Saturday 4 February 2012

Retro Radio: Jingle Singles

Jingle Singles. No, not a dating site for morris dancers - although there is one on Facebook, honest! (I should point out that I only know that through research for this blog post - I am NOT a morris dancer!) 
This is a Jingle Single: 
They were recorded at Roche Recording Studios in Cornwall back in the 70's and were sold through mail-order with ad's in the music press. There's a nice blog page here detailing the studio and the creator of the Jingle Singles series. 
I've borrowed them from a mate at work who has a record collection to die for. He saw an ad a few years ago for a record collection for sale & snapped up the most amazing collection I've ever seen. The collection was being sold by the family of a former DJ who my mate assumed had died. It seems perhaps he hadn't died - there was talk of a prison sentence - but whatever had happened to him his family was happy to offload his collection as a job lot and my mate was lucky enough to get it. 
Along with all the mostly never-played records in this awesome collection were a couple of dozen 45's of jingles and sound effects, both pre-recorded ones and also some made specifically for the DJ himself:
My mate offered to lend them to me knowing I do a radio show & thought I'd find them interesting. He wasn't wrong, but I don't think I'll be using them on my SFR show. They are certainly 'of their time' and have a certain charm, which I suppose is a polite way of saying they're pretty bloody awful! Don't believe me? Try this:
As well as the Cornish Jingle Singles there are others from studios called Jumbo & Vanguard. The Jumbo jingles are much more 'professional' sounding than the Jingle Singles efforts, but to my mind not anywhere near as charming. I've put the Jumbo 'All Time Favourite Jingles' disc into a YouTube video; I think I'm reasonably safe from any copyright actions on this one!
When I get round to it I'll make recordings of all the jingles & sound effects & make them available to anyone who wants to add a bit of a retro-radio sound to their shows. Let me know if you'd be interested.


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