No, Cliff Richard didn't turn up on Absolute Radio 60s, but then the newly launched channel offers a highly selective look back at the music of the 1960s
There was, as promised, a Cliff-shaped lacuna on the launch of Absolute Radio 60s. The decade-based digital station went live at 10am with Pete Mitchell hosting the mid-morning show. It didn't take long for the C-word to surface.
"He made a very significant record in 1958," Mitchell said of Richard. "But he was variety; he was middle-of-the-road. The parents bought Cliff; the kids didn't. We want leather, we want sex and drugs and rock'n'roll." As if to counter the support for Cliff Richard ? from luminaries such as Brian Sewell, Esther Rantzen and Gary Kemp, who kept things in proportion by calling the ban "Stalinesque" ? Mitchell played a comment from Nile Rodgers. "He wouldn't be the dude you'd wanna smoke pot with," he said of Richard. Well, no.
The fuss about banning Cliff Richard's music has meant publicity for the launch, of course, but also tells us in shorthand what the station is and isn't. It's not comprehensive and all-inclusive like, say, Sounds of the 60s; instead, it's a highly selective version of the 60s music scenes to fit the profile of Absolute listeners. So, it's a mainstream, familiar narrative of the 60s sound for those who relish 60s-influenced guitar-led music now. The three bands played as the station launched (the Who, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones) underlined that.
So the parameters are the known and revered. But there is at least a commitment to finding some lesser-known tracks within them, and good documentaries in evening slots. There are presenters on the station between 10am and 6pm ? the station takes the Christian O'Connell breakfast show ? and a perhaps rather surprising commitment to Motown and soul. Geoff Lloyd, popping in for the first show, selected a Beatles track and mulled over the band's connection to the emergence of teenagers. "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" he pondered. Or, as fans of a certain veteran pop star, might insist: Cliff Richard.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/nov/22/absolute-radio-60s-cliff-richard
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