Back
to Chapter 19
20
Gentlemen
and Players
(From
rogue and vagabond to Professional Musician)
Music
not accepted as a profession in the
19th century. Seeking professional
identity – various associations – the
London Orchestral Association, Archer
Street, the ISM and MU. The effect of
broadcasting and recording. Pirate,
commercial and local radio. BBC radio
since 1922
By
the middle of the 19th century
it was generally accepted that a professional
was someone who had a vocation and followed
an occupation as his or her means of
livelihood that required advanced learning
and the passing of a test or examination
whereby a qualification was achieved.
If one was a professional it was assumed
that one had the ability to choose whom
one provided services to, rather than
being employed.
The
problem for performers was then, and
continues to be, that though it requires
long and hard study to acquire the necessary
skill and understanding in the first
place, and continual study and application
thereafter, the judgement of whether
a performance is ‘good’, ‘very good’
or ‘not good enough’ remains subjective.
It is possible to test the level of
technical proficiency a player has achieved
and whether they can play in time and
with good intonation, but no one has
ever been engaged to play in an orchestra
or group of any kind on the strength
of having received an ARCM, LRAM, or
any other examination from a college
of music or exam board. Teachers of
music or any other subject can become
qualified by passing the required examination.
The performer never can.
All
performers have had this problem: traditionally
musicians, actors and dancers were never
considered members of a profession.
By the middle of the nineteenth century
musicians had not yet established an
association or union to distinguish
themselves from amateurs. Indeed they
were more often than not referred to
as ‘rogues and vagabonds’. Ladies and
Gentlemen played music for pleasure,
they were amateurs: musicians played
for money. It was also the case that
a number of Ladies and Gentlemen were
better players and more musical than
many of those earning their living as
musicians. Only the outstanding touring
international instrumentalists were
held in awe, though even they were not
often accorded equality of status by
those they played to. On one occasion
the great violinist Fritz Kreisler had
been invited to play for the guests
of a very wealthy music lover at a rather
grand soiree. When Kreisler arrived
the butler directed him to a side room
where he could change and prepare himself.
‘You will not be required to dine with
the guests’, the butler told him, ‘your
meal will be served to you here.’ ‘That
is fortunate’, Kreisler replied, ‘otherwise
my fee would have been much higher.’
Naturally
the best musicians desired more than
anything else to be considered members
of a profession and attain the respectability
and status then accorded to teachers,
though many teachers were, in fact,
very indifferent performers. In chapter
15 I recounted how a colleague still
had a problem in 1947 when trying to
convince his prospective father-in-law
that as the principal trumpet in the
Royal Opera House Orchestra (then a
full-time well paid engagement) he did
not require a ‘day-time’ job. The lack
of any full-time engagements for even
the very finest musicians in Britain
during the second half of the 19th
century and well into the 20th
played a decisive role in musicians
playing in orchestras of any kind being
granted only a humble position in the
social pecking order. In this respect
the situation for British musicians
was much less satisfactory than in many
other countries where there had been
opera houses employing musicians all
the year round, in some cases from the
middle of the 19th century.
It was this more than anything that
led to the ‘deputy system’ that played
the major part in making the creation
of a first class symphony orchestra
such a difficult task for Sir Henry
Wood and others until the BBC Symphony
Orchestra was formed in 1930.
Seeking
Professional Identity
The
attempts musicians made from about 1880
to attain respectability and a secure
financial position increased and led
to the formation of several associations
and unions. It is interesting that by
then composers, writers and painters
had overcome the problem of respectability
and, if they were successful had attained
some financial stability. It seems that
if one could produce an artefact, something
that could be bought and sold and for
which a price could be agreed, one was
likely to be held in higher esteem than
even the greatest degree of skill and
artistry could achieve.
Whenever
I have written about the ‘music profession’
and the ‘professional musician’ I have
used the terms that are normal today
to describe the profession and those
who earn their living as instrumental
performers. However, in the 19th
century it was only those who taught
music or were organists who were considered
professional musicians. In 1880, in
his book The Musical Profession,
Dr Henry Fisher makes it quite clear
that when he writes about ‘professional
musicians’ he is referring to music
teachers.
In 1882
the Society of Professional Musicians
was formed, which in 1892 became the
Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM).
The ISM claimed to be ‘the only body
of composing, teaching and performing
musicians’, though from the start its
members were mainly teachers and have
continued to be so until now. Only a
few performing musicians, singers and
instrumental soloists, very often those
for whom teaching is their principal
activity, joined this organisation.
The source of the ISM membership has
remained pretty much the same throughout
the years and its aim has consistently
been to obtain the best fees for their
members. Respectability and opposition
to the ideas of trade unionism were
and have remained extremely important.
By the
middle of the 19th century
the growth of the manufacturing industries
led more and more of the population
to leave the countryside for the towns
and cities, with the consequence that
the need for popular public entertainment
grew enormously. The increasing number
of music halls and theatres in particular
and the greater number of dances and
other forms of entertainment required
many more musicians. In the same way
that the coming of the silent cinema
in the early years of the following
century was to bring a great influx
of musicians, a good many of modest
accomplishment, from the 1850s onwards
the need for musicians provided a similar
number of relatively unskilled musicians
with employment. The general standard
of performance that was tolerated at
that time was extremely low. It was
not hard to find musicians who would
accept the indifferent working conditions
and poor rates of pay that prevailed
in the music halls. Employment for the
highly skilled musicians who played
in the orchestras for concerts, operas
and oratorios was always unpredictable.
They were paid much better than their
colleagues in the music halls, but the
concert season only lasted from September
until April. With the coming of the
railways and much easier and quicker
transport seaside resorts began to prosper.
The need for entertainment led to additional
employment for these musicians in the
summer months on bandstands, on the
sea front and in parks.
How
were musicians of such a diverse standard,
ranging from outstanding artists, highly
skilled musicians and many of quite
a poor standard, as well as some who
were only part-time musicians, to become
a profession? They were engaged to play
so many different kinds of music in
such dissimilar venues – in music halls
providing the music needed by clowns,
acrobats, singers and every type of
entertainer one can imagine; on bandstands
playing everything and anything from
music hall songs to concert overtures;
in theatres where they might be called
on to play musical comedies, operetta,
grand opera or only incidental music;
and in the concert halls playing marches,
polkas, to accompany cornet and bassoon
solos as well as symphonies and concertos.
In
1893, a year after the Society of Musicians
had become the ISM, two groups of musicians
each formed an organisation with similar
intentions to each other but with a
very different orientation: the London
Orchestral Association (LOA), and the
Amalgamated Musicians Union (AMU).
The
LOA, like the ISM was strongly anti-union.
It sought gentility and status and was
keen to establish that its members were
in a profession, not a trade. Its headquarters
was in Archer Street in the west-end
of London and was generally referred
to as ‘the Club’, because this is where
musicians would go between a matinee
and an evening performance in the many
theatres nearby, or to find a deputy,
or just to meet friends and colleagues.
In the main meeting room there was a
bar where tea, coffee and snacks could
be bought. It also had a licence to
sell alcohol which attracted a good
deal more custom in the first decades
of the 20th century when
many musicians, particularly woodwind,
brass and percussion players, were quite
heavy drinkers. Downstairs there were
washing facilities and changing rooms.
On the walls there were racks where
members requiring a deputy could leave
a request, perhaps, ‘Joe Bloggs needs
2nd clarinet for evening
performance, Tuesday 23rd,
7.30 Her Majesties (Bb and A)’.
From the beginning of the 20th
century and well into the 1920s and 30s most musicians who worked
in the London theatres, restaurants and the orchestras had been
members of the LOA but by the time I joined in 1942 it had become
rather seedy. In the ordinary way, if my father had not suggested
that I should, a young musician like myself would no longer have
joined the LOA – it was just before I joined the LPO and I was
by then already a member of the MU, as were all other musicians
(including members of the LOA). In 1942 it was virtually only
‘theatre musicians’ who still went to the LOA. Very few of them
ever played in either the symphony orchestras or the many small
orchestras and ensembles that broadcast. Nor did they get the
opportunity to play on recording and film sessions, which were
the best-paid engagements. On the few occasions I went there I
sensed a general atmosphere of envy and an undercurrent of discontent.
The following year I did not renew my membership.
When
the new ‘jazz’ music began to arrive
from America, from about 1910 onwards,
those musicians in London who started
to play this music tried to join the
LOA. Their applications were rejected
because they were regarded as upstarts,
not ‘proper’ musicians and were held
in contempt by the members who felt
that they would tarnish their own ‘professional’
aspirations, historically so important
to them. Even in 1920 when everyone
was dancing to the new dance music and
Dance Bands were everywhere they continued
to refuse membership to them. Undeterred
by rejection the new jazz and dance
musicians decided to meet outside in
Archer Street itself. If you went to
Archer Street on any day, especially
on a Monday afternoon until the mid-1950s,
you would find the whole street full
of musicians. But then another group
of ‘upstarts’ appeared on the scene
– this time it was the pop groups.
I remember
that in the 1940s whenever I had occasion
to go to an instrument repair shop that
was in Archer Street it would always
be full of saxophone/clarinet, trumpet,
trombone and double bass players, guitarists
and drummers. There were also some string
players, mainly violinists. They had
taken up the saxophone and found lucrative
employment in the restaurants and night
clubs. When, the patrons were having
supper there would be quiet music, played
by a quintet in which they would play
the violin and then, when the dancing
started, they would join the band, probably
as second alto sax. Archer Street is
where anyone would go if they wanted
to book musicians for a ‘gig’, or to
play on the big liners, which all employed
musicians to play at meal times and
for dancing, or for the summer seasons
in the Holiday Camps. It was also where
musicians would congregate to exchange
gossip and find out what was going on.
In contrast
to the LOA the Amalgamated Musicians
Union’s attitude was similar to other
trade unions. Its primary objective
was to obtain the best possible working
conditions and pay for whatever employment
its members undertook wherever that
might be. When necessary it would use
the same tactics and methods of persuasion
as other trade unions: strikes, picketing
and protest marches. The LOA did attempt
to improve working conditions and rates
of pay for its members but was unwilling
to consider that they were ‘workers’.
As a result they never squared up to
their employers forcefully enough to
be really effective.
The
AMU sought to set minimum rates for
musicians playing in symphony orchestras,
in theatres and music halls and when
playing for dances. Later it negotiated
with employers to include every area
in which musicians were engaged. It
accepted anyone without regard to their
ability as long as they agreed not to
work with non-AMU members and never
to accept an engagement below the AMU
minimum rate. It made no distinction
between professional and amateur on
the basis that anyone receiving payment
for their employment as a musician was
by definition a professional in contrast
to amateurs who played for their own
pleasure.
In 1894
and 1907 the AMU initiated negotiations
with the LOA in an attempt to join forces
but without success. By 1921 the AMU’s
membership had outgrown that of the
LOA (which for a time assumed the title
National Orchestral Union of Professional
Musicians) to such an extent that at
last the LOA agreed to join forces with
the AMU, thereby creating the Musicians’
Union (MU), the organisation that thereafter
all professional musicians were obliged
to join until Mrs Thatcher’s government
made the ‘closed shop’, which had been
the union’s power base, illegal.
When
the LOA was absorbed into the MU it
retained its premises in Archer Street
for another 40 years. At first a good
many of its members who were working
in the west-end theatres remained members,
finding its club facilities very convenient.
Gradually the LOA membership began to
decline, though it continued to be very
self-protective and exerted considerable
influence within the London Branch of
the Musicians Union where they dominated
the Branch Committee well into the 1950s.
When
I was taken to the MU offices in 1942
I was completely unaware of the Union’s
existence and at no time while I was
in the Wessex Orchestra did anyone ask
me if I was a member. In fact the fees
that the orchestra were paid, I was
to learn later, were all well below
the MU minimum. During the following
38 years I can only recall having been
asked to show my MU card once. If you
were playing in any of the symphony
orchestras or the many light orchestras
that broadcast it was taken for granted
that you were a union member and it
was the same in the west-end theatres
and for those playing for recording,
films or TV, whether for the BBC or
for one of the commercial stations.
None of these musicians would have considered
playing for under the MU minimum rate.
However, there were other areas of employment
where musicians who were finding it
difficult to make a living would at
times be prepared to do so. As might
be expected, some unscrupulous employers
took advantage of this to save money.
On one
occasion in the 1960s I was asked to
be an expert witness when the MU had
taken one of these employers to Court
for the way he had treated one of their
members. This case concerned a drummer
who had been contracted for six weeks
by a suburban theatre, a former music
hall in one of the less up-market areas
of London, to play for a Christmas pantomime.
As was quite normal at that time it
was an exclusive contract, which meant
that one could not be absent from any
performance: no deputies were allowed.
In addition he was required to agree
that in the period preceding the first
performance he would be available for
rehearsal at any time.
Because
six weeks’ continuous work at that time
of year was much sought after some employers
would save money by insisting that during
the week or so of rehearsals preceding
the first performance the musicians
must make themselves available at any
time throughout the day.
Normally
there would only be a limited number
of three-hour rehearsals during a week,
usually eight, for which the appropriate
fees would be paid. Unfortunately at
that time those engaged on stage still
‘sailed before the mast’ and unlimited
rehearsals, sometimes going on for perhaps
four or five hours, were not unusual.
For many years, for musicians, a three-hour
rehearsal meant three hours. This was
understood and adhered to by all respectable
managements.
When
this particular musician accepted the
pantomime season he told his employers
that on one of the rehearsal days he
had already taken an engagement starting
at seven o’clock in the evening and
would be unable to be available after
six o’clock. They told him they were
sure there would be no problem. But
when the day came and they were half
way through the afternoon rehearsal
it became clear to him that it was likely
to continue beyond six o’clock. In a
break in the rehearsal he phoned several
other drummers to see if he could find
someone to cover for him after six.
No one was free or could get there in
time, so at six o’clock, making his
apologies he left. The next morning
when he arrived for rehearsal he found
that his drum kit had been put out on
the street, outside the stage door,
and that someone else had been engaged
in his place.
In Court
the employer’s solicitor argued that
it was normal practice in the theatre
for rehearsals to go on as long as necessary
and that this musician had accepted
the job knowing what the conditions
were and had broken his contract and
let his employers down. When I was called
I explained to the magistrate that I
had been in the profession for over
twenty years and that this had never
been the case for musicians. Wherever
a musician was engaged for a rehearsal
in any kind of orchestra it was understood
that it was for three hours. If more
time was required it was the employer’s
obligation to ask the orchestra if they
could continue beyond the three hours,
and if they all agreed to pay for the
extra time. However, what was even more
important was the principle that no
one was obliged to remain. There were
agreements in every area of musical
employment between employers and the
Musicians’ Union. They all stated that
the fee was for a certain length of
time – whether for recording and film
sessions, broadcasts, theatrical performances
and dances. I suggested that this employer
had broken this agreement and had taken
advantage of musicians so in need of
work that they too had been willing
to break the agreement and betray their
colleagues. It was judged that the employer
had to pay the aggrieved drummer for
the whole six weeks and pay the MU’s
costs.
In the
past it was commonplace for all sorts
of malpractice to take place in the
employment of musicians and over the
years when I was elected to various
committees I was involved on numerous
occasions in pursuing cases where musicians
had been defrauded of moneys to which
they were entitled. Quite frequently
it was musicians, themselves members
of the union, who were the worst offenders.
Very often free-lance musicians – only
those in the contract orchestras – the
BBC orchestras, the Regional orchestras
and opera house orchestras were not
– are engaged by ‘fixers’, themselves
musicians. Now, in these politically
correct times they are called contractors
– though still within the profession
referred to by their traditional name.
Because they understand their colleagues
better than those who are not musicians
themselves they know what they are more
likely to get away with; non-payment
of repeat fees (the additional fee paid
when a radio or TV programme is broadcast
again), payment for ‘doubling’ (when
more than one instrument is played,
clarinet and saxophone or flute and
piccolo, for example), and numerous
other arcane additional payments.
The
MU when it was first established was
seen by members of the ISM and the LOA
as an organisation concerned with ‘workers’
and because it was a trade union they
were wholly opposed to it. However,
by outlawing many of the practices that
had contributed to their lowly status,
in time the MU enabled musicians to
achieve the conditions that led to them
gaining professional status.
The
Effect of Broadcasting and Recording
Before
broadcasting and recording whenever
there was a greater need for music,
for example when there was an increase
in the number of music halls and dances
and later with the arrival of the ‘silent’
films, more musicians would be required.
During my lifetime the opposite has
been the case. As more people have listened
to music the number of musicians has
declined. The loss of employment for
musicians has come from the increased
use of records wherever employers have
found it cheaper: mainly in broadcasting
but also in restaurants, at dances and,
whenever possible, to accompany theatrical
entertainment. The invention of the
tape recorder and subsequent developments
have made it even easier for everyone
to record ‘off-air’, from commercial
tapes and CDs. More recently downloading
music from the Internet in various ways
is again reducing the need for ‘live’
musicians.
The
use of electronic instruments has been
another method of reducing the number
of musicians required. The Lyons chain
of cafes which in 1939 was employing
500 full-time musicians when the BBC
was still only employing 400 (though
to be accurate they were employing many
more for occasional broadcasts), was
one of the first to make use of the
electric organ to replace the orchestras
in one of their Corner Houses. When
I interviewed Ena Baga, a very famous
organist for more than fifty years,
she told me how she had been invited
by one of the directors of Lyons to
replace the orchestra at their Tottenham
Court Road Corner House restaurant by
playing the Hammond Organ. This was
an electronic organ that could simulate
the sound of most of the instruments
of the orchestra. She told me how she
had been an MU member all her life but
had no problem in accepting the job.
Each time she arrived at the stage door
she had to run the gauntlet of the members
of the displaced orchestras (also MU
members) but suffered nothing worse
than some fairly friendly banter. Later,
and much more effectively, the synthesiser
has replaced musicians in every field
of music.
The
use of recorded music in broadcasting
began the erosion of employment opportunities
for musicians that continued throughout
the second half of the 20th
century. From the 1960s the BBC was
|
Click for larger picture |
constantly
seeking to increase ‘needle-time’ and
reduce the number of musicians they
were required to employ. The use of
the phrase ‘needle-time’ shows how long
ago this agreement was made and was
in operation (until 1967 the Phonographic
Performance Ltd. (PPL) only allowed
the BBC to play commercial gramophone
records on air for 5 hours a day). This
old fashioned term refers to the days,
now almost forgotten, when we played
‘78’ gramophone records and were forever
changing the little steel needles that
ran in the grooves of the record. The
‘needle-time’ agreement the BBC had
come to with PPL, and as a result the
MU, limited the number of hours during
which records could be broadcast and
guaranteed that an agreed number of
musicians would be employed full-time
in the BBC orchestras. It also guaranteed
that a declared number of free-lance
musicians would be employed each year,
those musicians employed in the numerous
free-lance groups to broadcast , and
for solo and chamber music engagements.
There
are now many more radio stations broadcasting
music in Britain than there were in
1960, but virtually always from commercial
recordings. The exception is Radio 3,
which, though it too plays many commercial
recordings, does broadcast studio recordings
of its own orchestras and relays of
their public performances and those
of other orchestras
Pirate,
Commercial and Local Radio
The
use of radio, or telephones as they
were called in the very earliest days
goes back much further than is generally
known. In 1881 a Telephone Listening
Room was set up at the Paris Electrical
Exhibition. By holding a telephone receiver
to each ear one could here a performance
from the Paris Opera. There were a number
of listening points and listeners were
only allowed a few minutes each before
making way for those queuing up for
an opportunity to hear what was going
on at the opera. The microphones had
been set up right across the stage in
the footlights and linked in pairs.
Because each listener held a receiver
to each ear it was possible at a very
early date for the listeners to hear
the music in stereo.
In America
in 1890 the concern was already that
music would become available ‘on tap’
and that before long it would ‘make
incipient deafness bliss’. From 1900
onwards more and more enthusiasts, amateur
and professional were experimenting
with broadcasting in Britain and America.
It was not too long before the commercial
possibilities became apparent and though
at first this was at a local level,
the explosion of commercial radio stations
in the USA, which began in 1922, depended
on the stations being supported by the
major advertisers and the use of the
old 78 rpm black shellac gramophone
records. Broadcasting in the USA has
remained essentially commercial ever
since.
In Britain
broadcasting took a different route.
In 1922 the British Broadcasting Company
was formed by a group of wireless manufacturers
including Marconi, with John Reith as
general manager. The government decided
in 1927 to establish the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) as a broadcasting
monopoly to be operated by a board of
governors with John Reith (later Sir
John) as the Director General. The BBC
was funded by a licence fee to be paid
by all owners of radio sets, the amount
to be decided by Parliament. In this
way the BBC became the first public-service
broadcasting organisation. In contrast
to the USA advertising on radio was
forbidden. Reith set himself a mission
– to educate and improve the public
through the programmes the BBC transmitted.
His influence on broadcasting in Britain
was to be profound and remained long
after he left the BBC in 1938. Indeed
until the present his dictum to ‘inform,
educate and entertain’ remains a part
of the BBC’s brief.
His
influence was to have a considerable
effect on how the BBC responded to the
sounds of rhythm and blues and rock’n’roll
in the mid and late 1950s. It continued
to broadcast programmes that ignored
this new music, the music most young
people wanted the chance to hear. In
1958 responding to this need, in Britain
and on mainland Europe, pirate stations
broadcasting recordings of this new
music were set up on ships moored off
the coasts of Denmark and Sweden. In
1960 a station off the Dutch coast claimed
5 million listeners. These stations
catered for the new ‘beat’ generation
that the national radio stations continued
to ignore. The opportunity for most
young people to hear the music they
really enjoyed was on Jukeboxes and
Radio Luxembourg.
For
some time there had been demands that
commercial radio, stations similar to
those that had been in America for more
than 30 years, should be allowed in
Britain. By 1960 the pressure on the
government to issue licences for commercial
radio increased. The main recording
companies –
Decca,
EMI and Philips and others – were paying
a large amount to Radio Luxembourg for
broadcasting short extracts from the
recordings they were issuing.
A number
of small off-shore pirate radio stations
had already been set up when in March
1964 Radio Caroline started broadcasting
from a ship moored 5 miles off Harwich.
Three weeks later they claimed an audience
of over 7 million. They were followed
by Radio Atlanta, Noorzec Invicta and
Radio London, which was largely financed
by a consortium of Texan oil moguls.
These stations were all financed by
extensive advertising.
One
of the biggest advertisers on Radio
London was Recketts one of whose products
was Beechams Powders. The Beecham Company
was continuing its enthusiasm for advertising
of every kind started by Sir Thomas’s
grandfather. I have one of the series
of 12 Beecham’s Music Portfolios published
at least a hundred years ago. It is
beautifully bound in red leatherette
with gold lettering on the cover and
contains 120 well known songs and piano
pieces, including Rubinstein’s Melody
in F, The Dead March in Saul by
Handel as well as Little Brown Jug,
Peggy Malloy and Down Among
the Dead Men. Scattered amongst
the works of Chopin, Haydn, Johann Strauss,
Beethoven, Mozart are pithy statements
such as ‘Health is wealth and BEECHAM’S
PILLS are the Key to it!’ ‘CHEER
UP! BEECHAM’S PILLS are still worth
a Guinea a Box and make life worth living!’,
‘Guard Yourself, and save the constitution
by taking BEECHAM’S PILLS – The National
Medicine.’ My favourites are when an
extra verse has been added as in Where
are you going my Pretty Maid?’
‘Then take BEECHAM’S PILLS, my
pretty maid,
Then take BEECHAM’S PILLS, my pretty maid,’
‘I take them already, sir,’ she said,
‘I take them already, sir,’ she said.
and in Oft, in the Stilly Night with the addition,
‘Oft in the Stilly Night’
I awake, and take some BEECHAM’S PILLS
Even
rarer and a treasured possession is
a single sheet of toilet paper, in pristine
condition, with the legend:
FOR PERFECT
HEALTH
THE NATURAL WAY
TAKE
BEECHAM’S PILLS
WORTH A GUINEA A BOX
Although
in 1965 the Council of Europe had banned
broadcasting from the pirate stations
as well as any supplies to them of materials
and equipment, in 1966 a National Opinion
poll showed that Radio Luxembourg and
Radio Caroline were each attracting
audiences of nearly 9 million and Radio
London over 8 million. Several others
had audiences of more than 2 million
each. All the stations played commercial
recordings, which itself was illegal,
supplied by all the major record companies,
and were funded by the considerable
revenue from the advertisers. Apart
from any questions of legality the beaming
of broadcasts to the mainland was interfering
with the legitimate signalling of marine
traffic. In the same year the UK government
made it illegal to broadcast from ships
or marine structures. Contravening the
law could lead to two years imprisonment,
a fine or both. The pirates responded
by asking their listeners to write to
their MPs demanding that they be allowed
to hear the music the BBC were not broadcasting.
In the discussions I later took part
in as a representative of the MU ,with
the Postmaster General and some of his
colleagues in the Conservative government,
I learned that this was the largest
post-bag MPs had ever received on any
issue.
It was
decided that the MU should meet the
representatives of the BBC to see if
it could be agreed that the air-time
during which the BBC would be allowed
to broadcast commercial recordings could
be substantially increased. The meeting
we had with the Board of the BBC went
on for a very long time during which
we were wined and dined. I was amused
by the fact that now, as someone involved
in demanding something in return for
allowing the BBC to comply with the
government’s wishes, I was being treated
to a first-class meal accompanied by
excellent wines. I was also being treated
with a civility I had never experienced
in their canteen at Maida Vale whenever
over many years I had played in their
studios (and as I was still doing),
whether in an orchestra, a chamber music
ensemble or as a soloist. In return
for agreeing increased air-time for
a new channel, Radio 1, which would
play commercial recordings similar to
those broadcast by the pirates, the
BBC agreed to guarantee additional employment
for the musicians they employed other
than in their contract orchestras. They
also agreed to establish the BBC Training
Orchestra, an orchestra for those who
had finished their course at music college
or university and wished to become orchestral
musicians. Unknown to me at the time,
the Training Orchestra was to be the
precursor of something that would be
very important for me some years later.
In December
1966 the BBC announced its new plans
and the following September the Home
Service became Radio 4, the Third Programme,
established in 1946, became Radio 3
and the Light Programme was renamed
Radio 2. The new programme Radio 1 was
to be devoted to the music for which
there was such a demand. Of the 33 disc
jockeys employed by the BBC more than
half were ex-pirates. I remember meeting
Pete Murray, one of the ‘big 4’ DJs
at the time. We had been at St. Paul’s
School together many years previously
and he had been to concerts and seen
me. Being a ‘square’ who never listened
to Radio 1 I was quite unaware of the
fact that he was a well-known figure
and asked him innocently ‘And what are
you doing now?’ With extreme modesty
he said that the was doing a bit of
broadcasting’. My young daughter who
was with me later shamed me. ‘Oh. Dear!
You are old. Don’t you know that was
the famous Pete Murray who broadcasts
all the time?’
As well
as Radio 1 the BBC set up several low
powered local radio stations and in
1969 the government licensed a further
12 local radio stations. In 1973 the
government finally allowed a replacement
of the service the pirates had provided
and what those who for so long had wanted
–
commercial
radio in Britain. Now, what the pirate
stations had been doing had become legal.
To some extent this is what the pirate
stations had really been all about.
They provided the means by which the
advertisers and record companies who
long before the new music had arrived
wanted: to establish commercial radio
in Britain. They had achieved their
objective and could from then on benefit
from the enormous financial advantage
commercial broadcasting secured.
The
battle against commercial TV had been
lost in 1954 when the Independent Television
Authority had been set up and a year
later the ITV service began. By 1965
when regional franchises had been granted
the whole country could receive commercial
TV. When, in 1973 the government allowed
commercial radio, as well as TV, the
BBC was faced with competition that
has had a significant effect on public
service broadcasting. The gain, for
a small number of musicians, was the
very well paid work involved in recording
the ‘jingles’, the music especially
written to accompany the advertisements.
Was
the long and hard-fought battle against
commercial radio that the MU and its
members waged, in part by their support
of the BBC and public service broadcasting,
worthwhile? There can be no doubt that
for musicians such as myself it put
off the evil day for a good many years.
Since 1973 the amount of work for musicians
in broadcasting on radio and TV has
substantially reduced. I regret that
musicians could earn very much more
by providing the music for an advert
for washing powder, for either radio
or TV, than by playing Beethoven or
Boulez in the Royal Festival Hall.
Chapter
21
