Terry Henebery

From msn.com, May 16, 2024:

Terry Henebery, who has died aged 91, was a versatile television and radio producer who first brought the Beatles into the nation’s homes, producing their debut on Saturday Club and their own series Pop Go The Beatles for the BBC Light Programme. […]

With the Musicians’ Union imposing strict limits on “needle time” with disc jockeys, the BBC in the early 1960s mainly served up a diet of “live” music, with dance bands imitating the hits of the day. The practice would reach its nadir with the Joe Loss Orchestra’s rendition of Bob Dylan’s Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 with its chorus “Everybody must get stoned”.

From 1958 to 1963, Henebery was a producer of such shows, cutting his teeth on Jazz Club, Trad Tavern and Go Man, Go!, of which he produced 200 episodes. His tastes intruded at times; he had Alexis Korner barred after an excursion into rhythm-and-blues, and vetoed a weekly showcase for Chris Barber, rating him a prima donna.

The Beatles first appeared on BBC radio on January 26 1963, on Saturday Club, with Henebery in the control room. They had had fleeting chart success with Love Me Do, and weeks before had recorded their first album, Please Please Me, at Abbey Road with George Martin, but away from Liverpool they were little known. Their set comprised Some Other Guy, Love Me Do, Please Please Me, Keep Your Hands Off My Baby and Beautiful Dreamer. They appeared on Saturday Club nine times more, performing their own songs and R&B material from America.

Late that spring, with the Beatles topping the charts, their manager Brian Epstein negotiated their own Tuesday evening show: Pop Go The Beatles. The BBC set a budget of £100 per episode.

During its run – Henebery producing 13 shows out of 15 – the Beatles performed 56 songs, 25 of which they did not release on disc. Guest performers included the Searchers, the Hollies and the Swinging Bluejeans.

Henebery recalled of the sessions: “They’d come into the studio and horse about. You had to crack the whip and get on the loudspeaker talk-back key quite a lot and say: ‘Come on, chaps!’ They’d be lying on the floor, giggling.

“I remember afternoons at the BBC Paris Cinema studio where you were just looking at the clock, throwing up your hands in horror and thinking: ‘Will they ever settle down?’ People would get locked in the toilets and fool about. But you were, at the end of the day, getting some nice material out of them.”

It took time for Henebery to see the Beatles’ music that way. In the early days he would chunter: “Those bloody Beatles, they haven’t got a clue. I hate this music” – forgetting that Jane Asher, Paul McCartney’s girlfriend, was sitting quietly in the control room. His opinions did mellow: by 1966 he was producing a programme titled Chris Barber’s Brass Band plays the Beatles.

By the time Pop Go The Beatles finished its run that September, Beatlemania was rampant. The group’s radio days were almost over – and Henebery was reassigned to television for the start of BBC Two, where he launched the iconic Jazz 625 series. […]

Albums, EPs & singles which Terry Henebery contributed to