Don Woods

First off...happy new year....I thought I might have to call you "Sir" Vince but I noticed you never made the Queen's honours list.....so you can't join Knights of the Realm like Sir Cliff...Sir Ringo...Sir Van Morrison....or Sir Tony Blair and even more hard to believe Sir Ashley Banjo ....maybe next year....I would suggest you latch on to an act which will definitely end up being knighted.....Ant,Dec and Vince? ....For the "one of the worst records ever made" spot this week I have nominated the destruction of the song "My Way" by The Sex Pistols......it is over 4 minutes long so I suggest fading it out after one minute if you can stand it for that song.

I enjoyed the link you sent me with the Jet Harris interview.....I didn't know he was the first to use a Fender electric bass guitar....good stuff...I met Jet when I was working on Radio Merseyside....and we had a few pints in the local ....before he went tee total....and chatted about his adventures with The Shadows and I got some interesting inside info... he really was a nice fella and like most of those who have been there he was very humble.....a sad loss. I watched a programme on ABBA....it's hard to believe how good they were....I can't remember them making a bad record....and they made most of them in several languages....and I also watched the 2017 E.L.O. concert in Wembley arena.....mind blowing.....I know you are a big Beatles fan mate....you can have 'em......no comparison......and needless to say we have none stop Christmas records on various channels on the telly....I can't REALLY complain because back in the day I wrote a Christmas musical for Radio City which contained six Christmas songs...

Back in the day we were subjected to a weird character called Tiny Tim....who with his squeaky voice actually made many appearances on TV....how- I don't know....he was TERRIBLE!!!....so this week's "one of the worst records ever made" spot features his minor hit "Tip Toe Through the Tulips".....BUT this isn't the worst record he ever made....oh no....the worst record he ever made...or ANYONE ever made was entitled "Santa Clause has got the AIDS this year"......and is so bad and in such bad taste that it doesn't deserve any airplay whatsoever.....needless to say Tiny Tim's career eventually ground to a halt thank goodness....so here he is singing the load of garbage entitled Tip Toe Through The Tulips.

...... O.K.......it's time for this weeks "one of the worst records ever made" spot.....no...not Mull of Kintyre....but close........it features my least favourite group in the world...The Smiths........it is called "This Charming Man" and it sounds like the band has laid down a backing track and Morrisey has come along and sung to a different tune....and I think the bass player is on speed......even talking about this record is hard work never mind listening to it so here it is....This Charming Man by The Smiths..

On the showbiz front there is a film out about The Beatles. I think it's called "Get Back" and shows unseen footage of them in the recording studio.....I don't know what channel it is on and quite frankly I don't want to know....WE"VE SEEN IT ALL......apparently the film has received mixed reviews.....John and Paul chatting to each other.doesn't seem to be of much interest to some. The recent heavy storms...apart from destroying my back gate....have created a historic moment in television history.....because of the imminent danger an episode of "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" had to be recorded.....and wasn't LIVE... for the first time ever....now correct me if I'm wrong but the programme takes place inside a Welsh castle....which was built back in history to survive attacks by multitudes of armies....what I can't understand is what dangers a selection of gusty winds presents?.....out of interest I watched the recorded episode.....this programme has to be at the very very bottom of the entertainment ba

Cricket is making headline news....certainly not for the excitement of the game but for racist remarks made over the years to whingeing pathetic so called sportsmen.....first we have Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq so deeply hurt by racial remarks that it ruined his career.....only to be found to have made racial remarks about the Jewish faith himself on social media 10 years ago.....for which he has apologised....so that's O.K. then...what a hypocrite......................then we have the Australian player who blacked his face at a fancy dress party 9 YEARS AGO!.....he has strongly apologised for this.....why I don't know....was anybody injured?........mind you cricket does need something of interest to talk about because it is so boring....these so called sportsmen need to get a life. Then we have a woman who has complained that she was "inappropriately touched" by Boris Johnson's dad.....10 YEARS AGO....apparently he tapped her bottom and told her she had a nice seat......obviously this has mentally scarred

@DonWoods weekly news rant then.....During the climate change show up in Scotland....which is blanket news at the moment.....before I had the chance to switch it off I was subjected to the effect on the world by planting trees.....which to me is about as interesting as Scottish football.....one chap was telling us that the trees absorb carbon dioxide so the more trees we have the better....another bloke came on and told us that when trees die all the carbon dioxide it has absorbed is released back into the atmosphere so the more trees we have is not a good thing.....just before I switched the TV off I slowly gazed up to see this wonderful information drifting over my head...............were it not for these scientific gatherings on our pathetic news programmes you would never ever hear or see the "experts" they feature....they should incorporate this tripe into the X Factor.......which is about the same level.....it's a wonder Ant and Dec aren't up in Scotland presenting the nonsense. Then there is "Newswatc

Another joke is a programme called "Newswatch" which is on our wonderful BBC....it invites viewers to air their complaints about the way BBC news is presented which is "explained" by various representatives of the Beeb who basically say that they think they are fine with the way they present the news....so that's O.K. then......this week the lack of young viewers was discussed and they had a woman on explaining how they were going to solve this problem.....I listened to her garbling away for 5 minutes and I can honestly say I didn't have a clue what she was going on about.....the BBC have always been way behind the rest so nothing changed there then I recently watched a programme about The Goon Show.....it was an acted out version of the last radio broadcast of the said show with Peter Sellers,Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan.....it was quite interesting as I never got The Goons.....everyone in school thought they were hilarious...even my dad was a big fan....but I never found them even slightly funny....I

I have been watching a programme called "when showbiz good horribly wrong" which demonstrated how easy it is to NOT make money........to actually make money in the music business you have to think things out or you will get ripped off by managers and publishers who have no musical talent.....the way I did it was to look for the gaps in the market....in the 60s all the groups were playing rock and roll and pop music....only 7 or 8 piece dance bands were playing strict tempo....so in the mid 60s my band perfected quicksteps,slow foxes, waltzes etc and as we could also play pop and rock we covered all bases and when the group scene ground to a halt in the 70s we played on as a function band....and during the 70s I started writing songs and sending them out top publishers with little success but it was when I sent one to the Opportunity Knocks Songwriters Contest and appeared on the show that I knew I was on the right track so I set up my own record and publishing company and released my own stuff which took off

Don's rant then........... On a lighter note I was never a fan of Frank Sinatra....I know he was admired and idolised by many...but he was never for me...I found his voice very "dry" as opposed to Bing and Pat Boone for example....and in later years old Frank always seemed to be singing about himself...e.g.....I did it MY way....I have been a rover - I have walked alone....start spreading the news I"M leaving today....personally I couldn't care less what Frank was doing and he wasn't always in tune....only my opinion ....and Rod Stewart has a new single out which he obviously wrote himself....it is about him splitting with his girlfriend to go off and play in his country band with lines like..."it was great while it lasted...and the two of us smashed it".....I do like good thought out lyrics...these sadly not falling into that category. The contestant for worst record ever goes this week to a 7 inch single which should have had and 8 inch hole drilled in it....it is by one of those late 50s early 60s pretty

..it's time for my choice of one of the worst records ever....it is from the past and is probably forgotten by most people but there are some songs which are so bad they are difficult to get out of your mind...the culprit is country singer Roger Miller and the song is called "England Swings" and is a description of England...or London...through the eyes of an American who has obviously never been here....fortunately the song is less that 2 minutes long.....it is one of those 8 inch 45 singles which should have had a 9 inch hole drilled in it.

My entry for one of the worst songs ever goes to one of our first pop stars to come on to the scene back in the 50s.....Tommy Steele......now I must admit I liked Tommy because he wasn't an Elvis clone like most of them were at the time....BUT there was no excuse for this record...."Rock With The Caveman".....with classic lines like "The British Museum's got my head...that's most unfortunate 'cos I aint dead" makes it worthy of being one of the worst records ever.....despite Tommy's great backing band.

I have always liked good female singers with pin point accuracy....for example Celine Dion with her gentle delivery...Gladys Knight with her perfect phrasing....Aretha Franklin with her sharp jagged delivery ....Dionne Warwick with her faultless voice (Heartbreaker being one of my favourite songs)....and of course Tina Turner with her fabulous range.....a lot can be learned by up and coming girl singers from the likes of these legends....and at the opposite end of the scale I would like to introduce one of the worst records ever made...only .in my opinion of course....Tell Laura I Love Her by Ricky Valance....which reached number one back in the day....but to me it is one of the worst records ever.

My bad record selection this week features a "song"....if you can call it a song. ...which resembles waking up and finding yourself in hell....it is like every nightmare you have ever had rolled into one....it does in fact defy description....it is called "This Is Yoko Ono".....performed by the lady herself ....once you start listening to it I guarantee you will only give it 20 seconds as it will take that long to actually believe what you are hearing.....I'm sure Yoko is a nice person but whoever told her she could sing should be arrested.......it sounds like she has been set on fire......John Lennon probably liked it....or said he did.....when you play this Vince I will understand if you cut it short......it's like a punishment.

have always liked to listen to good music with clever arrangements and lyrics but like with Ant and Dec I fail to see how some songs achieve their popularity..... I would now like to voice an opinion on a piece of music which I thought was pretty bad......I know the song sold millions and made a bunch of Liverpool lads very famous....but I never got it at the time and never have....Love Me Do by The Beatles....I really enjoy good lyrics....but...Love Me Do.....it's something you would never say....."hey girl love me do"....makes no sense whereas Love me TOO would make more sense.....Love me too (because I love you).....it was brilliantly marketed to created mass hysteria but for me it is one of my least favourite songs of all time....sorry about that....I can'y comment on modern rap because the radio is switched off after the first two bars.

Don tells us about his mind/blowing experience at the age of 12 when he went to watch Rock Around the Clock. He had his day of enlightenment almost like being on the musical road to Damascus. Listen up and relive the music of the 50s with Bill Haley.

First we find out what-s on Don's mind with #Olympic Games #ClimateChange #Liverpool #Heritage and #Music...This week's "there and back in a day" features Northern Ireland......as explained in previous programmes these were travelogues made with Radio Merseyside's Monty Lister where we would travel to various places for one day...he would do the commentary and I would handle the sound.....so this one starts out at Liverpool Airport in the early hours of the morning and we land in Belfast where we are shown around the city before boarding a coach which takes us across country to the Mountains of Mourn where we stopped off for lunch and had a look around the area.....on the way there the coach driver pointed out some boats coming into the harbour and explained they were bringing back a cargo of eels for the local fishmonger trade....someone on the coach asked if we could see some eels.....the driver nods his head and takes a left off the carriageway and down this country road which was narrower that the coach.

Don's news rant followed by .....This week I would like to tell you about another day trip I did as Monty Lister's sound man for another of his travelogues on Radio Merseyside....this week we feature Bergen in Norway....there and back in a day....again we started out from Speke Airport at around 6 in the morning...off the plane at Bergen and on to the coach.....Bergen is a beautiful place,very picturesque,and we were taken to the small harbour in the town where we boarded a boat and were treated to a trip down the fjord......which was spectacular with Monty in his element describing the scenery and interviewing fellow passengers.....the views were stunning.....when we got back to the town we were then taken to the funicular railway which takes you to the top of the nearby mountain which again was spectacular...from the top you had a breathtaking view of Bergen and the fjords.....on returning back to earth Monty suggested going for a beer in a nearby pub where we could sit outside and enjoy the scenery.....Mon

This week the subject of my Radio Merseyside day trips as soundman for Monty Lister takes us to Tromso in Norway for one of his many travelogues......Tromso (pronounced Trumsa) is the most northerly town on the planet so needless to say it was a bit nippy....around minus 30 degrees.....the object was to see the northern lights as you can't get any closer to them than Tromso.....we left Speke airport in Liverpool around 6.30 in the morning and arrived in Tromso at about 9 o'clock then on to a coach for a tour of the town which was set in solid ice with Monty doing his usual commentary.....we were then taken to a large yurt for lunch where we were entertained by a young lady on guitar singing local songs....we were then taken on the coach to a high point to see The Northern Lights....however it was so cloudy we didn't see them....close but no cigar....we were then treated to a lecture by Patrick Moore who educated us all on the Northern Lights...