Hello everyone, 1963: Imagine this … a ten year-old boy listening to his a.m. transistor radio under the blankets on a freezing cold Sunday night in London. It was Radio Luxembourg and the DJ was Emperor Rosko playing My Guy by Mary Wells on the Motown label. That young boy was me listening to a record
I’d never heard of before.
The bouncy “finger-snapper” only lasted 2 minutes and 45 seconds but I was hooked. I pulled back the covers and got up to dance hoping mum couldn’t hear me jumping “out on the f loor”. Getting back into bed, another record came on … Emperor Rosko announced “Rising fast here’s Roy Orbison with Only The Lonely”. No contest I thought after hearing the first verse. Mary Wells wins it hands down.
From that moment on any spare pocket money from my paper round was going into a tin marked “Motown”. Our local record shop was in the High Street so once I’d saved up enough coins I cycled down there in great anticipation. I was devastated when the assistant told me they did not stock any records on the “Motown” label. The disappointment was short lived however when she told me a brand new label had just been released named “Tamla-Motown”. “What’s the name of the record you’re looking for?” I replied “My Guy by Mary Wells”. The nice lady said “I’m sorry we don’t have it on the Tamla-Motown label. It’s on the Stateside lable”. “Really? Can you play it for me?” At the start of the record the familiar bass and horn intro came out of the speakers - I was ecstatic with joy. I sang along with Mary “MY GUY” so loud the other customers turned around and looked at me in shock horror!
From that first purchase I would go on to become a total MOTOWN/SOUL/FUNK/JAZZ/ freak. The music has stayed with me to this day and will always be a part of my life. Over five decades later I’m still here folks, playing the music that I love. You can imagine my delight when my old mate Adrian Bendall-Charles rang me one day and said “We want you on our radio station mate”. That was over a year ago and my weekly 2-hour SOUL MIX OLD AND NEW show is a pleasure for me to lovingly curate for CENTRAL COAST RADIO station. Thank you so much to Angelika Koop and Adrian Bendall-Charles for taking good care of me and making sure the show goes out to the entire planet! To check out the full schedule and all our presenters, find us at www.centralcoastradio.com Dave Burton
Joined January 2024
