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Capital Radio

(Pat Sharp + Mick Brown) x Stock Aitken Waterman = London Child 'Helped'TRAILBLAZING London-centric commercial service originally concieved as an Attenborough-endorsed combination of pop radio with arts and drama programming, lent much clout by the multitasking presence of one Kenny Everett (who did all the jingles and promotional singles as well as presenting the flagship shows), alongside Gerald Harper pulling in huge audiences by giving away bottles of Lambrusco or something. By the late seventies the speech-heavy stuff was pretty much all gone, and the station bizarrely acquired national recognition through two Everett gambits par-excellence; the headline-grabbing rundown of the ‘Bottom Thirty’ worst records ever made, and the legendary serialised adventures of Captain Elvis Brandenburg Kremmen, much salivated over by those poor unfortunates in ‘other’ regions. Transmutation into Pop! service with a capital Pop! (and indeed Capital Pop!) more or less complete by the time ludicrously haired star DJ twosome Pat Sharp and Mick Brown hooked up with Stock Aitken & Waterman for a string of chart-friendly charity singles that cheekily expected the rest of the nation to give a flying fuck about Helping a London Child, while non-Londoner envy again raged over Chris Tarrant’s rightly celebrated ‘zoo radio’ Breakfast show. You don’t hear so much about it these days though.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Dave Nightingale

    August 20, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    A few bits for you all….

    http://www.jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1973_capital_r_jingle_package_10_mins.mp3

    http://www.jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/capital_weekends_here_1982.mp3 – ex Dave Clark 5 man Mike Smith and Kate Robbins (yes,that Kate Robbins) on vocal duties here,fact fans…

    http://www.mediafire.com/?6mvdtylytmm – the (in)famous Stock Aitken Waterman-esque late 80’s jingle… and yes,aired around the same time Pat & Mick had not stopped dancing…yet…

  2. GWR

    August 21, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    That first, famous Capital jingle package was produced at Abbey Road by George Martin – a sign of the station’s intent. In 1992, I found the 24-track master tape for it being used to prop up some shelves in a stationery cupboard. It was probably thrown away not long after that.

    The SAW-esque jingles of the late 80s/early 90s were produced by Who Did That Music? in Los Angeles.

  3. TGOBE

    January 8, 2011 at 9:39 pm

    “My name is Gerald Harper, welcome, to my Sunday affair.”

    Graham Dean and Nicky Horne also spring to mind but they all pale into insignificance next to Everett.

  4. thedoctorrr

    September 2, 2013 at 1:54 am

    Ah, the days of Peter Young, Roger Scott, Graham Dene, C.O.D., Dave Cash, Michael Aspel, Gary Crowley, David ‘Fluff’ Freeman and, of course, Kenny Everett. Just another reminder of how shit the majority of DJs are these days.

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