This is the sixth issue in our fun (well I am enjoying it) series where we share the latest post with the most views for a given month and the archive post with the most views. This one covers January 2025. The biggest read post was my review of Johnnie Walker’s Final Sounds Of The 70s Show On BBC Radio 2, from October last year. The biggest post views for a January post went to my review of the Robbie Williams biopic ‘Better Man‘. I wonder what you lovely people will be mostly drawn to in February?
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When 2024 began I set myself a target of posting an average of one post per day. That meant I needed to finish at least 366 posts as it was a leap year. In the end I posted 377 times, 11 over target. Those posts received a total of 43,874 views, the second highest annual figure since 2015. That was from a total of 31,105 visitors. Since the blog began in 2009 (yes it really is nearly 16 years old) we have received 1,850,714 views. Let’s push on to 2 million! In completing my target I wrote 113,231 words.
The most popular posts were “Everyone Is A C*nt Except Me” – Judy Raindrop. Another favorite was “Johnnie Walker’s Final Sounds Of The 70s Show On BBC Radio 2“. He will be sadly missed by many of us! A huge thank you from me and the team for your support. We appreciate you sticking by With Just A Hint Of Mayhem for all these years. It is you that keeps me going and I really do love doing this. I hope that 2025 is a great one for you. Be happy, be strong and be kind!
I think we all knew that this day would come soon. Johnny completed his final ‘Sounds Of The 70s’ show on Radio 2 in October. I spoke about that show in an earlier post. But the news of his passing still brought a tear to my eyes. He was most definitely my favourite broadcaster. I spent a lot of my formative years listening to his radio shows. Later, I always tried to listen to his ‘Sounds Of The 70s’ shows on BBC Radio 2. They were wonderfully put together and aired on Sunday afternoons. Back in the 70s, I loved when they announced the new chart on BBC Radio 1. Johnnie Walker did it on a Tuesday lunchtime. I always made sure to have my transistor radio with me. My mates and I were at Bishopshalt School in Hillingdon. We wanted to find out if David Cassidy and the Osmonds were still clogging up the UK charts. They were. We also wanted to see if Slade had gone straight in at the top. They had. And we wondered whether Bowie would get his first number one single. He did, but not until 1975 with a reissue of “Space Oddity“.
In the early 70s local schools in my area took turns in hosting a disco every 4 weeks. My own school, Bishopshalt was a little too snobby to get involved. It was a grammar school don’t you know! Anyway many of my friends from primary school went on to Abbotsfield and that school did host Interspin discos. These disco nights were usually hosted by BBC Radio1 DJs. I can remember seeing Tony Blackburn, Dave Lee Travis and of course Johnnie Walker. I suspect that no one bothered to brief Johnnie that this was a disco for 13 to 16 year olds. This became apparent when were treated to two topless go go dancers strutting their stuff on stage. I will leave it to your imagination to determine exactly how the 15 year old me felt about that!
Johnnie will be sadly missed on the airwaves and within music more widely. My thoughts are with his wife Tiggy and all his family and friends. If there is an afterlife, I am sure Johnnie will be spinning some great tunes. He will be playing them wherever he might be. Check out the classic tracks he aired on his regular Johnnie’s Juke Box slot. He chose the final entry himself for his final show. It was “Freebird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. RIP Johnnie Walker – an absolute legend!
Johnnie Walker‘s final Sounds Of The 70s was broadcast on 27th October. I was on holiday when it aired but listened to it via BBC Music’s catch-up service. After 58 years as a DJ, this is the end of an era for Johnnie and radio. He is one of the finest radio presenters I have ever heard. I might have heard him during his stint at pirate station Radio Caroline in the ’60s, but I remember listening to Johnnie avidly during school lunchtime in the ’70s on BBC Radio 1. In those heady days, he was the first DJ to reveal the weekly chart in a Tuesday pop chart rundown. I remember that he used a musical bed of the classic Booker T and the MGs track “Time Is Tight”. His voice and that track bring back so many teenage memories. I was the kid who always brought a small transistor radio into school with him, particularly on a Tuesday. This meant that me and my mates at Bishopshalt School in Hillingdon could find out whether David Cassidy and the Osmonds were still clogging up the UK charts (they were), whether Slade had gone straight in at the top (they had), or whether Bowie would get his first number one single (yes but not until 1975 with a reissue of “Space Oddity“).
I have listened to Johnnie’s shows regularly over the years. Saturdays in the 1990s were good but Sounds Of The 70s possibly topped all of his other shows for me. This final show was quite emotional, particularly some of the messages provided by stars and colleagues. The one from Rod Stewart was heartfelt and heartwarming. It was followed by “Sailing”, the song played at my Dad’s funeral. I cried a lot at that point. Then there was the wonderful chat with the legendary Sally Traffic. The music Johnnie chose for his last show was like a playlist of some of my favourite 70s songs; “Giving It All Away” – Roger Daltrey, “Solsbury Hill” Peter Gabriel, “I Can See Clearly Now” – Johnny Nash, “Father And Son” – Cat Stevens, “Misstra Know It All” – Stevie Wonder and the Dame himself David Bowie with “Drive-In Saturday”. There was a lot about Bowie on the show. I loved Johnnie’s wife Tiggy’s tale of meeting Bowie in 2002. By the time Johnnie ended the show with Judy Collins’ “Amazing Grace” I was a sobbing wreck! Radio is a smaller place with no Johnnie Walker on the airwaves.
As a footnote, I should tell you that the ‘Johnnie’s Jukebox‘ feature of the Sounds Of The 70s show inspired me to start the Play It Again Mayhem playlist.
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When I was a kid and into my teenage years I really couldn’t bring myself to like country and western music, largely because my parents were fans and frankly liking what your parents liked really wasn’t cool. However as I have grown older I find myself becoming much more of a country and western fan, just to add another genre to my already eclectic taste. Largely this came about through what Rick Rubin did with Johnny Cash and rediscovering Willie Nelson, Billie Jo Spears (my Dad loved “Blanket On The Ground”) and particularly Roseanne Cash. Well now there’s a new country singer on the block, her name is Reatha Pitman and she released a fabulous debut country driven EP late last year called “Road On Which We Travel”.
It keeps very close to traditional country and western in both stylistic delivery and indeed subject matter. These songs are directly from Reatha’s life and her heart. She writes her own songs and you can sense the sometimes delicate balance between happiness and hurt. The EP kicks off with “Hittin’ The Road” which I think is about leaving a cheating partner. It suggests someone who is confident in her decision to leave the ‘love rat’ protagonist. “Daddy’s Little Girl” for me shows a woman who loves her Daddy with the unconditional love that often exists in a relationship between a child and their father or mother. I understand that feeling because I had that strong bond with my father and I still do with my mother. I love the flow and lyrics of “Darlin’ He’s Yours” which on first listen seems like a mild put down of a previous lover who has left, but it packs a mighty horseshoe encased in its velvet glove delivery. This is a classy début and it bodes incredibly well for the album that Reatha is working on which will hopefully see release later this year.
If you love country music then you must check this lady out. Even if you don’t consider yourself a country fan give it a listen, you might be very, pleasantly surprised! Click here to find the EP on Spotify. Reatha lives in Long Beach, MS on the beach and performs locally along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and into Alabama and Louisiana. I recently interviewed Reatha via Skype, look out for that on this blog very soon. I can tell you that she is delightful, eloquent and in possession of a great sense of humour. She is clearly very passionate about her music too. Bob Harris if you’re reading this you need to check out Reatha for your BBC Radio 2 show!
I was travelling back to York with Catwoman earlier today after a great weekend with family and friends down south. The drive back is a great opportunity to take in Johnnie Walker‘s excellent ‘Sounds Of The 70s‘ show on BBC Radio 2. The music choice as usual was excellent and as occasionally happens for me Johnnie played one track that I don’t think I’ve heard since the 1970s. It was “Shannon” by Henry Gross. I used to really love this when it had just a small amount of radio play in the UK back in ’76.
The song was written after Henry read about the death of Carl Wilson‘s (off of the Beach Boys) Irish Setter Shannon. I think you can definitely pick up a Beach Boys vibe and influence in the performance and production. The song was a number 6 hit in the US Billboard chart in 1976 and a number one in Canada. It only made number 32 in the UK. Another claim to fame the Henry Gross has is that he was the youngest artist to appear on the main stage at Woodstock in 1969. He was a founding member of Sha Na Na with whom he took to the stage immediately before Jimi Hendrix at Max Yasgur‘s farm some 43 years ago this year.
Henry is still recording and performing. Enjoy “Shannon” below along with a great performance from Sha Na Na;
How cool is that? Henry Gross gets a namecheck in an issue of Spiderman!
BBC Radio 2 recently ran a countdown of the top 60 best-selling songs of the 60s in the UK. Presented by Tony Blackburn who was the first person ever to appear on BBC Radio 1 back in September 1967. Without knowing the results I think many of us would have guessed that the Beatles would have figured quite prominently and they did, with 5 songs in the top 10 and 18 in the top 60. While the Rolling Stones could only muster 5 entries and none of those made the top 30. The first record Blackburn ever played on Radio 1; “Flowers In The Rain” by the Move didn’t make the cut. There was also sadly no room for any Motown songs either.
But the biggest surprise for me was who made it to number three, beaten only by the Beatles, it was Ken Dodd. His 1965 UK number 1 “Tears” was amazingly the 3rd best-selling single of the 60s in the UK. I must admit that I was guilty of helping the song a little bit by buying a copy as a present for my Nan, she loved the song.
Ken, like the Beatles, was a scouser, which means that Liverpool provided the whole top 5. Unlike their football clubs who were barely in sniffing distance of the top 5 this year in the Premier League!
Ken had never seen so many queens in one room before!
Here is the top 10 (so much for all that ground breaking 60s rock!);
1. She Loves You – The Beatles
2. I Want To Hold Your Hand – The Beatles
3. Tears – Ken Dodd
4. Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles
5. I Feel Fine – The Beatles
6. The Carnival Is Over – The Seekers
7. We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper – The Beatles
8. Release Me – Engelbert Humperdink
9. It’s Now Or Never – Elvis Presley
10. Green Green Grass Of Home – Tom Jones
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 