Tapes of Top Gear from 1969 and 1970

[ken garner]

I too would like to hear them, of course. I think I can be of some 
assistance with confirming your dates, here you go:

Sn 27/4/69 Eclection, new session first broadcast (plus repeated 
sessions from: Family, Principal Edwards Magic Theatre)
- yes, defintiely 27th, not 26th, and coincidentally that was the 
first Peel show Produced by John Walters, I wonder if Peel says 
anything about this in his links?

Sn 11/5/69 T.Rex, King Crimson (Fleetwood Mac, Bonzos)
- correct, King Crimson's first, by the way

Sn 18/5/69 Pentangle, John Dummer's Blues Band (Blodwyn Pigg, 
Mandrake Paddle Steamer)

Sn 29/6/69 Idle race, Led Zeppelin (Pentangle, Savoy Brown Blues Band)

Sn 6/7/69 John Hiseman's Coliseum, Imrat Khan (Pretty Things, John 
Dummer Blues Band)

Sn 27/7/69 Third Ear Band (Roy Harper, Ten Years After)
- my notes also say last record in show was Skyline Pigeon by Elton 
John! Got that?

...Top Gear moved to Saturday afternoons late Sept 69...

St 4/7/70 Country Joe McDonald (Fotheringay, Cochise)

St 11/7/70 Kevin Ayers + the Whole World, Son House (East of Eden)

Most of the major sessions there survived on tape, but I am not sure 
quite all of these are in the Radio 1 Archive, by the way, especially 
the Country Joe one, but I can check that easily enough...

ken


--- In peel@yahoogroups.com, "hills1902" <jandchill@...> wrote:
>
> I have some old 7 inch reel-to-reel tapes of eight Top Gear 
> programmes 
> that I recorded in 1969 and 1970, with sessions from the following 
> bands:
> 
> 26 Apr 69 - Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, Eclection, Family
> 11 May 69? - Fleetwood Mac, King Crimson, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Bonzo 
> Dog 
> Band
> Date unknown - Pentangle, Blodwyn Pig, Mandrake Paddle Steamer, 
John 
> Dummer Blues Band
> Date unknown - Ten Years After, Roy Harper, Third Ear Band
> 29 Jun 69 - Led Zeppelin, Pentangle, Idle Race, 
> 6 Jul 69 - John Dummer Blues Band, Colosseum, Pretty Things, Imrat 
> Khan
> 4 Jul 70 - Country Joe Macdonald, Fotheringay, Cochise
> 11 Jul 70? - Kevin Ayres, East of Eden, Son House
> 
> Some of the tapes are recorded at 3 3/4 inches per second and some 
at 
> 1 
> 7/8 inches per second, and are of complete programmes, though 
> unfortunately I edited out the half-hourly news on most of them. I 
> seem 
> to remember Radio 1 was only on medium wave at the time so quality 
is 
> not brilliant, but they were recorded by connecting to the speaker 
> terminals of a radio (not using a microphone). Also the tape 
recorder 
> was a bit dodgy and took about 10 mins to warm up to full speed so 
> some 
> of them now play back too fast for the first 10 mins or so! The 
tapes 
> also have various LPs of that era on them. 
> 
> Despite all their faults, is anyone interested in them ? I'm 
willing 
> to 
> send them by post in return for the postage (plus donation to 
charity 
> if there's a lot of interest), and would be interested in 
> copies on CD if that's what someone would like to do with them.
>