Reviving Stuff 60s (Brooke Bond D) - Various Artists

Brooke Bond D - Reviving Stuff

You've got to hand it to my mother: why spend money on music if she could get it for free? Hence I grew up on a musical diet fed via promotional cassettes from Weetabix, Smiths, and Brooke Bond, and there is no doubt that they all played a part in the forming of my musical tastes. The Weetabix Top Trax tapes and Smiths' Kid Jensen tape pushed some 80s music into my ears when I otherwise might have been too young to notice. But Brooke Bond, via their Brooke Bond D brand of tea bags, went for the 1960s.

I suspect that my mum had thought to herself, "Ah! Some music that I can appreciate," as I don't remember her ever being a huge fan of 80s rock and pop (despite the numerous times we played the tapes at home or in the car). So maybe the Reviving Stuff tape, with its "12 Smash Hits From The 60s" was exactly the kind of thing she was hoping for when it was given away in 1988. As it happens, like all the other music tapes, my sister and I commandeered it and we were both more likely to be listening to it than my mum would be.

Of the twelve songs on the cassette, at least seven of them remain with me as firm favourites. I dislike none of them, but those remaining five wouldn't rank highly amongst my "most played".

Side One
1. Len Barry - 1-2-3
2. Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
3. The Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore
4. Tom Jones - It's Not Unusual
5. Mamas and Papas - California Dreamin'
6. Lulu and The Luvvers - Shout

Side Two
1. Amen Corner - Bend Me Shape Me
2. The Flowerpot Men - Let's Go To San Francisco
3. Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues
4. Dusty Springfield - You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
5. Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, Astrud Gilberto - The Girl From Ipanema
6. Little Eva - The Locomotion

As far as picking twelve songs from the 60s goes, I think the guys at Brooke Bond did a pretty good job. But I certainly thank them for providing me with wonders like The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore (that song is simply beautiful), and Bend Me Shape Me (so many memories of singing this at the top of my voice during long car journeys). Whilst I'm sure that I would have come across It's Not Unusual, and California Dreamin' at several points during my life, I think it is possible that The Walker Brothers or The Flowerpot Men could have passed me by.

"I write songs so that the person I didn't say those words to can hear them" - Taylor Swift