Top of the Pops: the Story of 1977

[Jamie Renton]

As hugely enjoyable a waste of an hour as you're likely to find, especially for those of us who came of musical age in the year in question. Highlights include lots of Rita Ray & Darts, the sad tale of John Otway's bottle of champagne, a 100% East End Jewish huckster record plugger called Eric Hall ("I said Elton, bubela..don't be a shmock"), Pete Paphides considering the potential parenting skills of Brotherhood of Man and The Stranglers + lots of music good, good at the time, endearingly awful and just awful:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... y_of_1977/

[Adam Blake]

[quote="Jamie Renton"a 100% East End Jewish huckster record plugger called Eric Hall ("I said Elton, bubela..don't be a shmock")/quote]

Childhood friend and Stoke Newin'un neighbour of Marc Bolan - back when Stokey was Jewish. He likes to tell the tale of when he was plugging Clive Dunn's "Grandad" so well it was keeping "Ride A White Swan" off the No.1 spot. Marc phoned him up and begged him to stop plugging it. Eric wasn't having any of it!

[Jamie Renton]

He's great, a knowing self caricature and funny with it. I don't think I'd like to have done business with him though.