Am referring to radio, the prime means of communication and music promotion of those times.
While AIR (All India Radio) at Altinho had its daily afternoon fix of Western music, often with 'Yours Truly' Imelda behind the phone, if one recalls right, for maybe an hour or so, we had to struggle to tune in to the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation* early mornings or after 6 pm. While the morning transmissions continued till 10 am, by the time the sun moved overhead, propagation was poor and we could only get snatches of music. Radio Australia, with its own peculiar accents and musical tastes, came in till a little later, maybe till 11.30 am or noon. I often heard this music wafting out of Uncle Jack's St. Anthony Cottage, while passing by! But our Tricity Chetana set, bought from Mr Dalal, was driven by radio valves and its ability to catch DX (distant-and-unknown) radio stations was rather limited. The only other option was Friday night, Your Favourites (where college boys and other pranksters sent out mischievous 'requests' in their 'friends' names) from Panjim. Or 'Saturday Date' from the distant and lacking-in-power AIR-Bombay, 10-11 pm weekly. I remember how thrilled we were to realise that we could get some more Western music on Wednesdays around the same time, also from Bombay! Of course, there were LPs and 45rpms on records, but those were few and far to come by... besides being costly. Some of the returning Africanders had good collections of LPs, which got weather beaten in time. Nobody knows what happened to the Renaissance Portuguesa programme on Friday nights. Is it still around, or given a quiet burial? All this, put together, one assumes because I was not around in those times, was a far cry from the Emissora de Goa Western music output, when Goa was a popular radio station being heard as far away as in East Africa. Correct me if I'm wrong; Domnic Fernandes has written a detailed piece on AIR's programmes in Goa. It was therefore my perception that Western music was seen as 'politically incorrect' in the 1960s and 1970s, at least in the officially-controlled channels which were dominant then. FN * Incidentally, for SLBC (formerly Radio Ceylon) fans, there's a rich fare of old nostalgic recordings of this station on http://www.youtube.com -- Vernon Corea, and others [ http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sundaymagazine/when-ceylon-ruled-the-airwaves/article3219259.ece ] On 8 February 2015 at 12:44, Cecil Pinto <cecilpi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Frederick FN Noronha > We grew up in the 1970s, listening > to this music... in a Goa which was then otherwise turning it back on > Western music. FN > > ------- > > I grew up in the 1970s too and don't recall Goa turning it back on Western > music - then or ever. > > Will Frederick kindly explain what he means. > > Cheers! > > Cecil > > ====== > -- P +91-832-2409490 M 9822122436 Twitter: @fn Facebook: fredericknoronha Goa,1556 Shared Content at archive.org https://archive.org/details/goa1556
