Picturesque Goa

Picturesque Goa
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TONFERNS CREATIONS

TONFERNS CREATIONS
TONFERNS CREATIONS - Tony's Art & Hobbies

Sunday, April 28, 2013

GENTLEMAN JIM


In the 1960's and 1970's, many people in the Indian Sub-continent owned gadgets what were known as 'Radiograms' that played LP Records, 78's and 45's in addition to receiving radio programs on Short Wave and Medium Wave Radio. Walk into any well-to-do Goan home in Bombay, from Colaba to Bandra, Byculla to Dhobitalo, or Mahim to Worli, you would invariably hear Jim Reeves playing in their home. Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Engelbert Humperdinck or Billy Vaughn and Bill Black Combo were also popular among many record collections of those days.

Incidentally, the radiogram was considered a luxury by any standard, and consisted as a piece of high-class furniture in many well-appointed living rooms of homes and music salons of that era.

In Goa, during the Portuguese regime, in the 1950's and 1960's the radiograms were less common, perhaps an entire village having just one or two of these prized possessions and other top-notch luxuries of that time. Just owning a radiogram was not enough. This sort of enjoyment was expensive and came with an extra price tag, as one had to keep up with the times by adding and collecting more LP's that were costly. 

Although during the time when I lived and worked in Dubai in late 1960's and 1970's, Jim Reeves' records, being an RCA label, were then not available in the Trucial States of Oman (now U.A.E.), folks who travelled to India on their annual vacation, often purchased them there. Jim Reeves' LPs were pressed in Dum Dum, India. Jim Reeves' Christmas Carols Album was very popular then, and is popular even now. 

Please relax and listen to this great number by Gentleman Jim, one among his other great hits, "He'll have to go" that he was famous for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smlaq1ezQRM

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