THE good news is that if you missed the wonderful Radio Four show Mayhem At The Ritz, which aired at 11.30am on Thursday (June 3), it is still available on playback. Mayhem At The Ritz, presented by Andrew Collins, tells the story of the pop package tours of the 1950s and 1960s in a highly entertaining and informative half-hour programme. There are clips of music and insights from people who helped stage the shows... and former Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones, who appeared in a few. You will also get to hear what happened when a then young and unknown Gordon Kaye asked The Beatles if he could record an interview with them in their dressing room on behalf of the Huddersfield Tape Recording Society during the Fabs' November 1963 tour. I was privileged to be included on the show, along with other people who continue to fly the flag for 1960s music. Here is the key link to hear the programme, which was produced for the BBC by John Sugar Productions. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sjrv4/Mayhem_at_the_Ritz/ ------------------------------------------------------------- I'm proud of the success of my first book, Legends On Tour, which turned the spotlight on those wonderful UK tours back in the 1960s. Based on the old variety tour format, they brought the biggest names in the pop world to towns and cities all over the country. I'm now heavily into the next project - an in-depth look at the six full UK tours of The Beatles between the beginning of 1963 and the end of 1965. There have been many books on The Beatles, but this one will include memories from musicians who toured with them, journalists who covered the shows, police who were on duty, staff from the venues where they played and hotels where they stayed... and perhaps best of all... the fans who were there. So I'd like to hear from anyone with a story to tell. The rest of the website is dedicated to Legends and all those great artists who toured the UK back then. The tours were something special for teenagers and young 20-somethings to look forward to in those far-off days. With only a small amount of time devoted to pop music on the television and radio it's not hard to imagine how exciting it was to have the planet's most important pop stars playing at the local cinema. For the equivalent of about 35p in today's money they could enjoy a seat at a pop show featuring four or five current Top 20 stars. That's exactly what the teenagers of 1960s Britain enjoyed when the pop package tours hit the road. Without having to travel miles into the big cities, the shows would come to your very own High Street, at the local cinema, or perhaps a concert hall. Not much is known about these greats tours, which is why I decided to write a book about them. So I hope you will take a nostalgic trip back in time with me to the golden age of music through the pages of Legends On Tour - The Pop Package Tours Of The 1960s. There can't be many untold stories from this glorious era in our musical history, but the spotlight has rarely been shone before on those fab tours. The pages on this website give a little taste of the pictures and stories contained in Legends. My friend Gary Leeds of The Walker Brothers has a copy of Legends that he is getting signed by some of his musical mates so it can be auctioned for the Great Ormond Street Childrens Hospital in London. The Shadows, Slade, Troggs frontman Reg Presley, The Tornados and the head of Universal Records are among those to sign their names. You can catch up with all the news on Gary at his website at www.gary-walker.net. Gary and I are pictured on this page with the 1960s Groovy Baby himself, Dave Cash, in Dave's BBC studios in Kent last year. The friendly invasion of Tunbridge Wells was aimed at putting on a 1960s fun show for radio listeners across the south - with quite a few from outside joining in the party thanks to the wonders of modern communications. That's me (left), Gary and Dave (foreground) trying our best not to look startled for the cameras on the night. You can also listen in on that show on Gary's website. Evening newspapers in Carlisle, Doncaster, Northampton, Nottingham, Leeds and Newcastle have carried stories from Legends in recent months. Some are still posted on the net, so why not have some fun tracking them down? As the title suggests, Legends looks back at the great small hall tours of the 1960s when top Americans like Jimi Hendrix, Roy Orbison, The Walker Brothers and Gene Pitney brushed shoulders with the cream of England's finest, from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Small Faces, through to Cat Stevens and Engelbert. TV and radio stations have joined the newspapers and magazines in featuring Legends - further evidence, if any were needed, of the world's continued love affair with 1960s music. The Word magazine and UniVibes international Jimi Hendrix fanzine have also published pictures and articles from Legends. By the way, they have signed copies of Legends at The Book Boyz store in Kingsmead, Farnborough. I'm delighted that Waterstones stores up and down the country have stocked Legends and of course it is also available on internet sites like Amazon. Legends is unusual in featuring fan memories alongside those of the 21 pop stars interviewed to paint a picture of what those early tours were like. Dozens of previously unpublished photographs bring those stories to life as we turn back four decades to the days when smaller towns like Aldershot were on the rock 'n' roll map alongside the big cities like London, Liverpool and Glasgow. Imagine what it was like for those 1960s teenagers when The Beatles turned up in town to play their local cinema. In fact, don't just imagine. Take a nostalgic peak through this site...