This is the second occasional series of articles about BBC programmes from the 40s and 50s, when the corporation was a much-loved institution broadcasting material the listeners wanted to see and hear. You can read earlier episodes in the series here, and the first series is here.
LIKE many early BBC programmes, Juke Box Jury was based on an American show, Jukebox Jury. A panel of four celebrities heard newly released pop records and forecast which would be a ‘hit’ or a ‘miss’ – the decision accompanied by either a bell for a ‘hit’ or a hooter for a ‘miss’. Most weeks one of the performers would be behind a screen, wincing or grinning as their record was discussed and emerging to meet the panel after they had given their verdict. This was a lot more fun when the record had been dismissed as rubbish.
The first programme was broadcast on June 1, 1959, hosted by David Jacobs, about whom I wrote here, though he probably deserves more. He introduced each record by pressing a button on the jukebox next to him.
This jukebox was a Rock-Ola Tempo II. It was officially introduced in Chicago in mid-November 1959 (five months after the start of Juke Box Jury). Either the BBC got hold of a pre-launch model or they used another type for the first shows.
I was surprised to find that the founder of the company was called David Cullen Rockola (a good case of nominative determinism). During the 1920s, Rockola was involved with Chicago organised crime and avoided jail by turning State’s Evidence. He founded the Rock-Ola Scale Company in 1927 to manufacture coin-operated slot machines and pinball machines.
The repeal of prohibition in the US in 1932 gave him the opportunity to expand his amusement business into coin-operated record-players in the now legal bars and nightclubs. From 1935, Rock-Ola sold more than 400,000 jukeboxes.
Here is a video about a restored Tempo II.
If you want one of these fabulous machines, here is one on the market for about £8k, but as far as I can see that does not include the 60 singles you need to stock it.
(During the war Rock-Ola produced M1 carbines, delivering 228,500 guns at $58 each until 1944. The firm also made about 60 carbines finished in polished blue to be presented to company executives and others who might appreciate such a gift. The guns were accompanied by a custom-made wooden case including the name of the recipient engraved on a brass plate. They now change hands for up to £30,000, and here is one.)
The first theme tune for the programme was Juke Box Fury by Ozzie Warlock and The Wizards.
On February 6, 1960, John Barry was the mystery guest on the show. His recent recording of Hit and Miss (performed by the John Barry Seven Plus Four) was played for the panel, who fortunately voted it a hit. Producer Russell Turner then decided it should replace the original theme from the following week. (That is the official legend anyway – I would be amazed it if wasn’t all fixed.) Here it is with a montage of stills from the programme.
John Barry Prendergast was born in York in 1911 and spent his early years working in cinemas owned by his father. During his national service with the Army, Barry learned to play the trumpet and in 1957 formed the John Barry Seven. In 1962 he was contacted by the makers of the first James Bond film, Dr No. They had a theme for James Bond written by Monty Norman and Barry arranged it. Later Barry said he wrote the theme but Norman always claimed authorship, and there was a lifelong feud between the two. Norman received all the royalties, and won two libel actions against publishers for claiming that Barry wrote the theme.
Whatever the rights and wrongs, Barry composed the scores for 11 of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1987, as well as arranging and performing the James Bond Theme for Dr No.
Here it is:
In 1965 he composed the score for The Ipcress File, making use of a stringed instrument called a cimbalom, which you can read about here. I couldn’t find the opening credits on YouTube but here is the soundtrack with a montage of scenes.
In 1966 Barry won Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Song for Born Free. Here is the theme song (lyrics by Don Black) sung by Matt Monro.
Barry followed up in 1969 with a Grammy award for Best Instrumental Theme for Midnight Cowboy. He did not have an onscreen credit because the producers wanted the focus to be on Harry Nilsson’s version of the song Everybody’s Talkin’ (written by Fred Neil).
Here is the last scene of Midnight Cowboy.
True to form, the BBC managed to preserve only two Juke Box Jury programmes out of 400-plus, though neither is available to view on the Corporation website. This one was shown on Saturday October 29, 1960.
The other was shown two weeks later, on Saturday November 12, 1960.
The number of panellists ran into the hundreds and you can find them all painstakingly listed on this website dedicated to the programme.
The first two editions in 1959 had the same line-up, so we will look at them.
Pete Murray is still with us and is due to turn 101 in September. He graduated from RADA in 1944 and went into the RAF for the last year of the war. He worked as an actor with Rank Studios, but deciding he was getting nowhere he took up disc-jockeying in 1950, starting at £15 a week on Radio Luxembourg (worth about £460 now). In 1955 he returned to London and started working for the BBC. He co-hosted one of BBC Television’s earliest pop music programmes, Six-Five Special, which I wrote about here, and was among the first regular presenters of Top of the Pops when it began in January 1964.He was one of the original BBC Radio 1 disc-jockeys when the station started in 1967.
At the end of 1983, the BBC cancelled his radio shows, describing his style of broadcasting as too old-fashioned, which led to Murray leaving the BBC altogether, a decision he later admitted to regretting, calling it a ‘very big mistake’. However he seems never to have been short of work and I don’t think even now he would describe himself as retired.
Gary Miller is largely forgotten now but he was a big name in the 50s and 60s. He was born Neville Williams in 1924 in Blackpool. As a young man, he was a talented footballer and played for Blackpool FC as an amateur. During World War II, he served as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and on demob enrolled as a student at London University with the intention of becoming a teacher of languages. However he had caught the ‘showbiz bug’ after performing in service concert parties and decided to pursue a full-time entertainment career. He had several hit records, the first being Yellow Rose of Texas which was engineered by the soon-to-be-legend Joe Meek. It reached No 13 in the UK chart in 1955.
In 1956 he got to No 10 with Robin Hood, the theme tune to the TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood. This too was engineered by Joe Meek. (It was not the version used on TV.)
Probably his most enduring legacy is Aqua Marina, used over the closing credits of the TV series Stingray.
I can’t miss the chance to show the wonderful opening titles.
In 1968 Gary Miller was appearing in the musical Come Spy with Me with Danny La Rue and Barbara Windsor, and simultaneously working on an episode of The Saint for ITV when he died from a heart attack at his south London home. He was 44.
In 1953 Alma Cogan was recording If I Had a Golden Umbrella when she broke into a giggle; she played up the effect on later recordings and a result was dubbed ‘the girl with the giggle in her voice’.
She was born 1932 in London of Jewish descent. Her father’s family, the Kogins, had arrived in Britain from Russia, while her mother Fay’s family were refugees from Romania. Fay had showbusiness ambition for her daughter from day one – she was named after silent-screen star Alma Taylor.
She started appearing professionally on stage in 1947, when she was 14. When Juke Box Jury was launched, she was at the peak of her career, appearing often on TV in one of her signature dresses with a figure-hugging top and full skirt, lavishly adorned with sequins. They were reputedly designed by her and made by her mother. Between 1956-1960, she was voted Outstanding British Female Singer four times by New Musical Express readers.
Here she is in 1955 with her No 1 hit Dreamboat.
Cogan lived with her widowed mother in a flat at 44 Stafford Court, Kensington High Street, where she frequently held star-studded parties. Guests included Princess Margaret, Noël Coward, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Danny Kaye, Ethel Merman, Sammy Davis Jr, Michael Caine, Frankie Vaughan, Bruce Forsyth and Roger Moore.
It is also strongly rumoured that she had a lengthy secret affair with John Lennon. There certainly seems to be an affectionate connection in this 1964 clip from Ready Steady Go involving host Keith Fordyce. (The performance of the Tennessee Waltz is from another programme, the Arthur Haynes Show.)
By this time, however, Alma Cogan’s star was falling. Ironically it was the musical revolution headed by the Beatles which made her brand of pop seem old-fashioned. At the same time she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She made her last TV appearance in August 1966 and died on October 26, aged 34.
Susan Stranks fulfilled the role of token ‘teenager’ on Juke Box Jury many times. She was born in London in 1938 and at the age of ten she starred in the romantic adventure film Blue Lagoon. Otherwise her career was uneventful until Juke Box Jury. She is best remembered for Magpie, ITV’s slightly grittier answer to the BBC’s Blue Peter, which she co-presented from 1968 to 1974. Here is a clip from 1969.
On December 7, 1963 there was a special edition of Juke Box Jury when all four members of the Beatles formed the panel. Instead of using a BBC studio, the show was recorded at Liverpool’s Empire Theatre in front of 2,500 members of the Beatles’ Northern Area Fan Club. The broadcast later that evening was watched by an estimated 23million viewers.
Needless to say there is no video but here is a sound tape.
(There are a few stills in the montage mentioned above.)
Presumably seeking to repeat this success, a few months later the show featured the Rolling Stones as the panel on June 27, 1964. The BBC having learned nothing about preserving tapes, all that remains is about 75 seconds of sound over a still picture. (Do look at the shins peeping over Bill Wyman’s high-heeled boots. Class.)
The Stones were sullen and terse. They were determinedly unimpressed by the records they were asked to review. Keith Richards (note: at that time he was styling himself Richard, not Richards) later recalled: ‘We didn’t give a shit . . . We just trashed every record they played.’ The next day the papers were full of headlines condemning the band and their attitude. The Daily Sketch described them as ‘gum-chewing, ill-mannered, ill-humoured, illiberal and illogical’. I imagine this was precisely what the group’s advisers had planned as they built them into the antithesis of the chirpy, charming Beatles. It certainly did no harm to their record sales, with their recently released single It’s All Over Now subsequently shooting to No 1, their first chart-topper.
At its peak Juke Box Jury attracted 12million viewers, but as the 60s wore on the figures dropped and by 1967 they were down to 5million. The BBC response was to move the show from its prime Saturday evening slot to early Wednesday evenings in September 1967. Surely they can’t have thought this would help the ratings? Perhaps it was to give them the excuse to kill it, which they did. The final episode was broadcast on December 27, 1967, with original panellists Pete Murray and Susan Stranks, plus Lulu and Eric Sykes.
I will finish with an irrelevance I discovered while researching this article: the super-cool Stones made an advert for Rice Krispies in 1964. It was written by Brian Jones, featured Jagger vocals and some nice Richards guitar, and I think it stands comparison with their tunes of the day. There were two versions: one featuring animations of the Kellogg’s characters Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and the other, less often used, was a parody of Juke Box Jury. I will never get another chance to feature these pieces of pop history so here they are:
