Category: Music

Whose theme is Who?


Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

I’ve been trying to get back to Dave Dexter, Jr. and the Beatles, but I got distracted by a renewed interest in the fascinating history of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and Ron Grainer’s Doctor Who theme. This is Delia Derbyshire’s stunning, shimmering production, which includes the famous sound effects for the show.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/JUL/DoctorWho1963.mp3]

Snippets of sounds and music by Derbyshire and the workshop have been collected by the BBC into a Flash player that you’ll find at this link. It’s all too easy to make the sounds overlap, so be quick with the stop button, and watch out for the clips that loop. Here is Murray Gold’s fantastic, powerful arrangement and orchestration for the new Doctor series in 2005.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/JUL/DoctorWho2005.mp3]

If this subject is of any interest I’ll let you find the same sites I’ve been looking at, but one favor I should do for you is assemble the pieces of a 2003 BBC documentary on the Radiophonic Workshop, called The Alchemists of Sound.

Doctor Who’s Next

While watching Doctor Who on the Roku HD player, I wondered if anybody had collected all of the versions of the theme song, written in 1963 by Ron Grainer and realized by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The answer is, of course, that quite a few people have. I picked this one because the sound is good.

Speaking of Doctor Who, I was surprised to learn tonight that Bismo didn’t know of Rowan Atkinson’s appearance as The Doctor:

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2010/JUL/AtkinsonWho.flv 640 360]

Capitol-ism: from Bozo to The Beatles – 1

One of the the most controversial figures, and frustrating subjects, in the history of the Beatles is Dave Dexter, Jr. (1915-1990). Dexter hated the Beatles, both personally and professionally — as you’ll hear for yourself later — and yet he was in charge of their American releases on Capitol Records until the Yesterday and Today album, which was “prepared by Bill Miller” and was originally released with the infamous “butcher cover.”

Before I say anything more about Dave Dexter, Jr., listen to the recording on the player below. “The Chase” is exclusive to Dexter’s American version of “HELP!”, and it’s a noteworthy recording to be found on a Beatles record, but it isn’t by the Beatles.

“The Chase” is credited to Ken Thorne, who scored the soundtrack to “HELP!”, but it was performed by Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish (1914-2006). Click here to read his account of the recording session, and his subsequent involvement with George Harrison.

Prue in the tub with a hat

“Prue, in the tub, with a hat” sounds like a solution to the board game ‘Clue’, but I couldn’t think of what else to call this post other than what it is — a picture of Prue Bury (when she was Prue Hooper) wearing a Halston straw Derby hat, while sitting in a bathtub full of water!

Prue says of this unusual pose,

I have the photo in my scrap book. That was an uncomfortable shoot. A bath full of water and a suit which grew to be very heavy and cold! The hat looked great!

Thanks go to Martha B. at Nibs for having this scan from a 1968 issue of Look magazine.

She’s a Prunette


George Harrison, Pattie Boyd, Prue Bury, Wilfrid Brambell, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney

Prue Bury was joking this week about something that I’ll be featuring later, and she said, “Spike Milligan had “I told them I was ill” put on his tombstone. Mine will be “I told them I was not a blond!” (Prue has kept her hair lightened for some years now.) Spike Milligan, along with Peter Sellers, was one of the Goon Show goons, a BBC radio program that was a favorite of the Beatles, and was one of the inspirations for the Monty Python troupe.

[audio:http://www.thegoonshow.net/downloads/mp3/54-09-28~s05e01~the_whistling_spy_enigma.mp3|titles=The Goon Show: The Whistling Spy]

As someone else on the Net says, commenting on Prue, “Real class tells. And this brunette is REAL class.” Indeed she is.


Prue Bury, George Harrison, Pattie Boyd

The pictures are courtesy of Lynn at Pattie Boyd’s Sixties Style on Yahoo!