First Portable Reel to Reel Tape Recorder at Cumbiem Morod.

First Portable Reel to Reel

Tape Recorder at Cumbiem Morod

              The first portable reel-to-reel tape recorder ever to make an appearance in our village of Cumbiem Morod during the early 1960's in Guirim, Bardez, Goa, happened to be in our humble abode - a house built by my father Diniz Fernandes. But how could a humble abode afford a reel-to-reel tape-recorder?

              During that era, this awesome invention was far ahead of its time to match our humble home. However, poor as we were though, my older brother had the good fortune to work in Beirut, Lebanon, in the early 1960's. On his first annual home leave, he had brought a Philips portable transistor radio, and on his second, a Philips portable tape-recorder - a replica of the one in the picture above. 

               This machine was very simple to operate. It had an external microphone for recording, playback, fast-forward and rewind buttons, recording meter, and volume control. It was powered by standard size 'D' batteries. As time went by, I put aside some coins in my piggy bank to save money towards buying batteries that did not come cheap.

               The first person ever to have her voice recorded on this wonderful and incredible gadget was young Martha Fernandes (wife of Joseph Fernandes). Her voice was recorded when she sang 'Whispering Hope' and also 'How much is that doggie in the window'. Martha well deserved to have her voice recorded - because, not only did she have a nice voice, but she also knew all the lyrics to the songs as well.

              We had a lot of fun with this great machine in the village, recording and playing back songs that we sang. However, we were allowed to do that only during school holidays. The recorder was kept under lock and key at other times - in the big wooden double-door 'almirah with a mirror'. The following were my folks' strict instructions to me at the time: "Study first, then record and play". As they would say in Konkani: 'Poilo iskolak voch, lissaum kor ani maguir taping kor.' 

              The advantage with this splendid invention was that it could be taken anywhere. Once I had recorded 'Laudainha' being sung by our folks in our village chapel. But we could record only a small portion of it to be replayed later - after the full Litany had ended. The length of the tape was far too short to survive the entire length of our long Laudainh! I had only 2 tapes, each with half an hour of play-time on each side. Hence I couldn't record much. Unfortunately, sometimes we had to erase previous tapings by recording over old tracks. I had once surprised a roving group of youngsters - door-to-door singers during the pre-Lent 3-day Carnival time in front of our 'balcão' - by playing back instantly what they had sung just a few minutes before.

              Many years later, however, another invention called the cassette tape-recorder appeared everywhere on the scene, long after I boarded the famous B.I. Steamship 'Sirdhana' on a 5-day journey to work in Dubai - a decision that changed my life.

'Memories are Made of This'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv9PSkNkUfs

Ode to ABBA

ODE TO ABBA

(A Garland of ABBA Songs)

(by TōnFerns)

When I first met her,
She was a Nina,

Pretty Ballerina,

a Chiquitita, a Dancing Queen,
with Angel Eyes,
I sure thought she was
'My Kind of Girl'

She said ‘Take A Chance On Me’
'Gimme, gimme, gimme'

And I wondered:
'Why Did It Have To Be Me?'

'Knowing Me,

Knowing You'

‘Does Your Mother Know’ ‘I asked

She said, no, 'It’s The Name Of The Game’

‘I’m a One Man, One Woman’ you know? I replied,

She said, 'I Have A Dream' Tony 'Fernando'

‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ she added

I’ve a dream too,
And some also call me Felicio I confided.

It was just like 'Head Over Heels'

And we both then said 
"I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do"

'Super Trouper', she went on,

‘Andante, Andante’ she cried,
And with no hesitation, I complied.

I sent her an 'S.O.S.'

'The Way Old Friends Do'

I said 'When All Is Said And Done'

'I Let The Music Speak'.

And then we both

joined in chorus

and sang 'Mamma Mia

here I go again'

'My my, just how much I've missed ya'.

And then came 'Our Last Summer'
I was like a 'Man in the Middle'
In the end the Winner Took It All

She Thanked Me For The Music

Saying Honey Honey,
Taking all my Money, Money, Money,

Hasta Mañana until then.

Tony Fernandes

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

MOTHER OF MINE

Dubai 1972 – Airwaves around the world are abuzz with Jimmy Osmond’s ‘Mother of Mine’ and the UAE is no exception. The song turns out to be a huge hit for Jimmy, the youngest of nine children in the Osmond clan, who at the time was only nine years old. I thought about my Mum in Goa every time I heard it, and constantly hummed the tune or sang the lyrics under my breath. Two years later I lost my mother. She was my best friend who I miss up to this day. She taught me all that I know and set an example living her own simple life and made my own worth living. Not a single day goes by without thoughts of her good values. She died young. I have outlived her so far by five years.

Forty-three years after the song ‘Mother of Mine’ first captured the air-waves, I rededicate my favourite song to mothers everywhere. Hope it’s your favourite too.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

Hemant Rao The Musician

HEMANT RAO 

R.I.P.

                  Hemant Rao - a great lead guitarist and one of the original band members of The Savages - a prominent Rock & Roll group of the "Beat Show Generation' of the 1960's - passed away recently.

                 Those were the days when we used to go to hear the great beat groups in Bombay like the Jets, Lone Trojan - the famous 'Biddu', Beat 4, Reaction, Mike and Darryl Kirby, The Tornados (with my friends Adolf and Jerry Creado as band members) 
and other rock bands at the Shanmukananda Hall and at numerous other places and at college events. Beat Shows - as they were commonly called - were the 'in' thing then. We have lost a great musician of our era and of our youth.

                 May his soul rest in peace.