60s on 31 March 1990, following the end of his stint on Round Midnight and was still doing so until November 2016, more than 26 years after he took over. His place was taken temporarily between September 2006 and February 2007, during periods of illness, by former Radio Caroline and BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Johnnie Walker (and, during Walker's own absence in December 2006, by three guest presenters: Sandie Shaw, Joe Brown and Suzi Quatro). Matthew returned on 10 February, revealing that his prolonged absence had been due to a viral infection contracted while in hospital for a routine operation. Matthew also took weeks off in October 2011 and November 2016 – January 2017 because of illness and lyricist Tim Rice sat in for him on both occasions. A Sounds of the '60s CD was released in November 2011. On 28 March 2015, Matthew presented a 25th anniversary show. In it, he selected 10 of his favourite songs of the 1960s and there were tributes from Ray Davies, Helen Shapiro, Paul Jones, (Matthew's Radio 2 colleague) Marty Wilde and Petula Clark. On 27 January 2017, the BBC announced that Matthew would be retiring from presenting the show, due to ill health. In February 2017, it was announced that Tony Blackburn would be taking over the show from March that year. Scores of fans rejected the idea of anyone replacing Matthew and contacted the Daily Mail in outrage. Matthew disputed the way in which the end of his tenure as presenter of Sounds of the 60s was portrayed by the BBC. In response he stated:
“I didn’t really have much in the way of ill health. I had a collapse at home at the bottom of our stairs and my wife called the ambulance service. They came and examined me and said it was a matter for appraisal at the hospital. They put me on a ward, I stayed there for a while and now I’m back at home. I enjoyed doing the show very much indeed. I did it for 25 years. I feel very disconcerted, I must say. I do admit I’m a bit of an antique, but that’s never seemed to matter until now.”
Upon learning of his fans' support, he had this to say:
A friend called me and said people were unhappy about me going, and that is so gratifying in itself.
Features of the show
Matthew, who made the programme very much his own, turned it into something of a cult, one aspect being its very own slang: "SOTS" (acronym of the title); "avids" (listeners); "the Vocalist" (the show's producer, Roger Bowman and, later, Phil Swern. The two-hour programme is divided into one-hour "sides" (called Side 1 and Side 2) and the names of those listeners whose requests are to be played used to be announced at the start of each "side"; now the names of the artists requested are announced instead. There were also well-researched features, such as an "A to Z of the Beatles" (recordings of which were repeated during the shows from which he was absent, to maintain his presence in the programme) and initially "SOTS" T-shirts for listeners whose record requests were played. Later, "SOTS" baseball caps and "SOTS" sweat shirts were given to successful requesters but, as of 2009, this practice ceased. Although the playlist was almost entirely restricted to music recorded in the 1960s, space was found for a time for so-called "roots" records from the 1950s, while recordings from that or earlier decades that re-entered the sales charts in the 1960s were also eligible. Its theme tune for all of its run up until the end of the Matthew era had been the Shadows' "Foot Tapper" (1963). Its final appearance as the show's closing theme was on 15 April 2017, in which Matthew's successor, Tony Blackburn, played in tribute to him, following his death the previous week. Following the end of the Matthew era, it was dropped.
Since July 2007, the show's producer has been Phil Swern, whom Matthew had nicknamed "The Collector". In 2017, Tom Du Croz (now Richard Power), Phil Swern and Tony Blackburn now produce the show.
It was during Swern's time on the show that the "Playing Hard To Get" feature was introduced into the Matthew era of the show. Listeners who wanted a copy of a record they had lost over the years could request a CD of that song and, if successful, were sent a special "SOTS" CD of the track after it had been played on the show. When Matthew left the show, requests were dropped.
Tony Blackburn has been hosting the show since 4 March 2017. The show starts two hours earlier than it used to, at 6am, and the format has been changed to a live show, where fans can contact Blackburn live and sometimes even chat via Facebook's live chat. New features of the show are 'America's Top 3', Magic Moments, 60s into the 70s, the A-Z of Motown, Tony's Doo-Woop Shop, Northern Soul Dancefloor Fillers and 'Phil Swern's Colossal Collection'. Swern is now heard on-air during Blackburn's tenure of the show.
During the Covid-19 pandemic the show temporarily returned to being pre-recorded with Blackburn recording it from his house. During this time Swern was not heard on-air and Blackburn changed the format of the show with more listener requests being played.
Related shows
For several years in the 1990s, Radio 2 carried a complementary show of music from the 1950s, Sounds of the '50s, which was presented by singer and entertainer Ronnie Hilton and now by Leo Green. In the 2000s, there was also Sounds of the '70s, a title first used in 1970 for a daily late-night show of "progressive" music on Radio 1. Radio 2's version of Sounds of the '70s was presented by singer-songwriter Steve Harley and now by Johnnie Walker. Sounds of the '80s was launched on Radio 2 on 5 October 2013, was presented by Sara Cox and now by Gary Davies. Sounds of the 90s was launched on 19 March 2020 and is presented by Fearne Cotton.
Notes
- Richard Wiseman (2006) Whatever Happened to Simon Dee?
