Built in 1934, the BBC’s Maida Vale studios in west London, soon to be crossing the capital to Stratford, has played host to just as much legendary music as its near neighbour Abbey Road. As the home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, there was a steady stream of world-class classical music throughout, but it was also there when the BBC woke up to pop music in the 1960s. Thanks to the catholic tastes of John Peel, it has heard everything from doom metal to pure pop bouncing off its walls. Here are five of Maida Vale’s key moments.
BBC Radiophonic Workshop – Doctor Who theme (1963)
Like the kids skulking behind the bike sheds, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was a unit apart from the sumptuous work poured out by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Maida Vale’s main studios in the mid-20th century. The Workshop was home to experiments with electronic sound, made by manipulating tape and other improvised equipment. This led to everything from the terrifying, proto-techno throb of the sound effects for television drama Quatermass and the Pit to poppy TV themes. Somewhere in the middle of the two was their masterpiece: the Doctor Who theme, arranged by Delia Derbyshire, riding in on an electro bassline with a melody that felt wrought from the ether.
The Beatles – Twist & Shout (1963)
From 1962 to 1965, the Beatles recorded 52 light entertainment programmes at the BBC, including shows from Maida Vale. The subsequent Live at the BBC collection of these recordings documents the band at a crucial stage: their chops polished by their night-after-night Hamburg residencies. They were still churning out raucous blues and rock’n’roll covers (Johnny B Goode, Lucille, I Got a Woman), but channelling their energy into a new kind of bright, pure guitar pop. The version of Twist & Shout from Pop Go the Beatles! in September 1963 is brilliant: slightly slower, with an extra R&B swagger that the Please Please Me album version lacks.
Bing Crosby – Feels Good, Feels Right (1977)
Come the late 1960s and 70s and Maida Vale was playing host to the likes of David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix – but as punk raged in west London neighbours such as Ladbroke Grove, Maida Vale was still hosting classy light entertainment. Bing Crosby’s final ever recordings were made at the studios, three days before he died of a heart attack. Feels Good, Feels Right is therefore incredibly poignant, as Bing celebrates the sensual pleasures of food, friendship and song. The chief pleasure of the recording, perhaps, is the musicality of his speaking voice as he thanks presenter Alan Dell for all the network has done for him – a moment that will have you hand-delivering your licence fee.
Joy Division – The Peel Sessions (1979)
John Peel’s live sessions, from 1967 to his death in 2004, are the most significant body of pop music that the studios produced. There are heavyweights (Pink Floyd, Nirvana), brilliantly named cult heroes (Leather Nun, Terminal Cheesecake) and bands who produced whole catalogues of work across multiple sessions (Stereolab, Pulp, and in particular the Fall). The most hallowed sessions are arguably the pair Joy Division recorded in 1979: you get Ian Curtis off the leash, tearing into Transmission with a mix of delight and fear at his own vitality, and preserving the melancholy of Love Will Tear Us Apart as the band go like the clappers.
Adele – Make You Feel My Love (2008)
The mid-00s wrought one of Maida Vale’s most dubious innovations: the Live Lounge, a place where some of pop’s worst ever ideas were laid on tape. Perhaps inspired by a Maida Vale recording of the White Stripes doing a great take on Dusty Springfield’s I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself in 2003, which ended up on their classic album Elephant, the gimmick of the Radio 1 slot was to get bands and pop stars to do unlikely covers. The sound of awkward white blokes (Foals, Hot Chip) trying to earnestly do justice to Gwen Stefani or Wiley will drive future tenants of the Maida Vale site to madness, a little like the Indian burial ground in The Shining. But there were occasional gems – not least Adele’s beautiful cover of Bob Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love, also recorded for her debut album, which has ended up being the canonical version. The less said about her Strokes cover, mind, the better.
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