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Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 2 - The 1960s

Started by daf, June 12, 2019, 01:55:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

daf

Mainly Bad, it's . . .

261.  Hugo Montenegro Orchestra - The Good The Bad And The Ugly



From : 10 November – 7 December 1968
Weeks : 4
Flip side : There's Got To Be A Better Way

The Story So Far : 
QuoteHugo Mario Montenegro was born in New York City in 1925. He served in the U.S. Navy for two years, mostly as an arranger for the Newport Naval Base band in Newport, Rhode Island. After the war he attended Manhattan College while studying composition and leading his own band for school dances.

In the 1950s, he was directing, conducting, and arranging the orchestra for Eliot Glen and Irving Spice on their Dragon and Caprice labels. It was he who was directing the Glen-Spice Orchestra on Dion DiMucci's first release "Out In Colorado" in 1957. His first album, 'Loves Of My Life' was released the same year on the Vik label. His first single, released as Hugo Montenegro Conducting The 20th Century Strings was 'La Primavera (Blush Of Spring)" in March 1959. He also released about a million other singles which, frankly, I just can't face trawling through!

He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s where he began working for RCA Victor, producing a series of albums and soundtracks for motion pictures and television themes, such as two volumes of Music From The Man From U.N.C.L.E., an album of cover versions of spy music themes Come Spy With Me and an album of cover versions of Ennio Morricone's music for the Clint Eastwood The Man With No Name series of spaghetti Westerns. He composed the musical score for the 1969 Western Charro! which starred Elvis Presley.

     

Montenegro was also contracted to Columbia's television production company Screen Gems where he is most famous for his theme from the second season of the television series I Dream of Jeannie. He also composed the music for the long running The Partridge Family. During the mid‑1960s he started producing some of the most renowned works from the space age pop era, featuring electronics and rock in albums such as Moog Power and Mammy Blue.

 

His best known work is derived from interpretations of the music from Spaghetti Westerns, especially his cover version of Ennio Morricone's main theme from the 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which topped the UK chart for a month in late 1968. His only other UK chart entry was a version of the main theme from Hang 'em High which reached #50 in January 1969.

 

In the late 1970s severe emphysema forced an end to his musical career, and he died of the disease in 1981. He is buried at Welwood Murray Cemetery in Palm Springs, California.

The Single :
Quote"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was composed by Ennio Morricone, and was the theme to the 1966 Sergio Leone film of the same name. A cover version by Hugo Montenegro was a pop hit in both the U.S. and the U.K. in 1968.



After hearing the music from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Hugo Montenegro decided to create a cover version of the theme. Similar to Morricone's original composition, Montenegro and a few session musicians sought to recreate this record using their own instrumentation. The opening two note segment was played on an ocarina by Art Smith, and Tommy Morgan provided the sounds that followed on a harmonica : "I knew it was live, so I had to do this hand thing, the 'wah-wah-wah' sound."

Montenegro himself provided the "Hoo Hah!" grunting bits between the chorus segments - possibly spelling out his own name in syllables. Other musicians heard on the record include Elliot Fisher (electric violin), Mannie Klein (piccolo trumpet) and Muzzy Marcellino, whose whistling is heard during the recording.

Much to the surprise of Montenegro and the musicians who worked with him, this cover of the film theme became a hit single during 1968. It peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on 1 June 1968. In September 1968, Montenegro's version reached the UK Singles Chart and began a steady climb, eventually reaching the top of the chart on 16 November and remaining there for four weeks. It sold over one and a quarter million copies and was awarded a gold disc.

 

Other Versions include :   Ennio Morricone (1966)  /  Llans Thelwell And His Celestials (1968)  /  The Ventures (1970)  /  Killer Watts (1974)  /  Sly + Robbie (1986)  /  Johnny Marr & Billy Duffy (1992)  /  Hank Marvin (2000)  /  The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (2007)  /  Lets' Quit (2010)  /    Danny McEvoy and Jasmine Thorpe (2011)  /  Kelly Valleau (2013)  /  The Fantasy Orchestra + Gurt Lush Choir (2014)  /  Jah Wobble (2015)  /  Ben's 8 Bit Tunes (2020)

On This Day  :
Quote10 November : Steve Brookstein, X Factor winner, born Stephen Desmond Brookstein in Mitcham, England
15 November : Ol' Dirty Bastard, Wu Tang Clan rapper, born Russell Tyrone Jones in Brooklyn, New York
17 November : Mervyn Peake, British writer and illustrator (Gormenghast), dies aged 57
18 November : Walter Wanger, American film producer (Cleopatra) dies aged 74
18 November : Owen Wilson, actor, born Owen Cunningham Wilson in Dallas, Texas
21 November : Alex James, Cheesy bass player (Blur), born Steven Alexander James in Boscombe, Bournemouth
22 November : 1st interracial TV kiss on US TV (Star Trek - Captain Kirk and Uhura)
22 November : Beatles release "The Beatles" (White Album) double album
23 November : "Noël Coward's Sweet Potato" closes at Booth NYC after 36 performances
23 November : Kirsty Young, TV journalist, born Kirsty Jackson Young in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, Scotland
28 November : Enid Blyton, children's author, dies aged 71
28 November : John Lennon is fined £150 for drug possession
29 November : John Lennon and Yoko Ono release their 1st album "Two Virgins" in UK
30 November : Des'ree, singer, born Desirée Annette Weeks in Croydon, London, England
1 December : "Promises Promises" opens at Shubert Theater NYC
3 December : Elvis 'comeback special' airs on NBC
5 December : Rolling Stones release "Beggar's Banquet" LP

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote                       

It's shameful that people didn't know in 1968 that they were hearing an MOR cover rather than the real goods.

Returning briefly to Joe Cocker, a US oldies station played his version of She Came In Through The Bathroom Window today and I thought it worked well.


daf

Twin Peaks, it's . . .

261b. (MM 207.)  Barry Ryan With The Majority - Eloise
         (NME 258.) Barry Ryan With The Majority - Eloise



From :  16-22 November 1968 (1)
            30 November - 13 December 1968 (2)
Weeks : 3
Flip side : Love I Almost Found You
Bonus 1 : Promo film
Bonus 2 : Beat Club

QuoteBarry Ryan was born Barry Sapherson in Leeds, Yorkshire. The son of pop singer Marion Ryan, he began performing with his twin brother Paul at the age of 16.

Barry Ryan : "My mum was a singer, actually, in the fifties. She had a TV show called 'Spot The Tune'. Of course in those days, there were only a couple of stations then. When you were a star then, you really were a star. It's a whole different kind of thing. Paul and I were brought up in Leeds. We went to boarding school there – Fulneck in Pudsey. We were there a couple of years and then we came down to London, didn't know what to do with ourselves. We had no skills, we weren't academic, we came from quite a working class background, so the idea of going to university then was just not an option really so they didn't really know what to do with us, so mum said "why don't you guys become singers?" We thought, "Sounds a bit mad that, but why not? Better than working for a living." So we did. And, of course, everyone knew my mother and knew that she was our mother so it was a little bit tough at first."

 

In 1965 they signed a recording contract with Decca under the name of Paul & Barry Ryan. Within two years they had amassed 8 Top 50 singles in the UK, including their debut single "Don't Bring Me Your Heartaches" (b/w "To Remind You Of My Love") which reached #13 in November 1965.

   

Further singles included "Have Pity On The Boy" (b/w "There You Go") - #18 in February 1966 . . .

 


"I Love Her" (b/w "Gotta Go Out To Work") - #17 in May 1966  . . .

     


and "I Love How You Love Me" (b/w "Baby I'm Sorry") - #21 in July 1966.

   
   
Barry Ryan : "We did get a lot of knocks and, to be honest, we weren't that talented. We had a bit of talent but not a massive amount. We could sing a bit but we sort of got into it. We had a couple of hits, nothing massive, I think top 10s, and then we did some quite interesting stuff."

 

Later singles struggled to recapture their early success, and their next single, "Have You Ever Loved Somebody" (b/w "I'll Tell You Later") flopped at #49 in October 1966.

     

This was followed by "Missy, Missy" (b/w "Rainbow Weather") - #43 in December 1966  . . .

     

"Keep It Out Of Sight" (b/w "Who Told You?") - #30 in March 1967  /  and "Claire" (b/w "I'll Make It Worth Your While") - which was their final chart entry as a duo, reaching #47 in July 1967.

     

Barry Ryan : "The music started getting quite good, I thought. We started working with Mike Hurst, Mike Leander and Cat Stevens and there were some quite good songs, quite trippy sixties music, which I really liked."

       

In the Summer of 1967 they released their first LP, 'The Ryans'.

 
 

Jumping from Decca to MGM, two further non-charting singles were released before the split : "Heartbreaker" (b/w "Night Time") in October 1967 . . .

   

and "Pictures Of Today" (b/w "Madrigal") in February 1968.


 

In the Summer of 1968, MGM released their second album 'Paul and Barry Ryan', but success took its toll on Paul, who was unable to cope any longer with the stress of show business.

   

It was decided that Barry would now continue as a solo artist, enabling his brother to stay out of the limelight and write songs for his twin to perform.

 

Barry Ryan : "Paul sort of downed tools and said that's it, sod it, I've had enough. He hated being on stage. He really didn't like it at all and I think that's when he really got the bug for the idea of becoming a songwriter. He went into the studio with Graham Nash – I remember he did a song called 'Fifi The Flea', a really nice track. It was a little before that but it got him in the mood to really write songs. He wanted to be in the background. I think the first song Paul wrote was a song called 'The Show Is Over, We Are Going Home' which is a really fantastically Beatley, sort of Sergeant Pepper song. He was not academically musical. It was not a craft he learnt. He just sat at a piano, painted the keys different colours so he could remember them and got writing. That's what I loved about it. He sort of had no rules to break."

Barry's first solo single, "Goodbye" (b/w "I'm So Sad"), released in June 1968, failed to trouble the charts . . .

       

But the follow up, "Eloise", written by Paul and backed by 'The Majority', was a number 1 hit in November 1968.

     

Melodramatic and heavily orchestrated, it sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc.

     

Barry Ryan : "I remember, before 'Eloise' we went to Richard Harris' house to one of his mad parties and he played 'MacArthur Park' to me and Paul. He'd got a rough mix of it. I always remember Paul listening to it, Jason. I can always remember seeing his face. I could see something on his face and he was thinking "I've got to do something like this." He just loved it. He actually locked himself away and wrote 'Eloise'. He really did close the door of the room and write it. It took him about three days and he came out and he played it to me and I thought "what's this? You can't have a slow bit, a fast bit, five minutes. No-one's going to play this Paul..." Paul was absolutely right. We tagged it onto the end of a session that Paul and I did with mum actually. We only had the chance to do two takes because it was so long but, when we recorded it, I always remember this because Jimmy Page was on it and Glenn Campbell and John Paul Jones – they were all session guys – and I remember when we finished it the string section that recorded it kept their bows. I've never, ever had that before in the studio. It was always looking at their watch and getting out there quick."

His next chart entry, "Love is Love" (b/w "I'll Be On My Way Dear"), reached #25 in February 1969, and also became a million-seller.

 


Barry Ryan : "I like 'Love Is Love' a lot. It's a really, really, really hard song to sing because at the end it just goes bananas. It's really funny. Thinking of Yusuf, after 'Eloise' came out he wrote a song for me called 'Wild World'. He said "do you want to release this?" I listened to it and it was a really good catchy simple song but I wanted to stick with Paul. In retrospect it was too close to 'Eloise'. I really thought it was a fabulous song 'Love Is Love' so I was really happy to release it. It did pretty well. It got to number one in quite a few countries actually, but not in England."

     

His first album, 'Barry Ryan Sings Paul Ryan' was released on MGM Records in 1969, and featured his big hit song "Eloise" as well as other songs written by Paul.

   

Having dropped 'The Majority' His next single, "The Hunt" (b/w "Oh, For The Love Of Me") reached #34 in the UK charts in October 1969 . . .

   

. . . and was the opening track on 'Barry Ryan' - his first solo album for Polydor.

   

Barry Ryan : "It's actually a really good album. I'm very proud of that album. And I listen to it sometimes. I've started to listen to it again sometimes and it's actually a really fabulous album. I don't care if that sounds big-headed or facetious because it really is and what I loved about Paul is that he really tried new things. It didn't always come off and when it did it was fabulous and the best song Paul ever wrote for me was called 'The Hunt' which I absolutely loved. Funnily enough I did a show last year in Italy and this guy came up to me. He was a really big record producer in America. I can't remember his name but he just walked up. I remember it was so nice. He walked up to me and said, "I just want to shake hands with the man who did 'The Hunt' '' and shook my hands and walked off. I found out later that it was one of his all-time favourite songs. It is a fantastic song – the originality of it. If I sat down for a hundred years I'd never write anything as original or wonderful as that. It's a great song."

In 1970 he released his third album, the mysteriously titled "Barry Ryan 3" - which, again, mainly featured songs written by Paul. His next single, "Magical Spiel" (b/w "Caroline") featured 'The Candy Choir' on the A side, and reached #49 in February 1970.

    

The follow-up, "Kitsch" (b/w "Give Me A Sign") reached #37 in May 1970, but flopped with his next single, "It Is Written") (b/w "Annabelle") released in February 1971.

While his career was winding down in the UK, Ryan still popular on the Continent. "Red Man", the title track of his fourth album, reached number 2 in the French chart in 1971. And "Die Zeit macht nur vor dem Teufel halt", a version of his song "Today", peaked at number 8 in Germany in 1971. One further single charted in the UK - "Can't Let You Go" (b/w "When I Was A Child" - which reached #32 in January 1972.

     

After his fifth album, 'Sanctus, Sanctus Hallelujah', and two further singles - "From My Head To My Toe" (b/w "Alimony Money Blues") in June, and "I'm Sorry Susan" (b/w "L. A. Woman") in September 1972 - Ryan stopped performing, and concentrated on photography.

   

Barry Ryan : "Well I think I just thought I was really, really stale. The hits weren't coming any more. I was drinking a lot. I was a bit sort of bonkers at the time, I was slightly off the rails and I thought I'd had enough of this and I discovered photography and I just loved it and, being an addictive kind of person, I just put everything into my photography and let the music drift by, which is a bit sad really."

 

After a few years off he returned to music, releasing the single "Do That", (b/w "The Summers Over"), in March 1975  /  "Judy" (b/w "Best Years Of My Love") in February 1976  /  "Where Were You" (b/w "Making Do") in August 1976  /  and "Brother" (b/w "Life's So Easy") in February 1977.

 

Barry Ryan : "I didn't sing for years until I started doing shows about ten/fifteen years ago. People were ringing me to do concerts and things, tours of Germany. I got back on the road 'cause I actually missed singing like hell and the dosh is always good, of course. Done to a certain level, I really enjoy it. No, I kind of let my music drift away but maybe that's the way it should be."

Quote"Eloise", sung by Barry Ryan, was written by his twin brother Paul Ryan. Running for over five minutes, it featured strong orchestration, melodramatic vocals and a brief slow interlude.



After not being able to cope with the success of some of his hits as a duo with Barry, Paul decided to take a step away from the limelight and to concentrate on songwriting. "Eloise" was the second song he wrote and was influenced by Richard Harris' arrangement of "MacArthur Park" after listening to a rough mix of it at a party at Harris' house. After listening to it, Paul locked himself away and wrote "Eloise" in three days. The song was then recorded at IBC Studios at the end of a recording session with their mother Marion and they only had two takes to do it due to the length of the song. The session musicians included Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, both of whom went on to form Led Zeppelin, and Glenn Ross Campbell, who didn't.

The single was released as "Barry Ryan with the Majority". The Majority were a pop band, who for a period, were the backing band for Ryan and who, after renaming to Majority One, had some success in Europe. Ryan also released an Italian-language version of the song, "Eloise (Versione Italiana)", in 1968.

Barry Ryan : "The only thing was in America they butchered 'Eloise'. They cut the, oh it was terrible, they cut the beginning out. They cut the end out and they cut the middle out. They basically did about four verses. They basically wrecked it, cut it down to about two and half minutes. It sold about eight copies and got into the Top 50. It would have been a big hit in America. I'm absolutely convinced of it but the record company just couldn't... The idea of releasing a five and a half minute song was kind of comical to them."

It sold three million copies worldwide, and reached No. 2 in the 'Record Retailer' UK Singles Chart as published in the Record Mirror, but hit No. 1 in both the NME and Melody Maker charts - which, despite later revisionism by a bunch of pen-pushing musical spods, were considered the REAL charts at the time (face facts, Gambo!). It topped the chart in 17 countries, including Italy, the Netherlands and Australia.

     

On the back of the commercial success of the 1985 Phantasmagoria album, The Damned released their cover of the track as a single in 1986. It reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart.

Dave Vanian had been thinking about doing a cover of the song from at least 1980 and in 1985 wanted to do a non-album single. Steve Kutner, who signed the Damned to MCA, has said that "it was a nightmare track to record", being "originally twice as long as what came out". Rat Scabies wasn't convinced by the song and has said that "it never sounded finished to me".

At the same time, a version of "Eloise" by Far Corporation singer Robin McAuley was released. McAuley said that the Damned's version had "got absolutely no chance of making it in the charts". Of the two competing versions at the time, Barry Ryan said that "I like the Damned's version best, it's even better than mine".

Other Versions include :   Claude François (1968)  /  Karel Gott (1969)  /  Dean Reed (1972)  /  Paris Connection (1978)  /  The Teens (1981)  /  The Associates (early 80s ?)  /  Mina (1985)  /  The Damned (1986)  /  Gerard Joling (1989)  / Leningrad Cowboys (mid 90s ?)  /  Spagna (2001)  /  Helloïse (2001)  /  Helmut Lotti (2003)    /  Déjà vu (2011)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote                         

The Culture Bunker

I know 'Eloise' mainly from the Damned version - years ago, I picked up a good compilation of theirs that tracked their career from start to the late 80s and it was kind of funny seeing the gradual change from 'New Rose' to their version of this. Listened to one after another, you'd barely see the connection, but via all their other stuff in between it does make some sense.

I've heard the original by Bazza here about two times - not sure if I've ever heard anything by him or his brother.

daf

Supporting Wobbly Erection, it's . . .

262.  The Scaffold - Lily The Pink



From : 8–28 December 1968 (3)
           5–11 January 1969 (1)
Weeks : 4
Flip side : Buttons Of Your Mind
Bonus 1 : TV Performance
Bonus 2 : Promo film

The Story So Far : 
QuoteThe Scaffold were a comedy, poetry and music trio from Liverpool, England, consisting of musical performer Mike McGear (real name Peter Michael McCartney - the brother of Paul McCartney), poet Roger McGough and comic entertainer John Gorman.

From as early as 1962 the members of The Scaffold were part of a performing revue group known as The Liverpool One Fat Lady All Electric Show ["Two Fat Ladies" being the bingo term for '88', and was a reference to the 'Liverpool 8' district]. McGough's fellow Liverpool poet Adrian Henri was also a founding member of this early configuration. Working almost exclusively as a trio under the name The Scaffold from 1964, Gorman, McGear and McGough performed a mixture of comic songs, comedy sketches and poetry.

After gaining wider recognition as regulars on the television show Gazette, they moved into whimsical comedy-pop as a recording act for Parlophone Records in 1966, with George Martin serving as producer. They released a couple of singles - starting with "2 Day's Monday" (b/w "3 Blind Jellyfish") in May 1966, followed by "Goodbat Nightman" (b/w "A Long Strong Black Pudding") in December 1966.

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At this point, having had little success cracking the charts as a trio, poet McGough and McGear decided work on a pop-and-poetry-oriented album of their own, leaving John Gorman to twiddle his thumbs.

Roger McGough : "Scaffold became known in the UK because of their success as essentially a wacky comedy band, whereas prior to that we played mainly in theaters as a poetry/satire spoken word trio. This LP was a return to our poetic roots in a sense, with John, who was very much a comic actor, not involved."

Mike McGear : "John was a comedian; you just looked at him, and you laughed. We thought, should we try and do something different? It was just a selection of song ideas that had been done with me collaborating with Roger McGough. I don't think we had a name for it then."

   

Sessions began on 18 June, 1967. Accompanying them to the studio of Beatles publisher Dick James was Mike's older brother Paul McCartney, who that very day was celebrating his twenty-fifth birthday in the most hectic of circumstances.

Mike McGear : "That day our kid had the word gone out that he had slipped some LSD into a drink and imbibed it, so the world's media was waiting for us as we left his house in London. Because our kid was being exposed as taking LSD, there is all the media watching this vicious drug-taker and his younger brother – 'ha, we gotcha!' And they're rolling their cameras. Both of us shut our windows down. Suddenly the fans pushed the media out of the way to get to their idol, and his good-looking brother obviously, and these presents of flowers showered into the car. Then the media are thinking, 'oh my god, we can't use any of this footage,' because of the adulation, all these children loving this man who is a drug-taking bastard. What they wanted was this LSD-mindblown druggy scowling. And there is this lovely thing where life took over, 'cause it was his birthday."

As sessions progressed, a host of illustrious rock stars dropped in to lend a hand. Although not credited on the initial release, contributors included Graham Nash, Dave Mason of Traffic, Gary Leeds of the Walker Brothers, and ex-Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith. Paul McCartney's girlfriend, Jane Asher, also sang some background vocals. Roger took primary responsibility for the words and Mike for the music, with some overlap.

Mike McGear : "I just like contrasts. You'd have 'Mr. Tickle,' just a stupid little story I had, and then 'Yellow Book,' and then the poetry, which was equally valid, we felt. Very different, and very uncommercial. But it was sort of revolutionary."

   

The song "So Much" featured Jimi Hendrix on guitar.

Mike McGear : "Jimi was a charming gentleman. He came to the studio and played guitar on my McGough McGear album, I was expecting an enormous entourage with all his press people, photographer, groupies, drug administrators etc., but when he arrived at De Lane Lea Studios London he was just on his tod with a guitar. I said that we were actually working on a track with our kid who was the producer of the album. Paul was working on another track in the studio so I offered Jimi a drink. He said "No that's cool, I'll just go into the studio and rehearse stuff". Paul and I came to the track called 'So Much In Love' so we sent it to him in the studio where he sat on the floor and started playing. Paul and I were listening and there was a bit in it were Jimi was to come in for the solo. And so it goes 'So Much In Love... do be do be' etc... then suddenly Jimi rips into a totally mind blowing solo which was amazing! Our kid who had just finished Pepper, turned to me smiling and said "So what do you think?" When I looked concerned Paul said "that was extraordinary... what's wrong?" I said "well he didn't come in at the right place!" Paul said "So do you want to tell him?" I didn't mind so went into the studio and said "Jimi, that was brilliant but the thing is you didn't know when to come in did you?" He said "No sorry, I just went for it, can you tell me when to come in?" So Jimi and I sat on the floor waiting with me till I tapped his knee... "NOW Jimi!" We did a couple of takes till it was 'perfect'. I then played the tape back with Paul and he said "Now do you understand what you've done? Do you remember the first one when it was wild and electric, well this one is now modified, cooled down, perfect but no balls in it." I agreed that he was absolutely right. So Paul said to the tape operator "sorry can we have the first take?" The tape operator said "what do you mean the first take, there's no room left on the tape. We've been wiping everything as we go"!! So that's lesson number one in recording."

Hendrix also featured on the psychedelic homage "Ex Art Student" along with Dave Mason on sitar

Mike McGear : "I think it was Dave Mason on sitar, Jimi on wah-wah guitar, and Wib Bennett on the flute, floating over everything. It was free-form, sort of jazzy, rock-jazz at certain bits. Because there were no barriers. People could experiment. In their own musical box, they had to be the Beatles, they had to be Traffic, they had to be Jimi Hendrix, as a known sound. Whereas in ours, anything went."

 

Though Scaffold would record another track from the LP, "Do You Remember" for a small 1968 hit single, both Roger and Mike preferred the version on their album.

Mike McGear : "If they'd have released that, it would have been a hit in my opinion, because our kid's piano was very strong. In fact, he did the harmonies on that. If you listen to the harmonies, that's the two brothers at it. But it couldn't be issued as a single because of contracts or whatever, so Scaffold had to redo it in the studios in Abbey Road."

By the time the 'McGough & McGear' album was released in May 1968, Scaffold's star had risen with the UK Top Five hit "Thank U Very Much", and McGough and McGear would concentrate their recording activities with that group for the next few years.

     

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their third single, "Thank U Very Much" (b/w "Ide B The First"), became their first chart entry - reaching #4 in November 1967. McGear has been reluctant to explain the reference in the song to "Aintree Iron" with several disputed theories ranging from some Iron Railings, a Weigh bridge, and a public lavatory.

     

Mike McGear : "Somebody had told me in the sixties that Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a fan of the song, so I told people this for years and got away with it. Then Radio 4 called me one day as they were doing a programme asking all about 'Thank You Very Much' and I told them the same... It was Harold Wilson's favourite record. They said they knew, I asked "How?" and they replied "He told us"! Years later in 2009, I was in Scotland at the Castle of May doing a book called 'Mike McCartney's North Highlands'. According to the Majors who control the castle, Thank U was a particular favourite of the Queen Mother. At Christmas time, after dinner the Royals would play and sing along to the song with their children. The Queen Mum would insist on taking one particular line – Thank U Very Much, Thank U Very Much and sing.. 'For our gracious Queen'. I didn't have the heart to tell the Majors that the actual words were Thank U for our 'gracious Team' i.e. for Liverpool FC!"

 


Tim Rice, who was at that time an assistant to their producer Norrie Paramor, also contributed backing vocals to some of their material. Additionally, although not officially credited as a permanent member of the group during its heyday, guitarist Andy Roberts was a frequent musical collaborator from as far back as 1962, acting as musical director and arranger in a live setting throughout their career and playing on a large number of their releases.

 

The Scaffold's version of "Do You Remember?" (b/w "Carry On Krow") reached #34 in April 1968.


 

In June 1968, Mike got married to Angela Fishwick in the village of Carrog in North Wales. Also that month, The Scaffold released the single "1-2-3", (b/w "Today") - which failed to chart.

 

In July 1968 they released their first album - an entirely live affair recorded 'Live At The Queen Elizabeth Hall'.




- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their next single, "Lily The Pink" topped the chart over four non-consecutive weeks between November 1968 and January 1969.

     

Mike McGear : "Lily the Pink was originally a bawdy rugby song that everyone joined in with, they used to sing it in pubs etc. but it was so risqué we would have never got away with it and it would have never been played. So we changed all the words to get it into the charts. We only realised we had a chance of success when Norris Paramor suggested we run the first pressing of Lily over to John Peel's house, he played all the new records on his radio one programme. John passed the demo disk to a curly haired boy, played it, listened to the intro and said "That is number one" I made him listen to the whole thing and at the end he said "Yes, I still think its going to be number one." The curly haired boy agreed. The curly haired boy was Marc Bolan."

 

The single featured on their second UK album 'L. the P.'. Released in May 1969, it paired a side of live tracks with a side of studio recordings.

     

The non-album single "Charity Bubbles" (b/w "Goose") followed in June 1969, but failed to chart. The group also composed and sang the theme tune to the popular BBC TV comedy The Liver Birds, which aired from 1969–1978 - and featured on the B-side of the single "Gin Gan Goolie", which reached #38 in the UK charts in November 1969.

     

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In 1970 The Scaffold starred in their own popular weekly BBC children's television series, Score with the Scaffold. The opening and closing theme tune was usually a shortened variation on their earlier single "2 Days Monday". By this point the group had also recorded enough tracks for a new studio album, but apart from a few songs that found their way on to singles that year, including "All The Way Up" - the main title theme for the 1970 Granada production of the satirical David Turner play 'Semi-Detatched' - (b/w "Please Sorry") released in June 1970, and "Busdreams" (b/w "If I Could Start All Over Again") released in October 1970, much of this material remained unreleased.

In early 1971 The Scaffold provided some catchy tunes for inclusion in a television publicity campaign heralding the introduction of decimal currency to the UK. In this series of informative five-minute programmes, titled Decimal Five and shown on BBC1, their songs included such relevant lyrics as "Give more, get change" and "Use your old coppers in sixpenny lots".

In the same year, in order to broaden their musical palate further, the trio and erstwhile collaborator Andy Roberts merged into the expanded line-up of Grimms with performers such as Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall and Zoot Money, alongside McGough's fellow Liverpool poets Adrian Henri and Brian Patten. Innes and Stanshall can also be heard contributing to The Scaffold's final single for Parlophone, "Do The Albert", (b/w "Commercial Break") released in October 1971, which also featured Keith Moon.

     

In 1972, the group made a half hour musical movie entitled 'Plod' based on an earlier stage production that centred around Gorman's long-running "P.C. Plod" character. The film was made on location in Liverpool, and included boys from the Liverpool Institute High School, earlier attended by the McCartney brothers and Beatle George Harrison. McGear also released his first solo album, 'Woman', with some of the musical performers from Grimms.

 

By early 1973 The Scaffold had transferred to Island Records and released 'Fresh Liver', their first full album of new material since 1969, and from which no singles were released (aside from "W.P.C Hodges" which was credited to Gorman as a solo artist). The new album again featured most of the musical performers from Grimms and as such, like the earlier McGough And McGear album, it relied less heavily than usual on purely spoken-word material. The trio then concentrated on their work as part of Grimms, until the end of the year when McGear left that group after frayed tempers on another demanding UK tour led to an altercation with Brian Patten.

 

After recording his next solo album 'McGear' and the 1974 success of the one-off Scaffold single "Liverpool Lou" (b/w "Ten Years After On Strawberry Jam") which reached #7 in June 1974 - recorded during the 1974 'McGear' sessions with Wings, The Scaffold reunited to tour and record their final album.

   

Following the template set by 'Fresh Liver' of more music and less speech, 'Sold Out' was released in February 1975 on Warner Bros. Records. Included on the album were the non-charting singles "Mummy Won't Be Home For Christmas" (b/w "The Wind Is Blowing") released in December 1974, and "Leaving Of Liverpool" (b/w "Pack Of Cards") released in March 1975.

     

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After McGough and Gorman temporarily decamped to participate in the final Grimms LP 'Sleepers' in 1976 and Gorman released his solo album, 'Go Man Gorman', The Scaffold moved to the Bronze Record label and continued touring and releasing singles through 1977, including "Wouldn't It Be Funny If You Didn't Have A Nose" (b/w "Mr. Noselighter") released in November 1976, and "How D'You Do" (b/w "Paper Underpants") released in April 1977. After that the group amicably disbanded.

 

After releasing a few more singles, Mike McGear retired from the music business in the 1980s. Having proven himself artistically, he reverted to using his family name and has since carved out a career as a professional photographer and author.

John Gorman remained in the public eye through his regular appearances on such children's television programmes as Tiswas throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. He continued to perform and record, and later moved into theatrical direction and production.

Meanwhile, in 1978, Roger McGough released his spoken-word solo album Summer With Monika (based upon his celebrated poetry collection of the same name). Since then he has arguably maintained the highest-profile and most sustained post-Scaffold career, still appearing regularly as a vocal performer on British radio and television, and continuing to be a highly regarded poet and author.

The Single :
Quote"Lily the Pink" is a 1968 song released by the UK comedy group The Scaffold. The lyrics celebrate the "medicinal compound" invented by Lily the Pink, and humorously chronicle the "efficacious" cures it has brought about, such as inducing morbid obesity to cure a weak appetite, or bringing about a sex change as a remedy for freckles.



Backing vocalists on the recording included Graham Nash (of The Hollies), Elton John, and Tim Rice; while Jack Bruce, from Cream, played the bass guitar.

Mike McGear : "Elton John was our backing singer for Scaffold. I was at the in the bathroom at the Wings launch in London and this young lad came in. He said "They were great days weren't they Mike", I said "Hello Reg (that was his name at the time). He said "Oh no I'm not Reg anymore, I changed my name to Elton... Elton John". I said "That's nice but what do you mean, they were great days?" He explained "We used to come to Abbey Road to do backing vocals for your Scaffold, they were the best gigs we ever did, laughed all day and still got paid". Scaffold couldn't sing so were needed someone to do harmonies. In fact, if you listen to the old Scaffold songs, you can clearly hear Elton's voice on them."

       

The lyrics include a number of in-jokes. For example, the line "Mr Frears has sticky out ears" refers to film director Stephen Frears, who had worked with The Scaffold early in their career; while the line "Jennifer Eccles had terrible freckles" refers to the song "Jennifer Eccles" by The Hollies - the band Graham Nash was about to leave.

Mike McGear : "Graham Nash was in the Hollies, whenever you hear Lily the Pink, our number one record listen to the Jennifer Eccles verse. The Hollies had a big hit called Jennifer Eccles, so I rang Graham and said "Look, we're doing this daft song called Lily the Pink and there's a verse in there about Jennifer Eccles do you want to come to Abbey Road and sing it?" and he did, so if you ever hear the song on the radio it is not Roger McGough singing that verse... it is so obviously Graham Nash."

The song, released in November 1968, became No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart for the four weeks encompassing the Christmas holidays that year.

     

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The U.S. American folk song on which "Lily the Pink" is based is generally known as "The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham". The song was inspired by Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, a well-known herbal-alcoholic patent medicine for women. Supposed to relieve menstrual and menopausal pains, the compound was mass-marketed in the United States from 1876 onwards.

     

The song was certainly in existence by the time of the First World War, with reports of it being sung in officers' prisoner-of-war camps in Germany, and ascribes it to Canadian prisoners. The words of the first verse ran:

    Have you heard of Lydia Pinkum,  /  And her love for the human race?
    How she sells (she sells, she sells) her wonderful compound,  /  And the papers publish her face?


In many versions, the complaints which the compound had cured were highly ribald in nature. During the Prohibition era (1920–33) in the United States, the medicine had a particular appeal as a readily available 40-proof alcoholic drink, and it is likely that this aided the popularity of the song.

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Other Versions include"I Will Sing of My Redeemer" by Smith's Sacred Singers (1927)  /  "Four for Three" by Oscar Brand (1961)  /  "Tenkka-tenkka-poo" by Simo Salminen (1968)  /  "Le sirop typhon" by Richard Anthony (1969)  /  "La sbornia" by I Gufi (1969)  /  "Doktor E. Wang" by Gluntan (1969)  /  "Monsieur Bong Bong" by Yves Lemieux  (1969)  /  La Trinca (1969)  /  "Drinke totteme zinke" by Thijs van der Molen (1969)  /  Pete Colley (1969)  /  Danny McEvoy and Jasmine Thorpe (2011)

On This Day  :
Quote8 December 1968 : Graham Nash leaves The Hollies to form the group Crosby, Stills & Nash.
10 December : The largest heist in the history of Japan, the never-solved "300 million yen robbery", occurred in the Tokyo suburb of Kokubunji.
11 December : The Rolling Stones 'Rock and Roll Circus' filmed
12 December : Pan Am Flight 217 crashed into the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Venezuela, killing all 50 people on board.
12 December : Kate Humble, TV presenter, born Katherine Mary Humble in Wimbledon, London
12 December : Tallulah Bankhead, American stage and film actress, dies of pneumonia at 65
14 December : Margarete Klose, German operatic mezzo-soprano, dies aged 69
17 December : Mary Bell, aged 11, found guilty of murdering two small boys and sentenced to life in detention.
18 December : Peter Sellers divorces actress Britt Ekland after 4 years of marriage
20 December : Van Nest Polglase, American film industry art director dies aged 70
20 December : Joe Cornish, comedian & Filmmaker, born Joseph Murray Cornballs in Westminster, United Kingdom
20 December : John Steinbeck, American author, dies at 66
21 December : Apollo 8: 1st manned Moon voyage launched with Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders
22 December : The Down to the Countryside Movement decree, by Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, was announced in the Party newspaper People's Daily Bugle.
22 December : Astronaut Frank Borman became violently ill the day after taking a dose of the barbiturate drug Seconal : Pukes in Spa-a-a-a-ace!
24 December : Manchester United's winger George Best wins Ballon d'Or award for best European football player
24 December : Doyle Bramhall II, American guitarist, born in Dallas, Texas
25 December : Helena Christensen, model, born in Copenhagen, Denmark
26 December : Led Zeppelin's concert debut in Denver, opening for Vanilla Fudge
27 December : Apollo 8 returns to Earth
28 December : 100,000 attend Miami Pop Festival
- - - - - - - - - - - -
5 January 1969 : "Maggie Flynn" closes at ANTA Theater NYC after 82 performances
5 January : USSR Venera 5 launched for 1st successful planet landing (Venus)
5 January : Marilyn Manson, musician, born Brian Hugh Warner in Canton, Ohio
6 January : Richard Nixon was officially elected President of the United States as Congress certified the results of the votes cast on December 16 of the electoral college members
7 January : Trial began in the case of Sirhan Sirhan for the June 5, 1968 murder of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
9 January : First trial flight of Concorde supersonic jetliner, Bristol, England
10 January : The publishers of The Saturday Evening Post announced that the weekly magazine would cease publication after almost 148 years
10 January : USSR's Venera 6 launched for parachute landing on Venus
11 January : Sweden became the first Western nation to grant formal diplomatic recognition to the Communist republic of North Vietnam.
11 January : Richmal Crompton, British author (Just William), dies aged 78

Extra! Extra!
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Read all about it! :
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kalowski


Ballad of Ballard Berkley


The Culture Bunker

Quote from: kalowski on November 09, 2020, 04:28:25 PM
Any other 60s groups with all members still alive?
The Hollies' original bassist Eric Haydock is dead, but Bernie Calvert - who replaced him in 1966 - is still going, as are Allan Clarke, Graham Nash, Tony Hicks and Bobby Elliot.

Johnboy

I remember in 1988 a housemate had this on a mix tape of mostly 80s indie. Fair baffled me.

Jockice

This, along with the previously mentioned Cinderella Rockefella, is probably the first song I can remember. My nana was singing it to me one day. Well, the chorus anyway. I doubt if she knew the verses.

Chriddof


A No. 1 song that borrows the name of a character in another song (Jennifer Eccles).

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on November 10, 2020, 12:24:01 PM
A No. 1 song that borrows the name of a character in another song (Jennifer Eccles).
Bowie, of course, managed it with two of his own songs.

And eventually we'll come to a #1 that features in it's lyrics the title of the chart topper that followed it.

Quote from: kalowski on November 09, 2020, 04:28:25 PM
Any other 60s groups with all members still alive?

A few duos probably - e.g. Simon and Garfunkel. Obviously the fewer the members, the bigger chance of avoiding the Grim Reaper.

daf

Jammy Dodgers, it's . . .

263.  Marmalade - Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da



From : 29 December 1968 – 4 January 1969 (1)
           12 – 25 January 1969 (2)
Weeks : 3
Flip side : Chains
Bonus 1 : Beat Club
Bonus 2 : Top of the Pops

The Story So Far : 
QuoteThe Gaylords were originally formed by Pat Fairley and Billy Johnston in Baillieston, a suburb east of Glasgow, in 1961. Their initial line-up, fronted by vocalist Wattie Rodgers, included Tommy Frew on drums and lead guitarist Pat McGovern. William Junior Campbell joined on his fourteenth birthday in May 1961 replacing McGovern, and Rodgers was then himself replaced, initially by two new lead vocalists, Billy Reid and Tommy Scott, although Reid soon departed leaving Scott as the sole frontman. Bill Irving, from local Baillieston group The Cadillacs, then took over from Johnston on bass.

The group began gathering notice and in 1963 Fairley and Campbell spotted Thomas McAleese, singer with local group The Monarchs, at the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, and it was not long before he replaced Scott as lead singer. McAleese then adopted the stage moniker Dean Ford, and they then became known as Dean Ford and The Gaylords. Raymond Duffy, from Glasgow group The Escorts, then came in on drums after Frew departed. For a few months, they had an organist, Davey Hunter. By early 1965, Graham Knight, from the local group The Vampires, had displaced Irving on bass.



So, to recap, the line up at this point was : Graham Knight on vocals & bass  /  Dean Ford – lead vocals, guitar, harmonica  /  Patrick Fairley – vocals, six string bass & rhythm guitars   /  William Junior Campbell – vocals, guitars, keyboards   /  and Raymond Duffy on drums.

   

In early 1964 they were championed by Scottish music journalist Gordon Reid, which led to them being signed to Columbia (EMI) by Norrie Paramor after auditions at Glasgow's Locarno Ballroom. They went on to record four singles, including a cover of the 1963 Chubby Checker US hit "Twenty Miles" (b/w "What's the Matter with Me") - released in April 1964, which was a big seller locally but failed to chart nationally. Further singles included : "Mr Heartbreak's Here Instead" (b/w "I Won't") - released in November 1964  /  "The Name Game" (b/w "That Lonely Feeling") - released in June 1965  /  and "He's a Good Face (But He's Down and Out)" (b/w "You Know It Too") - released in December 1965.

In 1965, they played a long stint in Germany at the Storyville in Cologne and also in Duisburg. By this time The Gaylords had attained status as one of the top groups in Scotland, but on their return from Germany to London in early 1965, they decided to try for success in the UK as a whole, and remained in London, where they changed management and agency representation.

On the recommendation of The Tremeloes, who had played with them in Glasgow, the Gaylords were invited to join the London-based agency Starlite Artistes, owned and managed by Peter Walsh. They then began to build up a club reputation as a tight, close harmony band and in 1966, finding themselves in the middle of the 1960s swinging London scene, they decided to update their image and instrumentation. On the advice of their new manager, they changed the band name to "The Marmalade". Unusually, they now had two bass players, Knight on four-string and Fairley on six-string.

Sandy Newman : "The band were originally called Dean Ford & The Gaylords, and they were one of the few groups back in the day to venture south because they had done everything they could in Scotland. It was a great challenge to try and break the market. They were spotted and signed up to an agency in London that looked after Brian Poole & The Tremeloes and the early Fleetwood Mac. It was a very active office managed by a gentleman called Peter Walsh. There was talk of changing as the type of name had become unfashionable because there were already Cliff Richard & The Shadows, Shane Fenton & The Fentones and Tony Rivers & The Castaways. So they were summoned to Peter's office, and it was him who came up with the name. He was a good old Lancashire man, and he told them "Right then lads, I've been sitting over my breakfast this morning and I've decided you're gonna be called The Marmalade!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

With their EMI Columbia contract at an end, Walsh, with the help of John Salter, Walsh's booking agent, was successful in signing the band to CBS Records with producer Mike Smith, who was having great success with the Tremeloes.

Drummer Ray Duffy, decided to leave in 1966 to return to Scotland to get married just after their first CBS single, "It's All Leading Up To Saturday Night" (b/w "Wait A Minute, Baby"), released in September 1966. The band then placed adverts in the New Musical Express and Melody Maker, and after various auditions, former postman Alan Whitehead, ex-member of London outfit the Loose Ends, became their new drummer.



Whitehead made his debut on their next single, "Can't Stop Now" (b/w "There Ain't No Use In Hanging On"). Released in February 1967, the single failed to sell despite the group's performing it on a TV play, The Fantasist, written by Alun Owen, for the BBC Two Theatre 625 series.

   

Released in August 1967, their third CBS single, the self penned "I See The Rain" (b/w "Laughing Man"), written by Campbell and Ford, was praised by Jimi Hendrix as the "best cut of 1967".

Sandy Newman : "Yes, in 1967 Jim Hendrix chose it as his record of the year! I was still in school for God's sake, and I had come down to London to buy stage gear and I was staying with my sister. That week I went to see The Marmalade and Joe Cocker in the Marquee Club, which a mindblowing experience. But it was definitely the days of the early hippies, so I See the Rain was a bit of a psychedelic classic. It was all flower power, and everyone was wearing kaftans! It was a whole different vibe at that time, and London was really the place to be internationally – the whole fashion and hoping you could glimpse one of The Beatles!"

The song became a chart-topper in the Netherlands, and Graham Nash of the Hollies contributed to the session, but it too flopped in the UK.

Sandy Newman : "The Marmalade were recording with CBS and had a hit in Holland with I See the Rain, and I saw them as a young guy playing that track in the Marquee Club just before it was released. But it wasn't capturing mainstream radio in Britain, so CBS offered them songs like Loving Things and Wait for Me Mary-Anne. They then became successful, which took the band on a different route from their early sound. When I've done TV stuff over the years with bands like Smokie and The Sweet, they've actually said "You've no idea how much the early band influenced us!" I guess that permeated through a little bit to the 90s."

   

19 January 1967 proved to be a turning point in the band's progress when they made their debut at London's Marquee Club where they supported The Pink Floyd. On 16 March 1967 they began a long residency at the club which carried through to the autumn of the following year, building a reputation and following. They toured  with the Who, Joe Cocker, Traffic, Gene Pitney and the Tremeloes, and appeared at the Windsor Jazz and Rock Festival, directly preceding Jerry Lee Lewis, and Festival of the Flower Children Woburn Abbey.

CBS, concerned at Marmalade's lack of commercial success, threatened to drop them if they did not have a hit. So after the failure of another self-penned single, "Man In A Shop" (b/w "Cry (The Shoob Doroorie Song)") - which flopped in November 1967, they were urged to record more chart-orientated material.

     

They rejected "Everlasting Love", which became a No. 1 for Love Affair, but later gave in to pressure and recorded "Lovin' Things" written by Artie Schroeck and Jet Loring in 1967 and arranged by Keith Mansfield. Backed by "Hey Joe", it reached #6 in March 1968.

   

Their follow-up single, "Wait For Me Mary-Anne" (b/w "Mess Around"), peaked at #30 in October 1968.

 
 

Marmalade's debut album, 'There's A Lot Of It About', featured a mix of some of their singles and cover versions of current popular tunes, and was released in November 1968.

   

They they enjoyed their biggest UK success with their cover of the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", which topped the UK chart in January 1969 - becoming the first ever Scottish group to top that chart. Their version of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" sold around half a million in the UK, and a million copies globally by April 1969.

   

Sandy Newman : "Ob-La-Di was either going to a big success for whoever recorded it, or it was going to be a failure. Thankfully, it hit the top of the charts for us! It was offered as an exclusive from the White Album, and Marmalade captured the imagination on Top of the Pops wearing the kilts. It is what it is, it's a party song! Children identify with it immediately. McCartney loves it and still plays it live, and he was really fighting for it to be a single, but it only came out in Germany for The Beatles. There are so many covers of it, but I think Marmalade's is just about the definitive version."

       

This was followed by further success with "Baby Make It Soon" ("Time Is On My Side") which reached #9 in June 1969. In October 1969, just before the end of their original contract, and against the band's wishes, CBS released "Butterfly" (b/w "I Shall Be Released"). With the band unwilling to promote the single, it failed to chart.

       

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In November 1969 the band was signed to Decca Records by Dick Rowe under a highly lucrative advance deal, allowing the band to write and produce their own songs, with no studio time restraints.

Sandy Newman : "When the band signed to Decca after CBS ran out, they got a great contract which allowed them free studio time to be able to do more experimental things at the time like Reflections of My Life. I think if they had only been given three hours of recording time, I don't think it would've been like the record it ended up. It was a luxury the band was afforded because they had been successful, which bred more success."

In their very first Decca recording session, they recorded "Reflections of My Life", which, backed by "Rollin' My Thing", reached #3 in the UK charts in December 1969, and would become their biggest worldwide hit - rewarding Decca's and Dick Rowe's faith in the band.

     

The song featured an ear-catching backwards guitar solo by Campbell : The first 4 bars of the guitar solo were recorded as normal, with Campbell playing a long "G" note, tied over from the last beat of bar 3, through bar 4, with slight feedback sustaining the long note. The eight track tape was then turned over, and Campbell played against the reverse sound of the track, including his initial first four bars ensuring that he played another long "G" near the same point which could be cross-faded against the original.

Sandy Newman : "It was a bit of a trick where you would record the music and then physically take the tape out of the machine and re-spool it so it went backwards. It was a bit like George Martin cutting all the tape up ad reassembling it from the floor like he did with the psychedelic crescendo to A Day in the Life. Reflections was certainly innovative. It was at the time of the Vietnam War, so it struck a huge chord in America. I did some solo performances in Nashville a few years ago, and people asked me to play that song. They absolutely love it over there, and it's permeated the generations."

Their first Decca album, 'Reflections Of The Marmalade' was released in the US as 'Reflections Of My Life' on Decca's London Records subsidiary.


   

Other UK hits for Decca included "Rainbow" b/w "The Ballad Of Cherry Flavar") - which reached #3 in July 1970, and "My Little One" (b/w "Is Your Life Your Own?") - which reached #15 in March 1971

       

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After William Junior Campbell, who co-wrote most of the group's original material with Ford, left the band in March 1971 for a solo career, and to study orchestration and composition at the Royal College of Music, they began a series of line-up changes.

Marmalade recruited guitarist Hugh Nicholson, an ex-member of The Poets, to replace Campbell, and after the first post Campbell release, "Cousin Norman" (b/w "Lonely Man") - which reached #6 in September 1971, it was Nicholson who insisted on them sacking drummer Alan Whitehead and recruiting his friend and colleague from the Poets, Dougie Henderson. This caused Marmalade to suffer adverse publicity from the UK's News of the World after an embittered Whitehead gave them stories of the band's experiences with groupies.

     

Marmalade released the album 'Songs' in November 1971, with Nicholson taking over most song compositions, which met with limited success. Nicholson penned two of their last hits : "Back On The Road" (b/w "Love Is Hard To Re-Arrange") - which reached #35 in November 1971 and "Radancer" (b/w "Sarah" & "Just One Woman") - which reached #6 in April 1972.

   

Patrick Fairley quit the band circa 1972 to run the group's music publishing company, then Nicholson, who was discouraged over the failure of their Songs album, also left in 1973 to form Blue. Ford, Knight and Henderson carried on with Marmalade. Nicholson was eventually replaced by Mike Japp, a rock guitarist from the Welsh band, Thank You.

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The group returned to EMI and in June 1973, released a new single, "(Your Wish Is In) The Wishing Well" (b/w "Engine Driver"), credited simply as Marmalade (dropping the "The"). But Graham Knight left during the recording of their next album, 'Our House Is Rocking' and the group was briefly a trio before Joe Breen (ex-Dream Police) came in on bass.

     

Two further chart-dodging singles were released on EMI - "Our House Is Rockin'" (b/w "Hallelujah Freedom Blues") in October 1973, and "Come Back Jo" (b/w "The Way It Is") in April 1974.

   

Refusing to play most of the band's old hit records on stage, the group slowly came to a standstill.

   

In 1975, after Ford and the remaining members called it quits, Graham Knight linked up with former drummer Alan Whitehead to form 'Vintage Marmalade' with Sandy Newman on vocals, guitar, keyboards, and Charlie Smith on guitar.

Sandy Newman : "I was in a band in Scotland called The Chris McClure Section, who I'd joined when I was about 17-18. They were second to Dean Ford & The Gaylords, so they were a popular band. We ended up having a record deal with CBS, and there was a few promotional things we would do together so I kind of knew the guys anyway. A few people had left, but Dean Ford was still there and so was Graham Knight, the bass player, but he decided he was very unhappy with the direction the band was going. He didn't want to play on any of the records, he wanted a whole new thing with a new image. Graham went back to the old manager, and put together a band, which I became involved with. They had a singer for about three or four months, but he didn't quite fit the bill. We tried to audition different singers, so I eventually said to the guys that all these people turning up didn't feel right, so I offered to do it – and that's how it started!"

They signed a deal with Tony Macaulay's Target Records and in 1976, had what turned out to be their final Top 10 hit with the ominously entitled, Macaulay penned song, "Falling Apart At The Seams". Backed by "Fly, Fly, Fly", it reached #9 in the UK charts in February 1976, and made the Top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the group's last charting single on the U.S charts.

Sandy Newman : "It came from nowhere. We were called into the office one day, and it already been demoed by Tony Burrows, who was the voice of so many great records. But Tony wanted it to be a falsetto harmony record, so there was a whole different approach and the basic premise was that they were looking for someone who could do it like that, so I was called in to do it. We were working in Germany that weekend, and after doing a gig we sat around a piano and learned all the harmonies and performed it in a certain key. We came back the following week, and the bloody thing was recorded, so it was a real wham-bam thing! It charted in early '76 and did very well and hung around for a long time. It relaunched us. We were on TV, and it established me in the identity as the singer."

   

Three further singles were released in 1976 : "Walking A Tightrope" (b/w "My Everything") - in May  /  "What You Need Is A Miracle" (b/w "The Rusty Hands Of Time") - in August  /  and "Hello Baby" (b/w "Seafaring Man") - released in October 1976

   

Another trio of flops emerged in 1977 : "The Only Light On My Horizon Now" (b/w "Louisiana") - in February  /  an optimistic re-release of "Hello Baby" (b/w "Sentimental Value") - in May 1977  /  "Mystery Has Gone" (b/w "Wasting My Time") - released in July 1977. The final single released on Target, "Talking In Your Sleep" (b/w "Make It Really Easy"), flopped in January 1978.

     

Guitarist Charlie Smith departed in 1977 to join Nicholson in Blue and Garth Watt-Roy came in briefly for Marmalade's 'Only Light On My Horizon Now' album, before leaving for the Q-Tips in 1978. He was replaced by guitarist Ian Withington, who appeared alongside Knight, Newman and new drummer Stu Williamson for the next album 'Doing It All For You' in 1979. Signed to Sky records, "Heavens Above" (b/w "You're A Lady") - was released in November 1978, while "Made In Germany", (b/w "Ooh Baby"), came out in November 1979 on EMI.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Charlie Smith returned to the drumstool in 1980, and Alan Holmes (vocals, guitars, keyboards), a former member of the Bristol-based band Federation, succeeded Withington. A 1980 US only album, 'Marmalade', on G&P Records, featured a re-recorded mix of their Decca, EMI and Target material, alongside some Junior Campbell-penned tracks. Another unsuccessful album, 'Heartbreaker', came out in the UK in 1982 on the Spectra label.

   

Graham Knight remained as the sole original band member touring the nostalgia circuit with Newman, Smith and Alan Holmes. In 1982, Glenn Taylor replaced Smith on drums, though Smith returned from 1989 to around 1998, before Taylor took over permanently.

In 1985, thumbing a lift on the clapped-out medley bandwagon, Sounds Right Records shoved out "Golden Shreds (Fast Side)" (b/w "Golden Shreds (Slow Side)") - which failed to chart.

Dean Ford died on 31 December 2018 at the age of 72 at his home in Los Angeles of complications from Parkinson's disease. His final album, a two-disc collection called 'This Scottish Heart', was released just weeks before his death.

Patrick Fairley also moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s having worked in music publishing for Robert Stigwood's RSO Group and for the band Yes. After retiring from the music business, in the early 1980s he set up a bar and music venue called The Scotland Yard Pub. He died at his home in Los Angeles on 11 August 2020, at the age of 76.

Junior Campbell became a successful solo recording artist, songwriter, television and film composer, record producer and music arranger, and lives in Sussex. He continues to oversee all of the master rights, and publishing rights to the original band recordings on behalf of the whole band.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Current members include :
Sandy Newman – lead vocals, lead guitar & keyboards (joined in 1975)   
Alan Holmes – vocals, acoustic/electric guitar & keyboards (joined in 1980)
John James Newman – vocals & acoustic guitar (joined in 2011)
Jan S Robinson – vocals & bass (joined in 2015)
Chris North – drums (joined in 2015)

 

The Single :
QuoteThe Beatles' decision not to issue "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as a single in the UK or the US led to many acts rushing to record the song, in the hope of achieving a hit in those countries. A recording by the Scottish pop band The Marmalade, released in late 1968, became the most commercially successful of all the cover versions of songs from The Beatles. It reached number 1 on the Record Retailer chart in January 1969, making Marmalade the first Scottish group to top that chart.



'Ob la di, ob la da' was a phrase McCartney had heard from his friend, Jimmy Anonmuogharan Scott Emuakpor, whom he met in the Bag O'Nails club in Soho, London. The title was said to be Urhobo for 'Life goes on', but was actually just a family phrase.

Paul : "I had a friend called Jimmy Scott who was a Nigerian conga player, who I used to meet in the clubs in London. He had a few expressions, one of which was, 'Ob la di ob la da, life goes on, bra'. I used to love this expression... He sounded like a philosopher to me. He was a great guy anyway and I said to him, 'I really like that expression and I'm thinking of using it,' and I sent him a cheque in recognition of that fact later because even though I had written the whole song and he didn't help me, it was his expression. It's a very me song, in as much as it's a fantasy about a couple of people who don't really exist, Desmond and Molly. I'm keen on names too. Desmond is a very Caribbean name."

John Lennon, by this point infatuated by Yoko Ono, and off his box on heroin, hated working on 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da', which he described as "Paul's granny shit".

[engineer] Richard Lush : "John Lennon came to the session really stoned, totally out of it on something or other, and he said, 'All right, we're gonna do 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da'. He went straight to the piano and smashed the keys with an almighty amount of volume, twice the speed of how they'd done it before, and said, 'This is it! Come on!' He was really aggravated. That was the version they ended up using."

     

Marmalade's recording sold around half a million in the UK, and a million copies globally by April 1969. During the group's TV appearance on BBC One's Top of the Pops to promote the track, four of the five band members wore kilts; their English-born drummer instead dressed as a redcoat.

   

Aside from Marmalade, two other acts achieved hits in Europe with "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da". In 1968, a recording by The Bedrocks, a West Indian band from Leeds, peaked at number 20 on the UK chart. In a discussion at Twickenham Studios in January 1969, McCartney and his girlfriend, Linda Eastman, said they both liked the Bedrocks' version best out of all the cover versions up to that point, including a recent single by Arthur Conley. Also in 1968, The Spectrum reached number 19 on the German singles chart with their cover.

Other Versions include :   Joyce Bond (1968)  /  Nancy Sit (1968)  /  Peter Belli & Four Roses (1968)  /  Claes-Göran Hederström (1968)  /  "Elämältä halua en enempää" by Erno (1969)  /  Patrick Zabe (1969)  /  "Hoppla-di, hoppla-da" by Die Travellers (1969)  /  Howard Carpendale (1969)  /  I Ribelli (1969)  /  Os Impossíveis (1969)  /  Los Mustang (1969)  /  Celia Cruz (1969)  /  Pete and Tina Rainford (1969)  /  The Anita Kerr Singers (1969)  /  The Heptones (1969)  /  Prince Buster & All Stars (1969)  /  Floyd Cramer (1969)  /  Felicia Wong (1974)  /  Sally Boyden (1977)  /  Black Lace (1984)  /  Rolf Harris (1997)  /  Inner Circle (1998)  /  Jimmy Cliff (1999)  /  Daniel O'Donnell (2004)  /  Ringo Ska (2004)  /  Sungha Jung (2008)  /  Danny McEvoy (2010)  /  8BitFanboy (2011)  /  "Obed-Edom, Obadiah" by ApologetiX (2016)  /  a robot (2017)

On This Day  :
Quote29 December 1968 : Israeli commandos destroy 13 Lebanese airplanes
29 December : The photo of Earth from the Moon, "Earthrise", was released to the public by NASA
31 December : 1st supersonic airliner flown Tupolev Tu-144
1 January 1969 : Verne Troyer, actor (Austin Powers), born Verne Jay Troyer in Sturgis, Michigan
2 January : "Fig Leaves Are Falling" opens at Broadhurst Theater NYC
2 January : Lorraine Hansberry's "To be Young, Gifted & Black" premieres in NYC
2 January : Rupert Murdoch gains control of the 'News of the World'
3 January : John Lennon's "Two Virgins" album declared pornographic in New Jersey
3 January : Michael Schumacher, racing driver, born in Hürth, Germany
4 January : "Fig Leaves Are Falling" closes at Broadhurst NYC after 4 performances
2 January : Christy Turlington, model, born Christy Nicole Turlington in Oakland, California
- - - - - - - - - - - -
12 January :  "Golden Rainbow" closes at Shubert Theater NYC after 355 performances
12 January : First Led Zeppelin album released in the US
12 January : Martial law was declared in Madrid, as the University of Madrid was closed and over 300 students were arrested
13 January :  Stephen Hendry, snooker player, born Stephen Gordon Hendry in South Queensferry, Scotland
14 January : India's Madras State was formally renamed as Tamil Nadu.
14 January : Jason Bateman, actor, born Jason Kent Bateman in Rye, New York
14 January : Soyuz 4 launched
14 January : Matt Busby retires from Manchester United . . . Dig it! . . . Dig it! . . . Dig it! . . .
14 January : Dave Grohl, musician (Nirvana / Foo Fighters), born David Eric Grohl in Warren, Ohio
15 January : Soyuz 5 launched by Soviet Union
15 January : Jan Palach, sets himself on fire to protest at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
18 January : United Airlines Flight 266 crashes into Santa Monica Bay, killing all 38 people on-board
18 January : Audrey Hepburn marries her second husband Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti
20 January : Richard M Nixon inaugurated as US president
20 January : Nicky Wire, musician (Manic Street Preachers), born Nicholas Allen Jones in Llanbadoc, Monmouthshire, Wales
21 January : A partial meltdown at the Lucens nuclear reactor in Switzerland seriously contaminating the cavern containing the reactor; the plant is sealed and decommissioned
22 January : "Celebration" opens at Ambassador Theater NYC for 110 performances
23 January : Cream releases their last album "Goodbye"
24 January : Students protest the erection of steel gates around the London School of Economics
25 January : Irene Castle, English dancer dies age 75
25 January : US-North Vietnamese peace talks begin in Paris

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote                     


#1907
Broken link above. This one is a TOTP appearance (includes gratuitous knickers shots; must be one of the first ever TOTP episodes in colour, presumably the 25.12.69 one?). A famous recently deceased serial killer on piano?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu2mEkhcrQA&ab_channel=Marmalade-TopicMarmalade-Topic

I feel that the original is rather patronizing to the Jamaican-UK community despite the good intentions and this cover is actually a little warmer in tone.

daf

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on November 16, 2020, 02:24:35 PM
Broken link above. This one is the TOTP appearance

The 'Bonus 2' TOTP one? Seems to work for me - anyone else having problems with it?



daf

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on November 16, 2020, 02:36:15 PM
No I meant the first link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhuxgYo2p4g&ab_channel=Marmalade-Topic

Weird - it works for me, and your link's the same one as I used - except without that '&ab_channel=Marmalade-Topic' bit at the end (maybe that makes some difference?)

Getting paranoid now - do the other links work OK?






Jockice

My mum saw The Gaylords live. She wasn't a regular concert attender and she'd have already been in her early 30s (and married and a mother) when they formed so it was obviously a big night out for her and one that she mentioned quite often. But she couldn't for the life of her work out why I found the name so funny.

daf

Green's White Blues, it's . . .

264.  Fleetwood Mac - Albatross



From : 26 January – 1 February 1969
Weeks : 1
Flip side : Jigsaw Puzzle Blues
Bonus 1 : Pop & Blues Festival '69
Bonus 2 : Promo film

The Story So Far : 
QuotePeter Allen Greenbaum was born in Bethnal Green, London, into a Jewish family. His brother, Michael, taught him his first guitar chords and by the age of 11 Green was teaching himself. He began playing professionally by the age of 15, while working for a number of East London shipping companies.

He first played bass guitar in a band called Bobby Dennis and the Dominoes, which performed pop chart covers and rock 'n' roll standards, including Shadows covers. He went on to join a rhythm and blues outfit, The Muskrats, then a band called The Tridents in which he played bass. 

Peter Green : "I was given three albums, a John Lee Hooker one. And one called Rhythm And Blues. It was a cheap Woolworth's album, and I didn't like anything cheap. I was very aware of all that kind of thing. I didn't like things from Woolworth's at all. But I love that album nowadays. It's one of my favourites. And the third album was Folk Festival Of The Blues with a dark cover and Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and Willie Dixon on it. I didn't know what to make of them at first. I really didn't. I don't think I even wanted to play them. But the drums on one track with Buddy Guy slowed down, got slower and slower, and every time it got round to the start of another verse he kinda held it, and slowed it down a bit more. I don't know who was on drums, but he's a marvellous drummer. And that's what I first took to. The drummer. I took to the style of the thing. I felt what it was all about. I thought, I could feel this, feel what it was all about."



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Michael John Kells Fleetwood was born in Redruth, Cornwall. His family encouraged his artistic side, as his father composed poetry and was an amateur drummer himself.

Mick Fleetwood : "A lot of people think my father was a drummer. My father was not a drummer, but he had, unbeknownst to me, messed around in the officer's mess on a drum kit. Dad was a tapper, getting a ruler or pencils and playing wine glasses with water in them at parties or tapping money in his pockets, playing spoons or something like that. That was really the sum of it. If that sort of spawned the attitude to go and be pipe dreaming about being a drummer, then so be it. I don't really know where it came from, but I used to sit around hitting furniture while Mum listened to the radiogram. So it started pretty early, probably when I was about 8. When I was at boarding school, all I wanted was to have a drum kit. I used to send away for catalogs. I would tape them all together and walk around school, an academic idiot, no smarts at all, but I had a nice big dossier of glistening drum kits."

Abandoning academic pursuits, Fleetwood took up the drums after his parents, recognizing that he might find a future in music, bought him a drum kit when he was thirteen. Fleetwood's early drumming was inspired by Tony Meehan, drummer in Cliff Richard's backup band, The Shadows. With his parents' support, he dropped out of school at 15 and, in 1963, moved to London to pursue a career as a drummer.

Mick Fleetwood : "My first drum kit was called a Gigster. It was almost like a toy. Gold sparkle, tiny, almost like a toy, but it was a drum kit I used to sit on the side of the sofa. Then I was off to the races, and never stopped. Then I left school when I was spot-on 15 and, at the time I was not even 16, I was on my way to London, then shortly after that a friend, Peter Bardens, heard me banging around in my sister's garage in Notting Hill Gate. He lived in the same cul-de-sac, and he said, 'Hey, I heard you playing drums. I'm playing at a youth club and managing a band called the Fenders.' I'd never played with anybody, all I'd done was play at home to the radiogram and banged along to records. That's how it started. It was like a total dream come true."

Keyboard player Peter Bardens lived only a few doors away from Fleetwood's first home in London, and gave Fleetwood his first gig in Bardens' band The Cheynes in July 1963. He then joined the Bo Street Runners, where he replaced original drummer Nigel Hutchinson.

     

By Christmas 1965 Peter Green was playing lead guitar in Peter Bardens' band 'Peter B's Looners'. In February 1966 Fleetwood joined the band, and the following month released the single "If You Wanna Be Happy" with "Jodrell Blues" as a B-side.

     

Green became a supportive bandmate who helped Fleetwood in his early experimentation with the drum kit.

Mick Fleetwood : "I learned early on when we were playing blues — which Peter Green was extremely good at. And he was also a good actor. And back then I learned that, "we know Peter's acting, but he owns the part he's playing. So he's transcended the acting." Back then, our aspiration was to play blues music, which was not ostensibly from whence we came. Even so, Peter had, and the band had, the ability to own that real estate. We were so young, and I don't really know where it came from. But it came, and it was under the heading, "this was it." And there was a huge amount of power behind that it. So, it was no longer, "They're just doing rehashes of the music". It became like watching a great play and realizing, "I've been transported," and what transports people is it. I learned that from Peter."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

John Graham McVie was born in Ealing, in Middlesex. He started playing the trumpet at an early age, then at age 14, McVie began playing the guitar in local bands, covering songs by The Shadows. He soon realised that his friends were learning lead guitar so he decided to play the bass guitar instead. Initially he just removed the bottom two (E and B) strings from his guitar to play the bass parts until his father bought him a pink Fender bass guitar, the same as that used by McVie's major early musical influence Jet Harris, The Shadows' bass player.

McVie's first job as a bass player was in a band called The Krewsaders, formed by boys living in the same street as McVie in Ealing, West London, they played mainly at weddings and parties, covering songs from The Shadows.

Around the time of McVie's tenure as a tax inspector, John Mayall began forming a Chicago-style blues band, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Initially Mayall wanted to recruit bass player Cliff Barton of the Cyril Davies All Stars for the rhythm section of his new band. Barton declined, however, but gave him McVie's phone number, urging Mayall to give the talented young bass player a chance in the Bluesbreakers. Under Mayall's tutelage, McVie, not having had any formal training in music, learned to play the blues mainly by listening to B.B. King and Willie Dixon records given to him by Mayall.

In December 1965, they released their first album 'John Mayall Plays John Mayall' - recorded live at Klooks Kleek on 7 December 1964. Guitarist Roger Dean then left the band to work with his former band the Nu Notes, and was replaced by Eric Clapton. Their second album 'Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton' was released in July 1966.

     

John McVie : "It was done at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, England, in less that a month. We played together a lot as a band, so we'd just go in and do takes live, with no overdubs. And as soon as the session was finished, we'd be out to gig. Eric was, and is, a great player - that's it. After the album came out a strange situation developed, because this upstart guy named Peter Green started playing with John. There were guitar style wars going on between them - all that stuff about "Clapton Is God" being sprayed on the walls was real! In a lot of ways, I think Peter was more of an emotional player than Eric was at the time."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In 1966, a young Peter Green was asked to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers as the band's new lead guitar player, after Eric Clapton, the third guitarist with the band, after Bernie Watson and then Roger Dean, had left.

[Decca producer] Mike Vernon : "As the band walked in the studio I noticed an amplifier which I never saw before, so I said to John Mayall, "Where's Eric Clapton?" Mayall answered, "He's not with us anymore, he left us a few weeks ago." I was in a shock of state but Mayall said, "Don't worry, we got someone better." I said, "Wait a minute, hang on a second, this is ridiculous. You've got someone better? Than Eric Clapton?" John said, "He might not be better now, but you wait, in a couple of years he's going to be the best." Then he introduced me to Peter Green."

Peter Green : "When I first heard Eric Clapton with the Yardbirds everything he played was pure enjoyment. Magic. Magic-er than magic. And Paul Samwell-Smith, the group's bass player, what he played I enjoyed too. He played chords on his bass. He had a beautiful bass guitar and a lovely amplifier. And the whole group was rocking along to Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley things. And it was 'Wow, look at that!' And, you alter course, like a fish. I was onto Bill Wyman too. When you're young you kinda go on people who impress you. They're up there, strong and hairy, and futuristic I guess. So, I was a bass player for a while, and Eric Clapton was the person who led me here. He was the person who led me to this path. He put me on this path. Before that my guitar was a pastime. Then, when I got a job as a bass-guitarist, I found I could make a little bit of money. Not very much at all. Enough to pay for a guitar, a uniform and an amplifier. Nothing else really. But I didn't make much money as a bass player."

Green made his recording debut with the Bluesbreakers in 1966 on the album A Hard Road, released in 1967, which featured two of his own compositions, "The Same Way" and "The Supernatural". The latter was one of Green's first instrumentals, which would soon become a trademark.

Peter Green : "John gave me lots of music to listen to. He was always very enthusiastic. That's the only discipline he ever imposed: we had to be enthusiastic. We had to have that emotion and that ability to portray and form a tune."

   

After the recording of 'A Hard Road', drummer Aynsley Dunbar was replaced by Mick Fleetwood. Green, McVie, and Fleetwood quickly forged a strong personal relationship, and when John Mayall gave Green some free studio time for his birthday, Green asked McVie and Fleetwood to join him for a recording session. Produced by Mike Vernon, they recorded three tracks together, "Curly", "Rubber Duck", and an instrumental called "Fleetwood Mac".

Peter Green, feeling trapped within the Bluesbreakers, left in June 1967, and opted to form his own band, which he called "Fleetwood Mac" - named after his preferred rhythm section.

Mick Fleetwood immediately joined Green's new band, having been dismissed earlier from the Bluesbreakers for drunkenness. However, McVie initially was reluctant to join Fleetwood Mac, not wanting to leave the security and well-paid job in the Bluesbreakers, forcing Green to temporarily hire a bassist named Bob Brunning.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jeremy Cedric Spencer was born in Hartlepool, County Durham, and began taking piano lessons at the age of nine. Switching to guitar in his teens, his speciality became the slide guitar, and he was strongly influenced by the American blues musician Elmore James.

In the summer of 1967, Spencer came to the attention of ex-Bluesbreakers guitarist Peter Green, who was looking for another musician to join him in his new Fleetwood Mac project. Green had recruited drummer Mick Fleetwood and temporary bassist Bob Brunning, and wanted a second guitar player to fill out the sound onstage. Spencer was then playing with blues trio The Levi Set, and was already an accomplished slide guitarist and pianist.

The initial incarnation of Fleetwood Mac performed its first gig in August 1967 at the seventh annual Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival, playing a Chicago-style blues. McVie, initially hesitant to commit, was later prompted to leave the Bluesbreakers and join Fleetwood Mac full-time when the former adopted a horns section with which he disagreed.

     

John McVie : "Fleetwood Mac first played on August 14, 1967, at the Windsor Jazz Festival. I was the bass player that night; I was playing with John Mayall, who was headlining. Also there was Chicken Shack, with Christine on piano - she was a killer blues pianist, just a phenomenon! Peter Green was harassing me to join the band, and I said, "No, I'm fine playing with John". At the time John had horn players in the band, and we were rehearsing at some club when John turned to one of them and said, "Okay -just play it free-form there". I said, with typical blues snobbishness, "I thought this was a blues band, not a jazz band!" I immediately went across the street, called Peter, and asked if he still wanted me to join up. I joined Fleetwood Mac in September '67."

McVie, Fleetwood, Green and guitarist Jeremy Spencer thus formed the first fixed line-up of Fleetwood Mac.

In November 1967, as Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac they released their first single which featured Spencer's "I Believe My Time Ain't Long", with Green's "Rambling Pony" as the B-side.

     

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

With McVie now in Fleetwood Mac, the band recorded its first album, the eponymous 'Fleetwood Mac' in the following months.

   

The no-frills blues album was released by the Blue Horizon label in February 1968, and, despite the lack of a hit single, became an immediate national hit, reaching no. 4 in the UK album chart, and establishing Fleetwood Mac as a major part in the English Blues movement. The album barely made the charts in the US, reaching No. 198.

 

Their second single, "Black Magic Woman" (b/w "The Sun Is Shining") charted at #37 in the UK in April 1968.

 

The follow up, "Need Your Love So Bad" (b/w "Stop Messin' Round"), reached #31 in July 1968.

       

The band then toured the United States for the first time, though Green was reluctant to do so for fear of gun crime.

Mick Fleetwood : "We were a bunch of kids playing blues in a pop market in England, where there were bands with spandex pants on and stuff, and then here's us, a bunch of guys basically wearing T-shirts, and not even thinking about anything, and we suddenly have a No. 1 album of blues material. Most of the audience probably thought that it was some new sound, when really it was us, taking a source of information, the blues, and refurbishing it, but still keeping it very close to the original American blues heroes we admired. I mean, this was not part of some master plan or commercial aspiration. Not at all. We loved what we were playing and we were blessed."

While on tour, Fleetwood Mac would often share venues with fellow blues band Chicken Shack. It was on one such occasion that McVie met his future wife, the lead singer and piano player of Chicken Shack, Christine Perfect. Following a brief romance of, it has been said, only two weeks, McVie and Perfect got married with Peter Green as best man. With the couple being unable to spend much time together because of the constant touring with their bands, Christine quit Chicken Shack to become a housewife to spend more time with John.

 

The band's second studio album, Mr. Wonderful, was released in August 1968. Like their first album, it was all blues with Spencer contributing many variations on the Elmore James theme, particularly centred around James' version of "Dust My Broom", plus a few songs of his own.



The album was recorded live in the studio with miked amplifiers and a PA system, rather than being plugged into the board. Compared to the huge success of the band's first album, Fleetwood Mac, this follow-up received rather muted critical reviews

 

During this time, Green became frustrated because Spencer did not seem willing to contribute to Green's songs, whereas Green always played on Spencer's recordings where necessary, and shortly after the release of Mr. Wonderful, Fleetwood Mac recruited 18-year-old guitarist Danny Kirwan.

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Danny Kirwan was born Daniel David Langran in Brixton, South London. Kirwan's mother was a singer and he grew up listening to the music of jazz musicians and 1930s–40s groups such as the Ink Spots. He began learning guitar at the age of 15, and was an accomplished self-taught guitarist and musician and was influenced by Hank Marvin of the Shadows, Belgian gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, Jimi Hendrix, and particularly by Eric Clapton's playing in the Bluesbreakers.

He was 17 when persuaded Fleetwood Mac's producer Mike Vernon to watch his band Boilerhouse rehearse in a South London basement boiler-room, after which Vernon informed Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green of his discovery. Vernon was impressed by Kirwan's guitar playing and subtle vibrato and thought he sounded like blues player Lowell Fulson.

Mike Vernon : "Danny was outstanding. He played with an almost scary intensity. He had a guitar style that wasn't like anyone else I'd heard in England."

Kirwan's band began playing support slots for Fleetwood Mac at London venues, which gave Kirwan and Green the opportunity to jam together and get to know each other.

 

Mick Fleetwood : "Danny was a huge fan of Peter's. He would see us every chance he got, usually watching in awe from the front row."

Green briefly took a managerial interest in Boilerhouse, but the other members of the band were not prepared to turn professional, so an advertisement was placed in the weekly music paper Melody Maker to find another rhythm section to back Kirwan. Over 300 hopefuls were said to have applied but none was deemed good enough, so another solution was found.

Fleetwood Mac had been constituted as a quartet, but Green had been looking for another guitarist to share some of the workload because slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer did not contribute to his songs. In August 1968, Mick Fleetwood suggested that Kirwan could join Fleetwood Mac. Although the rest of the band were not entirely convinced.

Mick Fleetwood : "Danny was an exceptional guitar player. It was clear that he needed to be with better players ... In the end, we just invited him to join us. It was one of those 'ah-ha' moments when you realise the answer is right there in front of you."

     

Kirwan's arrival expanded Fleetwood Mac to a five-piece with three guitarists. Green described Kirwan as "a clever boy who got ideas for his guitar playing by listening to all that old-fashioned Roaring Twenties big-band stuff." Kirwan was known to be "emotionally fragile", and Green said that in the early days, Kirwan "was so into it that he cried as he played."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Green and Kirwan found that they worked well together musically, and Spencer found himself slightly isolated within the band, and chose to contribute very little to the band's third album 'Then Play On'. It was intended to complement this album with a separate EP of Spencer's work, but this never materialised. In the end, his input amounted to some piano on Green's neo-classical epic "Oh Well Pt. 2".

 

On stage however, Spencer was an integral part of the band, with a raucous routine of old blues songs which were extremely popular with audiences. Spencer was a gifted mimic, providing excellent impersonations of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Elmore James, John Mayall and whoever else he felt like sending up at the time. He was also often given to occasional suggestive behaviour onstage, particularly at early concerts, which sometimes landed the band in trouble with promoters and venue owners, and got them banned from London's Marquee Club.

Away from the stage, Spencer was often quiet and withdrawn, and other band members recall him often reading the Bible in his hotel room, strongly at odds with his on-stage persona.

In November 1968, with Kirwan in the band, they released their first number one single in Europe, "Albatross", on which Kirwan duetted with Green.

     

Green said later that the success of 'Albatross' was thanks to Kirwan : "If it wasn't for Danny, I would never had had a number one hit record."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In January 1969, they released the US compilation album 'English Rose', which featured an eye-popping photo of Mick Fleetwood in drag on the cover.

 

The album combined six tracks from the UK release 'Mr. Wonderful'  : "Stop Messin' Round"  /  "Doctor Brown"   /  "Evenin' Boogie"  /  "Love That Burns"  /  "I've Lost My Baby"  /  and "Coming Home" ; three UK non-album single sides : "Jigsaw Puzzle Blues"  /  "Black Magic Woman"  /  and "Albatross" ; two not-yet-released songs from their third UK album 'Then Play On' : "One Sunny Day" and "Without You"; and one other previously unreleased track : "Something Inside of Me".

In August 19 1969, they released the UK compilation album "The Pious Bird of Good Omen'.

   

Sharing four songs with 'English Rose', it included of their first four non-album UK singles and their B-sides, two other tracks from their previous album "Mr. Wonderful", and two tracks by the blues artist Eddie Boyd with backing by members of Fleetwood Mac : "The Big Boat" and "Just the Blues".

 

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The band signed with Immediate Records and released the single "Man of the World", which became another British and European hit reaching #2 in the UK in April 1969.

       

For the B-side, Spencer fronted Fleetwood Mac as "Earl Vince and the Valiants" and recorded "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight", typifying the more raucous rock 'n' roll side of the band.

Immediate Records was in bad shape, however, and the band shopped around for a new deal. The Beatles wanted the band on Apple Records (Mick Fleetwood and George Harrison were brothers-in-law), but the band's manager Clifford Davis decided to go with Warner Bros. Records imprint Reprise Records.

   

Under the wing of Reprise, Fleetwood Mac released their third studio album, 'Then Play On', in September 1969.



The band's previous albums had been recorded live in the studio and adhered strictly to the blues formula. For the recording of 'Then Play On', editing and overdubbing techniques were used extensively for the first time. Green had recently introduced improvisation and jamming to the band's live performances and three of the tracks on the album : "Underway", "Searching for Madge" and "Fighting for Madge", were compiled by Green from several hours of studio jam sessions.

 

Green, the de facto band leader at the time, delegated half of the songwriting to bandmate Danny Kirwan so he could sing more lead vocals. Jeremy Spencer, the band's other guitarist, was retained even though he did not play on any of the album's original tracks. Green and Spencer had planned to record a concept album — "an orchestral-choral LP" — about the life of Jesus, although the album never came to fruition. Instead, Spencer released a solo album of 1950s-style rock and roll songs in 1970 with the members of Fleetwood Mac as his backing band.

 

Clifford Davis, who was Fleetwood Mac's manager at the time, selected "Rattlesnake Shake" to be released in the US as the first single, but it failed to chart anywhere. After this failure, "Oh Well" was chosen as the second single in the US. It became the band's first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, and was also #2 hit in the UK 'official charts' in October 1969.

   

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In December 1969, their old record company, Blue Horizon, released the album 'Fleetwood Mac in Chicago' - which had been recorded on tour in the US in January 1969 at the soon-to-close Chess Records Studio with some of the blues legends of Chicago, including Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy and Otis Spann. These were Fleetwood Mac's last all-blues recordings.

 

A single from these sessions - "Walkin'" (b/w "Temperature Is Rising (98.8ºF)") -  credited to Otis Spann With Fleetwood Mac - was released by Blue Horizon in July 1969.

 

Jeremy Spencer : "During those 'Fleetwood Mac in Chicago' Chess sessions, I played with Elmore James' sax player, J. T. Brown. On my tracks there was Willy Dixon on bass and Mick on the drums. Pretty sparse! But J. T. and I had a wonderful time playing together; he and I must have smiled the whole time, and I think that comes across on the album. Anyway, J. T. was like a grandfather to me, he had none of that 'territorial' vibe of blues is 'our' music and he seemed rather taken that this little whitey from another time and place was so into his music. We chatted a lot over coffee in the break, mainly about Elmore of course and he didn't seem to mind!"

 

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Beginning with "Man of the World"'s melancholy lyric, Green's bandmates began to notice changes in his state of mind. He was taking large doses of LSD, grew a beard and began to wear robes and a crucifix. While touring Europe in late March 1970, Green took LSD at a party at a commune in Munich, an incident cited by Fleetwood Mac manager Clifford Davis as the crucial point in his mental decline.

Clifford Davis : "The truth about Peter Green and how he ended up how he did is very simple. We were touring Europe in late 1969. When we were in Germany, Peter told me he had been invited to a party. I knew there were going to be a lot of drugs around and I suggested that he didn't go. But he went anyway and I understand from him that he took what turned out to be very bad, impure LSD. He was never the same again."

Fleetwood Mac roadie Dinky Dawson remembers that Green went to the party with another roadie, Dennis Keane, and that when Keane returned to the band's hotel to explain that Green would not leave the commune, Keane, Dawson and Mick Fleetwood travelled there to fetch him.

By contrast, Peter Green stated that he had fond memories of jamming at the commune : "I had a good play there, it was great, someone recorded it, they gave me a tape. There were people playing along, a few of us just fooling around and it was... yeah it was great." He told Jeremy Spencer at the time "That's the most spiritual music I've ever recorded in my life."

Mick Fleetwood : "I think there is certainly some credence given to the idea that Peter's condition could in some way be blamed on a bad acid trip he had in Germany ... I don't think it did him much good. Peter basically ceased to see the light with Fleetwood Mac and had aspirations of playing for nothing in strange places—none of which really happened."

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Green's last hit with Fleetwood Mac was "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown)", (b/w "World In Harmony"), which peaked at #10 in May 1970. The track was recorded at Warner-Reprise's studios in Hollywood on the band's third US tour in April 1970, a few weeks before Green left the band.

 

"Green Manalishi" was released as Green's mental stability deteriorated. He wanted the band to give all their money to charity, but the other members of the band disagreed.

Mick Fleetwood : "I had conversations with Peter Green around that time and he was obsessive about us not making money, wanting us to give it all away. And I'd say, 'Well you can do it, I don't wanna do that, and that doesn't make me a bad person.'"

In April, Green decided to quit the band after the completion of their European tour. His last show with Fleetwood Mac was on 20 May 1970. During that show the band went past their allotted time and the power was shut off, although Mick Fleetwood kept drumming.

Mick Fleetwood : "John would be the first to say, "Mick did most of the worrying and stuff," which is true. I did. But it's also a good formula, because John and I just made up our minds we weren't going to break the band up. Throughout the journey, people sometimes said, "Are you kidding me? Why don't you just give it up?" And I think because John and I weren't in the front line — John plays bass guitar and me on drums — it helped us. But in the end, John's my partner, and we're this strange couple that sort of needed a job, and then found ourselves in control of that job. I think if I'd had a huge ego, and I was another guitar player, I'd have probably gone, "Oh, screw it, I'll go and form my own damn band," or whatever. But I already had my band. And the band represented something important. And as long as it didn't completely disintegrate like an old flag on the battlefield, we'd just meet the challenges as they came and do it with resolve. That's the premise. So we just kept on building and building."

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In December 1970, Peter Green released his debut solo album 'The End of the Game', recorded in June 1970, only a month after leaving Fleetwood Mac.

 

The style of the album was a radical departure from his work with Fleetwood Mac, consisting of edited pieces of a long studio jam. Musically, it is experimental and free-form, with very loose or non-existent musical structure, and all the tracks were instrumentals.

The Single :
Quote"Albatross", a guitar-based instrumental, was composed by Peter Green and performed by Fleetwood Mac.



Green had been working on the piece for some time before the addition to the band of 18-year-old guitarist Danny Kirwan. Slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer was not generally inclined to work with Green, who had felt unable to realise the overall effect that he wanted. With Kirwan's input, Green completed the piece and it was recorded just two months after Kirwan joined, without Spencer present. Although he was not a part of the recording sessions, Spencer was shown in video material miming to Green's slide guitar parts.

   

The song was a success in several countries and remains Fleetwood Mac's only number-one hit in the "official" UK Singles Chart, spending one week at the top in January 1969. "Albatross" has sold over 900,000 copies in the UK, and is said to have inspired the Beatles song "Sun King" from 1969's Abbey Road.

   

It was re-released in the United Kingdom as a double A-sided single with "Need Your Love So Bad" in April 1973. As a result of the re-release, "Albatross" enjoyed a second UK chart run, peaking at number 2.

   

Santo & Johnny's 1959 hit "Sleep Walk" reportedly inspired Peter Green for his 1968 instrumental "Albatross", although the composition also resembles Chuck Berry's 1957 instrumental "Deep Feeling", itself derivative of the 1939 recording "Floyd's Guitar Blues" by Andy Kirk and his 12 Clouds of Joy - featuring guitarist Floyd Smith.

Other Versions includeBert Weedon (1976)  /  The Shadows (1980)  /  The Spotnicks (1987)  /  Dave Hole (1990)  /  Chris Spedding (2002)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Peter Green Splinter Group (2012)  /  8BitUzz (2013)  /  Marvin B Naylor (2014)  /  In Violet Light (2015)  /  Jose Churruca (2016)  /  Niels Zeven (2020)  /  Elli kantele (2020)  /  Fleetwood Mac feat. David Gilmour (2020)

On This Day  :
Quote26 January : "Red, White, & Maddox" opens at Cort Theater NYC for 41 performances
27 January : Cornelius, Japanese musician and producer, born Keigo Oyamada in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
30 January : The Beatles perform their last live gig, a 42 minute concert on the roof of Apple Corps HQ in London
31 January : Meher Baba, Pete Townshend's Indian guru, dies age 74

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
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Jollity

Albatross is one of my mum's favourites, she's always said so. She'd have been nearly fifteen when it was number one.

I don't know very much Fleetwood Mac, honestly. Mostly the more recent stuff. I will have to look them up properly (along with all the other artists I need to look up properly, not to mention films I need to see and authors I need to read and)

DrGreggles

I love most early Fleetwood Mac stuff, but FUCK ME Albatross is boring.

Lennon got away with plagiarizing this for Sun King but not for stealing one line from Chuck Berry for Come Together.

Harrison looked at Lennon plagiarizing this and thought it would be OK to do the same for My Sweet Jon Lord.

Captain Z

Fleetwood Mac had much better songs deserving of being their only number 1. This became like some awkward thing around their neck.

P.s. "This isn't just any number one, this is an M&S advert music number one..."

The Culture Bunker

I don't the mind later, global superstar line up of Fleetwood Mac in a "it's good pop music" way, but the original line up leaves me a bit cold bar the odd moment like 'Oh Well'. I've struggled with all the British blues bands of that time, really - it's all very proficient and well made, but I always feel like if I hear Cream doing 'Crossroads' that I'd much rather listen to the scratchy old Robert Johnson original.