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TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

From Radio Times "Alan Price plays and sings his kind of music and talks about the lyrics, tunes, and rhythms which make up pop music."


Alan Price had the misfortune to have a surname television producers couldn't stop playing with, see also The Price of Fame Or Fame At Any Price. This would be the first of three series that he would host or co-host in 1968 - 1970, the others being The Price of Fame and Monster Music Mash.


Price had co-hosted Top Of The Pops with Alan Freeman on 2nd May 1968 which might have been seen as an audition for this series which would be broadcast at tea-time in summer 1968. Price each week would show us the workings of the pop music business, from an insiders' perspective. He would ask other writers like Ray Davies about their craft, the process of recording a song, while on another show he had intended to write music to a winning lyric sent in by viewers. According to a report in The Times 9th September 1969 over two thousand lyrics had been sent in. They came in from housewives, a man aged 79 and, apparently, a four year old child. The most popular subject matter was unrequited love, followed by anger about war in Biafra and Viet Nam. In the end he decided to write music for five songs. The overall winner was The Snail, written by a seven year old girl, followed by My Skin It Is Black, written by an apprentice joiner from Stockton-on-Tees.


Despite the time-slot it managed to attract pop royalty like Ray Davies, Madeline Bell, Dave Mason and a reunion with Eric Burdon.





THE PRICE TO PLAY


BBC1

29th July 1968 - 16th September 1968