Hallam FM

Today is 20 years to the day since Hallam FM began transmitting as an FM only station for Sheffield and South Yorkshire and with the 35th anniversary of Radio Hallam approaching later in the year, I thought it would be a good time to take a trip back in time and look back at the many IDs from the station.

Radio Hallam began in October 1974 with a presenter line-up consisting of Radio 1 veterans Johnny Moran, Roger Moffat, and Keith "Screws" Skues.

You could say it was a "shaky start" as the first record played "I've Got The Music In Me" by Yorkshire resident Kiki Dee got stuck just over a minute in
and Johnny Moran had to change it pretty hastily.

The main theme jingles were written by Ray Martin and produced by EMIson which established the familiar melody logo used by the station beyond the station's first decade. The jingles also make clever use of the song "On Ikley Moor Bah 'Tat" made more famous by Yorkshire Television.

1974 Jingles - EMIson

I'm guessing that as a station itself in those days it wasn't perfect, and I'm judging that solely on a comment made by Len Groat on Jinglemad
saying that Sarah Kennedy's show on Radio 2 wouldn't have sounded
out of place in Hallam back in those days.

That sounds like the perfect summing up.

In line with many stations, various pop stars used to record their own special jingles for the station used alongside the main packages and one of my favourites has to be this one by Pilot, based around their 1975 number 1 "January".

The main jingles themselves used by Radio Hallam also had vocalists who had sung on pop records with one example being this one from 1979 based on the theme of "Hallamland". The jingles were produced by Sue Manning and the male vocalist was the late Mike Smith who used to perform with the Dave Clark Five back in the 1960s.

1979 Jingles - Sue Manning Music

A really well written jingle package although sadly the original master was destroyed when Hallam moved studios in the mid 90s.
I remember reading that former presenter Simon Hirst and jingle fan
Dave Nightingale were gutted to the point of tears when they heard about the disposal.

The jingles themeselves are more extended songs than jingles although there
is a hint of the Radio Hallam logo played towards the end of some of the cuts
on guitar.

Three years later they returned to Sue Manning and brought an equally superb jingle package featuring the vocals of Kiki Dee and Gerrard Kenny.

1982 Jingles - Sue Manning Music

I really love the orchestration and solos, not to mention the synthy robotic cuts towards the end and that ever sinister news intro at 3.42.
If I was to be woken up by that in the middle of the night, it could lead to dreadful consequences.

The package saw a few additional cuts including ones for the station's 10th anniversary and cuts resung with the tagline "Number 1 In Yorkshire".

Bill Mitchell had been long used as the voiceover on Radio Hallam at this time, although I seem to remember a story about one of the presenters wanting a liner for his show, but as Bill wasn't available the said presenter spent the night smoking a load of cigarettes in order to get his voice gravelly enough to try and do his own one.

The end of 1985 saw what has to be one of my favourite packages for the station being introduced, produced by Alfasound and featuring the stunning vocals of Jimmy Helmes who later went onto have chart success in the early 90s with Londonbeat.

A very powerful and uptempo package and very well produced.

1985 Jingles - Alfasound

As you'll here from some of the cuts however, the restrictions of the IBA were still present well into the mid 80s as there are cuts for the classical show and the big band show which kind of spoilt the concept of Hallam being a
"24 hour power station".

Changes had to be made and with the IBA relaxing the rules, Radio Hallam joined force with Pennine and Viking to form the Yorkshire Radio Network in 1987.
This saw the introduction of another package which again featured Jimmy Helmes on vocals but I'll save them for a later post about the network.

More jingles were made for the network throughout the late 80s with the one below establishing a more coherent sound for all three stations.
Hallam's version can be heard below.

1988 Jingles - Alfasound

By 1989 the government had enforced a ruling that all commercial radio stations had to broadcast a different service on AM or they would lose the frequency. Radio Hallam followed suit and on the 1st of May 1989 they would be changing their on air identity to Hallam FM whilst AM would broadcast the syndicated Classic Gold service with Viking and Pennine.

Here's the pre-launch promo, and the launch itself featuring Howard Pressman.

The jingles themselves were the same as the rest of the network containing JAM resings with UK vocals and Alfasound custom tracks.

1989 Jingles - Alfasound/JAM

Into the 90s Hallam was wanting to add more of it's own identity outside the network, so they introduced a new logo and their own seperate jingle package which continued along the same theme as the last, but with it's own strapline "The Sound Of Success".

The package contained re-lyriced versions of the 1989 jingles but with a couple of new cuts including the Morning song from Turbo Z and a superb version of a cut from the "Non Stop Power" package towards the end of the selection below.

1990 Jingles - Alfasound/JAM

I'd even say that the version with UK singers was better the JAM original, although you can make you own decisions through this example.

1991 saw the station's first fully fledged JAM package with JAM vocals and it was a stirling effort consisting not just of cuts from Turbo Z like everyone else, but also a few of the earlier Z100 packages such as Warp Factor and Red Hot.

1991 Jingles - JAM Creative Productions

I happened to have a resing of one of the cuts done for myself as you'll hear
in this example, although which one is better isn't really for me to say.

Although it is rather exciting to hear "Yorkshire" sung through sonovox.

Another JAM package followed in 1993 based around some of packages done for Q95 in Detroit although there were also cuts from a few of the Z100 packages and "Power Station" for WPLJ. Amongst the cuts included are the stunning top of hour jingle from Q Cuts at 0.25 which was also used by Key 103.

1993 Jingles - JAM Creative Productions

In addtion here are a few more name shouts.

The premise was the station being "The New Hallam FM" but not in the same way as GWR relaunched their stations such as "The New Trent FM", "The New 2CR FM" etc.
Partly because jingles were still present on Hallam FM but the premise was that no obscure records would be played and that all the songs played would be ones that the listeners would know, old or new.

Presenters by this time included James H Reeve who hosted the phone in show, and fresh faced Chris Rogers who shortly went over to Newsround on CBBC and now reports for ITV News.

1995 saw another JAM package, this time based around the "Metroline" package orginally done by JAM for Metro FM in Newcastle.
I like how they changed the melody logo in the Hallam package although for obvious reasons it sounded better with the Metro FM tune.

Anyway, here they are.

1995 Jingles - JAM Creative Productions

It's also worth hearing the superb top of hour news intro which has to be
one of the perfect examples of a sung news intro.

Then in 1997 the station went to TM Century and brought a package resung from "LA's Number 1 Hit Music Station" and "We Play The Hits" originally for KIIS FM Los Angeles.

1997 Jingles - TM Century

Considering that some of the cuts dated back to 1991, they sounded more fresh compared to the previous JAM jingles and I reckon they'd still work today.

Daryl Denham was hosting breakfast by this time and decided to get a few variants on his name jingle shortly after, with hilarious results.

Daryl Denham TM Century Jingles 1998

This was only the beginning however, as Daryl then went onto present an X Rated version of his breakfast show each month with a few classic PAMS jingles which were given a rather dirty makeover.

Not for those who are easily offended.

Daryl Denham PAMS Jingles 1998-2000

In 1999 a new jingle package (if you can call it that) was introduced from Octagon Music with a more youthful urban sound in comparison with the Dallas jingles.

1999 Jingles - Octagon Music

From what I've heard, Simon Hirst who presented drive around this time hated them when they were introduced and it was a bit of a comedown when you look at all the others done earlier in the decade.

However the man who composed the jingles themselves recently made a few posts on Jinglemad explaining how the package was made and the only problem he had was that the melody logo sounded like a football chant.

In line with many stations in the early noughties, sung jingles made a disapearance from Hallam's airwaves until a new set of jingles from Reelworld arrived in 2004 based around their Kiss 106.1 package.

By the end of 2005 the station brought their own custom package from the same company which contains some very clever takes on tunes that were big around this time such as The Rasmus and Natasha Bedingfield.

2005 Jingles - Reelworld Productions

And that takes us right up to 2009 where the production company has changed but the melody logo and strapline is still the same, with these jingles from
Wise Buddah.

2009 Jingles - Wise Buddah

Overall they're definitely a station that's gone through the full circle of radio jingles in terms of styles throughout the last 25 years.

Thanks to Simon Hirst, Dave Nightingale, Christian Spooner, Pete Wilson,
Mark Hodgkinson, Chris Stevens and Aston McNeil for various audio and info.