BBC Records - Listen With Auntie

As British as egg & chips, the dear old BBC, that upstanding collective morality guardian of these fine isles for 70-odd years, has churned out millions of hours of broadcast material on all subjects aimed at all people, so would there be anything of interest for yer average funkateer? Definitely!

Releasing records is often an opportunity to make a lot of serious money; this is problematic for the BBC, as unlike the majority of broadcasters the world over it is run not for profit and is largely funded by Act of Parliament that states that everyone wanting to own a telly, even though they might not necessarily want to watch anything on the BBC, has to possess a TV license. Currently £112 to you sir…ooof! This money goes to fund the entirety of BBC TV, radio and other media activities, as well as providing a comfy living for the likes of Vanessa Feltz, Jim Davidson and Dale Winton, for seemingly no good reason whatsoever.

As the act of selling recordings for profit was not allowed for the BBC to do directly, what occurred was that this was gently sidestepped with the formation of a company not strictly within the BBC, but operating pretty much in line with it, that receives no public funding and pours what profits it does make back into producing another stodgy Sunday night drama serial staring the 'ever versatile' Michelle Collins. This was created in the mid 60's amid a time of great flux that saw the arrival of BBC2 in 1962 and the restructuring of the BBC Radio in 1967 as it struggled to compete for a wider audience composed not just of old duffers and launched Radio 1 amongst other bold moves. Of course in its initial years the intentions of the newly formed BBC Radio Enterprises were perfectly honorable: to inform and educate the masses at large! Music didn't really play much of a part. This was a time before the Compact Cassette, and so a selection of material that was of great import to serious 'users' throughout the Empire was released. The bulk of this would come from the Third Program, a sort of forerunner of Radio 4, with mostly serious discussion on a range of stuffy topics. So around 1967 the first rash of documentry-on-vinyl BBC records snuck out and were rightly ignored by everyone. Of course this did nothing to generate any extra cash and a bit of a rethink was clearly needed.

What were the kids, the ones with all the spare dosh, spending their cash on? Not spoken word broadcasts by aging anthropologists or complete German language courses, that's for sure. So the bods at BBC Radio Enterprises had a good look around at how they stood. Despite broadcasting hour upon hour of music over the airwaves, the BBC had the rights to almost none of it. In fact it had to weigh out hefty sums to broadcast the hits of the day. Also during this period certain 'Needletime' agreements were in place. As the Musicians Union feared that the broadcast of recorded music would mean a lot less live work in the offing for its members it threatened all out war unless the BBC accepted a cap on the proportion of time it could devote to playing records. This signaled not only the birth of the live session programs such as 'Top Gear' featuring the hit bands of the day, but a large volume of work for jobbing sessioners reproducing light orchestral versions of both pop hits and classical tunes for consumption through the wee small hours on Radio 2, where no-one who tuned in really cared what was played, as long as it was reasonably jolly. This is where the likes of Norrie Paramor, Bernard Herrmann and Malcolm Lockyer kept their hands in conducting various Radio Orchestras, and the musicians earned a few bob. An MU rate session fee was all that was due and the recordings would only be broadcast a couple of times before being scrapped, as further plays would mean higher rates of pay that couldn't be afforded by the poor impoverished Beeb. So no joy there.

What the BBC did have readily available was the hours of material produced by its team of weirdoes down at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Kerr-shing!!!

Since the establishment of the BBC Electrophonics Effects Committee in 1956 there had been a small group of odd-bods obsessed with Musique Concrete, fiddling away with ring modulators and tape loops to provide background sounds for broadcasts of all sorts. This mutated into the Radiophonics Workshop a couple of years later and hundreds of pieces were commissioned for BBC TV and Radio broadcasts every year; from the new trendy Sci-Fi serials to straight-laced educational programs aimed at schools. Rather strangely the first releases from the Radiophonics Workshop appeared on Decca Records at the start of the 60's. Clearly making a spot of pocket money was not on the BBC agenda back then. Times changed though and BBC Records released a decent selection of this material down the years both in the form of sound effects LP's and full-blown releases featuring anything from ethereal background sounds constructed for late night television dramas to snappy little jingles for all the local radio stations springing up across the country at the turn of the 70's. It doesn't look likely that BBC Music will ever get round to getting these mystical moments out on the dreaded polycarbonate coasters either, as the composers involved retained control of their material and of course are not prone to give it away for buttons for the sake of a shoddy CD issue without a damn good reason.

Children's television also provided excellent source material for album releases, and as BBC Radio Enterprises began growing, its offshoot company BBC Records started standing on its own two feet and releasing Early-Learning style albums from kiddies favourites like Playschool and its Watch With Mother family of shows: all very nice and just the odd nostalgia moment for us these days, but little else. Then some bright spark noticed that a good few of the regular session bandleaders and principle players had started to get proper commercial record deals after years of slogging around on the session and library circuits. If these blokes were so popular, how about spending that little bit extra and securing the rights to a commercial release of some of the Radio 2 sessions that the Beeb had paid to record in the first place. Luckily for us they decided to put their money where their mouth was and some great albums from a few renowned session men were brought into existence. Considering the volume of material that must have been recorded by these folk at the time, its nothing less than a crying shame to think of what little of it actually survives. Plus, there is a good deal more than can actually be legally bought, in the form of BBC Transcription Discs of sessions that were pressed up in limited numbers for sale to foreign broadcasters, and of course remain the property of the BBC to this very day. Ahem.

So things dawdled along very nicely for a few years with a solid mix of BBC comedy recordings, Open University courses, kids show sing-a-longs, parping session players and gurgling EMS synthesizers being released every now and then. But with the dawn of the evil tyrant Thatcher things changed again. The spend-free and slip-shod Beeb could no longer be a burden on the taxpayer and sleepy old BBC Enterprises was kicked into commercial overdrive and was sold off to become a limited company from which the fat cats could take their fill. Booooooo! This immediately led to a right old scraping of the barrel as every TV theme of any note whatsoever was quickly compiled onto a suitably themed LP and bunged out to Woolworth's until the cupboard was bare. With the arrival of the 80's this soon was the case, musically at least. After this BBC Records main focus was the licensing of late night radio sessions through the Strange Fruit label. Gems were unearthed from everyone from Hendrix to Fuzzbox and banged out by the dozen each year to this very day to no great fanfare. Ho-hum.

Nowadays all operations have been gathered under the wing of BBC Worldwide, which more or less collects all of the ancillary companies affiliated to the BBC, such as The World Service and BBC Music, under a single banner. Big money is to be made offloading TV shows to the airtime-thirsty multi-channel world, and this is where much of the emphasis is placed, with the actual releasing of records being somewhat down the list of priorities. But walk into your local bookshop and the selection of 'Talking Books' and tapes of Radio 4 comedy shows tells you that BBC Records is alive in fact, if not in spirit. The BBC Records back catalogue is one that is criminally forgotten considering the size and expense of the BBC archive and the potential riches that could be brought back into focus to the listening public. Typically, the primary causes of this sad situation are bad licensing deals and good old-fashioned apathy. Apparently no one within the current BBC set up has even the slightest care for any of this material. Well, not enough to want to talk to us about it anyway! So, all you beat-makers; sample away-the Beeb wont want a cut!

N.B. Since the time that this article was first posted, several BBC Radiophonic Workshop albums have been reissued on CD to much critical acclaim in the music press, so they are finally catching on!!!

'Bang on a Drum' (1973, RBT17)

'Fourth Dimension' (1973, RED93)

'Bobby Lamb & The Keysmen' (1973, RERT101)

Dave Snell 'Plays Hits On A Harp' (1974, REH178)

'Original Music From Great BBC TV Shows' (1974, REB188)

The Ray Davies Orchestra 'Hits Of Sinatra' (1975, REB194)

Tony King 'Music Through Midnight Presents…' (1975, REC201)

'Sing A Song Of Play School' (1975, REC212)

BBC Radiophonic Workshop 'Out Of This World' (1976, REC225)

'Top BBC Themes' (1978, REH310)

David Snell 'Harp In Harmony' (1978, REC311)

'Sporting Themes' (1979, REH348)