Various Artists - BBC TV’s “Old Grey Whistle Test”

Details:

• Year of release : 1975
• Label : Super Beeb BELP004
• Review format : LP

Released four years after the beginning of music show the Old Grey Whistle Test this compilation was seems to have intended to further showcase some of the artists that had appeared on the show as well as the show itself. My suspicion is that it was compiled to try to recreate on vinyl the same feeling as the TV programme, supported by the fact that the shows theme tune, Area Code 615’s Stone Fox Chase is both the opening track on side one and the closing track on side two.

The then just starting to break Queen are represented through early single Keep Yourself Alive, the 1973 solo Roger Daltry song One Man Band, yes a cover of a number Leo Sayer wrote for him (he wrote quite a bit for Daltry actually) as well as scored a hit with himself is included and a personal favourite, Dobie Gray’s Drift Away is also a highlight. Quite honestly I probably wouldn’t have bought it elsewhere if it wasn’t on this collection but that’s the beauty of the compilation isn’t it?

Elsewhere Pretty Things, then signed to Zeppelin’s Swan Song label can be found performing the superb Singapore Silk Torpedo and preceding a Roberta Flack song! Whilst side “a” closes with then emerging pomp-rockers Supertramp performing Dreamer before Rick Wakeman gets all symphonic with Katherine Howard.

The full track listing reads as follows…

Side one

1) Stone Fox Chase - Area Code 615
2) Keep Yourself Alive - Queen
3) I’ve Been Working - Van Morrison
4) Drift Away - Dobie Gray
5) Dreamer - Supertramp
6) Katherine Howard - Rick Wakeman

Side two

1) One Man Band - Roger Daltry
2) Singapore Silk Torpedo - Pretty Things
3) Jesse - Roberta Flack
4) Love Has No Pride - Bonnie Raitt
5) Vigilante Man - Ry Cooder
6) Stone Fox Chase - Area Code 615

Summary : An interesting and quite varied compilation that I think succeeds in recreating the variety that could be found on the Old Grey Whistle Test but lets itself down by not actually being performances recorded for the show. This would have been a whole lot more important document if the BBC could have gone for actual “live in the studio” versions but I guess contractual issues precluded that. A decent enough hours entertainment anyway with the tracks being a nice snapshot from 1971-1974.

The cover does however provide the explanation of how the programme was given it’s name…

“Well, in the early “Tin Pan Alley” days of the industry, before the advent of 45’s and L.P.’s when a record company got the first copies from the factory, the executives would get hold of one and take it to the doorman, the cleaners, the packers and the deliverymen and all the older hands - the old greys, as they were called, and they would play it to them. If after a couple of hearings they could whistle the tune then it was considered a potential hit record - it had passed the Old Greys Whistle Test.” Michael Appleton (producer of OGWT)

If You Listen To One Track Listen To : Drift Away - Dobie Gray

Score : 3/5

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BL