Steve Race

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley. You come from a mill school family, Steve?

Presenter0:09

No, not in the least. A really sensationally unmusical family. I come from a long line of Durham-lead miners, interspersed with an occasional Methodist minister. When did you decide that music was to be your career? Oh, there was never any doubt about that. I can't remember a time when I didn't play the piano. In fact, one of my earliest memories is actually playing the piano and wishing I could reach the pedals.

Presenter0:30

And to give my mother credit, she realized that she had this strange thing in the family, a budding musician. And although in my day and in the city where I came from, it was scarcely even heard of somebody being a professional musician, nevertheless she realised this had to be, took advice from a local boy who had made good, Frederick Jackson of the Royal Academy of Music. He heard me and started me off as a pupil of his.

Presenter0:57

What was the very first professional job you ever did?

Presenter1:00

Well, if professional means playing for money, it was at a church hall in Lincoln. I remember it particularly because the drummer

Presenter1:09

It was the drummer who contacted me to form this trio to play at St. Botolph's Church Hall. He was the organiser. He was the organiser, yes. And I later discovered to my anger that whereas I had received five shillings for it, he took seven and six for the organiser. You're not right. We're still friends, obviously, but. Your student days at the Royal Academy were interrupted by the war. Really, yes.

Presenter1:31

I went into the RAF for, I suppose, something like five and a half years now. Among all the beastliness, were there any opportunities for making music? Yes, I had bands and groups at various camps. Sometimes they were rather curiously made up due to the exigencies of the service. I remember one band I had for some months, which consisted of a very, very raucous trombonist, a violin, piano and drums. And how you orchestrate for that group, I still don't know to this day.

Steve Race1:58

Yeah.

Presenter1:59

Yes, there was a good deal of music making. I even conducted a brass band at one time and we played for the king, George VI, at Sandringham on one occasion. And when you were to mobilise?

Presenter2:09

I went into the dance band business. I kind of drifted into it really. In those days, they used to have what they called the band of the week from the Maid of Alex Dio. It was very often the same band under a different band leader. All the searcheneurs. Yes, it used to amuse us, really, that people used to say Jack Jackson's band is so much better than Lou Stone's band, when in fact we were all the same people. And I played then for bands led by old Jack Jackson, as I say, Lou Stone, George Elric.

Steve Race2:16

Oh yes.

Steve Race2:21

Say

Presenter2:35

And so on. And I went into the first post-war band organized by Cyril Stapleton. We played at a restaurant in London. And I remember catching the 6.36 in the evening to town and then catching something like the 1.32 a.m. back. A commuter? Yes, that's the point. You see, I was reflecting. Here was I doing the very thing I was trying to avoid doing. Only I was commuting at ridiculous times of day and night other than instead of the usual 8 to 5 job. And ever since then you've been a freelance. Yes.

Presenter3:06

What was the next exciting thing to turn up?

Presenter3:09

It was an offer from the BBC. Those were the immediately post-war days and all kinds of entertainers were coming out of the forces and were wanting to appear in television. And I was offered the job of resident accompanist to the BBC Television Auditions Unit. And I did that three or four mornings a week from 1946, I suppose, till about 1950. It wasn't always easy, because one person would come and throw me perhaps an excerpt from Vocek. And the next person would say, I sing in three choruses of Bye-bye Blues and go after Dixie and two in the key of E flat, you know the kind of thing. I did my best for them. You did a lot of children's television too. Yes, I went into a children's series on Saturday evenings called Whirligig. Those of course were the the golden days as far as performing was concerned and television because there was just the one station then and you began to form and lead all sorts of musical groups.

Presenter4:02

Yes, I was... I think I can say that I was a good accompanist. I mean, at the keyboard, I was a good accompanist, a moderately self-effacing accompanist. I had a good pair of ears. I was prepared to listen to what was going on. And this made me a good conductor, if I may say this, in the sense that I was prepared and able to follow singers. In television, this is a particular problem because, as you know, it's hysterically unworkable medium television, even to this day. And the musical director tends to have the producer shouting in one ear through his earphones and the singer singing in the other ear of the earphones. And he has to pursue a sort of middle course and roughly make everything come out right in the end while keeping an eye on the clock and bringing the show down at 28 minutes, 32 seconds. And I found in my younger days I was able to cope with this. I enjoyed it then too.

Steve Race4:25

It's una music.

Presenter4:49

And of course a lot of radio. Most of us will remember a series called Sing It Again that went on for a long, long time. It was years off my life, actually.

Presenter4:57

And uh what else? Housewives' choice, any questions?

Presenter5:01

Yes, I made a deliberate move around about that time, I suppose it was the early 1960s, to get away from the piano keyboard because I never was particularly in love with the piano, Roy. The piano to me was a means to an end. It was a way into music, into the musical profession. And once the keyboard had done its bit for me, then I wanted to get away from it and become a commentator on music. I wanted to enjoy music in a general sense, write music and so on. And I made a deliberate attempt in the early 60s to get away from music in the literal music-making sense and into, as you say, programmes like Any Questions.

Steve Race5:34

And

Presenter5:37

Now Steve, you were having this very active and busy life.

Presenter5:41

Then you were stricken down in a B B C studio some, what, five or six years ago? Yes, six years ago, in a studio not far from here. I had a heart attack. A coronary while actually seated one day at the microphone, I was weary and ill at ease, as the song almost goes.

Presenter5:55

Um was it overwork? Partly, yes, I was under fairly considerable pressures, but then one is in this business as a freelance. And of course, the thing which I think is so much part of it, I used to smoke thirty cigarettes a day.

Presenter6:08

for getting on for 25 years.

Presenter6:10

And you cannot abuse your body in this sort of way without paying the price. And I paid the price. I gave up smoking.

Presenter6:17

On May the 2nd, 1965. Never regretted it. No, never, of course not. No, never regretted it. I must say, I'm a bit of a nut on this, as you may know, Robert. All we reformed smokers are.

Steve Race6:21

Next

Steve Race6:27

I will