Reminiscing

I've been reminiscing about Radio Caroline. That linked page is a frame from the parent site, RadioCaroline.co.uk. I linked to that page in particular, because it's the part of the history I was involved in, as a listener. A little bit of my world collapsed on the day the Mi Amigo sank in the North Sea. There has never, ever, been broadcasting like Caroline's. Only album tracks, nothing poppy. Just good ol' 60s and 70s rock. Not even 80s rorck, because it wasn't the 80s yet.

Listening to Caroline was my first exposure to the likes of Springsteen, the Allmans, Skynyrd, Zep, Jackson Browne, even Jonathan Richman. I didn't like a lot of it, but you got to hear the legendary stuff that you only could read about otherwise.

My musical tastes were formed then. My favourite show was the friday and saturday night "Personal Top 30" show. Listeners would send them in, and they'd just play them - or as much as they could fit in to 2-3 hours. Awesome. So you could request all your favourite tracks (which often turned out to be things like "Shine On Crazy Diamond," "Jessica," and "Stairway...", but still) and they'd just play them.

And Loving Awareness. I'll never forget that. They used, among other things, "The End" from Abbey Road on one of the jingles. Outrageous, and fantastic.