Tom Browne
Tom Browne was born in Lymington, Hampshire, and presented the chart countdown for five and a half years, from October 1972 to March 1978. For the first year and a half, the show was called "Solid Gold Sixty" - the first two hours comprising new records, other DJs' records of the week, plus Tom's own tip for the top - the "Bom Trowne Bombshell" (sic) - this segment only being broadcast on Radio 1 AM - and the final hour being the Top 20 countdown, also in stereo on Radio 2 FM (as well as on the Long Wave). Twice the show really was a top sixty chart - for the year-end countdowns of 1972 and 1973. Fitting twenty records into an hour meant that there was little time for chat - and when there was traffic news as well to be squeezed in then it was inevitable that some records got cut short.
However, when Paul Burnett joined Radio 1
from Radio
Tom Browne's schooldays were spent at King's
College in
I'm indebted to David Gilbert for the following information concerning Tom's acting career:
Going back to Tom Browne, do you remember his role in Emmerdale? (Or Emmerdale Farm as it was back then). I think it was just after he'd stopped doing the Top 20: knowing how touchy the BBC were in those days, I can't imagine them being keen to allow one of their artists to take part in anything as vulgar as a commercial TV *soap Opera* (shock horror!)
Anyway, TB was in Em for about four months, and he played a mild mannered schoolteacher who came to lodge at Annie Sugden's cottage. At first, Annie thought the world of him, as he was well spoken, polite, obviously well educated, and liked her cooking. But then his first term at the local school began, and it emerged that TB's character was in favour of 'progressive teaching methods', which apparently consisted of letting his class run around and scream a lot. This obviously put him in conflict with the traditionalists like Annie S and Mister Wilks, and I think there was a subplot that TB's character was looking for a flat to live with his *girlfriend* (more shock horror), with no thoughts of actually getting married first. Funnily enough, I don't think this plot ever came to any conclusion, from what I can recall, there was a long ITV strike, and by the time Emmerdale Farm returned, Tom Browne must have been unavailable or something, as his character was no longer in it. Some of these facts may be a little hazy (perhaps one of the Emmerdale experts on the web can correct me if I'm wrong), but it's an interesting side to Tom Browne's career.
Thanks for that, David. I've found out from an Emmerdale site that his character's name was James Bonfils.
Tom introduced a couple of minor changes to the format - from the outset he used jingles announcing the position of the records. Tom also phased in moving the recap from the very end of the show (as Alan Freeman had always done it) to before the Number One. For his first number one (David Cassidy's cover of Dusty Springfield's hit How Can I Be Sure?) Tom played it, then counted down the Top 20, then played a bit more of it again. He had time to do this because there were only nineteen discs to spin, Judge Dread's Big Six being banned. However, presumably because time later became tighter he then moved the Number One to the very end, where it has remained ever since! In the early days, Tom also used a couple of different "It's a Top 20 entry" jingles for the chart newcomers, and two examples can be heard on this pop quiz page.
Tom made a few mistakes - for example in the summer of 1973 he started to play the wrong side of Donny Osmond's "Young Love" (called A Million to One) but noticed and then played the right side. He shouldn't have bothered because the release was technically a double A side.
Earlier that year, on 18 March, the chart for that week as originally published had been a provisional one,due to technical problems, and had been corrected later in the week. Tom played the corrected chart (featuring Kenny's Heart of Stone at No. 19), but then when reading out the chart before the Number One read out the wrong one - No. 19 had become Step Into A Dream by White Plains (a record which never did make the Top 20!)
In 1974, Tom claimed that "You You You" was Shane Fenton's third hit as Alvin Stardust, but it was his fourth - perhaps he'd forgotten "Red Dress". The first time Tom played Emotions by Samantha Sang, and the last time he played Magic Fly by Space (for the top twenty records of 1977), Tom (understandably) confused the title of the song with the name of the artist!
In 1973, Johnnie Walker sat in for Tom on
one occasion, and in 1974 Paul Burnett did. Despite Paul's experience having
presented Radio
Tom's producers included Dave Price, Pete Ritzema, and Bernie Andrews. In early 1976 there was a worry. Bernie was standing in for Pete, who was abroad on holiday - except that Pete had gone missing! It turned out he'd gone out hiking, slipped down a ravine and hurt himself. Fortunately, he was eventually found and made a full recovery. Tom was relieved to be able to broadcast a get well message to the "naughty mountain climber".
The Top 20 show began with a few bars of Brother
by Alexis Korner's Collective Consciousness Society -
a record which only peaked at No. 25 in the Spring of
1972! So Brother never made the Top 20 despite being so closely
associated with it - it wasn't that big a brother! (Bizarre
note: On January 1st, 1984, the first day of the year of "big
brother", Alexis, who himself had been a Radio 1 DJ, sadly died.)
For a while therefore CCS provided the themes to two of the
The soundbite which you should automatically hear comes from July 1974.
Here are a few more little curiosities from Tom's time:
Right jingle played (eventually!) (No new copies of the M&O Band's version of Let's Do The Latin Hustle were being supplied to the shops, because it was suspiciously too much like Eddie Drennon's original (which was at Number Twenty) - people buying up the remaining copies sent it into the Top 20! It would have been silly for Tom to have played what was essentially the same record twice, and this was the second of only three occasions that Tom skipped a non-banned record - see below for the third.)
The day the clocks had gone back
Tom has trouble with the name of the man who had the very first Number 1 in 1952
Some stereo from 3rd February 1974
A snatch from 5 November 1972 (the only occasion that the Sunday weekly chart was (i) a Top 30 and (ii) was co-presented.)
Classic countdown from 19 November 1972 (a lot goes wrong!)
The first time "Brother" was used to begin a top forty - 31 December 1972!
Tom signs off from his final Top Twenty show - 26 March 1978
Tom skips a record purely for timing purposes - 16 January 1977 (I believe he also skipped King Of The Cops in 1976, as well as the M&O Band incident above, which was a special case.)
Number 49 jingle used on the Top 60 of 1972 (made by editing together Number 40 and Number 39)
Typical Browne humour from the Top 60 of 1973
33rpm record causes Tom problems (again from the Top 60 of 1973)
Jingles can't cope with tied positions (October 1976)
This is what Tom said on the special
programme broadcast on
For half my life, I had listened to Big Al, Alan Freeman, and suddenly I was told "Would you like to replace Alan Freeman?" I said "No, I like listening to big Al - don't take him away, please!" And so, I said no, and I walked around for two or three days and thought "well, I could do it really I suppose" - the old ego thing came in, and I said "Okay, I'll do it" so they said "Well, we want you to meet Alan Freeman." I went "(Gasp!) Meet Big Al? Are you sure?" And there's just shredded underwear and this man was so charming and kind and I said "I'm so sorry you're coming off" and he said "No, no, no, let me show you how to do this and this" - he was the consummate pro.
Secondly, on one of the biggest hits during his tenure:
Bohemian Rhapsody was extraordinary. There'd been some sort of pointers along the way - back in the late sixties there'd been MacArthur Park by Richard Harris - what was this movie actor doing singing this extraordinary song? But when we heard it we all sat down and went "Ooh.. that's extraordinary - it'll either be Number One or it'll get buried and never heard again."
Below: I assume that this is Tom on the cover
of Radio Times to mark the tenth birthday of Radio One. (But if not, then who
is it?) But he does tend to look different at times!
Here are some clips from the third hour of Tom's very first "Solid Gold Sixty"
Very short-lived Number One jingle
Tom presented a couple of other one-off programmes while he was the chart presenter - (pictured) an interview with the members of Abba, and also one day in 1976 the Top Twenty show was preceded with a one hour documentary about how the charts were compiled, for which he provided the narrative. On her show, Annie Nightingale once praised his darts playing skills for the Radio 1 team!
Tom with the Stylistics
Can you help? Do you have a tape of the first two hours of the Top 30/Fifty years of pop of 5 November 1972 (also featuring Brian Matthew)? Please let me know if you do!
Thanks to all those from whom I've received recordings and information!
My email is available here
Click Tom's
picture for more on him at Radio Rewind!
Tom of course is now well into his own solid gold sixties!