As Queen, Pink Floyd and Bowie were listening to Bi-bi-si
Howard Timberlake, BBC Culture.
Now the legendary artists and the rock group at the time, to get the “sebatinsky” aired on radio bi-Bi-si, were forced to pass some sort of exam to audition before a special Commission. Someone overcame this stage with glitter, and some whom it did not work, found out the correspondent of BBC Culture.
The Beatles and Blues musicians
Britain of the mid-1960s, bathed in musical innovation. The charts were regularly attended by The Beatles and bands such as John Mayall & the Blues Incorporated and been so diligent, tried hard to transplant on British soil of American Blues. Future stars — The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Faces started to light up.
and radio Bi-bi-si, in trying to answer the queries of the youth audience, decided to compete with the then fashionable pirate stations and launched several new music programs. In “Saturday club” appeared already established groups and performers, and, say, in Top Gear spinning new music.
If your group wanted to get national publicity, it was important to audition for Bi-bi-si.
The selection panel of the talent
To get to bi-Bi-si, young talents to start was to fill in a detailed form with a request to audition. Such statements were very numerous, and the staff of the national broadcaster had to deal with them.
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If you or your group were among the lucky ones, you have been invited to sing in front of the editors of Bi-bi-si three of their songs. The evaluation considered as the originality of the music, and the professionalism of execution.
During these mini-concerts were record, which was called the trial of the ether. These tapes were then occlusive the ad hoc Group for the selection of talents, which included many employees of Bi-bi-si, responsible for the music broadcasting.
Who is who
The application that you see in the picture is the second attempt of the Who to ensure that they listened to Bi-bi-si. (According to this document, while bass guitarist John entwisle preferred to call himself John brown.).
From the application it is seen that in 1964 the group had already participated in the program bi-Bi-si “beat room”, but under a different name — The High Numbers. Shortly after this application was held radiobut The Who on the national public broadcaster.
Jethro Tull
“The group with great success uses the flute”
If in doubt, add a flute. One of the groups who have resorted to such tricky tactics to impress the Bi-bi-si, became Jethro Tull. Led by singer, guitarist and flutist Ian Anderson, the group received from the Commission almost unanimously “Yes.”