On This Day 18/01/1968 I’m Backing Britain Campaign

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On this day 18 January 1968, it was reported that the government’s I’m Backing Britain was getting support from the country’s movers and shakers amongst the country’s musical fraternity including comments from two Welsh pop exports, Spencer Davis and Amen Corners Andy Fairweather Low.

A group of Surbiton typists began it all in December 1967 when they agreed to stay and work an extra half hour a day for free at a firm called Colt Heating. Within days they had become front-page news and many thousands followed their lead – in the face of great opposition from Trade Unions.

The media and establishment picked up their idea. Robert Maxwell took out “Buy British” ads in the papers and people were encouraged to sport T-shirts and badges emblazoned with “I’m Backing Britain” over a union jack.

The Duke of Edinburgh even lent his support saying it was “the most heartening news I’ve heard in 1967”. The campaign was made that much easier because – post devaluation – the pound now bought less overseas.

When asked about whether they’d be Backing Britain, Spencer Davis replied, “I’ve been backing Britain for a long time. I think the pop scene can definitely help the economy. All the groups could play a mammoth charity show for ten years to help the trade gap. Quite frankly the trade gap is being helped by The Beatles and the Stones selling so many records abroad. A lot of people don’t realise that when they put down groups because of their long hair and clothes. Anyway think how much long hair helps the shampoo manufacturers!

Andy Fairweather Low replied, “One can’t distinguish whether this is an intensified campaign boost the government’s sagging image, correction… Harold Wilson’s sagging image or, if it is genuine, and a few misguided people feel they can help. It’s been proved ants can’t move rubber tree plants. If everyone owned up, the truth would be that each individual puts his interests first. I would sympathise if the movement was backing Wales Home Rule.

On This Day 06/01/1968 Tom Jones/ South Africa

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On this day, 6 January 1968, the music press announced that Welsh singer Tom Jones was to perform in South Africa in front of segregated audiences.

Jones manager Gordon Mills said he had received a “tremendous offer” for Tom to tour South Africa for three weeks in early summer and had flown to Johannesburg on Boxing Day to discuss the offer.

If the tour scheduled to last 21 days is agreed, Tom Jones would have to play to segregated audiences as South Africa’s apartheid policy prevents white and coloured people from attending concerts in the same auditorium.

Asked whether he would sing under these conditions, Tom commented : “I’ll sing to white people, and I’ll sing to coloured people. The fact that they cannot be in the building at the same time is not my fault and no amount of preaching from me will change that, as some other singers have already proved.

“Everyone knows that I hate colour prejudice but would rather sing to them this way than not at all.”

Gordon Mills said : “Until I get to South Africa I don’t know fully what the situation is, but my first reaction is that Tom will obey the laws of the country in the exact same way as we would expect any foreigner coming here to obey our laws.”

If Tom, currently no 3 in the singles chart with “I’m Coming Home” makes the trip, it would be his first visit to South Africa.

The tour didn’t take place, largely due to Tom’s loathing of apartheid and the harm it would have done to his image at the time, though he did controversially perform in South Africa later, in 1976.

Jones was quick to point out that he would not have toured if his audiences weren’t mixed and that back home he avoided a British Musicians Union ban by showing press- clippings illustrating that his audiences were apparently multi-racial.

On This Day 16/12/1967 Tom Jones

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On this day 16 December 1967, the Melody Maker reported on the dilemma faced by Welsh singing legend Tom Jones,

Tom Jones is a man with a problem. And the problem is, where do I go from here?

The singer with a million dollar plus payout next year - from big cabaret dates in New York and Las Vegas - has to go forward in his career or stagnate.

His "I'm Coming Home" is bouncing massive sales on the cash registers of Britain, but Tom said last weekend "I have to move on from being just a singer to something else. I don't want to have to concentrate on making hit singles in the future."

Tom's success on the treadmill of pop single success has been large and impressive, but it's not enough which is why 1968 will see Tom Jones launched on his first movie project- - as reported in last week's MM.

"In this business you;re either a singer making hits or in films. I have to move into films If I am going to expand as an artist. "I don't cater for screamers anymore. That's why I toured recently with a big band rather than a group.

"It was a polished show and the audience had to sit and listen. And they really enjoyed it.

"Before I did the tour. I was worried about whether working with the Ted Heath band was a wise move. It was.

"It was good music and I felt happy and relaxed and able to give a good show."

Tom rates being on the road with a fine big band as one of his b ig highlights of 1967, perhaps his most successful year ever.

The other highlight? "Doing the Royal Command Performance, which was great."

Tom's first film will be set in the Bahamas and feature him as a West Indies playboy who races hydroplanes. It's essentially an action role, which is how Tom sees his future in films.

"Anything I do will have to have a lot of action and let me move around a bit, and musn't rely too much on speech.

"Originally, we planned that I would sing just a title song over the credits but I think we will have to fit a song into the script somewhere. People will expect me to sing a song, so I suppose I'll have to do do one."

Branching into films means a lot to Tom Jones. Was he prepared for failure on the wide screen? "No, one of the things I musn't do is make a bad film. That's why I waited so long. I could have made a film at the time "It's Not Unusual" was a hit, but it would not have been right for me. This one cannot be bad. We've spent a long time preparing for it and making sure it'll be good,"

Tom has seen a lot of singers go into film - and live to regret the celluloid rubbish they have been saddled with. He is determined not to tread the path of Elvis Presley and turn out 90 minute musically nothings that will do him more harm than good.

It's another Christmas at home for Tom and family this year, but this time, his parents will be with him and not home in Wales.

The have recently moved into Tom's old house at Shepperton - a stone's throw from Tom.

"They'll be with me on Christmas Day," said Tom. "We'll be spending the day pretty quietly, I expect - just the feet up with a good dinner and lots of drinks and lots of records playing."

That just about sums up Tom's idea of relaxation: bed till noon or later, then hours of spinning records, both for entertainment and in the search for new material.

He is hoping that over the Christmas period he can come up with a song for his next single. "I still want to do an up-tempo number, but I can't seem to find a good one.

"If the tempo's right, the melody is usually weak. That's why I seem to record a good ballad than a bad up-tempo song just for the sake of it.

"I recorded a few things at the same time as I made "I'm Coming Home" but none of them were are suitable for a single. They are ballads with a Country and Western feel and I think I should avoid them for the time being."

The Jones boy - the singer with muscles in his voice - can look forward to 1968 with more glee than most of us. After all, with all his work abroad, devaluation is working for him and not against him. Oh, for problems like his.

On This Day 14/12/1968 Dave Edmunds/Love Sculpture

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On this day, 14 December 1968, Melody Maker featured a report on the success of Sabre Dance, recording by Welsh band Love Sculpture, lead by Dave Edmunds.

When John Peel featured the special taping of "Sabre Dance" on his Top Gear Radio One Show, the letters started pouring in.

"Where," they pleaded "can we get a recording of this tune" and "What's the name of the group playing it?"

Easy to answer the second query. The group is called Love Sculture. But a single was non-existant. However, Love Sculpture soon put that right.

They have recorded "Sabre Dance" and it was released last Friday week. and immediately jumped into the MM chart.

So who is this group with the romantic name? It consists of three Cardiff boys, Dave Edmunds, lead vocals and guitar, John Williams, bass guitar, and Bob "Congo" Jones on drums.

"We'd been playing in Wales for about seven months when we decided to come to London with the idea of making it. It seems to be in London where it all happens. We had just about got as far as we could in Wales." says Dave.

And how did the group get its name? "Our drummer was reading a book of horror stories, one of them was called 'The Ohio Love Sculture' We liked the name and just abbreviated it," adds Dave.

Love Sculpture had previously recorded a tune called "River To Another Day" it had some airplays, but didn't sell too well," says Dave.

"There probably wasn't enough publicity for the group at the time.

"But John Peel heard the record and liked the B side - 'Brand New Woman' So he booked us i nto Top Gear.

"We wanted to do something a little different for the programme, so I arranged 'Sabre Dance' John featured it twice on the programme and requests started coming in for a recording.

"Now, wherever we play we are asked for 'Sabre Dance' That one show has certainly made a difference. Already we've been asked to tour with the Amen Corner, now all we need is some TV exposure, as 'Sabre Dance' is more of a visual thing"

On This Day 13/12/1969 Mary Hopkin

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On this day 13 December 1969, the Melody Maker reported on Welsh singer Mary Hopkin and the choice of songs for January's Eurovision Song Contest.

Mary Hopkin, Britain's 1970 representative at the contest will sing six songs from which viewers will choose the British entry.

Mary will feature one each a weekk on Cliff Richard's forthcoming BBC-1 series starting in January.

The songs chosen by Mary and the joint BBC TV and Music Publishers Association Committee are : "I'm Gonna Fall In Love Again" by Cyril Ornadel and Hal Shaper, "Easy in The Morning Of Your Life" by Alan Hawkshaw and Ray Cameron, "Can I Believe" by Valerie Avon and Harold Spiro, "Knock,Knock, Who's There?" by Geoff Stevens and John Carter, "Three Ships" by Guy Fletcher and Doug Flett, and "You've Everything You Need" by Anthony Dyball and Roger Reynolds.

At Amsterdam, the song was performed seventh on the night, after France's Guy Bonnet with "Marie-Blanche", and before Luxembourg's David Alexandre Winter with "Je suis tombé du ciel". At the end of judging that evening, "Knock, Knock Who's There?" took the second-place slot with 26 points after Ireland's "All Kinds of Everything", performed by Dana. The UK received points from nine out of a possible eleven voting juries.

The single was released in March 1970, backed by "I'm Going to Fall in Love Again" (the runner-up in the Song for Europe final) on the B-side. On 28 March 1970, "Knock, Knock Who's There?" entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 7, the highest new entry of the week. It peaked at No. 2 and remained on the chart for 14 weeks.

Rather different from her usual material, Hopkin rarely performed the song after the Eurovision due to her distaste for it. She later commented: "I was so embarrassed about it. Standing on stage singing a song you hate is awful." She also referred to it as humiliating. At the time, she conceded victory gracefully saying that "the best song won" and wished Dana well.

On This Day 27/11/1980 Sad Café

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On this day, 27 November 1980, rock band Sad Café played Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens.

Formed in Manchester in 1976, who achieved their peak of popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They are best known for the UK Top 40 singles "Every Day Hurts", "Strange Little Girl", "My Oh My" and "I'm in Love Again", the first of which was their biggest hit, reaching number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1979.

In October 1980 the band released their fourth studio album titled Sad Café, produced by Eric Stewart of 10cc fame.

The album failed to continue the success of the band's previous album and it charted at number 46 on the UK Album Charts. It was also certified silver by the BPI in February 1981.

In the UK, two singles were released, "La-Di-Da" and "I'm in Love Again" both of which charted on the UK Singles Chart.

Sad Café split up in 1990.

Band

Paul Young – lead vocals

Ashley Mulford – lead guitar, backing vocals

Ian Wilson – rhythm guitar, backing vocals

Vic Emerson – keyboards

Dave Irving – drums

Lenni – saxophone

Des Tong – bass, backing vocals

On This Day 24/11/21970 The Beach Boys

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On this day, 24 November 1970, American band The Beach Boys played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre on the band’s 1970 European Tour.

The band had recently released their sixteenth studio album, Sunflower, their first on Reprise Records.

It received favorable reviews, but sold poorly, In the UK, the album peaked at number 29.

Fans generally consider Sunflower to be the Beach Boys' finest post-Pet Sounds album. It has appeared in several critics' and listeners' polls for the best albums of all time, including Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" (2003).

The track "All I Wanna Do" was later cited as one of the earliest examples of dream pop and chillwave. Many Sunflower outtakes and leftover songs later appeared on subsequent Beach Boys releases, including the follow-up Surf's Up (1971) and the compilation Feel Flows (2021).

Tour - Setlist

Cotton Fields

(Lead Belly cover)

Darlin'

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Country Air

I Can Hear Music

(The Ronettes cover)

Sloop John B

([traditional] cover)

Vegetables

Riot in Cell Block #9

(The Robins cover)

Tears in the Morning

God Only Knows

Forever

Good Vibrations

Encore:

I Get Around

It's About Time

On This Day 07/11/1964 The Beatles

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On this day, 7 November 1964, music legends The Beatles played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre.

it was the 24th date of The Beatles’ 1964 British tour and a return to the Capitol.

The group had previously performed at the venue on 27 May 1963, and returned for their final UK tour date on 12 December 1965.

They performed two concerts on this night, for which they were paid £850. Their set throughout the 1964 tour contained 10 songs: ‘Twist And Shout’, ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘Things We Said Today’, ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’, ‘I Should Have Known Better’, ‘If I Fell’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’.

The support acts on the tour were The Rustiks, Sounds Incorporated, Michael Haslam, The Remo Four, Tommy Quickly and Mary Wells, and the compère was Bob Bain. The evening’s two shows began at 6.30pm and 8.50pm.

Mike from Newport on the BeatlesBible website had this to say about the memorable evening - “I remember going to see this concert with my sister ( from Newport by train),it was the 6 .30 pm show.

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I remember Mary Wells singing ‘My Guy” The Beatles opened with ‘Twist and Shout’. they were were dressed in light grey ‘Beatle jackets’ near the end of the song, John Lennon took his tie off and threw it into the front row !,

It was a loud, crazy night. I still have the ticket stub, and one from the Bob Dylan 1966 show !

Footage from the visit in 1964 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PknnUXESgSI