Bob Harris and Alan McGee in Cousti Video

You are now in possession of a brand new Video for the download single “Sweetest Tunes” by Scottish Rockers Cousti in tribute to Bob Harris in his 40th year of broadcasting. As a thank you for all the music Cousti recreated the Old Grey Whistle Test set, asked a few pals to help (who is that on mandolin) and Bob himself introduces the song in time honoured fashion.

1970’s Britain wasn’t all austerity, strikes and 3 day weeks, don’t believe the news real footage!

“There were more 5 day weekends than 3 day weeks” says Peter Lamb of Glasgow band Cousti

The seemingly black and white vista of everyday life was enlightened for the enlightened by some of the great music of all time, we talk of “Serious Rock” and an underground fraternity of custodial youth paid homage to it at every opportunity. Free Festivals attracted hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, independent record shops sold millions of beautifully gatefolded LP’s in Hi Fi Stereo, and most importantly, all those involved in this sub culture gathered dutifully together for one hour of the week, across the nation, in the most unlikely of places, to view late night BBC TV in search of the source for The Old Grey Whistle Test, introduced by the softy spoken voice of the love generation, Whispering Bob Harris.

The likes of Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Dylan, The Band, Little Feat, and The Grateful Dead captured the Zeitgeist of the changing times, without ever releasing a single. The LP was king! and the court of the King (crimson or otherwise) for its vassals was the OGWT. Tucked away after “straight folks” had gone to bed at a time where only “The Freaks” were awake, anathema and apparition appear amidst the BBC’s staple diet of sitcoms, news, and variety shows, there was Rock!

Peter Lamb Cousti’s singer explains

“We would tune in to Bob who would introduce us to the great music that inspired us then, and still inspires our music now, we followed the music of Bob Harris onto Radio One through the 80’s (when we possibly needed it most) and from there to Radio 2, in the same spirit and at the same time of night it would seem. So when we heard recently that he was poorly and off his work, we had the idea of recording “Sweetest Tunes” for him in tribute and sending it both as and with, a get well soon card. We were delighted to get an email back thanking us the very next day, which inspired us to get into the studio and finish recording the rest of the tracks on the CD and in turn, finally getting our first album released after all these years. We then sent the thankfully recovered Bob the finished article and asked him if we could release “Sweetest Tunes” as a download single in celebration of his 40 years in broadcasting and would he be in the video? He came straight back again with a resounding yes.

Bob takes up the story

“When I first heard the music it was soon after I was diagnosed with Prostrate Cancer and getting the demo gave me such a fantastic lift, I loved the sentiment and thought it was a lovely thing, so when they got in touch and asked if I could be a part of the Video I wanted to do it because they had been so kind to me”.

Peter continues “We’ve had so much great feed back from friends and fans from the roughs of the album, one of them being none other than ex-Creation Records boss Alan McGee so we invited him to join in on the fun too”

Alan who’s Creation Records story is about to be featured in a world release Rock Doc. joins Cousti in the video playing himself and tips his trade mark trilby to our other great inspirational dee jay, the late John Peel and the other iconic TV music show, Top Of The Pops, al la Johns famous cameo appearance in the Faces for a day, playing mandolin on Maggie May.