Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Musician who began his career during the skiffle explosion.
On the island
Eight records
I think my earliest childhood memory is of dancing in the corner to the radio and this particular record is obviously the one everybody knows, and I quite enjoy the idea of being alone on a desert island hearing the sound of Housewives' Choice across the air.
is a version, uh a a very attractive version of a song written by Hoy Con Michael called uh Stardust, and the singer is a Country and Western man in America who has made what's called a a crossover
I remember the player write David Story once saying that uh your life only changes once, and I think this record, The House of the Rising Sun by the Animals, was the thing that changed my life forever.
I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong
Most musicians. Can't dance. And uh this is one of the few records I can dance to. It also will bring back a memory, because I remember we stayed in Lowe's Midtown Motor Inn in New York in 1964, and on the same floor there were the Animals, The Supremes, Dion Warwick, and Marvin Gere.
Now this is someone who is enormously uh talented and uh takes a a very simple tune that most of us know called Body and Soul and does marvellous things with it, stretches it, uses the chord sequence as a basis and plays absolutely wonderful music.
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 "Pastoral" (The Storm)
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini
the piece I have chosen, which is orchestral, and uh I prob I probably would need on a desert island is the uh Beethoven's Symphony No. Six. And because it all is all Beethoven is very powerful, you can just drop the needle where you will, and I think what we have chosen is the storm.
Record number seven is my idol, really, someone who. Impress me. When I heard him, a wonderful piano player, a wonderful soulful singer with a lot of the church in him
I Ain't Got NobodyFavourite
I think this is a marvellous thing to finish with. Be having had to record myself and not particularly enjoying the process. It's quite a plastic experience going in the studios and trying to create emotion that when you hear on record somebody having a wonderful time and obviously enjoying it, I think this record would always cheer me up and always makes me laugh.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:35How did music come into your life?
My father had uh two brothers, and they all either sang or played the piano. When they all played by ear, my brother was taught. And, um, I can always remember music around. And I think in my grandmother's also there was a piano and the family used to come and visit. And on a Saturday night, after everybody had been to the the pub, everybody'd stand around and had to do their piece.
Presenter asks
6:48Where did the title, The Animals, come from?
Well, um, eventually we we ended up playing for uh a load of fellows who were called the Squatters. They were the rough edge of youth hostlers who weren't allowed, because they broke up the youth hostlers, to sleep so they used to sleep rough in sleeping bags and go out to uh market towns in Northumberland that y that had alcohol on all day. And we used to be their resident entertainers, myself and Eric Burden. I used to play the piano and he sang. And uh their leader was a guy called Animal Hogg. And um we actually took our name from him and also our behavior on stage was quite exaggerated and rough and ready. We were the original punks, I think. And uh the name just gradually evolved.
Presenter asks
8:16Was it a big step to quit [the Inland Revenue]?
No. Yeah I I was enormously frustrated. You either are ambitious or you you feel that, you know, you'll take life as it comes, but I felt that I had to change my life and I wasn't satisfied.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Because I'm self taught. It would always amuse me. And I'm trying to be smart. I thought of it the other day, is that it's the sort of calendar I could burn a key and still have an octave to play with after about three months.
Presenter asks
9:40Were you making a lot of money [with the Animals]?
I never saw it. We were very young and innocent and … Up till the the day I left the animals I was on fifty pound a week expenses and I never really saw it. It was like the gold rush. I don't think it was premeditated. I think that no one knew how long that rock and roll explosion was going to last.
Presenter asks
10:25You were right at the top and you quit. Was it because you felt you weren't getting a square deal?
Perhaps instinctively I felt deep down, but I had an enormous fear of flying. And uh I still do … And so I managed now to force myself on an airplane, but very irregularly. But in in those days I felt also it made you uh live too fast a lifestyle. … And after about fifteen months I just felt totally uh dried out.
Presenter asks
28:41How good would you be at looking after yourself on a desert island?
Uh in the beginning, quite good. I think most things tend to bore me. I've got a very short attention span, and I think I'd be very good for about the first two weeks and then I'd get very bored.
“I was a civil servant for five years. I was in the inland revenue. But uh I played a lot part time. And it was of an age, you know, when everybody felt everything was possible. And I wanted to take the chance. I didn't ever want to look back on my life and feel that I'd never tried to do it.”
“I ran away. I ran back to Newcastle and lived in a little flat for about six months till I sorted out really what I wanted to do and I felt that I'd j just had a bad start and uh I had to start all over again.”
“I think that if I was lost on this desert island with um a lot of time to be introspective, I think I'd have to listen again to uh The House of the Rising Sun. I remember the player write David Story once saying that uh your life only changes once, and I think this record, The House of the Rising Sun by the Animals, was the thing that changed my life forever.”
“I really am the innocent abroad actually. Because I I I felt that making films is gonna be obviously easier than going out in the road sitting on buses for hours on end and, um The hellish life that life on the road as a rock and roll musician is.”