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John McSorley
"And they produced this box out of the corner. A black box and they opened it up and wound it up like a clock work and dropped these discs onto it and lo and behold, rock and roll came out."
The Story
An eight year old John McSorley was spending an idyllic summer holiday in a country cottage with no electricity or running water. One day there was great excitement as electricity was connected to a nearby farm but for John, the real revelation was hearing rock and roll for the first time on a wind-up gramophone record player.
My View
This is hinted at in Van Morrison's song 'In the Days before Rock 'n' Roll' from his album 'Enlightenment'
I think a few Christmas' after the incident with the wind up Gramophone I was overwhelmed to receive a transistor radio - of course under the bed clothes listening was essential unlike today when a child's bedroom is a virtual recording studio. Anyway, just like Van Morrison describes in his song In The Days Before Rock N Roll, we searched through radio stations like Luxemburg, Athlone, Budapest and Hilversum.
We searched the airways for the music we wanted as this was not easily available on the BBC. It was the only local station at that time. Radio One did not exist and its forerunner the 'Light' programme only played the right music on a Saturday morning. Morrison emphasised this searching by mimicking the sound of static which is what we heard as we tried to find what had become 'our' music. So this led me through a series of radios and record players right up to today when I sit in front of a top of the range system which may well have cost the same as my parent's first house.
This system, as well as creating a feeling that the artist is in your front room, is able to play all available media from CD, Mini-disc, Cassette tape, even reel to reel and of course MP3/4 via a player and /or laptop. I am even about to replace my record deck which blew up a couple of years go. I miss the crackles and more rounded sound that you get from a vinyl record.
Also radio now gives a vast choice from Radio 1 right the way to Radio 6 so there must be few whose tastes are not covered by BBC. Of course I can now receive them all without Van's static.
But for all the sophisticated equipment it's still the music that counts...
The story continues...
John now runs a business taking people on outdoor-pursuit activities. His company The Outdoor Fox teaches hill-climbing, canoeing, kayaking rock-climbing and much,much more. John has just returned from an adventure holiday in Peru.
John's company has got involved with BBC's Children in Need, hoping to get people involved in outdoor-pursuits in order to raise money for the cause.
You can find out more by clicking here
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