Cool jazz direct from the chilly North Sea!

Supplies arrive for the Mi Amigo (Pic: Ken Adams) 

FIFTY years ago the choppy grey waters of the North Sea could be a surreal and cool place to be. For example, sea-farers passing a certain spot just off the Essex coast on one particular day would have heard the jazzy Hammond organ sounds of American star Jimmy Smith, who was playing live from the poop deck of the motor vessel Mi Amigo!

Smith was in Britain to record music for the forthcoming MGM film Where the Spies Are, starring David Niven. He’d met Radio Caroline chief Ronan O’Rahilly at the 21 Club in London and agreed to come out to the Caroline ship and give the first-ever live performance on the new radio station.

He was duly ferried out, along with his hefty Hammond organ, drums and guitar, plus cohorts Tony Crombie and Tony Thorpe. When they found the organ wouldn’t fit inside the ship’s tiny studio they set up on the poop deck instead. Despite the noise of the wind and shrieking gulls, the sound was deemed perfect! Smith played a special composition called Hip Ship Blues, plus his hits Moonlight in Vermont and Satin Doll. Caroline's millions of listeners loved it, while those on board witnessing the cool jazz at close quarters broke into rapturous applause when the mini-show ended.

Exactly 50 years ago this week, Caroline was broadcasting from the MV Fredericia, a mile or two off the coast from Felixstowe, and had been recently joined by the Radio Atlanta team, aboard the MV Mi Amigo, which anchored a short distance away, just off Frinton-on-Sea. Both were positioned in international waters, but close enough for smaller boats containing fans, journalists and rag week students to set out to visit them from time to time. It was pretty hectic and the Customs and Coastguard people were having their work cut out to keep pace with it all.

Atlanta, set up by Australian entrepreneur Allan Crawford, began test broadcasts before their first proper programming commenced with a show by DJ Colin Nicol. Audience figures for Caroline were by now huge, and the debate over the two stations’ legality (or otherwise) continued to drag on, with strong rumours emanating from Westminster that because they were fulfilling a clear need, legislation to force them off the air might not be introduced after all. The ships were deliberately positioned just outside GB territorial waters so controlling them was no easy task.

It was widely tipped that Caroline and Atlanta would soon merge, their respective bosses claiming they were no longer deadly rivals fighting for the same audience, as was initially the case. They were also both well aware of the huge profit-making potential of broadcasting adverts between the pop records. ITV even devoted an episode of its prime-time weekly show World in Action to the story.

The very first advert heard over the Caroline airwaves was on behalf of Woburn Abbey, the country seat of the Duke of Bedford. It was so successful that the following day Woburn welcomed 4,500 visitors despite bad weather, a big increase on normal figures. This satisfied customer would be quickly followed by ads from Peter Evans Restaurants, the News of the World and Phoenix Rubber, as well as smaller businesses from Suffolk and Essex on the nearby coast.

Songwriters and music publishers’ were not quite so happy with the pirates, however, and talks were held to thrash out a formal agreement  for the stations to start paying the Performing Rights Society for the music it was broadcasting 12 hours each day. This showed the pirates were willing to go ‘legit’ in order to keep the authorities happy. Not only this, they were even willing to sponsor projects on the British mainland, Caroline helping fund a Formula 3 Brabham racing car. It did well under its new colours, featuring in the prize money on six occasions over the spring and summer of 1964.

Having been delayed and closely questioned by Customs officials at the port of Brightlingsea, a group of journalists headed out one morning to the ships looking for stories about the new pop pirate phenomenon. They were delighted to find that on board the Mi Amigo, skipper Gerard Meyer was accompanied by his wife Irene. The pair had married ten months earlier, and revealed that this stint on the North Sea was the first time they'd been able to live together!

The ships welcomed the attention of the journos, but were not quite so relaxed when their supply vessel was reportedly ‘taken over’ by eight students who were apparently attempting to out-pirate the pirates! The students arrived on board Caroline (after a delay due to engine trouble) but met with little resistance from the crew and DJs after explaining they were from SE Essex College of Technology in Dagenham and only wanted to publicise a rag week appeal in aid of starving third world children. The teenagers were allowed to broadcast their message and were named as Lorraine Maughan, Janice Sibthorpe, Dee Hunter-Williams, Lesley Sinclair, Chris Williams, Graham Dove, Tony Cole and Ron Newbury. I wonder what became of them? 

This rag week idea caught on, and before long students from Leeds University came down to Essex with a yacht, complete with radio transmitter, to join the fun in the North Sea. Their plans went awry however, when a group of colleagues arrived to relieve the team already on board, but made the mistake of driving their Land Rover into shallow waters on the foreshore at Harwich. It quickly began to sink and suffered considerable damage before it could be towed out hours later. The students' plan to become radio pirates suddenly lost its appeal and they decided to leave it to the experts on Caroline and Atlanta.

Meanwhile, three miles out in the North Sea, the music played on . . . 

* FOOTNOTE: The live performance on board Caroline by Jimmy Smith and his band has been the subject of conjecture among pirate radio enthusiasts over the years. Some sources say it happened in May 1964, others say it was a year later in 1965. Jon Myer who compiled the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame and knows a thing or two about this subject, tells me it was almost certainly May 1965, and, what is more, this has been confirmed by Jimmy’s guitarist that day, Tony Thorpe. Tony, incidentally, went on to achieve success in the pop charts with The Rubettes and The Firm. Those of you old enough to remember the No.1 hit Sugar Baby Love on Top of the The Pops, might remember the band member with the huge glasses . . .  that’s him! 



* Tony Thorpe . . . from the
North Sea to Top of the Pops!