Brierly Hill 90210

I noticed a musical trend starting in the previous episode. The earnest beginnings of rock n' roll were joined by novelty songs in 1958. You may recall songs about lollipops, splish-splashing and yakety-yakking. Do you see parallels to later musical movements; earnest angst to begin, novelties soon follow but then more serious musicians shape the period after that? I'll leave you debating that one...

I was born in 1966, 3 years before man first walked on the moon. I have a vague recollection of my dad getting me out of bed to watch some of those Apollo missions. So it's interesting to hear the prelude to those memories, forged 11 years earlier from America's fear of the Soviet Union. Also aligned to the fear of communism is the west's fear of Arab nationalism. This creates new tensions in the...

As I work on this series, I'm still fascinated by the highs, lows and lulls that are outside of my control. The working title of the series was “chronology” and, as much as possible, I let that tell it's own story. The music, news and entertainment timelines drive the narrative. While there is still excitement and a newness to the music of 1957, worldwide events seem to be taking a pause, to catch...

Historical! Montgomery, Suez, Hungary, Eurovision and Bert Trautmann. Musical! Little Richard, James Brown, Johnny Cash and Gene Vincent.

There wasn't a specific date when rock 'n' roll started. As mentioned in earlier episodes, it had been a term used since the 1940s. DJ Alan Freed had used it as early as 1951 and rock 'n' roll recordings had occasionally charted since 1953. But there was an event that happened in 1955 that put rock 'n' roll in the headlines and firmly on the map. That event was the movie Blackboard Jungle. So list...

Alan Freed used the term “rock and roll” as early as 1951. It was a euphemism for sex but Freed used it to describe rhythm and blues, or “race music”, in a way that was more acceptable to white audiences. Freed was keen to promote white cover versions of songs originally recorded by black artists. But, while this new rock 'n' roll music started to gain popularity and see increased record sales, th...

If you've followed this series from the beginning, it started with 1977, the year I began high school and a year when music changed with the arrival of punk rock. So why jump back to 1953? As I recorded the earlier chronological episodes, I found myself thinking, both for the music and the major news stories, how did we get here? What's the back story of each news event and what are the inspiratio...

I was 7 as 1974 began and, while my musical memories are becoming more well formed, they are still a little fuzzy. Most of them from this episode seem to be around October and I suspect this is from a Sunday night chart rundown that my dad taped for me off Radio 1 and that was played over and over until the tape broke. Memories of 1974's music are further enhanced in this episode with genuine hiss...

As the year begins, stories from 2020 are coming to a head. COVID vaccines are being rolled out, cases attempting to show that black lives do matter will get their day in court, and Donald Trump continues to not accept the result of the election. On the home-front, continuing the saga from the year before, our house is still on the market, but there's more interest and we need to make a decision....

1976 is a defining year in British music. The glam rock of the early 70's is making way for disco as it gains mainstream success. There is also a disturbing trend in sickly pop ballads. But young people are becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of opportunities and the general staleness of the establishment. Harold Wilson is Britain's Labour prime-minister, Margaret Thatcher has recently re...

We'd been living in our “dream house” for 12 years but, it having been built in the 19th century, there was always something failing, breaking or otherwise needing repair. It was beginning to take it's toll, both financially and mentally. So we decided it was time to move on. With the impeccable timing that had us buy during a major financial crisis, turns out we would try to sell as the world exp...

It's interesting how many major news stories are going on that will be forgotten with what's to come the following year. There's a lot to cram in here. The year begins with the US Government shut down over a refusal to fund Trumps wall on the Mexico border. In the UK, the bickering over Brexit is taking everybody nowhere fast while, globally, many are starting to wake up to the potential impact of...

It was 2016 when the UK voted to leave the European Union. But as 2018 begins, the government has still not worked out how they're going to do it. There is equal chaos on the other side of the Atlantic as somebody clearly ill-equipped to be president jumps from one fiasco to another. If aliens invaded in 2018, many of us would be embarrassed to be a member of the human race.

Although I didn't know it, the curtain came down on my podcast in 2017, in it's original format at least. After 12 years of reinvigorating my love of discovering new music and sharing it with a small but loyal following, the broadcasts that had become more and more sporadic, finally petered out. Our youngest was now 9 years old and after being continuously ill since he was born, he was finally dia...

They say age is just a number but it felt more than that to me as I turned 50. From 1966 with the crowd on the pitch thinking it's all over, an 11-year old attending Westwood's Grammar School in the Gloucestershire countryside, a move to America, Barack Obama in The White House and David Cameron in Number 10. Time plods slowly onward and we just tag along for the ride. Welcome to 2016.

There's a lot to unpack in this episode. Along with several long-running stories coming to a close, there are many story lines that, although unknown at the time, were the start of bigger things to come; stories that would define the next 4 or 5 years. Battle lines are drawn between adversaries that will become nemeses.

I mentioned last time that I wasn't really enjoying my job. I felt too old to mix it up with the youngsters at a New York technology start-up. But after a few years of job hunting, I finally landed a “proper job” with a manufacturing company in Pennsylvania. It was a 1-hour drive each way, but that meant 2 hours listening to new music in the car every day. I was listening to some pretty crazy stuf...

This is a period when I was lost in the music I was listening to. I couldn't really complain about my job but I wasn't enjoying it and was spending time searching for a new one. That likely sucked the life out of me and the joy of discovering new music. As a result, I was only recording 1 or 2 podcast episodes a year. I often think about the greatest periods for new music and they always seem to c...

In America, the economy continues its slow recovery; too slow for several big name brands and retailers that didn't sufficiently prepare for a digital economy. Will economic recovery be fast enough to secure Barack Obama a second term as president? Meanwhile, across the pond, the UK prepares to celebrate 60 years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. There's also the small matter of the summer Olympics comi...

I started a new job in 2010 after spending the best part of a year out of work. I was working for a start-up company in New York and 2011 saw me working on an assignment on Wall Street in the city. That meant 4 hours on Amtrak and 2 hours on the New York subway each day. On the world stage, a horrifying event went almost unnoticed in Tunisia but it was the starting point for revolution there, Egyp...

The year started with me doing contract work for corporate America. That's not the same as regular employment so when one of my clients offered me a full-time position, I took it. I was earning half of what I was before the financial crash but it put us in a better place than many others. My first assignment for my new employer was in New York State which meant a long drive up the New Jersey Turnp...

After living in our new house in Pennsylvania for a year, we corrected our mistake of not selling our old house first, by finally off-loading it for far less than we'd planned. That was obviously not great but things got worse in March when, with a wife and two very young children to support, I was laid off from work. A lot of other people around the world suffered the same fate that year. We were...

Does any day, week, month or year feel like the end of something as it's happening? It's only in hindsight that, usually as the result of a new beginning, you see the previous end for what it was. Even then, it's most likely a gradual evolution, not a sudden end. But in looking back, 2004 is an ending. There's personal sadness that goes with it which, while devastating at the time, gains clarity l...

The year started with America still coming to terms with a new world after September 11th the year before. Everybody was getting used to new security restrictions, myself included, as I continued to work in California, traveling from New Jersey once a month. If I was lucky enough to get an upgrade, I now had to eat my deluxe airline meal with a plastic knife and fork! Oh the humanity... But we all...

I started my new job in January and began a new routine; 1 week in the office in California and the rest of each month working from home in New Jersey. That suited me, greatly reducing the amount of time spent in airports and on airplanes. There was still a 12-hour round-trip once a month and it's hard to imagine now that was pre portable MP3 players and smart phones so I read a lot. The 3-hour ti...