Larger screen page — project complete.
Live audio recording – Bedford Audio Club 1966 – backstory.
please select the highest playback quality you are able, original is 1080p
The BBC moved their main concert studio to Bedford from London for safety during WWII — Glenn Miller rehearsed, played, recorded and transmitted from this hall before he went missing in a plane crash over the channel.
22 years later “Bedford Audio Club” recorded the 3rdUSAF band in this very hall in September 1966 and that is the subject of our new video — now in 2024 — 80 years after Glenn Miller’s tragic disappearance.
We have the club’s full stereo sound track of the concert (first recording with 5 microphones using a newly-constructed 8-channel audio mixer) and one of our two Willi Studer Revox tape recorders. In those days we worked with audio only, no video, and in fact none of us had more than a 35mm slide camera. Which of course has made producing our 1966 period video quite challenging.
1966 black and white images for this project are taken by the local newspaper photographic department. The recording equipment we used all still exists, and still operates. It resides in our studio, so we can take as many images as needed to recount and illustrate the story.
We started with a black and white photograph of club members operating the equipment — courtesy of the Bedfordshire Times.
Our photo came alive when we added some colour, set the tape in motion, and heard the recorded result. See and listen here:
Appreciation to Bryan Steele in Bedford for taking the Corn Exchange photos —which are being modified to eliminate modern day artifacts. All the people are genuinely from the era, and our latest version has moving people and moving vehicles . . . . . — [Click images to view full size — to view videos directly on Vimeo, click on the video title] — Latest update: 4Feb2025
We check records of the building’s history for how it looked inside and out. For example there is now a control room located on a wide rear balcony, historical records were unclear as to whether it existed in 1966 but collective memory has established that it did. Also the three large windows at the street (south) end were boarded up on the inside, we believe, at the time the control room and the balcony were re-furbished around 1995. In our montage those windows are again visible in all their glory, with view onto St. Paul’s Church opposite.
There is already considerable activity in the hall as the recording team is arriving with material. Not sure if roadie cases were available in ’66 but they had been introduced at least in the USA – for sure the sack barrow for moving the Revox would have been possible. One member is already preparing up in the control room. [click on image for larger size]. As the audience seating is installed and late summer evening falls , the church view darkens and artificial illumination follows; the concert can begin.
Control room becomes full of recording gear and a hive of activity with the five club members appearing in the video: Alan, Bryan, Dave, Geoff, and myself. We are unable to locate Dave, Geoff is assumed to have died, the rest of us are here!
and an appreciative audience in the auditorium.
Historical evidence: Revox, Tandberg, and the 8-channel mixer together at home circa 1966. (From 1966 until 1969 the loudspeakers were replaced firstly by Goodmans “Eleganzia II”, then Quad electrostatics, and finally KEF BBC monitors. What a journey!)
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