Green Apple Radio

Recorded on 27 November, 2009 and broadcast on Radio Hope, Liverpool on 29 November.  This episode features artists such as the Hollies, Small Faces, The Fourmost, The Searchers, The Who, The Kinks and Procul Harum.  Look out for some period ads and a rare Rolling Stones at the BBC session too.  This week’s A-Side/B-Side concentrates on Peter and Gordon and the Beatle Spot sees the Eight Day’s A Week session come to light with a bonus of a rare trailer for Help! thrown in for good measure.

New episodes are available every Friday at four o’clock (GMT) on Radio Hope.  

http://www.radiohope.co.uk  

A vintage episode of the Record Session with my very special guest Mr David Paton and is one of my favourite episodes.  Perhaps best known as a member of the hugely underrated pop band Pilot and bass player with Elton John, Davie contributes two specially recorded live tracks and talks about some of his favourite records. 

This programme was recorded on the 3 March, 2009 and broadcast on Radio Six International on the 8 March. The programme attracted a big audience on its debut and has since been repeated many times. Enjoy!

Live session details:

Fellow Man from the album of the same name(!)

Heavenly Harmony from the Beagle Hat project

The Sixties Party second series reaches episode three. Recorded on the 11 November, 2009 in Liverpool at G.A Studios. The episode was broadcast two days later on Friday 13 on Radio Hope. Featured artists this week include The Supremes, The Roulettes, The Who, The Hollies, Lovin’ Spoonful and The Rumours amongst many others. Look out for the period adverts and this week’s A-Side/ B-Side featuring Chris Farlowe and a new feature – The Beatle Spot which this week sees the boys record There’s A Place.

New episodes are available every Friday at four o’clock on Radio Hope.

http://www.radiohope.co.uk

The Sixties Party continues with another archived episode. This edition is from the second series and was originally broadcast on Radio Hope, Liverpool. Recorded on the 4 November, 2009 it was broadcast on Friday 6 November. Featured artists include Billy J Kramer, The Knickerbockers, The Marvelettes, The Shadows. This week’s A-Side/B-Side features the Rolling Stones.

The Sixties Party isn’t simply about getting together with a pile of your mates with a pile of booze and dancing to Sixties records! Well, there’s a bit of that in there. After all it wouldn’t be the Sixties if you couldn’t dance, would it? The Sixties Party is much more than that. It is an ideology and a Sixties outlook. If there was such a thing as a political party dedicated to the Sixties then we’d be it! It’s about Mod, rock n roll, psych, Motown and all of that stuff! If you know your Sixties then you’ll have found an oasis in the desert. If you don’t, you’ll have stumbled upon a brilliant selection of music presented in an informative way with much humour along the way. This programme references anything connected to the Sixties; be that politics, cinema, TV, Ads, music, theatre, literature or whatever…if it’s Sixties we’ll be doing it - sooner or later. Tune in every Friday – The weekend actually does start here!

This is the first of the archive shows for George Burton's Record Session. The idea of the show is outlined below for a bit of background. The show also has some specially recorded live session's fom the musical guests and is packed with great and sometimes suprising material. One thing's for sure - you never know what you're going to hear on the Record Session! "When I was at school, we used to get together in each others houses, bringing along all our latest records which were either bought, borrowed or nicked! It was a case of bringing something to play to your mates that you thought they would love. I've never forgotten those sessions and I picked up on a huge amount of music that otherwise would just have passed me by. Each week I aim to have a guest along who will bring some records for us all to hear and tell us why they picked them. Anything goes. Look out for regular features like "A Side B Side" and "The Word on the Street". Meantime I will bring in a wide selection of material from my library which I've been building since the old days of the original record sessions - it's music from everywhere and for everyone!"

George Burton talks with Glasgow author Ken McNab about his new book "The Beatles In Scotland"

The decision to break up The Beatles’ legal partnership was taken on the beaches of the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland. That’s according to a new book The Beatles in Scotland by author Ken McNab. He reveals how McCartney's Scottish retreat saved him from a nervous breakdown during those dark, agonising days and his love affair with Scotland is fully revealed with interviews from the locals who know him best.
The book takes us on a journey to uncover the perhaps surprising role Scotland played in the development of the group before and during its lifespan. That and the continued role the country has played within the world’s most celebrated band. The book tells the story of the band’s association with Scotland from a time when they were complete unknowns during their first tour in 1960, through the Scottish leg of their UK tours and to the revelation that the decision to break the group up was taken north of the border. He also explores the personal connections band members had with the country, from John Lennon’s childhood holidays in Durness, George Harrison’s visits to the Isle of Skye to the McCartney’s bolt hole on the Mull of Kintyre all illustrated using new interviews with members of the band’s inner sanctum to reveal previously unheard stories.
McNab discloses how the Scottish Highlands would open up John Lennon’s creative mind and fuel his desire to become an artist, and how the area provided an escape and a stark contrast to the austere background and grime of post war Liverpool. He also tells the untold story of the Scottish Beatle, whose birthright has been largely airbrushed out of the band’s history. Original bassist Stuart Sutcliffe was born in Edinburgh and was one of Lennon’s closest and most influential friends. It was Stuart who gave the band their name and it was he who was pivotal in introducing the famous Beatle hairstyle. Sutcliffe, who has since been hailed as one the great painters of his generation died aged just 21 and only months before the group began their journey proper, en route to their destination as the biggest band in the world. McNab investigates Sutcliffe’s family origins exposing a strong Scottish connection and explores the lasting influence he continued to have on the Beatles.

The first Beatles tours were in Scotland, and this book gives the background story of how they cut their teeth in locations such as Alloa, Peterhead, Forres and Nairn as they criss-crossed the Highlands in a beat up old van in May 1960. Unbelievably, the author has tracked down some of these original fans who saw the band play at these very gigs and their memories provide a powerful insight into what those shows were actually like. The book also reveals for the first time how Scotland was at the forefront of Beatlemania before the rest of the UK by telling the story of all of the band's Scottish concerts from 1963 through to the end of their touring days in 1965. Again, backed up with eye-witness accounts from police officers, ambulance workers, press photographers and theatre bouncers, he paints a unique picture of the madness that accompanied shows in Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Also, in a series of exclusive interviews, Ken McNab talks to the many Scottish personalities who were part of the band's inner sanctum during and beyond the heady days of Beatlemania. These include Lulu, Donovan, Sir Jackie Stewart, Hamish Stuart, Marmalade, Gallagher and Lyle and a host of other Scots who hitched a ride on the Beatle bandwagon.
The book will also include a number of never-before-seen pictures of the group as well as intimate private photographs illustrating how The Beatles really did love Scotland.
This then, as told by Ken McNab, is Scotland’s role in the story as four boys from Liverpool conquered the world.

I caught up with Ken to get some more on his book The Beatles in Scotland.

copyright © 2008 Burton Production Ltd (UK)