Sorting through some records last night (in the R and S sections) I was reminded that it is nearly April 12th and the 44th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering flight into space. I have posted the 45 of his transmission previously (here). The following is a fairly rapid selection of space-related tracks that I bumped into last night.
A ‘Melodica’ record of unknown date. The track is ‘To the Stars’ sung by Lyudmila Zykina with the Osipov Academic Russian Folk Orchestra conducted by Victor Dubrovsky. I have no idea of the content but am relying on the title for relevance.
The BBC Radiophonic workshop from 1976…with a remarkable sleeve designed by Andrew Prewett. Two tracks: ‘Space ship control room atmosphere’ and ‘Space ship interior atmosphere’.
The track is ‘The Rocket Man’ by the Spotnicks from Gothenburg, Sweden. The album was recorded in London on an unspecified date in 1962 between the hours of 2:30 in the afternoon and 7:30 the following morning. Thorough research on Wikipedia suggests that the tune is ‘based on the Soviet/Russian folk march “Polyushko-polye”‘. ‘The Rocket Man reached no. 38 in the UK charts.
Here is a film of the Spotnicks performing ‘The Rocket Man’
From the back cover of ‘Out-a Space; The Spotnicks in London’.
Set the controls…
And interested to see that Concord has found its way on to the Melodica cover. Is this significant? Is there something we should know about the history of Concord? Not so sure about the ditty, though.
The twangy Spotnicks – do they have a case against Reg Dwight? Nice tune. Touch of Telstar? Have twangy guitar, will travel to the moon.
Not Concord but the Tupolev Tu-144 famous for crashing at the Paris Air Show in 1973…so, presumably, the record pre-dates that.
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