Rockortunity Knocks was a 70's competition on BBC Radio One, loosely based on Opportunity Knocks, a British television and radio talent show originally hosted by Hughie Green, with a late-1980s revival hosted by Bob Monkhouse, and later by previous winner Les Dawson.
Rockortunity Knocks seemed to be more an equivalent of the Melody Maker's annual competitions in which the winning band would be awarded a tour of the "college circuit".
Links to Peel[]
It is not known who had the idea of Rockortunity Knocks, but John Walters, Peel's producer, may have had a hand in this.
There is no available audio or complete tracklistings of this competition on the internet and it is not known whether the whole thing was broadcast on Top Gear. However, three competitors of this competition in 1971 seemed to have had the chance to do sessions for Peel's shows. All these three session artists from Rockortunity Knocks were broadcast on Peel's Top Gear show on 31 July 1971. Henry Cow seemed to have been one of Peel's favourites in the competition, where the group ultimately did six sessions for his radio programmes.
Sessions[]
The following artists from Rockortunity Knocks recorded sessions for the John Peel Show:
- Henry Cow: (6 sessions, 1971-75)
- Reginald: (1 session, 1971)
- Paul Savage and John Hewitt: (1 session, 1971)