Posted by Mike Barraclough on December 19, 2008, 2:27 pm, in reply to "Re: Songs banned on the radio (or t'wireless, for you old Lancy codgers!) "
From Dennis LeCorrie's website:
Can you tell us the story behind Hook's recording of Cover of Radio Times?
Another myth..
When we released Cover of Rolling Stone in the UK the BBC would not play it because 'Rolling Stone' is a registered trademark and, as such, could not be used in any commercial song that was played on their station.
CBS Records came up with a great idea and set up a phoneline where folks could call and hear the song, clandestinely.
It brilliantly helped to grow the mystique, making the BBC desperately want to play the record, but they simply couldn't get around the copyright restrictions.
Legend has it that we went into a studio and rerecorded the song as 'Cover of Radio Times' - the weekly BBC TV.radio magazine - so they would give the song airtime.
What actually happened was that a bunch of BBC DJs went into a studio and shouted the words 'RADIO TIMES' over our original chorus.
It's the same recording that we released with the addition of their voices layered over the top of ours.
You can still hear us singing 'ROLLING STONE!' way in the background, under their voices.
I never even heard the alternate version till a couple of decades after the fact, when a fan gave me a cassette copy of it after one of my shows.
Strange how these halftruths follow you around.
