542 Old Grey Whistle Test

First  viewed  :  6  May  1982

This  programme  of  course  had  been  running  since  1971   but  always  in  a  very  late  night  slot  on  BBC  Two  until  April  1982  when  it  started  showing  at  the  more  civilised  22.10pm   on  a  Thursday.

Old  Grey  Whistle  Test   was   conceived  as  the  anti-Top  of  the  Pops  in  1971  after  that  programme's  "Album  Slot"  where  artists  played  less  commercial  material  failed  to  take  off  with  the  audience. There  are  many  well-aired  arguments  about  the  difference  between  rock  and  pop  and  its  relationship  to  the  gender  divide  which  I  won't  launch  into  here. The  main  differences  between  the  shows  were  as  follows :

• Artists  played  more  than  one  number
• They  played  live  in  the  studio
• There  was  no  audience  apart  from  the  production  staff
• The  artists  did  not  need  to  be  in  the  charts ; a  few  mentions  in  the  music  press  was  generally  enough  to  generate  an  invite 
• Top  of  the  Pops  had  a  mass  audience; OGWT   didn't

The  programme's  first  presenter  was  a  rock  critic  Richard  Williams  but  he  was  soon  replaced  by  the  ultra-conservative  "Whispering"  Bob  Harris  who  liked  folk  and  country  rock   and  started  looking  out  of  touch  as  early  as 1972  when  he  gave  a  cold  reception  to  Roxy  Music  and  the  New  York  Dolls. Nevertheless  he survived  until  1978 when  he  thought  it  was  best  left  to  new  co-host  Annie  Nightingale  to  handle  this  new  punk  stuff  ( Harris  had  been  famously  assaulted  by  Sid  Vicious  at  the  Speakeasy  Club ).

She  was  still  in  charge when  I  first  tuned  in  on  6.5.82  for  Spandau  Ballet,  some  affection  lingering  even  though  their  current  LP  Diamond  was  a  load  of  crap. Gang  of  Four  were  also  on, with  then-unknown  Eddie  Reader  as  a  backing  vocalist, but  couldn't  do  their  current  single  I  Love  A  Man  In  A  Uniform  because  of  the  Falklands  War.  I  remember  an  episode  with  Tom  Verlaine  on  a  few  weeks  later  but  otherwise  that  was  all  I  saw  of  the  Nightingale  era. I  would  however  be  a  loyal  listener  to  her  Sunday  night  request  show  on  Radio  One  for  the  next  ten  years  

Since  1980,  Annie  had  been  assisted  by  Smash  Hits  editor  David  Hepworth  whose  magazine  had  risen  with  the  new  wave  even  though  Hepworth's  own  tastes  were  closer  to  Harris.  When  the  show  returned  in  the  autumn,  it  had  an   early  Saturday  evening  repeat  slot  and   Hepworth   was  in  the  chair,  assisted  by  Smash  Hits  sidekick  Mark  Ellen. The  show  now  had  more  of  a  magazine  format  and  wasn't  averse  to  filling  space  with  videos.  I  remember  Glen  Matlock's  doomed  new  outfit  The  Hot  Club  doing  their  single  The  Dirt  That  She  Walks  On  Is  Sacred  Ground  To  Me   on  their  first  show.  

It  was  watchable  but  I  think  they  may  have  been  better  off  sticking  to  their  guns  and  trying  to  ride  out  the  New  Pop  wave. With  a  proliferation  of  new  music  shows  on  TV  it  was  in  danger  of  losing  its  USP  In  1983  the  repeat  switched  to  Tuesdays  and  I  stopped  watching  it  regularly. In  1984   it  had  another  makeover , dropping  the  "Old  Grey"  and  the  hoary  old  Stone  Fox  Chase  theme  tune.   and  introducing  new  presenters  in  Radio  One's  perennial  understudy  Richard  Skinner  and   Rochdalian  newcomer  Andy  Kershaw  who'd  recently  been  acting  as  Billy  Bragg's  road  manager.  Kershaw  looked  like  he  never  went  to  bed  and  was  highly  opinionated  but  he  did  give  it  a  renewed  sense  of  identity  as  an  unabashed  champion   of  guitar  music  particularly  if  it  came   from  America. It  also  said  goodbye  to  its  late  night  slot  and  went  out  on  a  Tuesday  evening  only.

It  was  finally  axed  by  new  broom  Janet Street-Porter  coming  in  as  Head  of  Youth  Programmes  in  1987.  Ironically,  the  last   regular  episode went  out  in  the  same  week  that  its  brash  Channel  4  rival  The  Tube  ended, though  there  was  a  New  Years  Eve Special  to  give  it  a  proper  send-off.