“Greetings Pop Pickers”: those words were the weekly introduction to Pick of the Pops as spoken by the legendary Disc Jockey (DJ), Alan “Fluff” Freeman, over the airwaves of BBC Radio’s Light Programme, throughout the 1960’s. On Sunday afternoons, between 4 & 5pm, he would give a weekly update of the British Hit Parade, with chart movements, new entries into the Top Twenty, new releases and as a “finale” he would play each of the Top Ten Singles in ascending order. He was therefore an eye witness to the biggest revolution in the history of popular music and culture – The Beatles.
The British Hit Parade, in the years either side of 1960, was dominated by American recording artists and the British singers who did make the “Top Ten” would have mainly covered American songs, which is evident when paging through 40 years of NME Charts (from 1952 to 1992). The song “Tower of Strength” sung by Frankie Vaughan, which reached No. 1 in November 1961, was a cover of Gene McDaniels’ original recording which reached No. 5 on the American charts.
Britain in the 1950’s was still recovering from the damaging effects of the Second World War (1939 to 1945) and although the British had been on the winning side, it certainly did not feel like it as austerity and food rationing were the order of the day. Economic improvement had been slow to begin with but was starting to pick up when the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan made...
