Brierly Hill 90210

Alan Freed used the term “rock and roll” as early as 1951. It was a euphemism for sex but Freed used it to describe rhythm and blues, or “race music”, in a way that was more acceptable to white audiences. Freed was keen to promote white cover versions of songs originally recorded by black artists.

But, while this new rock 'n' roll music started to gain popularity and see increased record sales, there wasn't an instant mass take-over of the music scene. You'll hear a marginal increase in rock numbers but the charts are still dominated by big band orchestration and actor/singer cross-overs. Listen out for a crooning Norman Wisdom as you sit back and enjoy the sounds of 1954.

If you've followed this series from the beginning, it started with 1977, the year I began high school and a year when music changed with the arrival of punk rock. So why jump back to 1953? As I recorded the earlier chronological episodes, I found myself thinking, both for the music and the major news stories, how did we get here? What's the back story of each news event and what are the inspirations and ground-breakers that blazed a trail for music through to today?

Because, primarily, this is a series about music, I wanted to look back to just before rock n roll to get an understanding of the popular music before it was changed forever. I thought that would mean 1956, maybe 1955 when Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock first charted in the UK. But in keeping with the series theme of taking a view from both sides of the Atlantic, things started a little earlier in the US. There's still debate about what was the first rock n roll record or even which was the first rock n roll “hit”. But the one I went with was released in 1953. See if you can spot it and listen out for the other, less successful recordings that were clearly appropriated for what became known later as rock n roll.

A couple of foot-notes to explain things that were different back in the 1950s.

It was not uncommon for the same song to be released multiple times by different artists almost at the same time. One song in this episode charted 5 times in the same year all by different artists! So don't be surprised to hear songs in this episode recorded by unexpected artists.

In the 21st century, because of the nature of the internet and digital content, new music releases are usually a single, global event. But in the 1950s a record could be released a year or more apart in the US versus the UK versus other parts of the world. This certainly made determining what constitutes “music from 1953” a challenge. There will be disagreements.

World War II had only ended 8-years earlier but conflict continues in Korea. That will be an early order of business for new US president Dwight D Eisenhower and vice-president, Richard Nixon. In the UK, King George VI (sixth) has just died, resulting in his young daughter Elizabeth taking the thrown. She hadn't been formally crowned as the year begins and the impending coronation will be televised in the UK, seeing increased sales of TV sets. Televisions have only existed for 17 years and around a quarter of British households now own one.

Welcome to 1953.

I was 7 as 1974 began and, while my musical memories are becoming more well formed, they are still a little fuzzy. Most of them from this episode seem to be around October and I suspect this is from a Sunday night chart rundown that my dad taped for me off Radio 1 and that was played over and over until the tape broke.

Memories of 1974's music are further enhanced in this episode with genuine hiss and crackle from vinyl recordings. It's weird that as I record this some 50 years later, there is a recently added vinyl section in my local Walmart.

In an earlier episode, I mentioned that the word “disco” was applied to a style of music in 1973 and 1974 was when it started gaining mainstream attention. I was expecting to hear more in this episode but, as I'm sure some of you are glad to hear, there are only a few hints of it. That's likely because it's popularity was growing in cities like Philadelphia and New York and the 7-year-old Miller was very mainstream and into whatever was in the British charts. I'm surprised it's as late as this but disco doesn't peak until 1977 or 1978.

So while you have that to look forward to, get the funk out of your face and shake your pants down to the floor. It's 1974.

As the year begins, stories from 2020 are coming to a head. COVID vaccines are being rolled out, cases attempting to show that black lives do matter will get their day in court, and Donald Trump continues to not accept the result of the election.

On the home-front, continuing the saga from the year before, our house is still on the market, but there's more interest and we need to make a decision.

While it still feels restrictions from the pandemic will never end, lockdown has fostered a new golden age of musical discovery. This makes it as personally significant as the late 1970s, coming of musical age with chart-based pop music and ska, discovering musical independence through John Peel's radio show in the early 80s, coming to America in the mid 90s and launching a podcast in 2005.

Welcome to a golden land of musical opportunity and adventure. Welcome to the sounds of 2021.

1976 is a defining year in British music. The glam rock of the early 70's is making way for disco as it gains mainstream success. There is also a disturbing trend in sickly pop ballads. But young people are becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of opportunities and the general staleness of the establishment. Harold Wilson is Britain's Labour prime-minister, Margaret Thatcher has recently replaced Ted Heath as leader of the Tories while Jeremy Thorpe leads the Liberals.

Elsewhere, Gerald Ford is president of the United States. He faces his first election having inherited the presidency with Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974 and the vice-presidency when Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973.

But 10 year-old me is oblivious to all of this. He attends Northleach C of E Primary School in the Gloucestershire, Cotswold country side and his main interests lay in convincing his mother to let him have jeans with flares and seeing what they got up to on Blue Peter. He developed a crush on an older woman; 14-year-old Rumanian gymnast, Nadia Comeneci and love is developing with the romance of the FA Cup.

Love to love 1976.

We'd been living in our “dream house” for 12 years but, it having been built in the 19th century, there was always something failing, breaking or otherwise needing repair. It was beginning to take it's toll, both financially and mentally. So we decided it was time to move on. With the impeccable timing that had us buy during a major financial crisis, turns out we would try to sell as the world experienced a global pandemic!

Obviously that's the main story you'll hear in this episode. The world went into lock-down, the kids stopped going to school and I stopped going into the office. But working for a company that manufactured highly sought after items like diapers and paper towels, unlike many others, I was in no danger of losing my job.

Having that stability on the work front was an immense blessing as we tried to sell our house while the world deteriorated into chaos. You'll hear that chaos in the next 56 minutes as the global, national and local situations changed by the day or even hour, particularly in March and April.

To keep my self sane, I walked every day in the Pennsylvania countryside, discovering and enjoying other people's podcasts, some of which you'll hear in this episode. I started listening to more music, some new but also older numbers that I curated into chronological order. The music jogged associated memories which I dug out from the internet and this series fell into shape, recorded under the original Brierly Hill 90210 monicker. Cotswolds Radio, recently established in my old stomping grounds of Northleach, were on a similar COVID-related journey and they started broadcasting the Cotswold Hills 90210 version of the show in October.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As the year begins, while there are stories coming out of China of people with flu-like symptoms, here in the west, things are relatively calm as the main stories are President Trump's impeachment trial, the UKs impending withdrawal from the European Union and continuing tensions in the middle east.

Welcome to the calm before the storm. Welcome to 2020.

It's interesting how many major news stories are going on that will be forgotten with what's to come the following year. There's a lot to cram in here.

The year begins with the US Government shut down over a refusal to fund Trumps wall on the Mexico border. In the UK, the bickering over Brexit is taking everybody nowhere fast while, globally, many are starting to wake up to the potential impact of climate change, mostly young people making their voices heard.

There's a new personal musical high on the horizon, almost certainly due to events in 2020 so I'll talk more about it next time. But listen out for some great music in this episode. Welcome to 2019.

It was 2016 when the UK voted to leave the European Union. But as 2018 begins, the government has still not worked out how they're going to do it. There is equal chaos on the other side of the Atlantic as somebody clearly ill-equipped to be president jumps from one fiasco to another. If aliens invaded in 2018, many of us would be embarrassed to be a member of the human race.

Although I didn't know it, the curtain came down on my podcast in 2017, in it's original format at least. After 12 years of reinvigorating my love of discovering new music and sharing it with a small but loyal following, the broadcasts that had become more and more sporadic, finally petered out.

Our youngest was now 9 years old and after being continuously ill since he was born, he was finally diagnosed with something; celiacs disease, a major gluten allergy. The poor kid loved pizza and bread and those were things that were killing him. But he adapted quickly to a change in diet and we found gluten-free versions of his favorites. We'll never forget the time he told us, “I never knew you weren't supposed to get sick every time you ate something”. Broke our hearts.

Over on the world stage, Britain has voted to leave Europe so is eagerly embarking on their well thought through exit strategy. While, on the other side of the pond, everyone gets behind the orange, small-handed, lying sack of monkey guano that they voted president.

The new year definitely signals the start of a new chapter. Whether you're young, dumb, broke or any combination there of, nobody knows how it's going to end. Welcome to 2017.

They say age is just a number but it felt more than that to me as I turned 50.

From 1966 with the crowd on the pitch thinking it's all over, an 11-year old attending Westwood's Grammar School in the Gloucestershire countryside, a move to America, Barack Obama in The White House and David Cameron in Number 10.

Time plods slowly onward and we just tag along for the ride. Welcome to 2016.