Capital 604 – Chris Prior’s Top Picks!

Chris Prior was one of the original dee jays on Capital radio when it first aired in 1979. He spent the late 1960s and first half of the seventies travelling the world before joining the SABC, initially for a brief spell with the news department and then the English Service where he was with Radio Today for two and a half years as a radio journalist and then he was appointed as editor of Audio Mix round about 1978. And then at the end of ’78 Capital Radio took him on as their specialist music presenter, programmer and he was with them for two years. After a brief period overseas he joined SABC’s Radio 5 at the end of ’81, beginning of ’82 and was with them into the early-mid 1990s. During this time he became known as the ‘rock professor’ for his knowledge of blues and rock music which was reflected in his playlists. Since the mid-1990s he has continued to host specialist rock shows through various outlets and is currently hosting The Rock Professor Show every Friday evening on MC90.3 Plettenberg Bay and Knysna 97.0 FM (also available as a Podcast).

Reflecting on South African music in the 1980s he lamented “the type of material that the record companies had chosen to record and the lack of effort that they put behind musicians of real worth and calibre …the type of crap that they thought the listeners should hear. You know, the kind of music that they were selling, that they actually put a bit of money behind – it was never much – was the sort of Euro-centric disco twaddle that really wasn’t worth anything at all. And that in essence was all that South African music consisted of. Fortunately in the ’70s there was the sort of underground element, and I think in terms of Mike Dickman playing guitar, and Abstract Truth were a very nice band. I mean now they’re horribly dated, but in those days they were jolly interesting and innovative. Julian Laxton and Freedom’s Children and all that stuff. I mean Baxtop: great, great, great! And in the ’80s we had bands like Falling Mirror. I mean there were always bands that were just a little outside of the outside. But what was available as a DJ to play was pure shlock.”

Fortunately Chris Prior has been able to provide us with a grooving playlist of South African music from the late 1970s into the early 1990s which we can enjoy, from the Radio Rats, Finch & Henson and Baxtop in the late 1970s to Neill Solomon & the Uptown Rhythm Dogs in the early ’80s, eVoid, Cherry Faced Lurchers, Falling Mirror, Tribe After Tribe and Edi Niederlander in the mid ’80s, the Genuines and Celtic Rumours in the late 1980s and Mauritz Lotz in 1991.

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Capital 604 – Darren Scott’s Top 20


Darren Scott is the first guest DJ on Mixedtapes ZA, offering us his choice of South African music; in this case his Top 20 South African songs of the 1980s, including songs from 1979 which were around at the beginning of 1980.

This is the first of our occasional series of Guest DJ mixed tapes compiled by former Capital Radio DJ s.

These are ranked from No 20 through to number 1 on the mixed tape. Enjoy!

If you want to see the play listing prior to listening to the countdown you can view the order of the songs in this week’s poll below.

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Capital 604 – 1981

In 1981 Capital Radio was still broadcasting from Port St Johns in the Wild Coast, and still charting a new way forward with music policy. They continued to select songs from a broad spectrum including reggae (still not played on Radio 5), funk, soul, disco, pop, rock, country and post-punk influenced new wave. Juluka , whose ‘Africa’ was playlisted on Capital from the outset , offered a unique combination of Celtic folk rock and mbaqanga to add to the already eclectic mix of music Capital listeners got to hear on their radios.

Some of the South African acts which charted on Capital in 1980 did so again in 1981: City Limits, Joy, Juluka, Lastique and Peach but 1981 offered up songs by artists new to Capital Radio. Margaret Singana was already well-known to the South African audience but Capital introduced several musicians and groups on the release of their debut albums and singles. These included Lesley Rae Dowling, Hotline, Kariba, Morocko and Neill Solomon & The Uptown Rhythm Dogs.

Such was the difficult and transient nature of the South African music industry that on occasion some groups shared musicians who were either trying their luck with two or more bands at once or who had jumped ship in the hope of something more successful and lucrative. On many occasions a musician’s group broke up and they sought a new group to play in.

For example, of the groups who charted on Capital in 1981 Jethro Butow was a member of both Kariba and Morocko and Mike Faure was a member of Morocko but after they broke up he briefly joined the Uptown Rhythm Dogs (in 1982). By 1981 one-time Ballyhoo drummer Cedric Samson had become initially drummer and then vocalist for Morocko. After Clout broke up in 1981 Bones Brettell became the keyboard player for Hotline and Gary van Zyl became the bass player for Juluka, who were expanding from a duo to a fully-fledged band. Another member of the newly expanded Juluka was keyboardist Rick Wolf who had been a member of City Limits until their demise earlier that year. In turn, Wolf was replaced in 1983 by former Clout keyboardist Glenda Millar (formerly Glenda Hyam).

In 1981 no South African songs reached number one or two in the Capital charts. Of the top performing songs on the Capital Top 40 countdown “When you gonna love me” – City Limits peaked at number 3, “Nightmare” – Peach reached number 4, “Love chain reaction” – Joy spent two weeks at number 6 and “Impi” – Juluka spent two weeks at number 7. “Bowtie boogaloo” – Morocko reached number 10.

This mixtape plays from number 14 through to the number 1 South African song of the year as per performance on the Capital Radio weekly countdowns. If you want to see the play listing prior to listening to the countdown you can view the order of the songs in this week’s poll below.

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