EXCERPTS FROM RICHARD WILLIAMS ARTICLE ABOUT THE DEATH OF CHARLIE GILLETT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/mar/17/charlie-gillett-obitu...

Few people can have opened so many ears to such a variety of music over the last four decades as Charlie Gillett, the author and radio disc jockey, who has died aged 68 after a long illness. Charlie wrote the first serious history of rock'n'roll and went on to become a central figure in drawing together the confluence of international sounds that became known, to the benefit of many artists whose work might otherwise have remained in obscurity, as world music.

"[...] I wouldn't be very convincing introducing a record that I didn't personally like".

Charlie studied for his MA at Columbia University. The history of rock'n'roll became the subject of his thesis, long before popular music became an acceptable topic for academic study. Returning to England in 1966, he taught social studies and film-making, another lifelong enthusiasm, at Kingsway College of Further Education, now Westminster Kingsway, in central London, and he spent the evenings turning his thesis into a book.

Attempting to find a niche in journalism, he wrote for New Society, Anarchy and the soul music magazine Shout before securing a column in Record Mirror, in which he could express his enthusiasm for rhythm and blues and early rock'n'roll. But it was when THE SOUND OF THE CITY was published in the US in 1970, to great acclaim, that his reputation was established. The book looked beneath the surface of the first 15 years of rock'n'roll, tracing its antecedents and making thoughtful, typically unpretentious assessments, not just of the musicians but of the fledgling industry and its visionary hustlers. Its avoidance of received wisdom inspired countless authors to pursue its themes in the subsequent decades.

Charles Thomas Gillett, radio presenter, author and music publisher, born 20 February 1942; died 17 March 2010

[continueed from the long and winding tribute to the Beatles. Part III: from Yellow Submarine to the End (a)]
In the beginning of 1969 the Beatles were recording was was to be their last album to be released. They documented the recordings called the 'Get Back sessions', which were to become "Let it Be" the documentary, awarded an Oscar for original song score and a grammy for best original score in 1970. The lp produced by Phil Spector in his famous wall of sound approach is the only one in the whole of the Beatles career, not to be produced by George Martin. Spector's approach didn't please McCartney, and along with the rest of the disappointments in the Beatles collaboration due to constant disagreements, the album as well as the movie, represent the band inescapably heading towards the end of their artistic collaboration and the bitterness as well as sadness that the situation involved. Still, the Beatles even under such conditions managed to create beautiful, memorable songs that stood the test of time. Inviting keyboardist Billy Preston, in an attempt to create a 'less tense atmosphere' George Harrison, managed once again to bring music in the spotlight and push the differences the band members had, in the corner for a while longer. The surprising 'roof top concert' on the rof top of the Apple Corps. offices was the last live appearance of the Beatles, to the delight of the people working in nearby offices and passers-by, who were lucky to witness it, and a proof of the Beatles ability to play great music together as a live band. Paul McCartney made a new production of this lp in 2003, known as "Let it Be, naked", where he offered his approach of what the album should have sounded like.
The same year, the Beatles gathered in the studio once more, to record another album, which was to be their last. They summed up the bits and pieces of unfinished songs and recording attempts, added a few more masterpieces, got photographed crossing the street in front of Abbey Road studios, and named the album Abbey Road as a tribute to the place they made their music for the last 6 years.
The album includes what Frank Sinatra called his favourited Lennon-McCartney song and the "greatest love song of all times", which incidentally is George Harrison's 'Something'. It also includes a song Lennon wrote for Timothy Leary's campaign 'Come Together', the second song Ringo Starr ever wrote 'octopus's garden', the sunny "Here Comes the Sun', by Harrison and the masterful 'She's so heavy' by Lennon, whos' guitar solo has been imitated by rock musicians ever since. McCartney added some marvelous unfinished ideas (She came in through the bathroom window, Mean Mr. Mustard, and all four Beatles contributed to a grand ending, with a solo each and the conclusion that "the love you take is equal to the love you make".
Danai

In 1968 the Beatles, obliged by their UA contract to make another movie, agreed to the making of an animation movie that presented their characters. The movie's script was written by four collaborators including Eric Segal, and the animations were created by a team headed by Heinz Edelmann, while george Dunning directed it. The Beatles characters appeared to be saving Pepperland from the Blue Meanies, after an Odyssey-like trip, through the sea of time, sea of monsters, sea of Nothing, sea of holes etc. in a yellow submarine.Arriving in Pepperland they imitated Pepperland's own Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, to bring back music and color back to the devastated, gray, silent, petrified Pepperland. The Beatles got involved with the movie as little as possible. They provided some old songs including 'Yellow Submarine' and some new ones they didn't consider first class, however they were more than satisfied with the results and the reception.
The same year after a trip to India, to study transcendal meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (who was the inspiration for Lennon's song 'Sexy Sadie') the Beatles returned to England and recorded 'The Beatles', their only double lp, better known as 'the white album'. The chaotic creation of it pointed out to the inescapable arrival of the end for the group, each member recording his own songs, often without participation from the others. During the recordings, Ringo was the first to declare he was leaving the band, however he returned to find his drumkit covered in flowers by George Harrison, after the other three begged him to stay. The album included a sound collage (Revolution 9), proto-punk (Helter Skelter), ska (Obladi Oblada), Surf sound (Back in the USSR), folk and country ballads (Dear Prudence, Rocky Racoon), a lullaby (Good Night), and oldie tunes (Honey Pie), to name a few. Its cover was the exact opposite of their previous release (Sgt. Pepper's) all white, a conceptual art approach, created by yet another notable pop artist Richard Hamilton. This album sadly bears the unfortunate leagacy of inspiring Charles Manson to commit the Tate-La Bianca murders.
The album has been accused of being asymmetrical and shapeless in its approach. George Martin wished at the the time to cut it down to one lp. But as Ringo noted "yes it should have been two records, the white and the whiter album".
[continues in the long and winding tribute to the Beatles. Part III: from Yellow Submarine to the End (b)]

[continued from the long and winding tribute to the Beatles. Part I: from Rubber Soul to Magical Mystery Tour (a)]
The rivalry between the Beach Boys and the Beatles resulted in both groups releasing their most important works. The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" was soon followed by the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely hearts Club Band". In Brian Wilson's words, with this lp the Beatles achieved the sound he was aiming for. "Sgt. Peppers" was a concept conceived by Paul McCartney, in which the band would perform impersonating another band, thus regaining the freedom to play whatever they wished for without being 'framed' by the Beatles fame.
With this album the horizon of pop music widened, and the boundaries between pop culture and high art blurred. A classical orchestra, playing their music, while wearing gorilla masks, in a live event recorded for "A Day in the Life', the cutting up and editing of different takes and in different speeds of the music, the sound effects used consciously in various occasions during the recordings, aiming to create specific moods to the listener, the technological restraints turned into creative solutions by George Martin and the technicians at Abbey Road Studios, the unique sleeve design by artist Peter Blake, upon which the Beatles demanded to be pictured among their heroes, in order to pay their tribute, everything about 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' justifies its title as the pop Masterpiece.
George Martin still regrets leaving out of Sgt. Pepper's the dream-like revisiting of John Lennon's childhood memories of a Salvation Army orphanage called "Strawberry Fields Forever". This double A-side single, with a caleidoscopic carousel the listener takes a ride on, possibly positioned where the mentioned roundabout stands at "Penny Lane" on its other A-side, was the first one for the Beatles not to reach no 1 in the charts. Still, it seems it did make a lasting impression on us...
Having stopped touring and spending their time in the studio, the Beatles left little for their manager Brian Epstein to do, or so he thought. Unfortunately his frustrations got the best of him and he was found dead due to a pill overdose. The Beatles, unguided and most of all unprotected, for the first time in their career, decided to make a TV road-movie, a mix of music hall tunes/comedy, contemporary psychedelia, and musical set pieces by themselves. Magical Mystery Tour appeared in black and white on BBC during the Christmas holidays in 1967, but it was savaged by critics. However, Steven Spielberg, has mentioned noticing it as an art film, during his Studies. In any case, songs like "The Fool on the Hill", Hello Goodbye", "I'm the Walrus" stood the test of time.
The same year, the Beatles recorded and broadcasted live on TV for the first time ever, linking 24 countries, a song called "All you Need is Love".
Join us to find more about the Beatles during the third and last part of this tribute next Saturday at 12.

In the second part of the tribute to the beatles the focus is on the years between 1965 to 1967. During this time the Beatles, toured the world, produced four lps and made a movie.
'Rubber Soul' was the Beatles tribute to their heroes, the soul music of Motown, Wilson Pickett, Smokey Robinson etc. Although the considered themselves incapable of writing soulful tunes, their masterfully created songs "Drive my Car", 'Day Tripper", "The Word" with their funky beats prove them wrong. Moreover, the soul was infused in their own sound, always unique and always recognizable.
Pop tunes like "I'm Looking Through You", "You Won't See Me" were brilliant and powerful as ever, their sound at times became more 'grainy' like in "Nowhere Man", "Think for Yourself", "If I Needed Someone". Richness in the orchestration of the ballads appeared ("In My Life", "Michelle"), piano and strings added to the texture of the sound, which became gradually more and more complicated. In "Norwegian Wood" the sitar made it entrance to the pop scene, for the first time, pointing the direction towards the sound explorations of psychedelia.
"Revolver" followed, only to raise the bar of creativity even higher. With "Taxman" the Beatles commended on politics, "Eleanor Rigby" shed light to the lives of the lonely ones, "Dr. Robert" spoke directly of spychedelic substances. "Yellow Submarine" was the first pop song for kids, but also the first pop song to incorporate sound effects. The Beatles experimented extensively in the studio, with tape-loops, sounds recorded and played backwards and 'unorthodox' approaches to recording. Lennon sang while lying on the floor, the words to "I'm only sleeping", and demanded thet the technicians made him sound like the Dalailama on a mountaintop, for "Tomorrow Never Knows" (the title being another Ringo-ism by the way). In short, pop music was morphing into something new, unexpected, unpredictable. The Beatles, tired of touring to play live in front of ten of thousands of people, who couldn't hear them because of their own screaming and the limitations of that era's equipment, declared they would stop concerts and tours. Their music they were creating from 'Revolver' onwards, could no more be reproduced live with three guitars and a set of drums anyway. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, upon hearing 'Revolver' went on to create "Pet Sounds".

[continued from the long and winding tribute to the Beatles. Part I: the yeah yeah yeah years (a)]
The Beatles 4th lp was called Beatles for Sale. This could be called a country album of sorts, due to the guitar sound as well as the influences and the covers. The Beatles conquered US and returned home with records of their favoured artists, motown, R'nB, Bob Dylan, but also guitars that were characteristic of their favoured rockabilly and country and western sound. Lennon wrote his first Dylan-influenced autobiographical lyrics in 'I'm a loser'. 'Eight days a week' was the first song ever to start with a fade-in. Always in search for new ideas, they decided that if a song can end with a fade-out, it can very well start with a fade-in. From instant hits to calm ballads who's charm revealed iytself over the course of time, the Beatles tunes included surprising sound solutions, innovative or not. In 'I'll follow the Sun' the instrumentation was so bare that Ringo decided to keep the beat by patting his hands on his thighs. Singles or lp fillers their songs, were carefully structured, rarely repeating successful patterns, but rather creating new ones. In 'I feel fine' Lennon was proud to use feedback from a guitar's amplifier intentionally, on record for the first time.
'Help' was the second movie the Beatles made. 'Help' the song, was about what Lennon called his 'fat-Elvis' period. His autobiographical cry for help, couples nicely with McCartney's "yesterday". Just notice the lyrics! McCartney woke up one day having dreamed the melody and doubting that it was his own, he played it around to just about anybody, in fear that somebody would recognize an existing tune. This song is listed in the book of Guiness records for 6 million times of air-play, (the second song in the list, played 4 million times, is another McCartney original called 'Michelle'). During the shooting of 'Help' G. Harrison was introduced to Indian music. More about this you're welcome to find out during the second part of this tribute next Saturday at 12.

The Beatles, a little rock'n'roll group from Liverpool, England conquered the world in the 60s.
In these tribute shows we'll attempt to point out why. This first show covers the yeah yeah yeah years, from 'Please Please Me' to 'Help'. The Beatles produced a raw, charged rock'n'roll sound that made people doubt the were in fact a group of white boys. Their sound was closer to the original black rhythm'n'blues, than to Cliff Richard and the Shadows, and they never missed a chance to point that out in interviewws naming their musical heroes and paying their respects to them. With arrangements done by manager Brian Epstein, they entered Abbey Road studios in 1962. Producer George Martin, faced their sense of humor early on, when upon his invitation to name anything they disliked, George Harrison replied "well for starters, George, we don't like your tie!". Martin appreciated their daring humor as much as their music. He signed them, Pete Best was out, Ringo Starr was in, and their first single was 'Love me do'.
The Beatles were daring, but they balanced their street-wise wit with grace in their lyrics. In Please please me' they asked the girls to 'please them' but nevertheless, they asked politely! But The girls responded with shrieking manifestations of Beatlemania, from 'Please Please Me' onwards. 'Please Please me' was recorded in one marathon recording session, that lasted one day. last song to be recorded was 'Twist and Shout'. The same song was introduced later that year at the Royal Variety Show with Lennon's request: "for our next number, the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands, and the rest of you, if you just rattle your jewellery". Queen Elisabeth nodded in approval.
With 'She loves you' pop music left the "o, o, o" zone to enter a brand new new "yeah yeah yeah" era with the Beatles 2nd lp 'With the Beatles'. In the Beatles tradition whoever wrote a song usually was the one to sing the lead, so if you need to figure out who really wrote a Lennon/McCartney composition, just listen to who's singing it.
'I want to hold your hand' was the single to spread Beatlemania in the USA. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg said, after the assasination of President Kennedy, that this song made Americans get up and dance with joy – himself included, to the amazement of his intellectual comrades. After conquering USA, they Beatles made their first movie. Ringo is responsible for the title, since after a hard day's work said by mistake "It's been a hard day's night". This was the Beatles first lp to include only their own compositions and Lennon was responsible for most of them, not to say that McCartney didn't do his part. [the text is continued in the yeah yeah yeah years (b)]

The Sound of The City took the opportunity to start a trip back in time, since K103 studentradio turned 30 last year.
The first show dealt with the music of the decade between 1979 and 1989. The second show revisited tunes from 1989-1999. The third show dealt with the decade between 1999-2009. During that time, more and more people began to own PCs. The technologgy allowed them to listen to their music at their workstations which occupied more and more of their time. The cd market gradually gave in to music in the form of digital files with no pysical existence. Music production moved away from the studios of multinational music industries since it became possible to create it privately.
Fusion, and experimentation took all possible forms and paths, making it harder than ever to form a non-fragmented image of the music production of today.
The technologies fed the creative process with new options and solutions and the vast collection of previous existing music added endless variety and 'flavours' to the ever-changing mix. Ethnic hints continued to manifest themselves here and there, but nowadays, there seems to be an emancipation of the artists and the products of
their individual identities, 'ethnic' or otherwise.
At the same time, older existing musical styles got revived by new artists interested in becoming identified with 'legitimised' genres. Old established artists made creative comebacks and as usual certain individuals choose their own impressive personal path, that might make a mark if somebody happens to notice and spread the word. The music industry is old, tired and takes cover behing tested but old methods, that don't promote new creation. the distribution of music becomes chaotic, getting tastes of various new methods and approaches, the music as product is attempting to redefine itself, in what seems to be an endless re-shaping, and the packaging of this product seems to be disappearing rapidly. Huge quantities of sound files fit into tiny mp3 players, the size of our thumbs, so we get to carry them around, on us, like faceless, formless keepsakes, how weird and interesting is this?
Danai

The Sound of The City took the opportunity to start a trip back in time, since K103 studentradio turned 30 last year.
The first show dealt with the music of the decade between 1979 and 1989. The second show revisited tunes from 1989-1999. During that time the cd market took over, and vinyl became an expencive hobby for few dedicated or stubborn purists.
The music industry favoured rock once more. The independent labels led the way with bands that 'undressed' from the big perfectionistic production of the '80s. The sound became simple, stripped bare and at times even 'dirty' in an attempt to imitate the feel of past eras. At the same time, groups that invented their own sound and voice were appreciated and became big.
After Liverpool's Mersey Beat shook the world in the 60s, Manchester found its way to fame with their independent scene and brit-pop. Across the Atlantic ocean, REM became chart toppers for the masses, but the magnitude of Irish band U2 wasn't to be rivaled by anybody.
The market started looking towards various countries and cities in order to create new trends. World music was 'invented' and suddenly the world turned its eyes towards... the world. African musicians from Mali, Senegal, Capo Verde became megastars. But the biggest success of the decade was probably the phenomenon of Cuban senior citizens topping the charts and giving concerts around the world.
Meanwhile, sober single voices created their own personal paths in pop history or put a single mark on the music map.
The decade mixed mainstream pop with rich exotic world sounds, stripped bare rock and dance beats that revisited the funky 70s without guilt. In music the everyday was praised amidst the megalomania of an otherwise yuppie decade. Oh, and music videos did indeed become as important as the songs they visualised, perhaps even more important at times...
Danai

This Saturday, the Sound of The City takes the opportunity to start a trip back in time, since K103 studentradio turns 30 this year.
We’ll start with a visit to an era where A sides and B sides had a meaning to people who loved to listen to music. MTV was a novelty and video clips for songs were seen as something new and exciting.
On the A side: Digital technology and computer generated sounds were a new unexplored territory for the mainstream pop culture and people were amazed at special effects created by vocoders and other extraordinary technological achievements. Video killed the radio star, and an artifficial intellingence creation called Max Headroom did vocals for an avant-garde syntpop group (the art of noise). Rotoscoping allowed pencil scetch animation to be combined with live-action, in order to visually compliment pop songs for the first time, ever. Sampled rhythm tracks were laid down as rules for the next generations to follow, copy and further evolve. Artists facing the anxiety of what to do next, would turn to songs of the past a little less often than nowadays, but when they did they created memorable hits once again. New wave was in fashion and fluorescent colours were suitably accompanying 'far out' sounds and modern-urban-life-related lyrics.
On the B side: This era was marked by songs targeting social issues of urban poverty and alienation, a celebration of sexual preferences diversity, and the last breaths of cold war. Melodic pop music often 'coated' lyrics that were hard to 'swallow', making them to be easier understood and accepted. Independent music labels produced some of the most interesting songs and bands of the decade, while multinational record companies took their first hesitant steps towards the, then, new musical, unexpored –or as some would say, yet unexploited– territory of world music.
New wave, electronica and ska-reggae made use of the progressive, creative approach the punk movement left behind as heritage. Power pop for the dance floors, british jazzy R&B and the so called blue-eyed soul were dominating the charts, taking over from the familiar FM rock that was a sort of left-over-evolution from the previous decade's music creation.
The choices for this show are framed by the relations the songs create with each other, the availability of tunes and the importance to include a variety of sub-genres. Personal preferences highly influenced the final play-list choice, but after all, this is the sound of the city, the sound that surrounds us, our aural wallpaper, the sound that constantly, even if unconsciously, feeds our future memories. There is no way that a decade of song creation could fit into an hour-long radio programme. Many important bands and songs were excluded. Some of them because their life span and creation is wider than a decade, although they helped define it. Some will still be included at the last part of this tribute, so this November do stay tuned!

Danai