Post by rayshae3 on Jan 24, 2024 22:50:55 GMT -5
Since October 2023, Paul Gambaccini has retired from the signature UK vintage chart show on Radio 2 ‘Pick of the Pops’. The POTP is now hosted with a humorous take by the long time DJ Steve Wright (arguably the most legendary comic Brit DJ on UK airwaves since Kenny Everett), this is in addition to Steve’s other more serious duties on Radio 2 like ‘Sunday Love Songs’.
Back to this thread’s subject, on the new officially titled ‘The Paul Gambaccini Collection’ (aired 8pm-10pm GMT on Sundays), Paul delves into his radio career memories of seven decades in the US and the UK, and brings a real shuffle in all genres of charts from the both sides of the Atlantic. But this is not a strictly structured show. His choice of what’s played on Sunday nights could reach his knowledge of popular music of the 1920s; during his career he counted down the official UK’s Classical or Jazz charts at some point in time. So the range of choices on what’s played on the new show can be tremendous.
His first show of 10/22/2023, he was interviewed by Steve Wright about his life and radio memories as he gave the reins of POTPs to Steve. And another ad-hoc episode followed on 10/29 in which for 2 hours he had his own choices of song dedication to all the personalities that make up the crew of Radio 2 (even newsreaders or the traffic crew).
But as he settled into his Sunday show, it is now known that his program is full of what is known as ‘regular series’ or ‘occasional series’. (The ‘series’ in UK radio lingo is a segment that’s inserted during the show; think of ‘last week’s Top 3’ or LDD during AT40, same type of thing).
These features during the last three months included:
-Countdown of All time top 5 favorites weeklies: (examples: 4/5/64 all-Beatles US chart, or 5/13/72 all soul US Top 5/rather Top 8!)
-The Long and Show End of It - an unusually long hit (usually a famed AOR-FM cut and unusually short one; examples of the former: Billy Joel’s ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’, ‘Jungleland’ from ‘Born to Run’, or ‘Papa Was a Rolling’ Stone’; examples of a short one: ‘Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz, title track from Cat Stevens ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ or some obvious singles ‘Stay’ by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs or not-so-obvious ‘Dueling Tubas’)
-To ‘B’ or not To ‘B’: an obvious b-side hit mostly from the 60s when Hot 100 was a song rather than a singles chart like the Beatles ‘Revolution’ plus a choice of a b-side that stayed one like ‘Don’t Turn Around’ by Tina Turner)
-American Tune: mentioning a different American city (eg: Tanya Tucker’’s ‘Breakfast in Birmingham’; Glen Campbele’s ‘Galveston’ or Sufjan Stevens ‘Chicago’)
-A matter of life and death (recent death and a current birthday)
-Power couple: (example of two famous chart acts that at one time or another were married to each other)
11/19: Freda Payne and Gregory Abbott
11/26: James Taylor and Carly Simon
12/3: George Jones and Tammy Wynette
12/10: Louie Prima and Keely Smith
12/17: Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge
1/7: Sonny and Cher
…
More updates later.
Back to this thread’s subject, on the new officially titled ‘The Paul Gambaccini Collection’ (aired 8pm-10pm GMT on Sundays), Paul delves into his radio career memories of seven decades in the US and the UK, and brings a real shuffle in all genres of charts from the both sides of the Atlantic. But this is not a strictly structured show. His choice of what’s played on Sunday nights could reach his knowledge of popular music of the 1920s; during his career he counted down the official UK’s Classical or Jazz charts at some point in time. So the range of choices on what’s played on the new show can be tremendous.
His first show of 10/22/2023, he was interviewed by Steve Wright about his life and radio memories as he gave the reins of POTPs to Steve. And another ad-hoc episode followed on 10/29 in which for 2 hours he had his own choices of song dedication to all the personalities that make up the crew of Radio 2 (even newsreaders or the traffic crew).
But as he settled into his Sunday show, it is now known that his program is full of what is known as ‘regular series’ or ‘occasional series’. (The ‘series’ in UK radio lingo is a segment that’s inserted during the show; think of ‘last week’s Top 3’ or LDD during AT40, same type of thing).
These features during the last three months included:
-Countdown of All time top 5 favorites weeklies: (examples: 4/5/64 all-Beatles US chart, or 5/13/72 all soul US Top 5/rather Top 8!)
-The Long and Show End of It - an unusually long hit (usually a famed AOR-FM cut and unusually short one; examples of the former: Billy Joel’s ‘Scenes from an Italian Restaurant’, ‘Jungleland’ from ‘Born to Run’, or ‘Papa Was a Rolling’ Stone’; examples of a short one: ‘Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz, title track from Cat Stevens ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ or some obvious singles ‘Stay’ by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs or not-so-obvious ‘Dueling Tubas’)
-To ‘B’ or not To ‘B’: an obvious b-side hit mostly from the 60s when Hot 100 was a song rather than a singles chart like the Beatles ‘Revolution’ plus a choice of a b-side that stayed one like ‘Don’t Turn Around’ by Tina Turner)
-American Tune: mentioning a different American city (eg: Tanya Tucker’’s ‘Breakfast in Birmingham’; Glen Campbele’s ‘Galveston’ or Sufjan Stevens ‘Chicago’)
-A matter of life and death (recent death and a current birthday)
-Power couple: (example of two famous chart acts that at one time or another were married to each other)
11/19: Freda Payne and Gregory Abbott
11/26: James Taylor and Carly Simon
12/3: George Jones and Tammy Wynette
12/10: Louie Prima and Keely Smith
12/17: Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge
1/7: Sonny and Cher
…
More updates later.