Sounds of the 60s is a long-running Saturday morning programme on BBC Radio 2 that features recordings of popular music made in the 1960s. It was first broadcast on 12 February 1983 and introduced by Keith Fordyce, who had been the first presenter of the TV show Ready Steady Go! in 1963. From March 1990 until February 2017, the presenter was Brian Matthew. Tony Blackburn has hosted the show since 4 March 2017.
Presenters
In the mid 1980s, the format changed and each week the programme was presented by a different artist from the 1960s. Many famous names were involved, including: Alvin Stardust, Eddy Grant, Herb Alpert, Graham Nash, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tom Jones, Neil Sedaka, Donovan, Mike Stoller, Bruce Welch, Duane Eddy, Bill Medley, Roy Wood, Mike Berry, David Crosby and many more. "I Love SOTS" car stickers were given free to listeners.
In December 1988, the then producer Stuart Hobday re-discovered Simon Dee, the first voice heard on Radio Caroline in 1964, and persuaded him to present a listeners' all-time-favourite Top 20. The response from the public was so great that Dee was booked for a three-month run early in 1989. His success led to another three-month contract later in the year, but his constant demands for the show to be broadcast live and to move from Bristol to London, along with a growing list of complaints to BBC management, meant that his contract was not renewed.
Subsequently Brian Matthew, who had introduced Saturday Club on the BBC Light Programme, later BBC Radio 1, until 1969, took over as regular presenter.
Brian Matthew
Matthew first presented Sounds of the 60s on 31 March 1990, following the end of his stint on Round Midnight and was still doing so until November 2016, more than 26 years after he took over. His place was taken temporarily between September 2006 and February 2007, during periods of illness, by former Radio Caroline and BBC Radio 1 disc jockey Johnnie Walker (and, during Walker's own absence in December 2006, by three guest presenters: Sandie Shaw, Joe Brown and Suzi Quatro). Matthew returned on 10 February, revealing that his prolonged absence had been due to a viral infection contracted while in hospital for a routine operation. Matthew was also absent due to illness in October 2011 and November 2016 – February 2017, with lyricist Tim Rice replacing him on both occasions. A Sounds of the 60s CD was released in November 2011. On 28 March 2015, Matthew presented a 25th anniversary show. In it, he selected ten of his favourite songs of the 1960s and there were tributes from Ray Davies, Helen Shapiro, Paul Jones, Marty Wilde and Petula Clark. On 27 January 2017, the BBC announced that Matthew would be retiring from presenting the show, due to ill health. In February 2017, it was announced that Tony Blackburn would be taking over the show from March that year.
Features of the show
Matthew made the programme very much his own and turned it into something of a cult, one aspect being its very own slang: "SOTS" (acronym of the title); "avids" (listeners); "the Vocalist" (the show's producer, Roger Bowman and, later, Phil Swern, the Collector). Under Matthew, the two-hour programme was divided into one-hour "sides" (called Side 1 and Side 2) and the names of those listeners whose requests were to be played used to be announced at the start of each "side"; now the names of the artists requested are announced instead. There were also well-researched features, such as an "A to Z of the Beatles" (recordings of which were repeated during the shows from which Matthew was absent, to maintain his presence in the programme) and initially "SOTS" T-shirts for listeners whose record requests were played. Later, "SOTS" baseball caps and "SOTS" sweat shirts were given to successful requesters but this practice ceased in 2009. Although the playlist was almost entirely restricted to music recorded in the 1960s, so-called "roots records" from the 1950s were also featured, while recordings from earlier decades that re-entered the charts in the 1960s were also eligible. Its theme tune from the inception of the show until the end of the Matthew era was the 1963 instrumental "Foot Tapper" by The Shadows. Its final appearance as the show's closing theme was on 15 April 2017, when Matthew's successor, Tony Blackburn, played it in tribute following Matthew's death the previous week.
Since April 2007, the show's producer has been Phil Swern, whom Matthew had nicknamed "The Collector". In 2017, Tom Du Croz (now Richard Power), Phil Swern and Tony Blackburn now compile and produce the show.