THE HAPPY REMIXERS

A few weeks ago, at the end of July, we received a message out of the blue from Mr. Ronnie Ronalde - the Greatest Whistler in the World. Regulars of the John Peel Show will know all about Ronnie, he has become a big favourite amongst the listeners, and although the bulk of his recordings date from the 50s, he has still proven popular enough today to do a recent session for the show.
 

Anyway, we struck up a friendly email correspondence with Ronnie and his lovely wife, Rosemarie, and we soon hit on the idea for us to remix some of Ronnie's songs as a special gift for John Peel's birthday on the 31st August. Ronnie was a great sport and immediately gave us permission to tinker, apart from loving the idea of doing something special for John, he also suggested that it would be interesting to hear the songs re-interpreted through younger ears.

Knowing that some of Ronnie's works had appeared on EMI, we contacted our old friend Mike McNally at the label. He in turn put us in contact with Jon Wilson, who deals with the Easy Listening catalogue. Jon was most encouraging, apart from giving us the greenlight to do the remixes, Jon was also kind enough to supply us with a copy of Ronnie's HMV Easy album. Our sampler was poised! 

Without a moment to lose, we set about remixing four of Ronnie's tracks - The Buccaneers, The Yodelling Whistler, The Happy Whistler and Mockingbird Hill. Once complete, the four tracks were mastered to CD, packaged together with a homemade cover, and shipped to John for his Birthday. Ronnie was even kind enough to provide us with a personal message for John, which we included on the cover.

The whole project had a happy ending when on Thursday, 30th August, a mere twenty minutes before John's birthday, our remix of Mockingbird Hill was broadcast live from Peel Acres across the national airwaves on BBC Radio 1 - with Ronnie and Rosemarie listening in from New Zealand.
 

That's worldwide entertainment for you!

Written by The Beatbox Saboteurs in 2002.

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