[Barras]

Thanks for the Forth jingle-aircheck Iain, lots of jingles I`ve never heard before. The “namecheck” jingle for Max AM is good fun and carrying on from your aircheck work, I`ve been listening to some of the Radio Forth tapes I have and you beat me to it Iain re: Tommy Vance sweepers/liner for Radio Forth…here`s one I`ve just found for the Forth Superstation.

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1205402214_3680_FT59392_tommy_vance_forth_superstation.mp3 filename:tommy_vance_forth_superstation.mp3

David Barras

[DunsBus]

Barras wrote:
Thanks for the Forth jingle-aircheck Iain, lots of jingles I`ve never heard before. The “namecheck” jingle for Max AM is good fun and carrying on from your aircheck work, I`ve been listening to some of the Radio Forth tapes I have and you beat me to it Iain re: Tommy Vance sweepers/liner for Radio Forth…here`s one I`ve just found for the Forth Superstation.

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1205402214_3680_FT59392_tommy_vance_forth_superstation.mp3 filename:tommy_vance_forth_superstation.mp3

David Barras

You know, for all these years I was wondering who did the liners for the “Great Music Radio” Forth package, and I never twigged on that it was the late great Tommy Vance! I did wonder if it was him when listening yesterday to the montage that Iain compiled.

Another one that has just come to mind is the liner from that package, for the breakfast show: “Bobby Hain and Radio Forth… for a full Scottish breakfast”.

[DunsBus]

Barras wrote:
Thanks for the Forth jingle-aircheck Iain, lots of jingles I`ve never heard before. The “namecheck” jingle for Max AM is good fun and carrying on from your aircheck work, I`ve been listening to some of the Radio Forth tapes I have and you beat me to it Iain re: Tommy Vance sweepers/liner for Radio Forth…here`s one I`ve just found for the Forth Superstation.

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1205402214_3680_FT59392_tommy_vance_forth_superstation.mp3 filename:tommy_vance_forth_superstation.mp3

David Barras

What Forth stuff have you got, David?

[DunsBus]

Barras wrote:
DunsBus,

here`s a station song for Radio Forth by EMIson, not sure of the air-date…

http://www.4shared.com/file/40338372/7239e5ac/EMISON_Radio_Forth__station_song_.html?

David Barras

Barras – that would likely be the original Radio Forth station song dating back to when it opened in 1975.

[Barras]

DunsBus wrote:
What Forth stuff have you got, David?

Steven,

here`s another jingle from the naff quality Forth airchecks…

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1205538100_3680_FT59392_radio_forth_end_the_day.mp3 filename:radio_forth_end_the_day.mp3

David Barras

[DunsBus]

Barras, can date that one – from the 1985 David Balfe package, and on good ol' fashioned AM at that.

EDIT: The news jingles from that package were also used for the “Great Music Radio” and “Greatest Memories, Latest Hits” ones which followed it.

[Barras]

Thanks for the airdate on that one DunsBus, co-incidentally in an email recently, someone else mentioned the name of David Balfe – apparently Balfe wrote the first jingle package for Radio Borders and other Scottish stations too.

David Barras

[DunsBus]

Barras wrote:
Thanks for the airdate on that one DunsBus, co-incidentally in an email recently, someone else mentioned the name of David Balfe – apparently Balfe wrote the first jingle package for Radio Borders and other Scottish stations too.

David Barras

Would that have been Wixy, by any chance?

I can remember that particular Forth package airing – Forth, at the time tended to refresh their sound every two years, and that one was used between 1985 and 1987. It was then replaced by Wixy's Holy Grail, the “Great Music Radio” package, which also coincided with Forth's FM frequency move from 96.8 to 97.3 in January 1987, before it too gave way to the “Greatest Memories, Latest Hits” one in June 1988. However, the “Great Music Radio” package was then brought back into use for the SuperStation overnight service on FM.

Balfe did indeed write Radio Borders' first jingle package, which was based on Forth's 1983 “News & Information Station” one. RB used it, with later add-ons from other packages, for an incredible ten years before it was replaced.

BTW, the Forth and Borders jingles were all done in-house at Radio Forth, under the name of “The Sound House”.

[AndiMember]

Memories here!

I have been looking for some of the Old Radio tay/tay fm/am jingles!

I have loads of stuff for swaps!

Andi

[Barras]

DunsBus wrote:

Would that have been Wixy, by any chance?

It wasn`t Wixy actually but I understand why you said that !

Thanks for the information about David Balfe and especially the info. about “The Sound House”. Radio Forth to record “in-house” must have had a BIG production studio to record jingles (i.e. musicians, singers etc..) – reminds me of the old Metro Radio studios in Swalwell, Gateshead. Metro Radio had a big studio (24 track mixing desk and reel-to-reel machines) large enough to get an orchestra in, as you probably know ILR stations in the early days used to record bands, plays, musicals to playout on-air. I know at Metro some of the commercial jingles were recorded “in-house” would imagine that would be same at Radio Forth ? – allegedly, the Lindisfarne package (my Holy Grail !) was recorded “in-house” at Metro.

David

[DunsBus]

Barras wrote:

Would that have been Wixy, by any chance?

It wasn`t Wixy actually but I understand why you said that !

Thanks for the information about David Balfe and especially the info. about “The Sound House”. Radio Forth to record “in-house” must have had a BIG production studio to record jingles (i.e. musicians, singers etc..) – reminds me of the old Metro Radio studios in Swalwell, Gateshead. Metro Radio had a big studio (24 track mixing desk and reel-to-reel machines) large enough to get an orchestra in, as you probably know ILR stations in the early days used to record bands, plays, musicals to playout on-air. I know at Metro some of the commercial jingles were recorded “in-house” would imagine that would be same at Radio Forth ? – allegedly, the Lindisfarne package (my Holy Grail !) was recorded “in-house” at Metro.

David

Can confirm that it was the case at Forth as well. They also made programmes for other Scottish stations to take – one example being the travel programme “Why Don't You Go Away” which went out on Forth and was sold to other stations such as Tay.

Getting Lindisfarne in to do Metro jingles must have been a coup for the station. I can remember one jingle they did – “We Can Stay Together” – from one Sunday in 1984.

[Barras]

The Lindisfarne package was only aprox. 10 cuts (mainly resings of their songs). It`s funny you mention the “swing together” jingle, as the word “swing” has a different meaning nowadays compared to the 1970s !

Here`s the jingle culprit in question….

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1205877004_3680_FT59392_lindisfarne_we_can_swing_together.mp3 filename:lindisfarne_we_can_swing_together.mp3

David Barras

[DunsBus]

Barras wrote:
The Lindisfarne package was only aprox. 10 cuts (mainly resings of their songs). It`s funny you mention the “swing together” jingle, as the word “swing” has a different meaning nowadays compared to the 1970s !

Here`s the jingle culprit in question….

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1205877004_3680_FT59392_lindisfarne_we_can_swing_together.mp3 filename:lindisfarne_we_can_swing_together.mp3

David Barras

Cheers David, it's longer than I thought it was – shows how the memory can play tricks!

[DunsBus]

Just to mention that it's 20 years ago today (20/6/88) since Radio Forth introduced its “Greatest Memories, Latest Hits” jingle package. This was the last package to be used by Forth before it split in February 1990 to become Forth RFM and Max AM, and replaced the “Great Music Radio” package which had been in use since January 1987.

From a personal point of view, the GMLH package wasn't one of Forth's best ones – the song clones in particular being a big disappointment – but over time this has become one of the most-remembered Forth jingle packages.

[DunsBus]

Time to revisit this thread – the 1988 Greatest Memories Latest Hits package is available to listen here:

http://jinglemad.com/download.php?view.3773

Thank you Amigo!

Just to confirm, this package was a David Balfe one.

Now, all we need is the Hit Music Radio and Great Music Radio packages….

[Barras]

This is another aspect of Jinglemad that I like, there can be years and years between posts and in this case, over two years, however, thanks to DunsBus, the continuity of the thread is kept going.

[DunsBus]

Thanks Barras.

It was a discussion over on Digital Spy (the worst radio straplines) which reminded me about this thread. I nominated Forth's GMLH jingle package as it wasn't a favourite of mine, although listening to the package again has changed my opinion of it; perhaps it wasn't that bad after all. Still not sure about the song clones, though.

One thing that I didn't know about its predecessor package, Great Music Radio, was that it took David Balfe a good number of attempts before Forth were happy with it. The Hit Music Radio package was, I gather, one that Forth were very happy with and they were wanting the Great Music Radio one to be of the same high standard.

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