Dear Visitors, Jempi Laevaert, 2007 |
Dear Visitors, We very much appreciate all the contributions we have received to assist us with the work. Thank you all! |
The ongoing search for: The Radio Caroline Charts:1964 –1968 |
Radio Caroline North & South | |||||
March 27, 1964 |
Radio Caroline starts broadcasting on Easter Saturday, March 28th from the MV Fredericia, renamed MV Caroline, off the coast of Essex. | ||||
May 9, 1964 |
Radio Atlanta starts broadcasting from the MV Mi Amigo, also off the coast of Essex. | ||||
July 2, 1964 |
The two pirate radios merge and Radio Atlanta becomes Radio Caroline South while the original Radio Caroline heads for the Isle Of Man and becomes Radio Caroline North . | ||||
In the beginning... | |||||
1964 Atlanta Hit Parade |
Radio Atlanta had a Top 20 countdown show that went out on Sunday lunchtimes. There is a clip from one, hosted by TW, (then known as Tony Withers) on The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. TW announces the chart as The Radio Atlanta Hit Parade and the positions of the records, "As our experts see them", which probably translated as "As Allan Crawford compiles them". He announces this as the second Atlanta chart, but gives no specific transmission date. Although the station started transmissions on May 9th, it seems more likely that the Radio Atlanta Hit Parade was introduced later to try and keep pace with Caroline. Judging by the records played, the chart date is probably late-June 1964, either the 21st or 28th. In fact, very shortly before the stations merged. |
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1964 Caroline Top 50 |
The Atlanta charts of 1964 The Caroline charts of 1964 |
The broadcast history of the Radio Caroline South charts. | |
1965
Caroline Top 50 Sounds |
In early 1965 the Top 50 was broadcast between 12.00 noon and 2.00 pm. As from Saturday 1st May 1965 the programme was extended by 15 minutes, on the air from 12.00 noon until 2.15 pm. On Saturday 26th June 1965, The Caroline Top 50 was replaced by the "Sounds of 65" and broadcast between 12.00 noon and 3.00pm. The first Radio Caroline South edition was hosted by Tony Blackburn. Take a look at the Broadcasting Schedule from Monday 16th August till Monday 30th August 1965 and find the "Sounds of 65" on Saturday. The charts of 1965 |
The broadcast history of the Radio Caroline South charts. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
1967
Caroline Countdown |
The charts of 1967 The last in the series of "Caroline Countdown of Sound" was broadcast on Saturday 20th May 1967 and was presented by Tom Edwards. Although the chart was no longer broadcast,the disc jockeys sometimes mentioned the position of a record in the charts and occasionally read a countdown of the week's Top Ten; there were also references to Caroline Sureshots.This makes it clear that the chart was still used, although the programme itself had been discontinued. On 15th August 1967, The Marine Broadcasting Act came into action. Both Caroline South & North continued as Radio Caroline International. The "Caroline Countdown of Sound"
was revived briefly in November 1967, broadcast from
midnight on Saturday 4th November until 2.00am on Sunday 5th.
The host was Carl Mitchell and in an era when singles could remain in sales-based charts for months on end, eight of the singles in the Top Thirty
had been
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The broadcast history of the Radio Caroline South charts. | |||||
1968 |
Although the chart was no longer broadcast,
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March 3, 1968 | Both Radio Caroline International ships were forced to stop broadcasting and were towed away as collateral for major debts. | ||||
Jempi's Acknowledgements |
* I would like to thank Alan
Hamblin who took a special interest in Radio Caroline from
the first transmission from the MV Caroline on Easter Saturday 1964 (March
28th) up until the MV Caroline closedown in March 1968. Alan compiled the broadcast history of
the Radio Caroline South charts during the Sixties from his
own logs. * Many thanks to Harald Urbig who spent hours, days/nights and weeks listening to old Radio Caroline tapes in order to check chart positions and fill in several blanks. * I would like to thank Poul Folged, Machteld Meijer, Hans van Hulssen, Kompi, Jon Myer, Wout van Wijk, Ron van Woerkum, Holger Postelmann and Hans Zegveld for donating several charts. * Thanks to Colin Nichol and Ken Evans, both now living in Australia, for sharing their memories and diving into the pirate-days files. * Finally, I would like to thank Hans Knot who launched my appeal for the search for The Radio Caroline Charts. Jempi Laevaert |
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Wanted |