3rd October 1960 – Music for Party Political Conferences broadcast (BBC tv)

Time Beat has as complicated a history, as you’ll see. It was first created in 1960. The year given on the compilation albums is 1961. The famous Time Beat track released on Parlophone records was issued in 1962. The RWS tape archive has nothing called Time Beat till 1963 when Time Beat Rhythm (TRW 5045) was logged for Harry Roger in Radio. And we’re just getting started…

The best guess from the available information is that this was first logged in the archive as Party Conference (TRW 2082) for Anthony Smith and John Grist. Special late-night programmes covered both Labour and Conservative party conferences during October¹. Neibur says this piece has the fuller title Music For Party Political Conferences.

It was then picked to be used as a TV interval signal for the remainder of 1960². There may be no co-incidence that on 8th October 1960³, the BBC presentation department started using a digital clock for a short time. An electronic musical accompaniment to this would have been ideal.

From its first appearance, Parlophone head George Martin took notice of the rhythm track, but that is another story…

The piece next appears in the archive as Home Service Interval Signals (Pres. links & Indents) (TRW 3066)⁴ in 1961 ⁵. This is where the date from BBC Radiophonic Workshop – 21 comes from. The tape was commissioned by Rooney Pelletier⁶, the de facto Head of BBC Radio⁷.

Renamed Time Beat Rhythm in another tape prepared for Radio (TRW 5045) in 1963, it retained this name through several more archive copies⁸. During the preparation of BBC Radiophonic Workshop – 21, it was also called this to differentiate it from the pop disc by Ray Cathode. The Rhythm suffix was dropped though and (apart from Mark Ayres correctly using this title in Alchemists Of Sound) it has taken the same name as it’s more famous offspring ever since.

Timeline:

• 1960 – Created as Music for Party Political Conferences (TRW 2082)
• 1961 – Date on compilations taken from the copy made for Home Service (TRW 3066)
• 1962 – Release of Time Beat on Parlophone Records
• 1693 – Time Beat Rhythm appears on copy for radio (TRW 5045)

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/62356fda579b02ee0c8eb52e1f921a45

1. See the Genome link at the end of this post ↩︎
2. At least this is the narrative from Special Sound and other histories. There is nothing in the tape archive to substantiate this, although it is probably true. ↩︎
3. See here (although this precise date is not mentioned in the citation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_One_pre-1969_idents#cite_note-MHP-1 ↩︎
4. This is confirmed in the paperwork for the preparation of BBC Radiophonic Workshop – 21 which helpfully lists all the tape numbers next to the tracks – WRAC 125/742/1. According to the archive listing, this tape is missing now but must have been around in 1978/79. This wasn’t corrected for A Retrospective, but given the maze of copies, renamings and different uses this is not surprising. It does mean that it’s probably in the wrong place in the tracklisting should have ↩︎
5. So, although it started life on TV, it also moved to radio as an interval signal. ↩︎
6. He was later the first head of the BBC Radio Enterprises, the first incarnation of the BBC’s own record label. ↩︎
7. https://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/13th-january-1961/15/television ↩︎
8. Per the previous footnote, TRW 6178 was prepared as another copy for TV Presentation in 1964. A final copy (TRW 6818) was made for the children’s TV show Vision On in 1968. ↩︎