EVERLYPEDIA (formerly The Everly Brothers Index - TEBI) Coordinated by Robin Dunn & Chrissie van Varik EVERLYPEDIA PART 4 R to Z Contact us re any omissions, corrections, amendments and/or additional information at: [email protected] R____________________________________________________ R-A-D-I-O (Phil Everly) Circa 1948. Phil’s first effort at song writing, written at the age of nine whilst at home from school with influenza. See the Everly Brothers Complete Lyrics (on EBI discography site) for the words taken from Phil’s handwritten copy – including spelling problems. It is the earliest known composition. Not recorded – as far as we know! RADIO CAROLINE - a European pirate radio station that started transmissions on Easter Saturday 1964 from a ship anchored in international waters off the coast of Felixstowe, Suffolk, England. It was unlicensed by any government for most of its life and it was labelled a pirate radio station. Although one of a number of unlicensed radio stations based on ships anchored off Britain, Radio Caroline was the first such station to broadcast all day using the English language. This, together with the station’s tenacity in surviving for some 40 years, has established Radio Caroline as a household name for offshore radio. A legal, onshore version of Radio Caroline continues to broadcast via several methods, predominantly via satellite and over the internet. On Monday 3rd May 1965 the EBs taped an interview with Keith Skues for broadcast on the pirate radio. RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL - New York, NY, USA. Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City’s Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city. Its interior was declared a city landmark in 1978. The 12- acre complex in midtown Manhattan known as Rockefeller Center was developed between 1929 and 1940 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on land leased from Columbia University. The Radio City Music Hall was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and interior designer Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style. Its originally planned name was International Music Hall. The names “Radio City” and “Radio City Music Hall” derive from one of the complex’s first tenants, the Radio Corporation of America. Radio City Music Hall was a project of Rockefeller, Samuel Roxy Rothafel, who previously opened the Roxy Theatre in 1927 and RCA chairman David Sarnoff. RCA had developed numerous studios for NBC at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, just to the south of the Music Hall, and the radio-TV complex that lent the Music Hall its name is still known as the NBC Radio City Studios. The Music Hall opened to the public on 27th December 1932 with a lavish stage show featuring Ray Bolger and Martha Graham. The opening was meant to be a return to high-class variety entertainment. The new format was not a success. The programme was very long and individual acts were lost in the cavernous hall. On 11th January 1933, the Music Hall converted to the then familiar format of a feature film with a spectacular stage show perfected by Rothafel at the Roxy Theatre in New York City. The first film shown on the giant screen was Frank Capra’s The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck, and the Music Hall became the premiere showcase for films from the RKO-Radio Studio. By the 1970s, changes in film distribution made it difficult for Radio City to secure exclusive bookings of many films. Regular film showings at Radio City ended in 1979. Plans were made to convert the theatre into office space, but a combination of preservation and commercial interests resulted in the preservation of Radio City and in 1980, after a renovation, it reopened to the public. Radio City Music Hall is currently leased to and managed by Madison Square Garden, Inc. Movie premieres and feature runs have occasionally taken place there such as the Harry Potter film series, but the focus of the theatre throughout the year is now on concerts and live stage shows. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular continues to be an important annual event. The Music Hall has presented most of the leading pop and rock performers of the last 30 years as well as televised events including the Grammy Awards, the Tony Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, and the NFL Draft. The Garrison Keillor Prairie Home Companion 2nd Annual Farewell Performance, recorded on 4th June 1998 with The Everly Brothers, Chet Atkins and Albert Lee was broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall. RADIO LONDON aka WONDERFUL RADIO LONDON aka BigL - was a top 40 (in London’s case, the “Fab 40”) offshore commercial pirate station that operated from 16th December 1964 to 14th August 1967, from a ship anchored in the North Sea, three and a half miles off Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England. While the station, like the other offshore radio operators at the time (see: Radio Caroline – the first one), was dubbed a pirate radio station, its actual operation took place within the laws of the day and its offices were located in the West End of London. The station broadcast from the MV Galaxy, a former World War II United States Navy US Minesweeper originally named USS Density. The majority of programmes were presented live from a studio in the hold. The ship’s 1 metal bulkheads presented problems with acoustics and soundproofing that were originally solved by lining the walls with mattresses from the crew’s bunk beds, which meant none of them could sleep during the day. The disc jockeys included (among many others): Tony Blackburn, Pete Brady, Dave Cash, Pete Drummond, Kenny Everett and John Peel – all of whom were to become famous and transfer to BBC Radio 1 when it was formed. The EBs featured in record plays and interviews during RLs period of operation. RADIO LUXEMBOURG - is a commercial broadcaster in many languages from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is nowadays known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg). The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earliest commercial radio stations broadcasting to Britain. It was an important forerunner of pirate radio and modern commercial radio in the United Kingdom. It was an effective way to advertise products by circumventing British legislation which until 1973 gave the BBC a monopoly of radio broadcasting on UK territory and prohibited all forms of advertising over the domestic airwaves. It boasted the most powerful transmitter in the world (1000 kW broadcasting on medium wave); in the late 1930s, and again in the 1950s and 1960s, it captured very large audiences in the British Isles and other European countries with its programmes of popular entertainment. It was famous in the UK, but in other countries as well, for young people to listen to (often under the bedclothes out of parental ear-shot) on the new transistor radios that became very popular in the ‘60s. The Everly Brothers’ records were of course regularly featured and they were interviewed from time to time. RADIO RECORDERS - 7000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, California. The recording studio where some Everly WB recordings were produced. The 1963 album THE EVERLY BROTHER SING GREAT COUNTRY HITS was recorded here. See also the relevant Chronology of Everly Brother Recordings on the EBI website for detailed information re each track. The studio was built in 1929 by the Victor Talking Machine Company, no doubt in attempts to get into the new sound-on-film business, and completed sometime after the acquisition of Victor by RCA on 15th March 1929. Though now officially RCA Victor, the company was still being referred to simply as “Victor” and record labels did not carry “RCA Victor” until much later, sometime in the late 1930s or early '40s. One of the first stars on its label to record was Jimmie Rodgers in July 1930 accompanied by Louis Armstrong on trumpet. Radio Recorders itself was founded around 1933 and the 1937 Broadcasting Yearbook lists it as being located at 932 N. Western Ave. By 1949 they had taken over the facilities at 7000 Santa Monica Blvd. and were on the road to becoming one of the largest independent recording studios in Hollywood. Mostly all of the major labels used Radio Recorders’ studios because most of them did not have facilities on the West Coast initially. During the forties and fifties, Radio Recorders was responsible for recording countless radio shows, both network and local, for delayed broadcast, not always for California but for many western states. Telephone lines ran to all the important stations and the networks. Studio C was the nerve centre with at least six recording lathes and turntables and an “on-the-air” playback turntable protected by a railing so that it would not be bumped while it was playing a programme onto the air. The recording lathes were shock mounted in sand to prevent rumble from the streetcars on Santa Monica Boulevard. For much of that era, the recordings were made and played back on lacquer coated aluminium discs, before tape recording was introduced. Capitol Records did all their early recordings there and then stole away some of their engineering staff when they built their own studios. In addition to popular music the facilities there were also extensively used to record jingles, commercials and shows for broadcast radio. Elvis Presley’s Love Me Tender soundtrack along with many subsequent film soundtracks and other recordings were produced there. RADIO & TV (Boudleaux & Felice Bryant) Recorded 27th July 1960 at RCA Victor, Nashville, Tennessee, as part of the sessions for A DATE WITH THE EVERLY BROTHERS.