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3 episodes with Jimmy Tarbuck
3 episodes with Jimmy Tarbuck
2 episodes with Jimmy Tarbuck
2 episodes with Jimmy Tarbuck
5 episodes with Jimmy Tarbuck
4 episodes with Jimmy Tarbuck
Graham and Chris turn TV hosts to present a special edition of This Is Your Life, calling out Pet Shop Boys' 10 greatest achievements from the famed Big Red Book. Career highs recalled include having their first 12” available in Soho's Record Shack, rescuing Dusty and aiding the drive to pardon Alan Turing, as well as subverting UK institutions and rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty. There's also In Depth analysis of Hallo Spaceboy's cut-up lyrics and Neil's only published poem, while guests lining up to pay tribute include Bobby O, Madonna, Sammy Davis Jr, Es Devlin, Emily Eavis and Jimmy Tarbuck himself. But will Neil and Chris accept their knighthoods for services to pop? There's only one way to find out...
Sir Ken Dodd's career spanned over 70 years in show business and might I say at the Top of his game. He was Liverpool's very own and even The Beatles adored him as one of the greatest comedians we have ever seen. Doddy as he was known to millions had an encyclopaedia of a mind for comedy words, gags, routines and song whilst also topping the charts with his own albums as he had a beautiful voice he didn't even need comedy to earn his living. Ken Dodd stayed true to his roots and never left his childhood home in Knotty Ash, Liverpool. He was Mr Variety, the GodFather of Comedy and King of the Diddy men.Although we lost Ken aged 90, he was still planning to return to the stage to continue touring but nature took its course and took from us an idol and someone who inspired many generations of comedians, actors, singers, magicians and ventriloquists across the country.In my final podcast in tribute to Sir Ken I talk with his friends, writers, support acts and his dear wife Lady Anne Jones about the man they loved and adored. And now he has left us there is more Doddy out there than ever so he will always be in Liverpool.Welcome to Eyes & Teeth Sir Ken Dodd xxx
Tommy Cooper's unexpected death on stage at Her Majesty's Theatre on 15th April, 1984 remains one of the saddest and most surreal moments in UK comedy history. Known for his slapstick humour and botched magic tricks, family favourite Cooper collapsed mid-act due to a massive heart attack. The audience, initially assuming it was part of his act, roared with laughter as he lay on the stage emitting what sounded like snoring. Despite the frantic efforts of production staff and paramedics backstage, Cooper was pronounced dead on arrival at Westminster Hospital. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how Cooper's health concerns had been widely known within the industry before this incident; reveal how a live TV audience of millions got to grips with the news that the comedy icon had died; and take a look back at some of the other star performers who have, quite literally, died on stage… Further Reading: ‘Tommy Cooper's last act fooled us all, says Jimmy Tarbuck' (Wales Online, 2009): https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/tommy-coopers-last-act-fooled-2111280 ‘The Show Won't Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre, and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage - By Jeff Abraham, Burt Kearns' (Chicago Review Press, 2019): https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Show_Won_t_Go_On/6h-SDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=tommy+cooper+her+majesty%27s&printsec=frontcover ‘The Shocking Death of Tommy Cooper: Ernie Wise Pays Tribute' (ITN, 1984): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ectDT3sXBFY Love the show? Join
Just so you're not disappointed, this isn't about Jimmy Tarbuck playing snooker, or installing doors and windows, or adding wooden structures around the edges of paintings, or setting up innocent people so they appear to have committed crimes. IF YOU LIKE WHAT WE DO AND WANT TO HELP US CONTINUE; SUPPORT US ON PATREON: patreon.com/spreadthewhimsy SUPPORT US ON KO-FI: ko-fi.com/spreadthewhimsy SUPPORT US WITH MERCHANDISE: whenwagonwheelswerebigger.com/w4bshop SUPPORT US FOR FREE: spread the word, spread the whimsy! TWITTER: @spreadthewhimsy THREADS/INSTAGRAM: w4b_podcast FACEBOOK: facebook.com/whenwagonwheelswerebigger WEBSITE: whenwagonwheelswerebigger.com W4B theme composed by John Croudy W4B theme acoustic arrangement by Joe Beckhelling Additional musical contributions by R Gill
The godfather of British independent labels, Immediate, was started in 1965 by the Stones' manager Andrew Oldham and Tony Calder, its winning slogan: “happy to be part of the industry of human happiness”. As Simon Spence correctly puts it, “it all got very messy”. Oldham tended to fall out with people and then threaten to kill them. Simon's excellent book, ‘Immediate: the Rise And Fall of the UK's First Independent Record Label' has the details (he also co-authored Oldham's two memoirs, ‘Stoned' and ‘2Stoned'). Immediate has been a touchstone ever since and their roster included the Small Faces, PP Arnold, the Nice, the Who, Fleetwood Mac, Twinkle, Scott Walker and various others discussed here. Also includes … … “no Andrew Oldham, no Rolling Stones.” … the part played by Tony Hancock's doctor. … “if you didn't want to be ripped off, why are you in the music business?” … the range of Immediate's catalogue from Nico and Rod Stewart to the Turtles and Jimmy Tarbuck. … an advert for the Nice involving three assassinated politicians. … the time Oldham left his hairdresser in charge of A&R. … Don Arden, the Small Faces and £25,000 in a paper bag. … a secretly recorded blues album and why Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page fell out. … why Oldham wanted to poison the Nice and murder Amen Corner. … invaluable advice from Phil Spector. … and why Immediate finally fell apart. Order Simon's book here …https://www.backstage-books.co.uk/Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on Oct 30th: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFaeSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The godfather of British independent labels, Immediate, was started in 1965 by the Stones' manager Andrew Oldham and Tony Calder, its winning slogan: “happy to be part of the industry of human happiness”. As Simon Spence correctly puts it, “it all got very messy”. Oldham tended to fall out with people and then threaten to kill them. Simon's excellent book, ‘Immediate: the Rise And Fall of the UK's First Independent Record Label' has the details (he also co-authored Oldham's two memoirs, ‘Stoned' and ‘2Stoned'). Immediate has been a touchstone ever since and their roster included the Small Faces, PP Arnold, the Nice, the Who, Fleetwood Mac, Twinkle, Scott Walker and various others discussed here. Also includes … … “no Andrew Oldham, no Rolling Stones.” … the part played by Tony Hancock's doctor. … “if you didn't want to be ripped off, why are you in the music business?” … the range of Immediate's catalogue from Nico and Rod Stewart to the Turtles and Jimmy Tarbuck. … an advert for the Nice involving three assassinated politicians. … the time Oldham left his hairdresser in charge of A&R. … Don Arden, the Small Faces and £25,000 in a paper bag. … a secretly recorded blues album and why Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page fell out. … why Oldham wanted to poison the Nice and murder Amen Corner. … invaluable advice from Phil Spector. … and why Immediate finally fell apart. Order Simon's book here …https://www.backstage-books.co.uk/Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on Oct 30th: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFaeSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The godfather of British independent labels, Immediate, was started in 1965 by the Stones' manager Andrew Oldham and Tony Calder, its winning slogan: “happy to be part of the industry of human happiness”. As Simon Spence correctly puts it, “it all got very messy”. Oldham tended to fall out with people and then threaten to kill them. Simon's excellent book, ‘Immediate: the Rise And Fall of the UK's First Independent Record Label' has the details (he also co-authored Oldham's two memoirs, ‘Stoned' and ‘2Stoned'). Immediate has been a touchstone ever since and their roster included the Small Faces, PP Arnold, the Nice, the Who, Fleetwood Mac, Twinkle, Scott Walker and various others discussed here. Also includes … … “no Andrew Oldham, no Rolling Stones.” … the part played by Tony Hancock's doctor. … “if you didn't want to be ripped off, why are you in the music business?” … the range of Immediate's catalogue from Nico and Rod Stewart to the Turtles and Jimmy Tarbuck. … an advert for the Nice involving three assassinated politicians. … the time Oldham left his hairdresser in charge of A&R. … Don Arden, the Small Faces and £25,000 in a paper bag. … a secretly recorded blues album and why Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page fell out. … why Oldham wanted to poison the Nice and murder Amen Corner. … invaluable advice from Phil Spector. … and why Immediate finally fell apart. Order Simon's book here …https://www.backstage-books.co.uk/Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on Oct 30th: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFaeSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Danny's done two hysterically funny, cartwheeling canters round the UK in the last few years and sets out again in February for 49 nights with ‘At Last …The Sausage Sandwich Tour', another ‘panjandrum of unstoppable anecdote'. His memories of old rock and roll and theatre shows are high in the mix in this crackling exchange. Among the highlights … … Anita Harris at the ABC in Yarmouth. … appearing with the Millwall squad and Jimmy Tarbuck singing ‘New York New York' in top hat and tails. … the joy of Keef Hartley's Half-Breed. … arriving to see Frank Zappa to discover he'd been thrown offstage in the afternoon show “but Cochise were still appearing!” … his dad Spud's amateur doctor who did a good sideline in racing tips. … why selling his 14,000 albums is like being “unchained from a lunatic”. … Black Sabbath playing ‘unplugged' in a powercut at the Albert Hall. … and an honorary mention of the pith helmet full of saveloys. Tickets here: Danny Baker: At Last… The Sausage Sandwich Tourhttps://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/danny-baker @prodnose https://www.dannybakerstore.com/Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Danny's done two hysterically funny, cartwheeling canters round the UK in the last few years and sets out again in February for 49 nights with ‘At Last …The Sausage Sandwich Tour', another ‘panjandrum of unstoppable anecdote'. His memories of old rock and roll and theatre shows are high in the mix in this crackling exchange. Among the highlights … … Anita Harris at the ABC in Yarmouth. … appearing with the Millwall squad and Jimmy Tarbuck singing ‘New York New York' in top hat and tails. … the joy of Keef Hartley's Half-Breed. … arriving to see Frank Zappa to discover he'd been thrown offstage in the afternoon show “but Cochise were still appearing!” … his dad Spud's amateur doctor who did a good sideline in racing tips. … why selling his 14,000 albums is like being “unchained from a lunatic”. … Black Sabbath playing ‘unplugged' in a powercut at the Albert Hall. … and an honorary mention of the pith helmet full of saveloys. Tickets here: Danny Baker: At Last… The Sausage Sandwich Tourhttps://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/danny-baker @prodnose https://www.dannybakerstore.com/Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Danny's done two hysterically funny, cartwheeling canters round the UK in the last few years and sets out again in February for 49 nights with ‘At Last …The Sausage Sandwich Tour', another ‘panjandrum of unstoppable anecdote'. His memories of old rock and roll and theatre shows are high in the mix in this crackling exchange. Among the highlights … … Anita Harris at the ABC in Yarmouth. … appearing with the Millwall squad and Jimmy Tarbuck singing ‘New York New York' in top hat and tails. … the joy of Keef Hartley's Half-Breed. … arriving to see Frank Zappa to discover he'd been thrown offstage in the afternoon show “but Cochise were still appearing!” … his dad Spud's amateur doctor who did a good sideline in racing tips. … why selling his 14,000 albums is like being “unchained from a lunatic”. … Black Sabbath playing ‘unplugged' in a powercut at the Albert Hall. … and an honorary mention of the pith helmet full of saveloys. Tickets here: Danny Baker: At Last… The Sausage Sandwich Tourhttps://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/danny-baker @prodnose https://www.dannybakerstore.com/Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Enjoy An Album with Liam Withnail & Christopher Macarthur-Boyd
Former music journalist Neil Tennant and trainee architect Chris Lowe bonded after a chance encounter in a hi-fi shop, before a meeting with legendary hi-NRG disco producer Bobby Orlando led to the formation of what would become the most successful British pop duo of all time. Initially thought to be a one-hit-wonder novelty act after the queer-noir proto-rap of ‘West End Girls', The Pet Shop Boys instead proved their potential for longevity and consistent quality with early records like 1987's Actually. Actually is also #425 on the Greatest Albums of All Time list by Rolling Stone, which means Liam Withnail and CMB have listened to it, and now they're going to talk about it. Featuring tangents on Dusty Springfield, Margaret Thatcher, Glastonbury 2022, Jimmy Tarbuck, Metallica, and Carling Black Label, plus Secret Posho and Tattoo Woohoo/Tattoo Boohoo. Enjoy An Album! Enjoy.
This time we go Behind The Scenes with incredibly prolific and hugely versatile scriptwriter Alan Wightman, who chats about his long and non-stop career in movies and light entertainment. Alan shares memories of his friend John Sullivan (Only Fools & Horses), his time penning gags for top turns Jimmy Tarbuck, Jeff Stevenson and Des O'Connor, plus landing the job of producing the highest rating LE show on BBC Television Wales. Then there's the matter of ghost-writing Freddie Starr's autobiography! Alan also gives an eyewitness account of standing in the wings of Her Majesty's Theatre on the night Tommy Cooper died on live TV. Steam, Smoke & Mirrors Theme music composed by John Orchard and arranged by Ian English Support the podcast by becoming a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/BEHINDTHESCENESWITHCOLINEDMONDS Facebook: colin.edmonds.73 Instagram: colinedmondsssm Twitter:@ColinEdmondsSSM Website: https://www.steamsmokeandmirrors.com/ Buy Steam, Smoke and Mirrors Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon Available on Audible Buy The Lazarus Curiosity: Steam, Smoke and Mirrors 2 Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon Available on Audible Buy The Nostradamus Curiosity: Steam, Smoke and Mirrors 3 Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon
Paul and Charlie are joined by comedian and TV presenter Jimmy Tarbuck, professional dartist Gerwyn Price as well as comedian and Man City fan Jason Manford. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Welcome to the milestone and 100th Episode of Eyes & Teeth. Since my first recorded conversation with the wonderful Jimmy Cricket back in June 2020, I have recorded over 150 conversations with incredible performers from showbusiness, they are my heroes, friends, entertainers I admire and respect and I have spent over 930 hours researching, recording, editing and posting these wonderful podcasts. I'm not going to thank the Pandemic because it has destroyed lives, careers and businesses but I would not of had the time to even start a podcast constantly on the road so I want to thank my wife Nina and my daughters Lola & Larissa for putting up with the DO Not Disturb sign on the door whilst I record these chats, and for kicking them out of rooms whilst we all lockdown for 18 months.I wanted today's edition to be extra special and when I received a reply from Jimmy Tarbuck on my voicemail saying he would love to be on my anniversary show, I was delighted to have it in the can only a few days later. He called me on the morning of February 6th 2021 on his 81st Birthday whilst he was trying to get his golf club opened for his birthday, but in the meantime he had half an hour spare and we talked about those moments with Tommy Cooper, Sir Ken Dodd, Sir Bruce Forsyth, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Dennis Spicer, Arthur Worsley and of course his first steps on the stage at the London Palladium. Welcome to eyes and teeth edition 100 JIMMY TARBUCK OBE
This week on the podcast, Colin chats with one of entertainment's hardest-working, most experienced stand-up comics, Jeff Stevenson, who takes us Behind The Scenes talking about his incredible career in comedy; his early TV success, changing with the times and how a return to acting (45 years after his screen debut in ‘Bugsy Malone') has recently won him international film awards and serious critical acclaim. Touching the Blue - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBIi7-aD4M Check out Jeff's website - https://jeffstevenson.show/ Steam, Smoke & Mirrors Theme music composed by John Orchard and arranged by Ian English Facebook: colin.edmonds.73 Instagram: colinedmondsssm Twitter:@ColinEdmondsSSM Website: https://www.steamsmokeandmirrors.com/ Buy Steam, Smoke and Mirrors Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon Available on Audible Buy The Lazarus Curiosity: Steam, Smoke and Mirrors 2 Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon Available on Audible Buy The Nostradamus Curiosity: Steam, Smoke and Mirrors 3 Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon
Episode 129 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, and how they went from being a moderately successful beat group to being the only serious rivals to the Beatles. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have an eleven-minute bonus episode available, on "I'll Never Find Another You" by the Seekers. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. i used a lot of resources for this episode. Two resources that I've used for this and all future Stones episodes — The Rolling Stones: All The Songs by Phillipe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesden is an invaluable reference book, while Old Gods Almost Dead by Stephen Davis is the least inaccurate biography. When in doubt, the version of the narrative I've chosen to use is the one from Davis' book. I've also used Andrew Loog Oldham's autobiography Stoned, and Keith Richards' Life, though be warned that both casually use slurs. Sympathy for the Devil: The Birth of the Rolling Stones and the Death of Brian Jones by Paul Trynka is, as the title might suggest, essentially special pleading for Jones. It's as well-researched and well-written as a pro-Jones book can be, and is worth reading for balance, though I find it unconvincing. This web page seems to have the most accurate details of the precise dates of sessions and gigs. And this three-CD set contains the A and B sides of all the Stones' singles up to 1971, including every Stones track I excerpt in this episode. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today, we're going to look at one of the most important riffs in rock and roll history -- the record that turned the distorted guitar riff into the defining feature of the genre, even though the man who played that riff never liked it. We're going to look at a record that took the social protest of the folk-rock movement, aligned it with the misogyny its singer had found in many blues songs, and turned it into the most powerful expression of male adolescent frustration ever recorded to that point. We're going to look at "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Satisfaction"] A note before we start this -- this episode deals with violence against women, and with rape. If you're likely to be upset hearing about those things, you might want to either skip this episode, or read the transcript on the website first. The relevant section comes right at the end of the episode, so you can also listen through to the point where I give another warning, without missing any of the rest of the episode. Another point I should make here -- most of the great sixties groups have very accurate biographies written about them. The Stones, even more than the Beatles, have kept a surprising amount of control over their public image, with the result that the only sources about them are either rather sanitised things made with their co-operation, or rather tabloidy things whose information mostly comes from people who are holding a grudge or have a particular agenda. I believe that everything in this episode is the most likely of the various competing narratives, but if you check out the books I used, which are listed on the blog post associated with this episode, you'll see that there are several different tellings of almost every bit of this story. So bear that in mind as you're listening. I've done my best. Anyway, on with the episode. When we left the Rolling Stones, they were at the very start of their recording career, having just released their first big hit single, a version of "I Wanna Be Your Man", which had been written for them by Lennon and McCartney. The day after they first appeared on Top of the Pops, they were back in the recording studio, but not to record for themselves. The five Stones, plus Ian Stewart, were being paid two pounds a head by their manager/producer Andrew Oldham to be someone else's backing group. Oldham was producing a version of "To Know Him is to Love Him", the first hit by his idol Phil Spector, for a new singer he was managing named Cleo Sylvester: [Excerpt: Cleo, "To Know Him is to Love Him"] In a further emulation of Spector, the B-side was a throwaway instrumental. Credited to "the Andrew Oldham Orchestra", and with Mike Leander supervising, the song's title, "There Are But Five Rolling Stones", gave away who the performers actually were: [Excerpt: The Andrew Oldham Orchestra, "There Are But Five Rolling Stones"] At this point, the Stones were still not writing their own material, but Oldham had already seen the writing on the wall -- there was going to be no place in the new world opened up by the Beatles for bands that couldn't generate their own hits, and he had already decided who was going to be doing that for his group. It would have been natural for him to turn to Brian Jones, still at this point the undisputed leader of the group, and someone who had a marvellous musical mind. But possibly in order to strengthen the group's identity as a group rather than a leader and his followers -- Oldham has made different statements about this at different points -- or possibly just because they were living in the same flat as him at the time, while Jones was living elsewhere, he decided that the Rolling Stones' equivalent of Lennon and McCartney was going to be Jagger and Richards. There are several inconsistencies in the stories of how Jagger and Richards started writing together -- and things like what the actual first song they wrote together was, or when they wrote it, will probably always be lost to the combination of self-aggrandisement and drug-fuelled memory loss that makes it difficult to say anything definitive about much of their career. But we do know that one of the earliest songs they wrote together was "As Tears Go By", a song that wasn't considered suitable for the group -- though they did later record a version of it -- and was given instead to Marianne Faithfull, a young singer with whom Jagger was about to enter into a relationship: [Excerpt: Marianne Faithfull, "As Tears Go By"] It's not entirely clear who wrote what on that song -- it's usually referred to as a Jagger/Richards collaboration, but it's credited to Jagger, Richards, and Oldham, and at least one source claims it was actually written by Jagger and the session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan -- and if so, this would be the first time of many that a song written by Jagger or Richards in collaboration with someone else would be credited to Jagger and Richards without any credit going to their co-writer. But the consensus story, as far as there is a consensus, seems to be that Oldham locked Jagger and Richards into a kitchen, and told them they weren't coming out until they had a song written. And it had to be a proper song, not a pastiche of something else, and it had to be the kind of song you could release as a single, not a blues song. After spending all night in the kitchen, Richards eventually got bored of being stuck in there, and started strumming his guitar and singing "it is the evening of the day", and the two of them quickly came up with the rest of the song. After "As Tears Go By", they wrote a lot of songs that they didn't feel were right for the group, but gave them away to other people, like Gene Pitney, who recorded "That Girl Belongs to Yesterday": [Excerpt: Gene Pitney, "That Girl Belongs to Yesterday"] Pitney, and his former record producer Phil Spector, had visited the Stones during the sessions for their first album, which started the day after that Cleo session, and had added a little piano and percussion to a blues jam called "Little by Little", which also featured Allan Clarke and Graham Nash of the Hollies on backing vocals. The songwriting on that track was credited to Spector and Nanker Phelge, a group pseudonym that was used for jam sessions and instrumentals. It was one of two Nanker Phelge songs on the album, and there was also an early Jagger and Richards song, "Tell Me", an unoriginal Merseybeat pastiche: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Tell Me"] But the bulk of the album was made up of cover versions of songs by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Rufus Thomas, Marvin Gaye, and other Black American musicians. The album went to number one in the UK album charts, which is a much more impressive achievement than it might sound. At this point, albums sold primarily to adults with spending money, and the album charts changed very slowly. Between May 1963 and February 1968, the *only* artists to have number one albums in the UK were the Beatles, the Stones, Dylan, the Monkees, the cast of The Sound of Music, and Val Doonican. And between May 63 and April 65 it was *only* the Beatles and the Stones. But while they'd had a number one album, they'd still not had a number one single, or even a top ten one. "I Wanna Be Your Man" had been written for them and had hit number twelve, but they were still not writing songs that they thought were suited for release as singles, and they couldn't keep asking the Beatles to help them out, so while Jagger and Richards kept improving as songwriters, for their next single they chose a Buddy Holly B-side: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, "Not Fade Away"] The group had latched on to the Bo Diddley rhythm in that song, along with its machismo -- many of the cover versions they chose in this period seem to have not just a sexual subtext but to be overtly bragging, and if Little Richard is to be believed on the subject, Holly's line "My love is bigger than a Cadillac" isn't that much of an exaggeration. It's often claimed that the Stones exaggerated and emphasised the Bo Diddley sound, and made their version more of an R&B number than Holly's, but if anything their version owes more to someone else. The Stones' first real UK tour had been on a bill with Mickie Most, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and the Everly Brothers, and Keith Richards in particular had been amazed by the Everlys. He said later "The best rhythm guitar playing I ever heard was from Don Everly. Nobody ever thinks about that, but their rhythm guitar playing is perfect". Don Everly, of course, was himself very influenced by Bo Diddley, and learned to play in open-G tuning from Diddley -- and several years later, Keith Richards would make that tuning his own, after being inspired by Everly and Ry Cooder. The Stones' version of "Not Fade Away" owes at least as much to Don Everly's rhythm guitar style as to that of Holly or Diddley. Compare, say, the opening of "Wake Up Little Suzie": [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Wake Up Little Suzie"] The rhythm guitar on the Stones version of "Not Fade Away" is definitely Keith Richards doing Don Everly doing Bo Diddley: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] That was recorded during the sessions for their first album, and was, depending on whose story you believe, another track that featured Phil Spector and Gene Pitney on percussion, recorded at the same session as "Little by Little", which became its B-side. Bill Wyman, who kept copious notes of the group's activities, has always said that the idea that it was recorded at that session was nonsense, and that it was recorded weeks later, and Oldham merely claimed Spector was on the record for publicity purposes. On the other hand, Gene Pitney had a very strong memory of being at that session. Spector had been in the country because the Ronettes had been touring the UK with the Stones as one of their support acts, along with the Swinging Blue Jeans and Marty Wilde, and Spector was worried that Ronnie might end up with one of the British musicians. He wasn't wrong to worry -- according to Ronnie's autobiography, there were several occasions when she came very close to sleeping with John Lennon, though they never ended up doing anything and remained just friends, while according to Keith Richards' autobiography he and Ronnie had a chaste affair on that tour which became less chaste when the Stones later hit America. But Spector had flown over to the UK to make sure that he remained in control of the young woman who he considered his property. Pitney, meanwhile, according to his recollection, turned up to the session at the request of Oldham, as the group were fighting in the studio and not getting the track recorded. Pitney arrived with cognac, telling the group that it was his birthday and that they all needed to get drunk with him. They did, they stopped fighting, and they recorded the track: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] "Not Fade Away" made number three on the UK charts, and also became the first Stones record to chart in the US at all, though it only scraped its way to number forty-eight, not any higher. But in itself that was a lot -- it meant that the Stones had a record doing well enough to justify them going to the US for their first American tour. But before that, they had to go through yet another UK tour -- though this isn't counted as an official tour in the listings of their tours, it's just a bunch of shows, in different places, that happened to be almost every night for a couple of months. By this time, the audience response was getting overwhelming, and shows often had to be cut short to keep the group safe. At one show, in Birkenhead, the show had to be stopped after the band played *three bars*, with the group running off stage after that as the audience invaded the stage. And then it was off to the US, where they were nowhere near as big, though while they were over there, "Tell Me" was also released as a single to tie in with the tour, and that did surprisingly well, making number twenty-four. The group's first experience of the US wasn't an entirely positive one -- there was a disastrous appearance on the Dean Martin Show on TV, with Martin mocking the group both before and after their performance, to the extent that Bob Dylan felt moved to write in the liner notes to his next album “Dean Martin should apologise t'the Rolling Stones”. But on the other hand, there were some good experiences. They got to see James Brown at the Apollo, and Jagger started taking notes -- though Richards also noted *what* Jagger was noting, saying "James wanted to show off to these English folk. He's got the Famous Flames, and he's sending one out for a hamburger, he's ordering another to polish his shoes and he's humiliating his own band. To me, it was the Famous Flames, and James Brown happened to be the lead singer. But the way he lorded it over his minions, his minders and the actual band, to Mick was fascinating" They also met up with Murray the K, the DJ who had started the career of the Ronettes among others. Murray had unilaterally declared himself "the fifth Beatle", and was making much of his supposed connections with British pop stars, most of whom either had no idea who he was or actively disliked him (Richards, when talking about him, would often replace the K with a four-letter word usually spelled with a "c"). The Stones didn't like him any more than any of the other groups did, but Murray played them a record he thought they'd be interested in -- "It's All Over Now" by the Valentinos, the song that Bobby Womack had written and which was on Sam Cooke's record label: [Excerpt: The Valentinos, "It's All Over Now"] They decided that they were going to record that, and handily Oldham had already arranged some studio time for them. As Giorgio Gomelsky would soon find with the Yardbirds, Oldham was convinced that British studios were simply unsuitable for recording loud blues-based rock and roll music, and Phil Spector had suggested to him that if the Stones loved Chess records so much, they might as well record at Chess studios. So while the group were in Chicago, they were booked in for a couple of days in the studio at Chess, where they were horrified to discover that their musical idol Muddy Waters was earning a little extra cash painting the studio ceiling and acting as a roadie, helping them in with their equipment. (It should be noted here that Marshall Chess, Leonard Chess' son who worked with the Stones in the seventies, has denied this happened. Keith Richards insists it did.) But after that shock, they found working at Chess a great experience. Not only did various of their musical idols, like Willie Dixon and Chuck Berry, as well as Waters, pop in to encourage them, and not only were they working with the same engineer who had recorded many of those people's records, but they were working in a recording studio with an actual multi-track system rather than a shoddy two-track tape recorder. From this point on, while they would still record in the UK on occasion, they increasingly chose to use American studios. The version of "It's All Over Now" they recorded there was released as their next single. It only made the top thirty in the US -- they had still not properly broken through there -- but it became their first British number one: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "It's All Over Now"] Bobby Womack was furious that the Stones had recorded his song while his version was still new, but Sam Cooke talked him down, explaining that if Womack played his cards right he could have a lot of success through his connection with these British musicians. Once the first royalty cheques came in, Womack wasn't too upset any more. When they returned to the UK, they had another busy schedule of touring and recording -- and not all of it just for Rolling Stones work. There was, for example, an Andrew Oldham Orchestra session, featuring many people from the British session world who we've noted before -- Joe Moretti from Vince Taylor's band, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Andy White, Mike Leander, and more. Mick Jagger added vocals to their version of "I Get Around": [Excerpt: The Andrew Oldham Orchestra, "I Get Around"] It's possible that Oldham had multiple motives for recording that -- Oldham was always a fan of Beach Boys style pop music more than he was of R&B, but he also was in the process of setting up his own publishing company, and knew that the Beach Boys' publishers didn't operate in the UK. In 1965, Oldham's company would become the Beach Boys' UK publishers, and he would get a chunk of every cover version of their songs, including his own. There were also a lot of demo sessions for Jagger/Richards songs intended for other artists, with Mick and Keith working with those same session musicians -- like this song that they wrote for the comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, demoed by Jagger and Richards with Moretti, Page, Jones, John McLaughlin, Big Jim Sullivan, and Andy White: [Excerpt: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "We're Wastin' Time"] But of course there were also sessions for Rolling Stones records, like their next UK number one single, "Little Red Rooster": [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Little Red Rooster"] "Little Red Rooster" is a song that is credited to Willie Dixon, but which actually combines several elements from earlier blues songs, including a riff inspired by the one from Son House's "Death Letter Blues": [Excerpt: Son House, "Death Letter Blues"] A melody line and some lines of lyric from Memphis Minnie's "If You See My Rooster": [Excerpt: Memphis Minnie, "If You See My Rooster"] And some lines from Charley Patton's "Banty Rooster Blues": [Excerpt: Charley Patton, "Banty Rooster Blues"] Dixon's resulting song had been recorded by Howlin' Wolf in 1961: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Little Red Rooster"] That hadn't been a hit, but Sam Cooke had recorded a cover version, in a very different style, that made the US top twenty and proved the song had chart potential: [Excerpt: Sam Cooke, "Little Red Rooster"] The Rolling Stones version followed Howlin' Wolf's version very closely, except that Jagger states that he *is* a cock -- I'm sorry, a rooster -- rather than that he merely has one. And this would normally be something that would please Brian Jones immensely -- that the group he had formed to promote Delta and Chicago blues had managed to get a song like that to number one in the UK charts, especially as it was dominated by his slide playing. But in fact the record just symbolised the growing estrangement between Jones and the rest of his band. When he turned up at the session to record "Little Red Rooster", he was dismayed to find out that the rest of the group had deliberately told him the wrong date. They'd recorded the track the day before, without him, and just left a note from Jagger to tell him where to put his slide fills. They spent the next few months ping-ponging between the UK and the US. In late 1964 they made another US tour, during which at one point Brian Jones collapsed with what has been variously reported as stress and alcohol poisoning, and had to miss several shows, leaving the group to carry on without him. There was much discussion at this point of just kicking him out of the band, but they decided against it -- he was still perceived as the group's leader and most popular member. They also appeared on the TAMI show, which we've mentioned before, and which we'll look at in more detail when we next look at James Brown, but which is notable here for two things. The first is that they once again saw how good James Brown was, and at this point Jagger decided that he was going to do his best to emulate Brown's performance -- to the extent that he asked a choreographer to figure out what Brown was doing and teach it to him, but the choreographer told Jagger that Brown moved too fast to figure out all his steps. The other is that the musical director for the TAMI Show was Jack Nitzsche, and this would be the start of a professional relationship that would last for many years. We've seen Nitzsche before in various roles -- he was the co-writer of "Needles and Pins", and he was also the arranger on almost all of Phil Spector's hits. He was so important to Spector's sound that Keith Richards has said “Jack was the Genius, not Phil. Rather, Phil took on Jack's eccentric persona and sucked his insides out.” Nitzsche guested on piano when the Stones went into the studio in LA to record a chunk of their next album, including the ballad "Heart of Stone", which would become a single in the US. From that point on, whenever the Stones recorded in LA, Nitzsche would be there, adding keyboards and percussion and acting as an uncredited co-producer and arranger. He was apparently unpaid for this work, which he did just because he enjoyed being around the band. Nitzsche would also play on the group's next UK single, recorded a couple of months later. This would be their third UK number one, and the first one credited to Jagger and Richards as songwriters, though the credit is a rather misleading one in this case, as the chorus is taken directly from a gospel song by Pops Staples, recorded by the Staple Singers: [Excerpt: The Staple Singers, "This May Be The Last Time"] Jagger and Richards took that chorus and reworked it into a snarling song whose lyrics were based around Jagger's then favourite theme -- how annoying it is when women want to do things other than whatever their man wants them to do: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "The Last Time"] There is a deep, deep misogyny in the Stones' lyrics in the mid sixties, partly inspired by the personas taken on by some blues men (though there are very few blues singers who stuck so unrelentingly to a single theme), and partly inspired by Jagger's own relationship with Chrissie Shrimpton, who he regarded as his inferior, even though she was his superior in terms of the British class system. That's even more noticeable on "Play With Fire", the B-side to "The Last Time". "The Last Time" had been recorded in such a long session that Jones, Watts, and Wyman went off to bed, exhausted. But Jagger and Richards wanted to record a demo of another song, which definitely seems to have been inspired by Shrimpton, so they got Jack Nitzsche to play harpsichord and Phil Spector to play (depending on which source you believe) either a bass or a detuned electric guitar: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Play With Fire"] The demo was considered good enough to release, and put out as the B-side without any contribution from the other three Stones. Other songs Chrissie Shrimpton would inspire over the next couple of years would include "Under My Thumb", "19th Nervous Breakdown", and "Stupid Girl". It's safe to say that Mick Jagger wasn't going to win any boyfriend of the year awards. "The Last Time" was a big hit, but the follow-up was the song that turned the Stones from being one of several British bands who were very successful to being the only real challengers to the Beatles for commercial success. And it was a song whose main riff came to Keith Richards in a dream: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction)"] Richards apparently had a tape recorder by the side of his bed, and when the riff came to him he woke up enough to quickly record it before falling back to sleep with the tape running. When he woke up, he'd forgotten the riff, but found it at the beginning of a recording that was otherwise just snoring. For a while Richards was worried he'd ripped the riff off from something else, and he's later said that he thinks that it was inspired by "Dancing in the Street". In fact, it's much closer to the horn line from another Vandellas record, "Nowhere to Run", which also has a similar stomping rhythm: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Nowhere to Run"] You can see how similar the two songs are by overlaying the riff from “Satisfaction” on the chorus to “Nowhere to Run”: [Excerpt “Nowhere to Run”/”Satisfaction”] "Nowhere to Run" also has a similar breakdown. Compare the Vandellas: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Nowhere to Run"] to the Stones: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] So it's fairly clear where the song's inspiration came from, but it's also clear that unlike a song like "The Last Time" this *was* just inspiration, rather than plagiarism. The recorded version of "Satisfaction" was never one that its main composer was happy with. The group, apart from Brian Jones, who may have added a harmonica part that was later wiped, depending on what sources you read, but is otherwise absent from the track, recorded the basic track at Chess studios, and at this point it was mostly acoustic. Richards thought it had come out sounding too folk-rock, and didn't work at all. At this point Richards was still thinking of the track as a demo -- though by this point he was already aware of Andrew Oldham's tendency to take things that Richards thought were demos and release them. When Richards had come up with the riff, he had imagined it as a horn line, something like the version that Otis Redding eventually recorded: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] So when they went into the studio in LA with Jack Nitzsche to work on some tracks there including some more work on the demo for “Satisfaction”, as well as Nitzsche adding some piano, Richards also wanted to do something to sketch out what the horn part would be. He tried playing it on his guitar, and it didn't sound right, and so Ian Stewart had an idea, went to a music shop, and got one of the first ever fuzz pedals, to see if Richards' guitar could sound like a horn. Now, people have, over the years, said that "Satisfaction" was the first record ever to use a fuzz tone. This is nonsense. We saw *way* back in the episode on “Rocket '88” a use of a damaged amp as an inspired accident, getting a fuzzy tone, though nobody picked up on that and it was just a one-off thing. Paul Burlison, the guitarist with the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, had a similar accident a few years later, as we also saw, and went with it, deliberately loosening tubes in his amp to get the sound audible on their version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'": [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] A few years later, Grady Martin, the Nashville session player who was the other guitarist on that track, got a similar effect on his six-string bass solo on Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry", possibly partly inspired by Burlison's sound: [Excerpt: Marty Robbins, "Don't Worry"] That tends to be considered the real birth of fuzz, because that time it was picked up by the whole industry. Martin recorded an instrumental showing off the technique: [Excerpt: Grady Martin, "The Fuzz"] And more or less simultaneously, Wrecking Crew guitarist Al Casey used an early fuzz tone on a country record by Sanford Clark: [Excerpt: Sanford Clark, "Go On Home"] And the pedal steel player Red Rhodes had invented his own fuzz box, which he gave to another Wrecking Crew player, Billy Strange, who used it on records like Ann-Margret's "I Just Don't Understand": [Excerpt: Ann-Margret, "I Just Don't Understand"] All those last four tracks, and many more, were from 1960 or 1961. So far from being something unprecedented in recording history, as all too many rock histories will tell you, fuzz guitar was somewhat passe by 1965 -- it had been the big thing on records made by the Nashville A-Team and the Wrecking Crew four or five years earlier, and everyone had moved on to the next gimmick long ago. But it was good enough to use to impersonate a horn to sketch out a line for a demo. Except, of course, that while Jagger and Richards disliked the track as recorded, the other members of the band, and Ian Stewart (who still had a vote even though he was no longer a full member) and Andrew Oldham all thought it was a hit single as it was. They overruled Jagger and Richards and released it complete with fuzz guitar riff, which became one of the most well-known examples of the sound in rock history. To this day, though, when Richards plays the song live, he plays it without the fuzztone effect. Lyrically, the song sees Mick Jagger reaching for the influence of Bob Dylan and trying to write a piece of social commentary. The title line seems, appropriately for a song partly recorded at Chess studios, to have come from a line in a Chuck Berry record, "Thirty Days": [Excerpt: Chuck Berry, "Thirty Days"] But the sentiment also owes more than a little to another record by a Chess star, one recorded so early that it was originally released when Chess was still called Aristocrat Records -- Muddy Waters' "I Can't Be Satisfied": [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "I Can't Be Satisfied"] “Satisfaction” is the ultimate exercise in adolescent male frustration. I once read something, and I can't for the life of me remember where or who the author was, that struck me as the most insightful critique of the sixties British blues bands I've ever heard. That person said that by taking the blues out of the context in which the music had been created, they fundamentally changed the meaning of it -- that when Bo Diddley sang "I'm a Man", the subtext was "so don't call me 'boy', cracker". Meanwhile, when some British white teenagers from Essex sang the same words, in complete ignorance of the world in which Diddley lived, what they were singing was "I'm a man now, mummy, so you can't make me tidy my room if I don't want to". But the thing is, there are a lot of teenagers out there who don't want to tidy their rooms, and that kind of message does resonate. And here, Jagger is expressing the kind of aggressive sulk that pretty much every teenager, especially every frustrated male teenager will relate to. The protagonist is dissatisfied with everything in his life, so criticism of the vapidity of advertising is mixed in with sexual frustration because women won't sleep with the protagonist when they're menstruating: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] It is the most adolescent lyric imaginable, but pop music is an adolescent medium. The song went to number one in the UK, and also became the group's first American number one. But Brian Jones resented it, so much so that when they performed the song live, he'd often start playing “I'm Popeye the Sailor Man”. This was partly because it wasn't the blues he loved, but also because it was the first Stones single he wasn't on (again, at least according to most sources. Some say he played acoustic rhythm guitar, but most say he's not on it and that Richards plays all the guitar parts). And to explain why, I have to get into the unpleasant details I talked about at the start. If you're likely to be upset by discussion of rape or domestic violence, stop the episode now. Now, there are a number of different versions of this story. This is the one that seems most plausible to me, based on what else I know about the Stones, and the different accounts, but some of the details might be wrong, so I don't want anyone to think that I'm saying that this is absolutely exactly what happened. But if it isn't, it's the *kind* of thing that happened many times, and something very like it definitely happened. You see, Brian Jones was a sadist, and not in a good way. There are people who engage in consensual BDSM, in which everyone involved is having a good time, and those people include some of my closest friends. This will never be a podcast that engages in kink-shaming of consensual kinks, and I want to make clear that what I have to say about Jones has nothing to do with that. Because Jones was not into consent. He was into physically injuring non-consenting young women, and he got his sexual kicks from things like beating them with chains. Again, if everyone is involved is consenting, this is perfectly fine, but Jones didn't care about anyone other than himself. At a hotel in Clearwater, Florida, on the sixth of May 1965, the same day that Jagger and Richards finished writing "Satisfaction", a girl that Bill Wyman had slept with the night before came to him in tears. She'd been with a friend the day before, and the friend had gone off with Jones while she'd gone off with Wyman. Jones had raped her friend, and had beaten her up -- he'd blackened both her eyes and done other damage. Jones had hurt this girl so badly that even the other Stones, who as we have seen were very far from winning any awards for being feminists of the year, were horrified. There was some discussion of calling the police on him, but eventually they decided to take matters into their own hands, or at least into one of their employees' hands. They got their roadie Mike Dorsey to teach him a lesson, though Oldham was insistent that Dorsey not mess up Jones' face. Dorsey dangled Jones by his collar and belt out of an upstairs window and told Jones that if he ever did anything like that again, he'd drop him. He also beat him up, cracking two of Jones' ribs. And so Jones was not in any state to play on the group's first US number one, or to play much at all at the session, because of the painkillers he was on for the cracked ribs. Jones would remain in the band for the next few years, but he had gone from being the group's leader to someone they disliked and were disgusted by. And as we'll see the next couple of times we look at the Stones, he would only get worse.
Ian Irving, won talent competitions which took him to New Faces which led to Opportunity Knocks. He warmed up sitcom audiences and supported the greatest names in the business and went on to have his own TV Special.Earning his crown on the Sporting Dinner circuit he is respected and admired throughout our business and Brothers in the Grand Order of Water Rats.Welcome to Eyes And Teeth Ian Irving
Bob Bevan MBE has earned a reputation on the after dinner speakers circuit for decades being the one to book whether you are the late HRH Prince Phillip, Ronnie Corbett, Sir Bobby Robson or Sir Ian Botham, they all have experienced "The Cat" at some time.His anecdotes are normally saved for the Top Table at many prestigious world wide events but I am extremely blessed to have Bob share some great stories with us on Eyes & Teeth and he also talks about his early start in the business. It wasn't easy but he worked hard and made his name a success. Enjoy my conversation with Bob "The Cat" Bevan
Mike Parry and Lesley-Ann Jones come dashing through the snow to bring you another look at Life on Planet Porky. Discussion points include: Braving the elements, garden gnomes, historical abuse cases, Jimmy Tarbuck and his esteemed classmates, favoured regional accents, Rick Astley, Mike Batt and his new musical, spending your own money on a business venture, deciding on their favourite decade, finishing your career by delivering newspapers, entertaining Paul Gascoigne, Bryan Ferry, having multiple children of the same sex, Lily Collins and Emily in Paris, the French economy and Wellington boots. Fear not, it may be slushy outside, but Planet Porky is with you whatever the weather! Follow the show on Twitter: @PlanetPorky or Mike is: @MikeParry8 while you can find Lesley-Ann: @LAJwriter. Or you can email us questions or comments to: planetporkypod@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you!
How does a working-class boy from Paddington with no show business connections manage to become one of the UK's busiest and most successful television comedy writers? Colin chats about his career working with Sir Terry Wogan, Paul Daniels, Jimmy Tarbuck, Des O'Connor, Paul O'Grady and, of course, Bob Monkhouse. Steam, Smoke & Mirrors Theme music composed by John Orchard and arranged by Ian English Facebook: colin.edmonds.73 Instagram: colinedmondsssm Twitter:@ColinEdmondsSSM Website:https://www.steamsmokeandmirrors.com/ Buy Steam, Smoke and Mirrors Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon Available on Audible Buy The Lazarus Curiosity: Steam, Smoke and Mirrors 2 Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon Available on Audible Buy The Nostradamus Curiosity: Steam, Smoke and Mirrors 3 Available at Caffeine Nights Available at Amazon
Pictured: Des O'Connor Matthew Bannister on The comedian Des O’Connor, an all-round entertainer equally at home telling jokes, hosting a chat show or recording an album. Richard Trim, the radar engineer who developed the technology that supports modern air traffic control systems. Dr Ataullah Siddiqui, the leading Muslim scholar who played a major role in creating inter-faith dialogue. Edith Raymond Locke, the editor of Mademoiselle Magazine who supported the early careers of fashion designers like Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan. Interviewed guest: David Steadman Interviewed guest: Fergus Trim Interviewed guest: Sughra Ahmed Interviewed guest: Canon Andrew Wingate OBE Interviewed guest: Ali MacGraw Interviewed guest: Rosemary Feitelberg Interviewed guest: Andrea Robinson Producer: Neil George Archive clips from: Desert Island Discs, Radio 4 01/09/1969; Jimmy Tarbuck, The Daily Mail 17/11/2020; One Minute With Des O’Connor, Radio 1 01/01/2000; The Morecambe & Wise Show, BBC Two 25/12/1975; Front Row, Radio 4 06/10/2011; Jimmy Tarbuck, ITV News 16/11/2020; This Morning, ITV 16/11/2020; Countdown, Channel 4 29/09/2008; Good Morning Britain, ITV 16/11/2020; Tomorrow's World, BBC One 15/01/1997; Ataullah Siddiqui, Cardiff University/Islam UK 21/01/2019.
Working Cruise Ships for me was exciting not knowing who i was going to be working with that contract and when I first met and watched Liverpool Comic John Martin on a ship I was blown away by his knowledge of every word and names he was working with in the crowd. He is a brilliant Comedian and Comedy Writer and Author but his books are not comedy related... find out more when I talk to John Martin
UK TV Times August 23-29, 1986 August 23-29, 1986 UK TV Times The international virtual travel continues during lockdown as this week Ken welcomes the fabulous Scottish TV Presenter/Stand Up Comedian and radio personality Julia Sutherland to the show. Ken and Julia discuss old timey radio, the conspiracy theory of the government's spying, panel shows, UK TV and Radio Times, doing stand up on U.K.'s Got Talent, missing some UK TV because you were teaching snowboarding in Vale, CO, Ant and Dec, Biker Grove, London Palladium, age ain't nothing but a number, TV licenses, Julia's father's collection or Radio and TV times, being a STV continuity presenter, Ken's dogs, The Wide Awake Club, Julia's first joke on TV, Timmy Mallett, Neighbors, Home and Away, crime series, serial killers, Jim Thompson, Poirot, The Salem Witch Trials, wanting to be a Crime Profiler, Taggart, Glasgow, Broadchurch, "Dallasty", ads for awful products, fashion, Joan Collins, The Doomsday Project, Gaz Top, sketch shows, Absolutely, Morwenna Banks, meeting your heroes, learning by doing, Role playing games, the wasteland of TV that is Sundays in the UK, why there are so many Scots in Canada, The Highland Clearances, The Campbells and being on it as a child, Spitting Image, Red Dwarf, Jimmy Tarbuck, quiz shows, The Good The Band and the Unexpected, Stop the Press, Dylan Moran, Bullseye, the greatest ad in the history of the world, Sure Deodorant, What's My Line?, Eamonn Andrews, This Is Your Life, Blockbusters, Take the High Road, Let's Face It, what a face actually is, The Sullivans, Electronic Program Guides, The Yellow Pages, J.R. Hartley, SuperMarionation, Gerry Anderson, Terrahawks, The Stand UK Club, why Thursdays are the best night to do stand up, The Golden Girls, not "getting" Bruce Forsyth, Cosby Show, and all the great stand up comedian who are not sex pests.
Episode eighty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Shakin’ All Over” by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, and how the first great British R&B band interacted with the entertainment industry. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifteen-minute bonus episode, on “Under Your Spell Again” by Buck Owens. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—- Resources As usual, I have put together a Mixcloud mix with every song excerpted in this podcast. Only one biography of Kidd has been written, and that’s been out of print for nearly a quarter of a century and goes for ridiculous prices. Luckily Adie Barrett’s site http://www.johnnykidd.co.uk/ is everything a fan-site should be, and has a detailed biographical section which I used for the broad-strokes outline. Clem Cattini: My Life, Through the Eye of a Tornado is somewhere between authorised biography and autobiography. It’s not the best-written book ever, but it contains a lot of information about Clem’s life. Spike & Co by Graham McCann gives a very full account of Associated London Scripts. Pete Frame’s The Restless Generation is the best book available looking at British 50s rock and roll from a historical perspective. Be warned, though — his jokey and irreverent style can, when dealing with people like Larry Parnes (who was gay and Jewish) very occasionally tip over into reinforcing homophobic and anti-semitic stereotypes for an easy laugh. Billy Bragg’s Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is one of the best books I’ve read on music at all, and gives far more detail about the historical background. And a fair chunk of the background information here also comes from the extended edition of Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In, which is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the Beatles, British post-war culture, and British post-war music. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript As we get more into this story, we’re going to see a lot more British acts becoming part of it. We’ve already looked at Lonnie Donegan, Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele, and Vince Taylor, but without spoiling anything I think most of you can guess that over the next year or so we’re going to see a few guitar bands from the UK enter the narrative. Today we’re going to look at one of the most important British bands of the early sixties — a band who are now mostly known for one hit and a gimmick, but who made a massive contribution to the sound of rock music. We’re going to look at Johnny Kidd and the Pirates: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, “Shakin’ All Over”] Our story starts during the skiffle boom of 1957. If you don’t remember the episodes we did on skiffle and early British rock and roll, it was a musical craze that swept Britain after Lonnie Donegan’s surprise hit with “Rock Island Line”. For about eighteen months, nearly every teenage boy in Britain was in a group playing a weird mix of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie songs, old folk tunes, and music-hall numbers, with a lineup usually consisting of guitar, banjo, someone using a washboard as percussion, and a homemade double bass made out of a teachest, a broom handle, and a single string. The skiffle craze died away as quickly as it started out, but it left a legacy — thousands of young kids who’d learned at least three chords, who’d performed in public, and who knew that it was possible to make music without having gone through the homogenising star-making process. That would have repercussions throughout the length of this story, and to this day. But while almost everyone in a skiffle group was a kid, not everyone was. Obviously the big stars of the genre — Lonnie Donegan, Chas McDevitt, the Vipers — were all in their twenties when they became famous, and so were some of the amateurs who tried to jump on the bandwagon. In particular, there was Fred Heath. Heath was twenty-one when skiffle hit, and was already married — while twenty-one might seem young now, at the time, it was an age when people were meant to have settled down and found a career. But Heath wasn’t the career sort. There were rumours about him which attest to the kind of person he was perceived as being — that he was a bookie’s runner, that he’d not been drafted because he was thought to be completely impossible to discipline, that he had been working as a painter in a warehouse and urinated on the warehouse floor from the scaffolding he was on — and he was clearly not someone who was *ever* going to settle down. The first skiffle band Heath formed was called Bats Heath and the Vampires, and featured Heath on vocals and rhythm guitar, Brian Englund on banjo, Frank Rouledge on lead guitar, and Clive Lazell on washboard. The group went through a variety of names, at one point naming themselves the Frantic Four in what seems to have been an attempt to confuse people into thinking they were seeing Don Lang’s Frantic Five, the group who often appeared on Six-Five Special: [Excerpt: Don Lang and his Frantic Five, “Six-Five Hand Jivel”] The group went through the standard lineup and name changes that almost every amateur group went through, and they ended up as a five-piece group called the Five Nutters. And it was as the Five Nutters that they made their first attempts at becoming stars, when they auditioned for Carroll Levis. Levis was one of the most important people in showbusiness in the UK at this time. He’d just started a TV series, but for years before that his show had been on Radio Luxembourg, which was for many teenagers in the UK the most important radio station in the world. At the time, the BBC had a legal monopoly on radio broadcasting in the UK, but they had a couple of problems when it came to attracting a teenage audience. The first was that they had to provide entertainment for *everyone*, and so they couldn’t play much music that only appealed to teenagers but was detested by adults. But there was a much bigger problem for the BBC when it came to recorded music. In the 1950s, the BBC ran three national radio stations — the Light Programme, the Home Service, and the Third Programme — along with one national TV channel. The Musicians’ Union were worried that playing recorded music on these would lead to their members losing work, and so there was an agreement called “needletime”, which allowed the BBC to use recorded music for twenty-two hours a week, total, across all three radio stations, plus another three hours for the TV. That had to cover every style of music from Little Richard through to Doris Day through to Beethoven. The rest of the time, if they had music, it had to be performed by live musicians, and so you’d be more likely to hear “Rock Around the Clock” as performed by the Northern Dance Orchestra than Bill Haley’s version, and much of the BBC’s youth programming had middle-aged British session musicians trying to replicate the sound of American records and failing miserably. But Luxembourg didn’t have a needle-time rule, and so a commercial English-language station had been set up there, using transmitters powerful enough to reach most of Britain and Ireland. The station was owned and run in Britain, and most of the shows were recorded in London by British DJs like Brian Matthew, Jimmy Savile, and Alan Freeman, although there were also recordings of Alan Freed’s show broadcast on it. The shows were mostly sponsored by record companies, who would make the DJs play just half of the record, so they could promote more songs in their twenty-minute slot, and this was the main way that any teenager in Britain would actually be able to hear rock and roll music. Oddly, even though he spent many years on Radio Luxembourg, Levis’ show, which had originally been on the BBC before the War, was not a music show, but a talent show. Whether on his original BBC radio show, the Radio Luxembourg one, or his new TV show, the format was the same. He would alternate weeks between broadcasting and talent scouting. In talent scouting weeks he would go to a different city each week, where for five nights in a row he would put on talent shows featuring up to twenty different local amateur acts doing their party pieces — without payment, of course, just for the exposure. At the end of the show, the audience would get a chance to clap for each act, and the act that got the loudest applause would go through to a final on the Saturday night. This of course meant that acts that wanted to win would get a lot of their friends and family to come along and cheer for them. The Saturday night would then have the winning acts — which is to say, those who brought along the most paying customers — compete against each other. The most popular of *those* acts would then get to appear on Levis’ TV show the next week. It was, as you can imagine, an extremely lucrative business. When the Five Nutters appeared on Levis’ Discoveries show, they were fairly sure that the audience clapped loudest for them, but they came third. Being the type of person he was, Fred Heath didn’t take this lying down, and remonstrated with Levis, who eventually promised to get the Nutters some better gigs, one suspects just to shut Heath up. As a result of Levis putting in a good word for them, they got a few appearances at places like the 2Is, and made an appearance on the BBC’s one concession to youth culture on the radio — a new show called Saturday Skiffle Club. Around this time, the Five Nutters also recorded a demo disc. The first side was a skiffled-up version of “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, with some extremely good jazzy lead guitar: [Excerpt: Fred Heath and the Five Nutters, “Shake, Rattle, and Roll”] I’ve heard quite a few records of skiffle groups, mostly by professionals, and it’s clear that the Five Nutters were far more musical, and far more interesting, than most of them, even despite the audible sloppiness here. The point of skiffle was meant to be that it was do-it-yourself music that required no particular level of skill — but in this case the Nutters’ guitarist Frank Rouledge was clearly quite a bit more proficient than the run-of-the-mill skiffle guitarist. What was even more interesting about that recording, though, was the B-side, which was a song written by the group. It seems to have been mostly written by Heath, and it’s called “Blood-Red Beauty” because Heath’s wife was a redhead: [Excerpt: Fred Heath and the Five Nutters, “Blood Red Beauty”] The song itself is fairly unexceptional — it’s a standard Hank Williams style hillbilly boogie — but at this time there was still in Britain a fairly hard and fast rule which had performers and songwriters as two distinct things. There were a handful of British rock musicians who were attempting to write their own material — most prominently Billy Fury, a Larry Parnes artist who I’m afraid we don’t have space for in the podcast, but who was one of the most interesting of the late-fifties British acts — but in general, there was a fairly strict demarcation. It was very unusual for a British performer to also be trying to write songs. The Nutters split up shortly after their Saturday Skiffle Club appearance, and Heath formed various other groups called things like The Fabulous Freddie Heath Band and The Fred, Mike & Tom Show, before going back to the old name, with a new lineup of Freddie Heath and the Nutters consisting of himself on vocals, Mike West and Tom Brown — who had been the Mike and Tom in The Fred, Mike, & Tom Show, on backing vocals, Tony Doherty on rhythm guitar, Ken McKay on drums, Johnny Gordon on bass, and on lead guitar Alan Caddy, a man who was known by the nickname “tea”, which was partly a pun on his name, partly a reference to his drinking copious amounts of tea, and partly Cockney rhyming slang — tea-leaf for thief — as he was known for stealing cars. The Nutters got a new agent, Don Toy, and manager, Guy Robinson, but Heath seemed mostly to want to be a songwriter rather than a singer at this point. He was looking to place his songs with other artists, and in early 1959, he did. He wrote a song called “Please Don’t Touch”, and managed to get it placed with a vocal group called the Bachelors — not the more famous group of that name, but a minor group who recorded for Parlophone, a subsidiary of EMI run by a young producer named George Martin. “Please Don’t Touch” came out as the B-side of a Bachelors record: [Excerpt: The Bachelors, “Please Don’t Touch”] One notable thing about the songwriting credit — while most sources say Fred Heath wrote the song by himself, he gave Guy Robinson a co-writing credit on this and many of his future songs. This was partly because it was fairly standard at the time for managers to cut themselves in on their artists’ credits, but also because that way the credit could read Heath Robinson — Heath Robinson was a famous British cartoonist who was notable for drawing impossibly complicated inventions, and whose name had become part of the British language — for American listeners, imagine that the song was credited to Rube Goldberg, and you’ll have the idea. At this point, the Nutters had become quite a professional organisation, and so it was unsurprising that after “Please Don’t Touch” brought Fred Heath to the attention of EMI, a different EMI imprint, HMV, signed them up. Much of the early success of the Nutters, and this professionalism, seems to be down to Don Toy, who seems to have been a remarkably multi-talented individual. As well as being an agent who had contracts with many London venues to provide them with bands, he was also an electrical engineer specialising in sound equipment. He built a two-hundred watt bass amp for the group, at a time when almost every band just put their bass guitar through a normal guitar amp, and twenty-five watts was considered quite loud. He also built a portable tape echo device that could be used on stage to make Heath’s voice sound like it would on the records. Heath later bought the first Copicat echo unit to be made — this was a mass-produced device that would be used by a lot of British bands in the early sixties, and Heath’s had serial number 0001 — but before that became available, he used Toy’s device, which may well have been the very first on-stage echo device in the UK. On top of that, Toy has also claimed that most of the songs credited to Heath and Robinson were also co-written by him, but he left his name off because the credit looked better without it. And whether or not that’s true, he was also the drummer on this first session — Ken McKay, the Nutters’ drummer, was a bit unsteady in his tempo, and Toy was a decent player and took over from him when in April 1959, Fred Heath and the Nutters went into Abbey Road Studio 2, to record their own version of “Please Don’t Touch”. This was ostensibly produced by HMV producer Walter Ridley, but Ridley actually left rock and roll records to his engineer, Peter Sullivan: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, “Please Don’t Touch”] It was only when the session was over that they saw the paperwork for it. Fred Heath was the only member of the Nutters to be signed to EMI, with the rest of the group being contracted as session musicians, but that was absolutely normal for the time period — Tommy Steele’s Steelmen and Cliff Richard’s Drifters hadn’t been signed as artists either. What they were concerned about was the band name on the paperwork — it didn’t say Fred Heath and the Nutters, but Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. They were told that that was going to be their new name. They never did find out who it was who had decided on this for them, but from now on Fred Heath was Johnny Kidd. The record was promoted on Radio Luxembourg, and everyone thought it was going to go to number one. Unfortunately, strike action prevented that, and the record was only a moderate chart success — the highest position it hit in any of the UK charts at the time was number twenty on the Melody Maker chart. But that didn’t stop it from becoming an acknowledged classic of British rock and roll. It was so popular that it actually saw an American cover version, which was something that almost never happened with British songs, though Chico Holliday’s version was unsuccessful: [Excerpt: Chico Holliday, “Please Don’t Touch”] It remained such a fond memory for British rockers that in 1980 the heavy metal groups Motorhead and Girlschool recorded it as the supergroup HeadGirl, and it became the biggest hit either group ever had, reaching number five in the British charts: [Excerpt: Headgirl, “Please Don’t Touch”] But while “Please Don’t Touch” was one of the very few good rock and roll records made in Britain, it wasn’t the one for which Johnny Kidd and the Pirates would be remembered. It was, though, enough to make them a big act. They toured the country on a bill compered by Liverpool comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, and they made several appearances on Saturday Club, which had now dropped the “skiffle” name and was the only place anyone could hear rock and roll on BBC radio. Of course, the British record industry having the immense sense of potential it did, HMV immediately capitalised on the success of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates doing a great group performance of an original rock and roll number, by releasing as a follow-up single, a version of the old standard “If You Were the Only Girl in the World and I Were the Only Boy” by Johnny without the Pirates, but with chorus and orchestra conducted by Ivor Raymonde: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd, “If You Were The Only Girl in the World”] For some reason — I can’t imagine why — that didn’t chart. One suspects that young Lemmy wasn’t quite as fond of that one as “Please Don’t Touch”. The B-side was a quite good rocker, with some nice guitar work from the session guitarist Bert Weedon, but no-one bothered to buy the record at the time, so they didn’t turn it over to hear the other side. The follow-up was better — a reworking of Marv Johnson’s “You’ve Got What it Takes”, one of the hits that Berry Gordy had been writing and producing for Johnson. Johnson’s version made the top five in the UK, but the Pirates’ version still made the top thirty. But by this time there had been some changes. The first change that was made was that the Pirates changed manager — while Robinson would continue getting songwriting credits, the group were now managed through Associated London Scripts, by Stan “Scruffy” Dale. Associated London Scripts was, as the name suggests, primarily a company that produced scripts. It was started as a writers’ co-operative, and in its early days it was made up of seven people. There was Frankie Howerd, one of the most popular stand-up comedians of the time, who was always looking for new material; Spike Milligan, the writer and one of the stars of the Goon Show, the most important surreal comedy of the fifties; Eric Sykes, who was a writer-performer who was involved in almost every important comedy programme of the decade, including co-writing many Goon episodes with Milligan, before becoming a TV star himself; Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who wrote the most important *sitcom* of the fifties and early sixties, Hancock’s Half Hour; and Scruffy Dale, who was Howerd and Sykes’ manager and was supposed to take care of the business stuff. In fact, though, most of the business was actually taken care of by the seventh person and only woman, Beryl Vertue, who was taken on as the secretary on the basis of an interview that mostly asked about her tea-making skills, but soon found herself doing almost everything — the men in the office got so used to asking her “Could you make the tea, Beryl?”, “Could you type up this script, Beryl?” that they just started asking her things like “Could you renegotiate our contract with the BBC, Beryl?” She eventually became one of the most important women in the TV industry, with her most recent prominent credit being as executive producer on the BBC’s Sherlock up until 2017, more than sixty years after she joined the business. Vertue did all the work to keep the company running — a company which grew to about thirty writers, and between the early fifties and mid sixties, as well as Hancock’s Half Hour and the Goons, its writers created Sykes, Beyond Our Ken, Round the Horne, Steptoe and Son, The Bedsitting Room, the Running, Jumping, Standing Still Film, Til Death Us Do Part, Citizen James, and the Daleks. That’s a list off the top of my head — it would actually be easier to list memorable British comedy programmes and films of the fifties and early sixties that *didn’t* have a script from one of ALS’ writers. And while Vertue was keeping Marty Feldman, John Junkin, Barry Took, Johnny Speight, John Antrobus and all the rest of these new writers in work, Scruffy Dale was trying to create a career in pop management. As several people associated with ALS had made records with George Martin at Parlophone, he had an in there, and some of the few pop successes that Martin had in the fifties were producing acts managed by Dale through ALS, like the Vipers Skiffle Group: [Excerpt: The Vipers Skiffle Group, “Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O”] and a young performer named Jim Smith, who wanted to be a comedian and actor, but who Dale renamed after himself, and who had a string of hits as Jim Dale: [Excerpt: Jim Dale, “Be My Girl”] Jim Dale eventually did become a film and TV star, starting with presenting Six-Five Special, and is now best known for having starred in many of the Carry On films and narrating the Harry Potter audiobooks, but at the time he was still a pop star. Jim Dale and the Vipers were the two professional acts headlining an otherwise-amateur tour that Scruffy Dale put together that was very much like Carroll Levis’ Discoveries show, except without the need to even give the winners a slot on the TV every other week. This tour was supposed to be a hunt for the country’s best skiffle group, and there was going to be a grand national final, and the winner of *that* would go on TV. Except they just kept dragging the tour out for eighteen months, until the skiffle fad was completely over and no-one cared, so there never was a national final. And in the meantime the Vipers had to sit through twenty groups of spotty kids a night, all playing “Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O”, and then go out and play it themselves, every night for eighteen months. Scruffy Dale was unscrupulous in other ways as well, and not long after he’d taken on the Pirates’ management he was sacked from ALS. Spike Milligan had never liked Dale — when told that Dale had lost a testicle in the war, he’d merely replied “I hope he dropped it on Dresden” — but Frankie Howerd and Eric Sykes had always been impressed with his ability to negotiate deals. But then Frankie Howerd found out that he’d missed out on lucrative opportunities because Dale had shoved letters in his coat pocket and forgotten about them for a fortnight. He started investigating a few more things, and it turned out that Dale had been siphoning money from Sykes and Howerd’s personal bank accounts into his own, having explained to their bank manager that it would just be resting in his account for them, because they were showbiz people who would spend it all too fast, so he was looking after them. And he’d also been doing other bits of creative accounting — every success his musical acts had was marked down as something he’d done independently, and all the profits went to him, while all the unsuccessful ventures were marked down as being ALS projects, and their losses charged to the company. So neither Dale nor the Pirates were with Associated London Scripts very long. But Dale made one very important change — he and Don Toy decided between them that most of the Pirates had to go. There were six backing musicians in the group if you counted the two backing vocalists, who all needed paying, and only one could read music — they weren’t professional enough to make a career in the music business. So all of the Pirates except Alan Caddy were sacked. Mike West and Tony Doherty formed another band, Robby Hood and His Merry Men, whose first single was written by Kidd (though it’s rare enough I’ve not been able to find a copy anywhere online). The new backing group was going to be a trio, modelled on Johnny Burnette’s Rock and Roll Trio — just one guitar, bass, and drums. They had Caddy on lead guitar, Clem Cattini on drums, and Brian Gregg on bass. Cattini was regarded as by far the best rock drummer in Britain at the time. He’d played with Terry Dene’s backing band the Dene Aces, and can be seen glumly backing Dene in the film The Golden Disc: [Excerpt: Terry Dene, “Candy Floss”] Gregg had joined Dene’s band, and they’d both then moved on to be touring musicians for Larry Parnes, backing most of the acts on a tour featuring Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran that we’ll be looking at next week. They’d played with various of Parnes’ acts for a while, but had then asked for more money, and he’d refused, so they’d quit working for Parnes and joined Vince Taylor and the Playboys. They’d only played with the Playboys a few weeks when they moved on to Chas McDevitt’s group. For a brief time, McDevitt had been the biggest star in skiffle other than Lonnie Donegan, but he was firmly in the downward phase of his career at this point. McDevitt also owned a coffee bar, the Freight Train, named after his biggest hit, and most of the musicians in London would hang out there. And after Clem Cattini and Brian Gregg had joined the Pirates, it was at the Freight Train that the song for which the group would be remembered was written. They were going to go into the studio to record another song chosen by the record label — a version of the old standard “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” — because EMI had apparently not yet learned that if you had Johnny Kidd record old standards, no-one bought it, but if you had him record bluesy rock and roll you had a hit. But they’d been told they could write their own B-side, as they’d been able to on the last few singles. They were also allowed to bring in Joe Moretti to provide a second guitar — Moretti, who had played the solo on “Brand New Cadillac”, was an old friend of Clem Cattini’s, and they thought he’d add something to the record, and also thought they’d be doing him a favour by letting him make a session fee — he wasn’t a regular session player. So they all got together in the Freight Train coffee bar, and wrote another Heath/Robinson number. They weren’t going to do anything too original for a B-side, of course. They nicked a rhythm guitar part from “Linda Lu”, a minor US hit that Lee Hazelwood had produced for a Chuck Berry soundalike named Ray Sharpe, and which was itself clearly lifted from “Speedoo” by the Cadillacs: [Excerpt: Ray Sharpe, “Linda Lu”] They may also have nicked Joe Moretti’s lead guitar part as well, though there’s more doubt about this. There’s a Mickey and Sylvia record, “No Good Lover”, which hadn’t been released in the UK at the time, so it’s hard to imagine how they could have heard it, but the lead guitar part they hit on was very, very similar — maybe someone had played it on Radio Luxembourg: [Excerpt: Mickey and Sylvia, “No Good Lover”] They combined those musical ideas with a lyric that was partly a follow-on to the line in “Please Don’t Touch” about shaking too much, and partly a slightly bowdlerised version of a saying that Kidd had — when he saw a woman he found particularly attractive, he’d say “She gives me quivers in me membranes”. As it was a B-side, the track they recorded only took two takes, plus a brief overdub for Moretti to add some guitar shimmers, created by him using a cigarette lighter as a slide: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, “Shakin’ All Over”] The song was knocked off so quickly that they even kept in a mistake — before the guitar solo, Clem Cattini was meant to play just a one-bar fill. Instead he played for longer, which was very unlike Cattini, who was normally a professional’s professional. He asked for another take, but the producer just left it in, and that break going into the solo was one of the things that people latched on to: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, “Shakin’ All Over”] Despite the track having been put together from pre-existing bits, it had a life and vitality to it that no other British record except “Brand New Cadillac” had had, and Kidd had the added bonus of actually being able to hold a tune, unlike Vince Taylor. The record company quickly realised that “Shakin’ All Over” should be the record that they were pushing, and flipped the single. The Pirates appeared on Wham!, the latest Jack Good TV show, and immediately the record charted. It soon made number one, and became the first real proof to British listeners that British people could make rock and roll every bit as good as the Americans — at this point, everyone still thought Vince Taylor was from America. It was possibly Jack Good who also made the big change to Johnny Kidd’s appearance — he had a slight cast in one eye that got worse as the day went on, with his eyelid drooping more and more. Someone — probably Good — suggested that he should make this problem into an advantage, by wearing an eyepatch. He did, and the Pirates got pirate costumes to wear on stage, while Kidd would frantically roam the stage swinging a cutlass around. At this point, stagecraft was something almost unknown to British rock performers, who rarely did more than wear a cleanish suit and say “thank you” after each song. The only other act that was anything like as theatrical was Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, a minor act who had ripped off Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ act. The follow-up, “Restless”, was very much “Shakin’ All Over” part two, and made the top thirty. After that, sticking with the formula, they did a version of “Linda Lu”, but that didn’t make the top forty at all. Possibly the most interesting record they made at this point was a version of “I Just Want to Make Love to You”, a song Willie Dixon had written for Muddy Waters: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, “I Just Want to Make Love to You”] The Pirates were increasingly starting to include blues and R&B songs in their set, and the British blues boom artists of the next few years would often refer to the Pirates as being the band that had inspired them. Clem Cattini still says that Johnny Kidd was the best British blues singer he ever heard. But as their singles were doing less and less well, the Pirates decided to jump ship. Colin Hicks, Tommy Steele’s much less successful younger brother, had a backing band called the Cabin Boys, which Brian Gregg had been in before joining Terry Dene’s band. Hicks had now started performing an act that was based on Kidd’s, and for a tour of Italy, where he was quite popular, he wanted a new band — he asked the Pirates if they would leave Kidd and become the latest lineup of Cabin Boys, and they left, taking their costumes with them. Clem Cattini now says that agreeing was the worst move he ever made, but they parted on good terms — Kidd said “Alan, Brian and Clem left me to better themselves. How could I possibly begrudge them their opportunity?” We’ll be picking up the story of Alan, Brian, and Clem in a few months’ time, but in the meantime, Kidd picked up a new backing band, who had previously been performing as the Redcaps, backing a minor singer called Cuddly Dudley on his single “Sitting on a Train”: [Excerpt: Cuddly Dudley and the Redcaps, “Sitting on a Train”] That new lineup of Pirates didn’t last too long before the guitarist quit, due to ill health, but he was soon replaced by Mick Green, who is now regarded by many as one of the great British guitarists of all time, to the extent that Wilko Johnson, another British guitarist who came to prominence about fifteen years later, has said that he spent his entire career trying and failing to sound like MIck Green. In 1962 and 63 the group were playing clubs where they found a lot of new bands who they seemed to have things in common with. After playing the Cavern in Liverpool and a residency at the Star Club in Hamburg, they added Richie Barrett’s “Some Other Guy” and Arthur Alexander’s “A Shot of Rhythm and Blues” to their sets, two R&B numbers that were very popular among the Liverpool bands playing in Hamburg but otherwise almost unknown in the UK. Unfortunately, their version of “A Shot of Rhythm and Blues” didn’t chart, and their record label declined to issue their version of “Some Other Guy” — and then almost immediately the Liverpool group The Big Three released their version as a single, and it made the top forty. As the Pirates’ R&B sound was unsuccessful — no-one seemed to want British R&B, at all — they decided to go the other way, and record a song written by their new manager, Gordon Mills (who would later become better known for managing Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck). “I’ll Never Get Over You” was a very catchy, harmonised, song in the style of many of the new bands that were becoming popular, and it’s an enjoyable record, but it’s not really in the Pirates’ style: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, “I’ll Never Get Over You”] That made number four on the charts, but it would be Johnny Kidd and the Pirates’ last major hit. They did have a minor hit with another song by Mills, “Hungry For Love”, but a much better record, and a much better example of the Pirates’ style, was an R&B single released by the Pirates without Kidd. The plan at the time was that they would be split into two acts in the same way as Cliff Richard and the Shadows — Kidd would be a solo star, while the Pirates would release records of their own. The A-side of the Pirates’ single was a fairly good version of the Willie Dixon song “My Babe”, but to my ears the B-side is better — it’s a version of “Casting My Spell”, a song originally by an obscure duo called the Johnson Brothers, but popularised by Johnny Otis. The Pirates’ version is quite possibly the finest early British R&B record I’ve heard: [Excerpt: The Pirates, “Casting My Spell”] That didn’t chart, and the plan to split the two acts failed. Neither act ever had another hit again, and eventually the classic Mick Green lineup of the Pirates split up — Green left first, to join Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas, and the rest left one by one. In 1965, The Guess Who had a hit in the US with their cover version of “Shakin’ All Over”: [Excerpt: The Guess Who, “Shakin’ All Over”] The Pirates were reduced to remaking their own old hit as “Shakin’ All Over ’65” in an attempt to piggyback on that cover version, but the new version, which was dominated by a Hammond organ part, didn’t have any success. After the Pirates left Kidd, he got a new group, which he called the New Pirates. He continued making extremely good records on occasion, but had no success at all. Even though younger bands like the Rolling Stones and the Animals were making music very similar to his, he was regarded as an outdated novelty act, a relic of an earlier age from six years earlier. There was always the potential for him to have a comeback, but then in 1966 Kidd, who was never a very good driver and had been in a number of accidents, arrived late at a gig in Bolton. The manager refused to let him on stage because he’d arrived so late, so he drove off to find another gig. He’d been driving most of the day, and he crashed the car and died, as did one person in the vehicle he crashed into. His final single, “Send For That Girl”, was released after his death. It’s really a very good record, but at the time Kidd’s fortunes were so low that even his death didn’t make it chart: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the New Pirates, “Send For That Girl”] Kidd was only thirty when he died, and already a has-been, but he left behind the most impressive body of work of any pre-Beatles British act. Various lineups of Pirates have occasionally played since — including, at one point, Cattini and Gregg playing with Joe Moretti’s son Joe Moretti Jr — but none have ever captured that magic that gave millions of people quivers down the backbone and shakes in the kneebone.
Episode eighty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Shakin' All Over" by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, and how the first great British R&B band interacted with the entertainment industry. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifteen-minute bonus episode, on "Under Your Spell Again" by Buck Owens. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ ----more---- Resources As usual, I have put together a Mixcloud mix with every song excerpted in this podcast. Only one biography of Kidd has been written, and that's been out of print for nearly a quarter of a century and goes for ridiculous prices. Luckily Adie Barrett's site http://www.johnnykidd.co.uk/ is everything a fan-site should be, and has a detailed biographical section which I used for the broad-strokes outline. Clem Cattini: My Life, Through the Eye of a Tornado is somewhere between authorised biography and autobiography. It's not the best-written book ever, but it contains a lot of information about Clem's life. Spike & Co by Graham McCann gives a very full account of Associated London Scripts. Pete Frame's The Restless Generation is the best book available looking at British 50s rock and roll from a historical perspective. Be warned, though -- his jokey and irreverent style can, when dealing with people like Larry Parnes (who was gay and Jewish) very occasionally tip over into reinforcing homophobic and anti-semitic stereotypes for an easy laugh. Billy Bragg's Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World is one of the best books I've read on music at all, and gives far more detail about the historical background. And a fair chunk of the background information here also comes from the extended edition of Mark Lewisohn's Tune In, which is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the Beatles, British post-war culture, and British post-war music. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript As we get more into this story, we're going to see a lot more British acts becoming part of it. We've already looked at Lonnie Donegan, Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele, and Vince Taylor, but without spoiling anything I think most of you can guess that over the next year or so we're going to see a few guitar bands from the UK enter the narrative. Today we're going to look at one of the most important British bands of the early sixties -- a band who are now mostly known for one hit and a gimmick, but who made a massive contribution to the sound of rock music. We're going to look at Johnny Kidd and the Pirates: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, "Shakin' All Over"] Our story starts during the skiffle boom of 1957. If you don't remember the episodes we did on skiffle and early British rock and roll, it was a musical craze that swept Britain after Lonnie Donegan's surprise hit with "Rock Island Line". For about eighteen months, nearly every teenage boy in Britain was in a group playing a weird mix of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie songs, old folk tunes, and music-hall numbers, with a lineup usually consisting of guitar, banjo, someone using a washboard as percussion, and a homemade double bass made out of a teachest, a broom handle, and a single string. The skiffle craze died away as quickly as it started out, but it left a legacy -- thousands of young kids who'd learned at least three chords, who'd performed in public, and who knew that it was possible to make music without having gone through the homogenising star-making process. That would have repercussions throughout the length of this story, and to this day. But while almost everyone in a skiffle group was a kid, not everyone was. Obviously the big stars of the genre -- Lonnie Donegan, Chas McDevitt, the Vipers -- were all in their twenties when they became famous, and so were some of the amateurs who tried to jump on the bandwagon. In particular, there was Fred Heath. Heath was twenty-one when skiffle hit, and was already married -- while twenty-one might seem young now, at the time, it was an age when people were meant to have settled down and found a career. But Heath wasn't the career sort. There were rumours about him which attest to the kind of person he was perceived as being -- that he was a bookie's runner, that he'd not been drafted because he was thought to be completely impossible to discipline, that he had been working as a painter in a warehouse and urinated on the warehouse floor from the scaffolding he was on -- and he was clearly not someone who was *ever* going to settle down. The first skiffle band Heath formed was called Bats Heath and the Vampires, and featured Heath on vocals and rhythm guitar, Brian Englund on banjo, Frank Rouledge on lead guitar, and Clive Lazell on washboard. The group went through a variety of names, at one point naming themselves the Frantic Four in what seems to have been an attempt to confuse people into thinking they were seeing Don Lang's Frantic Five, the group who often appeared on Six-Five Special: [Excerpt: Don Lang and his Frantic Five, "Six-Five Hand Jivel"] The group went through the standard lineup and name changes that almost every amateur group went through, and they ended up as a five-piece group called the Five Nutters. And it was as the Five Nutters that they made their first attempts at becoming stars, when they auditioned for Carroll Levis. Levis was one of the most important people in showbusiness in the UK at this time. He'd just started a TV series, but for years before that his show had been on Radio Luxembourg, which was for many teenagers in the UK the most important radio station in the world. At the time, the BBC had a legal monopoly on radio broadcasting in the UK, but they had a couple of problems when it came to attracting a teenage audience. The first was that they had to provide entertainment for *everyone*, and so they couldn't play much music that only appealed to teenagers but was detested by adults. But there was a much bigger problem for the BBC when it came to recorded music. In the 1950s, the BBC ran three national radio stations -- the Light Programme, the Home Service, and the Third Programme -- along with one national TV channel. The Musicians' Union were worried that playing recorded music on these would lead to their members losing work, and so there was an agreement called "needletime", which allowed the BBC to use recorded music for twenty-two hours a week, total, across all three radio stations, plus another three hours for the TV. That had to cover every style of music from Little Richard through to Doris Day through to Beethoven. The rest of the time, if they had music, it had to be performed by live musicians, and so you'd be more likely to hear "Rock Around the Clock" as performed by the Northern Dance Orchestra than Bill Haley's version, and much of the BBC's youth programming had middle-aged British session musicians trying to replicate the sound of American records and failing miserably. But Luxembourg didn't have a needle-time rule, and so a commercial English-language station had been set up there, using transmitters powerful enough to reach most of Britain and Ireland. The station was owned and run in Britain, and most of the shows were recorded in London by British DJs like Brian Matthew, Jimmy Savile, and Alan Freeman, although there were also recordings of Alan Freed's show broadcast on it. The shows were mostly sponsored by record companies, who would make the DJs play just half of the record, so they could promote more songs in their twenty-minute slot, and this was the main way that any teenager in Britain would actually be able to hear rock and roll music. Oddly, even though he spent many years on Radio Luxembourg, Levis' show, which had originally been on the BBC before the War, was not a music show, but a talent show. Whether on his original BBC radio show, the Radio Luxembourg one, or his new TV show, the format was the same. He would alternate weeks between broadcasting and talent scouting. In talent scouting weeks he would go to a different city each week, where for five nights in a row he would put on talent shows featuring up to twenty different local amateur acts doing their party pieces -- without payment, of course, just for the exposure. At the end of the show, the audience would get a chance to clap for each act, and the act that got the loudest applause would go through to a final on the Saturday night. This of course meant that acts that wanted to win would get a lot of their friends and family to come along and cheer for them. The Saturday night would then have the winning acts -- which is to say, those who brought along the most paying customers -- compete against each other. The most popular of *those* acts would then get to appear on Levis' TV show the next week. It was, as you can imagine, an extremely lucrative business. When the Five Nutters appeared on Levis' Discoveries show, they were fairly sure that the audience clapped loudest for them, but they came third. Being the type of person he was, Fred Heath didn't take this lying down, and remonstrated with Levis, who eventually promised to get the Nutters some better gigs, one suspects just to shut Heath up. As a result of Levis putting in a good word for them, they got a few appearances at places like the 2Is, and made an appearance on the BBC's one concession to youth culture on the radio -- a new show called Saturday Skiffle Club. Around this time, the Five Nutters also recorded a demo disc. The first side was a skiffled-up version of "Shake, Rattle and Roll", with some extremely good jazzy lead guitar: [Excerpt: Fred Heath and the Five Nutters, "Shake, Rattle, and Roll"] I've heard quite a few records of skiffle groups, mostly by professionals, and it's clear that the Five Nutters were far more musical, and far more interesting, than most of them, even despite the audible sloppiness here. The point of skiffle was meant to be that it was do-it-yourself music that required no particular level of skill -- but in this case the Nutters' guitarist Frank Rouledge was clearly quite a bit more proficient than the run-of-the-mill skiffle guitarist. What was even more interesting about that recording, though, was the B-side, which was a song written by the group. It seems to have been mostly written by Heath, and it's called "Blood-Red Beauty" because Heath's wife was a redhead: [Excerpt: Fred Heath and the Five Nutters, "Blood Red Beauty"] The song itself is fairly unexceptional -- it's a standard Hank Williams style hillbilly boogie -- but at this time there was still in Britain a fairly hard and fast rule which had performers and songwriters as two distinct things. There were a handful of British rock musicians who were attempting to write their own material -- most prominently Billy Fury, a Larry Parnes artist who I'm afraid we don't have space for in the podcast, but who was one of the most interesting of the late-fifties British acts -- but in general, there was a fairly strict demarcation. It was very unusual for a British performer to also be trying to write songs. The Nutters split up shortly after their Saturday Skiffle Club appearance, and Heath formed various other groups called things like The Fabulous Freddie Heath Band and The Fred, Mike & Tom Show, before going back to the old name, with a new lineup of Freddie Heath and the Nutters consisting of himself on vocals, Mike West and Tom Brown -- who had been the Mike and Tom in The Fred, Mike, & Tom Show, on backing vocals, Tony Doherty on rhythm guitar, Ken McKay on drums, Johnny Gordon on bass, and on lead guitar Alan Caddy, a man who was known by the nickname "tea", which was partly a pun on his name, partly a reference to his drinking copious amounts of tea, and partly Cockney rhyming slang -- tea-leaf for thief -- as he was known for stealing cars. The Nutters got a new agent, Don Toy, and manager, Guy Robinson, but Heath seemed mostly to want to be a songwriter rather than a singer at this point. He was looking to place his songs with other artists, and in early 1959, he did. He wrote a song called "Please Don't Touch", and managed to get it placed with a vocal group called the Bachelors -- not the more famous group of that name, but a minor group who recorded for Parlophone, a subsidiary of EMI run by a young producer named George Martin. "Please Don't Touch" came out as the B-side of a Bachelors record: [Excerpt: The Bachelors, "Please Don't Touch"] One notable thing about the songwriting credit -- while most sources say Fred Heath wrote the song by himself, he gave Guy Robinson a co-writing credit on this and many of his future songs. This was partly because it was fairly standard at the time for managers to cut themselves in on their artists' credits, but also because that way the credit could read Heath Robinson -- Heath Robinson was a famous British cartoonist who was notable for drawing impossibly complicated inventions, and whose name had become part of the British language -- for American listeners, imagine that the song was credited to Rube Goldberg, and you'll have the idea. At this point, the Nutters had become quite a professional organisation, and so it was unsurprising that after "Please Don't Touch" brought Fred Heath to the attention of EMI, a different EMI imprint, HMV, signed them up. Much of the early success of the Nutters, and this professionalism, seems to be down to Don Toy, who seems to have been a remarkably multi-talented individual. As well as being an agent who had contracts with many London venues to provide them with bands, he was also an electrical engineer specialising in sound equipment. He built a two-hundred watt bass amp for the group, at a time when almost every band just put their bass guitar through a normal guitar amp, and twenty-five watts was considered quite loud. He also built a portable tape echo device that could be used on stage to make Heath's voice sound like it would on the records. Heath later bought the first Copicat echo unit to be made -- this was a mass-produced device that would be used by a lot of British bands in the early sixties, and Heath's had serial number 0001 -- but before that became available, he used Toy's device, which may well have been the very first on-stage echo device in the UK. On top of that, Toy has also claimed that most of the songs credited to Heath and Robinson were also co-written by him, but he left his name off because the credit looked better without it. And whether or not that's true, he was also the drummer on this first session -- Ken McKay, the Nutters' drummer, was a bit unsteady in his tempo, and Toy was a decent player and took over from him when in April 1959, Fred Heath and the Nutters went into Abbey Road Studio 2, to record their own version of "Please Don't Touch". This was ostensibly produced by HMV producer Walter Ridley, but Ridley actually left rock and roll records to his engineer, Peter Sullivan: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, "Please Don't Touch"] It was only when the session was over that they saw the paperwork for it. Fred Heath was the only member of the Nutters to be signed to EMI, with the rest of the group being contracted as session musicians, but that was absolutely normal for the time period -- Tommy Steele's Steelmen and Cliff Richard's Drifters hadn't been signed as artists either. What they were concerned about was the band name on the paperwork -- it didn't say Fred Heath and the Nutters, but Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. They were told that that was going to be their new name. They never did find out who it was who had decided on this for them, but from now on Fred Heath was Johnny Kidd. The record was promoted on Radio Luxembourg, and everyone thought it was going to go to number one. Unfortunately, strike action prevented that, and the record was only a moderate chart success -- the highest position it hit in any of the UK charts at the time was number twenty on the Melody Maker chart. But that didn't stop it from becoming an acknowledged classic of British rock and roll. It was so popular that it actually saw an American cover version, which was something that almost never happened with British songs, though Chico Holliday's version was unsuccessful: [Excerpt: Chico Holliday, "Please Don't Touch"] It remained such a fond memory for British rockers that in 1980 the heavy metal groups Motorhead and Girlschool recorded it as the supergroup HeadGirl, and it became the biggest hit either group ever had, reaching number five in the British charts: [Excerpt: Headgirl, "Please Don't Touch"] But while "Please Don't Touch" was one of the very few good rock and roll records made in Britain, it wasn't the one for which Johnny Kidd and the Pirates would be remembered. It was, though, enough to make them a big act. They toured the country on a bill compered by Liverpool comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, and they made several appearances on Saturday Club, which had now dropped the "skiffle" name and was the only place anyone could hear rock and roll on BBC radio. Of course, the British record industry having the immense sense of potential it did, HMV immediately capitalised on the success of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates doing a great group performance of an original rock and roll number, by releasing as a follow-up single, a version of the old standard "If You Were the Only Girl in the World and I Were the Only Boy" by Johnny without the Pirates, but with chorus and orchestra conducted by Ivor Raymonde: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd, "If You Were The Only Girl in the World"] For some reason -- I can't imagine why -- that didn't chart. One suspects that young Lemmy wasn't quite as fond of that one as "Please Don't Touch". The B-side was a quite good rocker, with some nice guitar work from the session guitarist Bert Weedon, but no-one bothered to buy the record at the time, so they didn't turn it over to hear the other side. The follow-up was better -- a reworking of Marv Johnson's "You've Got What it Takes", one of the hits that Berry Gordy had been writing and producing for Johnson. Johnson's version made the top five in the UK, but the Pirates' version still made the top thirty. But by this time there had been some changes. The first change that was made was that the Pirates changed manager -- while Robinson would continue getting songwriting credits, the group were now managed through Associated London Scripts, by Stan "Scruffy" Dale. Associated London Scripts was, as the name suggests, primarily a company that produced scripts. It was started as a writers' co-operative, and in its early days it was made up of seven people. There was Frankie Howerd, one of the most popular stand-up comedians of the time, who was always looking for new material; Spike Milligan, the writer and one of the stars of the Goon Show, the most important surreal comedy of the fifties; Eric Sykes, who was a writer-performer who was involved in almost every important comedy programme of the decade, including co-writing many Goon episodes with Milligan, before becoming a TV star himself; Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who wrote the most important *sitcom* of the fifties and early sixties, Hancock's Half Hour; and Scruffy Dale, who was Howerd and Sykes' manager and was supposed to take care of the business stuff. In fact, though, most of the business was actually taken care of by the seventh person and only woman, Beryl Vertue, who was taken on as the secretary on the basis of an interview that mostly asked about her tea-making skills, but soon found herself doing almost everything -- the men in the office got so used to asking her "Could you make the tea, Beryl?", "Could you type up this script, Beryl?" that they just started asking her things like "Could you renegotiate our contract with the BBC, Beryl?" She eventually became one of the most important women in the TV industry, with her most recent prominent credit being as executive producer on the BBC's Sherlock up until 2017, more than sixty years after she joined the business. Vertue did all the work to keep the company running -- a company which grew to about thirty writers, and between the early fifties and mid sixties, as well as Hancock's Half Hour and the Goons, its writers created Sykes, Beyond Our Ken, Round the Horne, Steptoe and Son, The Bedsitting Room, the Running, Jumping, Standing Still Film, Til Death Us Do Part, Citizen James, and the Daleks. That's a list off the top of my head -- it would actually be easier to list memorable British comedy programmes and films of the fifties and early sixties that *didn't* have a script from one of ALS' writers. And while Vertue was keeping Marty Feldman, John Junkin, Barry Took, Johnny Speight, John Antrobus and all the rest of these new writers in work, Scruffy Dale was trying to create a career in pop management. As several people associated with ALS had made records with George Martin at Parlophone, he had an in there, and some of the few pop successes that Martin had in the fifties were producing acts managed by Dale through ALS, like the Vipers Skiffle Group: [Excerpt: The Vipers Skiffle Group, "Don't You Rock Me, Daddy-O"] and a young performer named Jim Smith, who wanted to be a comedian and actor, but who Dale renamed after himself, and who had a string of hits as Jim Dale: [Excerpt: Jim Dale, "Be My Girl"] Jim Dale eventually did become a film and TV star, starting with presenting Six-Five Special, and is now best known for having starred in many of the Carry On films and narrating the Harry Potter audiobooks, but at the time he was still a pop star. Jim Dale and the Vipers were the two professional acts headlining an otherwise-amateur tour that Scruffy Dale put together that was very much like Carroll Levis' Discoveries show, except without the need to even give the winners a slot on the TV every other week. This tour was supposed to be a hunt for the country's best skiffle group, and there was going to be a grand national final, and the winner of *that* would go on TV. Except they just kept dragging the tour out for eighteen months, until the skiffle fad was completely over and no-one cared, so there never was a national final. And in the meantime the Vipers had to sit through twenty groups of spotty kids a night, all playing "Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O", and then go out and play it themselves, every night for eighteen months. Scruffy Dale was unscrupulous in other ways as well, and not long after he'd taken on the Pirates' management he was sacked from ALS. Spike Milligan had never liked Dale -- when told that Dale had lost a testicle in the war, he'd merely replied "I hope he dropped it on Dresden" -- but Frankie Howerd and Eric Sykes had always been impressed with his ability to negotiate deals. But then Frankie Howerd found out that he'd missed out on lucrative opportunities because Dale had shoved letters in his coat pocket and forgotten about them for a fortnight. He started investigating a few more things, and it turned out that Dale had been siphoning money from Sykes and Howerd's personal bank accounts into his own, having explained to their bank manager that it would just be resting in his account for them, because they were showbiz people who would spend it all too fast, so he was looking after them. And he'd also been doing other bits of creative accounting -- every success his musical acts had was marked down as something he'd done independently, and all the profits went to him, while all the unsuccessful ventures were marked down as being ALS projects, and their losses charged to the company. So neither Dale nor the Pirates were with Associated London Scripts very long. But Dale made one very important change -- he and Don Toy decided between them that most of the Pirates had to go. There were six backing musicians in the group if you counted the two backing vocalists, who all needed paying, and only one could read music -- they weren't professional enough to make a career in the music business. So all of the Pirates except Alan Caddy were sacked. Mike West and Tony Doherty formed another band, Robby Hood and His Merry Men, whose first single was written by Kidd (though it's rare enough I've not been able to find a copy anywhere online). The new backing group was going to be a trio, modelled on Johnny Burnette's Rock and Roll Trio -- just one guitar, bass, and drums. They had Caddy on lead guitar, Clem Cattini on drums, and Brian Gregg on bass. Cattini was regarded as by far the best rock drummer in Britain at the time. He'd played with Terry Dene's backing band the Dene Aces, and can be seen glumly backing Dene in the film The Golden Disc: [Excerpt: Terry Dene, "Candy Floss"] Gregg had joined Dene's band, and they'd both then moved on to be touring musicians for Larry Parnes, backing most of the acts on a tour featuring Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran that we'll be looking at next week. They'd played with various of Parnes' acts for a while, but had then asked for more money, and he'd refused, so they'd quit working for Parnes and joined Vince Taylor and the Playboys. They'd only played with the Playboys a few weeks when they moved on to Chas McDevitt's group. For a brief time, McDevitt had been the biggest star in skiffle other than Lonnie Donegan, but he was firmly in the downward phase of his career at this point. McDevitt also owned a coffee bar, the Freight Train, named after his biggest hit, and most of the musicians in London would hang out there. And after Clem Cattini and Brian Gregg had joined the Pirates, it was at the Freight Train that the song for which the group would be remembered was written. They were going to go into the studio to record another song chosen by the record label -- a version of the old standard "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" -- because EMI had apparently not yet learned that if you had Johnny Kidd record old standards, no-one bought it, but if you had him record bluesy rock and roll you had a hit. But they'd been told they could write their own B-side, as they'd been able to on the last few singles. They were also allowed to bring in Joe Moretti to provide a second guitar -- Moretti, who had played the solo on "Brand New Cadillac", was an old friend of Clem Cattini's, and they thought he'd add something to the record, and also thought they'd be doing him a favour by letting him make a session fee -- he wasn't a regular session player. So they all got together in the Freight Train coffee bar, and wrote another Heath/Robinson number. They weren't going to do anything too original for a B-side, of course. They nicked a rhythm guitar part from "Linda Lu", a minor US hit that Lee Hazelwood had produced for a Chuck Berry soundalike named Ray Sharpe, and which was itself clearly lifted from “Speedoo” by the Cadillacs: [Excerpt: Ray Sharpe, "Linda Lu"] They may also have nicked Joe Moretti's lead guitar part as well, though there's more doubt about this. There's a Mickey and Sylvia record, "No Good Lover", which hadn't been released in the UK at the time, so it's hard to imagine how they could have heard it, but the lead guitar part they hit on was very, very similar -- maybe someone had played it on Radio Luxembourg: [Excerpt: Mickey and Sylvia, "No Good Lover"] They combined those musical ideas with a lyric that was partly a follow-on to the line in "Please Don't Touch" about shaking too much, and partly a slightly bowdlerised version of a saying that Kidd had -- when he saw a woman he found particularly attractive, he'd say "She gives me quivers in me membranes". As it was a B-side, the track they recorded only took two takes, plus a brief overdub for Moretti to add some guitar shimmers, created by him using a cigarette lighter as a slide: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, "Shakin' All Over"] The song was knocked off so quickly that they even kept in a mistake -- before the guitar solo, Clem Cattini was meant to play just a one-bar fill. Instead he played for longer, which was very unlike Cattini, who was normally a professional's professional. He asked for another take, but the producer just left it in, and that break going into the solo was one of the things that people latched on to: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, "Shakin' All Over"] Despite the track having been put together from pre-existing bits, it had a life and vitality to it that no other British record except "Brand New Cadillac" had had, and Kidd had the added bonus of actually being able to hold a tune, unlike Vince Taylor. The record company quickly realised that "Shakin' All Over" should be the record that they were pushing, and flipped the single. The Pirates appeared on Wham!, the latest Jack Good TV show, and immediately the record charted. It soon made number one, and became the first real proof to British listeners that British people could make rock and roll every bit as good as the Americans -- at this point, everyone still thought Vince Taylor was from America. It was possibly Jack Good who also made the big change to Johnny Kidd's appearance -- he had a slight cast in one eye that got worse as the day went on, with his eyelid drooping more and more. Someone -- probably Good -- suggested that he should make this problem into an advantage, by wearing an eyepatch. He did, and the Pirates got pirate costumes to wear on stage, while Kidd would frantically roam the stage swinging a cutlass around. At this point, stagecraft was something almost unknown to British rock performers, who rarely did more than wear a cleanish suit and say "thank you" after each song. The only other act that was anything like as theatrical was Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, a minor act who had ripped off Screamin' Jay Hawkins' act. The follow-up, "Restless", was very much "Shakin' All Over" part two, and made the top thirty. After that, sticking with the formula, they did a version of "Linda Lu", but that didn't make the top forty at all. Possibly the most interesting record they made at this point was a version of "I Just Want to Make Love to You", a song Willie Dixon had written for Muddy Waters: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, "I Just Want to Make Love to You"] The Pirates were increasingly starting to include blues and R&B songs in their set, and the British blues boom artists of the next few years would often refer to the Pirates as being the band that had inspired them. Clem Cattini still says that Johnny Kidd was the best British blues singer he ever heard. But as their singles were doing less and less well, the Pirates decided to jump ship. Colin Hicks, Tommy Steele's much less successful younger brother, had a backing band called the Cabin Boys, which Brian Gregg had been in before joining Terry Dene's band. Hicks had now started performing an act that was based on Kidd's, and for a tour of Italy, where he was quite popular, he wanted a new band -- he asked the Pirates if they would leave Kidd and become the latest lineup of Cabin Boys, and they left, taking their costumes with them. Clem Cattini now says that agreeing was the worst move he ever made, but they parted on good terms -- Kidd said "Alan, Brian and Clem left me to better themselves. How could I possibly begrudge them their opportunity?" We'll be picking up the story of Alan, Brian, and Clem in a few months' time, but in the meantime, Kidd picked up a new backing band, who had previously been performing as the Redcaps, backing a minor singer called Cuddly Dudley on his single "Sitting on a Train": [Excerpt: Cuddly Dudley and the Redcaps, "Sitting on a Train"] That new lineup of Pirates didn't last too long before the guitarist quit, due to ill health, but he was soon replaced by Mick Green, who is now regarded by many as one of the great British guitarists of all time, to the extent that Wilko Johnson, another British guitarist who came to prominence about fifteen years later, has said that he spent his entire career trying and failing to sound like MIck Green. In 1962 and 63 the group were playing clubs where they found a lot of new bands who they seemed to have things in common with. After playing the Cavern in Liverpool and a residency at the Star Club in Hamburg, they added Richie Barrett's "Some Other Guy" and Arthur Alexander's "A Shot of Rhythm and Blues" to their sets, two R&B numbers that were very popular among the Liverpool bands playing in Hamburg but otherwise almost unknown in the UK. Unfortunately, their version of "A Shot of Rhythm and Blues" didn't chart, and their record label declined to issue their version of "Some Other Guy" -- and then almost immediately the Liverpool group The Big Three released their version as a single, and it made the top forty. As the Pirates' R&B sound was unsuccessful -- no-one seemed to want British R&B, at all -- they decided to go the other way, and record a song written by their new manager, Gordon Mills (who would later become better known for managing Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck). "I'll Never Get Over You" was a very catchy, harmonised, song in the style of many of the new bands that were becoming popular, and it's an enjoyable record, but it's not really in the Pirates' style: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, "I'll Never Get Over You"] That made number four on the charts, but it would be Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' last major hit. They did have a minor hit with another song by Mills, "Hungry For Love", but a much better record, and a much better example of the Pirates' style, was an R&B single released by the Pirates without Kidd. The plan at the time was that they would be split into two acts in the same way as Cliff Richard and the Shadows -- Kidd would be a solo star, while the Pirates would release records of their own. The A-side of the Pirates' single was a fairly good version of the Willie Dixon song "My Babe", but to my ears the B-side is better -- it's a version of "Casting My Spell", a song originally by an obscure duo called the Johnson Brothers, but popularised by Johnny Otis. The Pirates' version is quite possibly the finest early British R&B record I've heard: [Excerpt: The Pirates, "Casting My Spell"] That didn't chart, and the plan to split the two acts failed. Neither act ever had another hit again, and eventually the classic Mick Green lineup of the Pirates split up -- Green left first, to join Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas, and the rest left one by one. In 1965, The Guess Who had a hit in the US with their cover version of "Shakin' All Over": [Excerpt: The Guess Who, "Shakin' All Over"] The Pirates were reduced to remaking their own old hit as "Shakin' All Over '65" in an attempt to piggyback on that cover version, but the new version, which was dominated by a Hammond organ part, didn't have any success. After the Pirates left Kidd, he got a new group, which he called the New Pirates. He continued making extremely good records on occasion, but had no success at all. Even though younger bands like the Rolling Stones and the Animals were making music very similar to his, he was regarded as an outdated novelty act, a relic of an earlier age from six years earlier. There was always the potential for him to have a comeback, but then in 1966 Kidd, who was never a very good driver and had been in a number of accidents, arrived late at a gig in Bolton. The manager refused to let him on stage because he'd arrived so late, so he drove off to find another gig. He'd been driving most of the day, and he crashed the car and died, as did one person in the vehicle he crashed into. His final single, "Send For That Girl", was released after his death. It's really a very good record, but at the time Kidd's fortunes were so low that even his death didn't make it chart: [Excerpt: Johnny Kidd and the New Pirates, "Send For That Girl"] Kidd was only thirty when he died, and already a has-been, but he left behind the most impressive body of work of any pre-Beatles British act. Various lineups of Pirates have occasionally played since -- including, at one point, Cattini and Gregg playing with Joe Moretti's son Joe Moretti Jr -- but none have ever captured that magic that gave millions of people quivers down the backbone and shakes in the kneebone.
Harrogate Theatre are looking ahead to singer songwriter Roger Davies in concert, whilst the Royal Hall welcome two legends of entertainment - Des O'Connor and Jimmy Tarbuck!
In conversation with Legendary Comedian Jimmy Tarbuck inbetween rounds on the golf course. To find out more information about this and my other interviews, please go to my website: www.beyondthetitle.co.uk www.facebook.com/beyondthetitle
John talks to comedy legend JIMMY TARBUCK, plus a short cameo from DES O'CONNOR.
Strictly Come Dancing is back...we had the launch last Saturday night which apparently blew The X Factor out of the water....now there's a surprise.....I must say I do enjoy the spectacle of wonderfully sculpted young ladies gliding around the dance floor and I don't care how sexist that sounds....and do not intend to apologise to the pathetic P.C.Brigade....talking of which there has been a suggestion regarding same sex dancing on the show......if that happens count me out....two blokes doing a slow fox is not for me.....and I think they could wave goodbye to 90% of their viewers. 2.And on the equality front.....there was a programme on the BBC discussing politics with a panel consisting of just women....with invited guests...also women....and there have naturally been complaints from those who obviously don't understand that sexism and equality only goes one way.....the complaints were read out on BBC Newswatch...and as usual on comes some big cheese...a bloke...and off he goes saying that they feel they have picked the best panel....and they are trying to attract younger viewers etc etc.....I must say he looked a bit nervous....probably because his wife was probably standing behind him with a rolling pin.......Newswatch is like a comedy show....and it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. 3.Talking of comedy I have never been a fan of Josh Widdicombe...but I watched his stand up show on The Apollo and found him very funny....his observations were very good and I warmed to him....I was however watching it late at night and had the subtitles on...I thought I would watch it again on catch up which sadly let him down as he used the F word far too much (which wasn't on the subtitles) ....and definitely spoilt the act.....I'm no prude but if swear words are used it should be in a humorous way....not for the sake of using them.....otherwise he did well......and locally we have the latest comedy partnership appearing....Des O'Connor and Jimmy Tarbuck.....I'm assuming it will be an early finish so they can get back to the old folks home. 4.Katy Hopkins has been upsetting everyone with her outspoken opinions on immigrants and feminism etc....she appears on Facebook and really kicks off....and she upset everyone on "Loose Women"....I believe....not that I watch it....I try and avoid rubbish....but apparently she is a big hit in America with those who complain about illegal immigrants....which is a joke in itself....ask the original American Indians who are illegal immigrants.....the thing is with Katy she is trying to make a name for herself by being controversial which she will do if people get upset and rise to the bait....she should simply be ignored and she will eventually self destruct and give us all a rest. 5.The song this week is one from one of my Wirral DVDs and points out the changes which take place around us without us even noticing....but we have an island off the west coast of Wirral called Hilbre Island which is spectacular and the song says no matter what changes around us we will always have the seagulls over Hilbre....I think you will appreciate the lyrics as you are one of the lucky ones who come from here.
Strictly Come Dancing is back...we had the launch last Saturday night which apparently blew The X Factor out of the water....now there's a surprise.....I must say I do enjoy the spectacle of wonderfully sculpted young ladies gliding around the dance floor and I don't care how sexist that sounds....and do not intend to apologise to the pathetic P.C.Brigade....talking of which there has been a suggestion regarding same sex dancing on the show......if that happens count me out....two blokes doing a slow fox is not for me.....and I think they could wave goodbye to 90% of their viewers. 2.And on the equality front.....there was a programme on the BBC discussing politics with a panel consisting of just women....with invited guests...also women....and there have naturally been complaints from those who obviously don't understand that sexism and equality only goes one way.....the complaints were read out on BBC Newswatch...and as usual on comes some big cheese...a bloke...and off he goes saying that they feel they have picked the best panel....and they are trying to attract younger viewers etc etc.....I must say he looked a bit nervous....probably because his wife was probably standing behind him with a rolling pin.......Newswatch is like a comedy show....and it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. 3.Talking of comedy I have never been a fan of Josh Widdicombe...but I watched his stand up show on The Apollo and found him very funny....his observations were very good and I warmed to him....I was however watching it late at night and had the subtitles on...I thought I would watch it again on catch up which sadly let him down as he used the F word far too much (which wasn't on the subtitles) ....and definitely spoilt the act.....I'm no prude but if swear words are used it should be in a humorous way....not for the sake of using them.....otherwise he did well......and locally we have the latest comedy partnership appearing....Des O'Connor and Jimmy Tarbuck.....I'm assuming it will be an early finish so they can get back to the old folks home. 4.Katy Hopkins has been upsetting everyone with her outspoken opinions on immigrants and feminism etc....she appears on Facebook and really kicks off....and she upset everyone on "Loose Women"....I believe....not that I watch it....I try and avoid rubbish....but apparently she is a big hit in America with those who complain about illegal immigrants....which is a joke in itself....ask the original American Indians who are illegal immigrants.....the thing is with Katy she is trying to make a name for herself by being controversial which she will do if people get upset and rise to the bait....she should simply be ignored and she will eventually self destruct and give us all a rest. 5.The song this week is one from one of my Wirral DVDs and points out the changes which take place around us without us even noticing....but we have an island off the west coast of Wirral called Hilbre Island which is spectacular and the song says no matter what changes around us we will always have the seagulls over Hilbre....I think you will appreciate the lyrics as you are one of the lucky ones who come from here.
We're back! Two weeks have passed and the MoD Dream Team have returned to talk it up Dice Masters once again. In this episode we have a distinctly International feel; we start in Great Britain and take a look back to the UK Nationals just passed, hop over the Atlantic for some US Nats chat from our roving reporter (Including an exclusive interview with the new US National Champ), and finish up with some linguistic flair by Chris from the land of the Rising Sun. All this - and yet more salty whinging from Andy about drawing games and when does turn zero start. Yet another belter of an episode - don't delay - hit play now! Legal Bits n' Bobs United Kingdom: God Save the Queen by National Anthems is licensed under a Creative Commons License. It was sourced from a Soundcloud account entitled “National Anthems”. The name of the creator/creators has not been provided on that account. The license can be found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode The Dice transition sound effect was sourced from freesound.org. The account it was downloaded from is “dermotte” and is shared under the following license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Our tremendous 'Rule Britannia' intro is used with permission from Richard Campbell and is a short extract from his "England Rock Anthems" track. We think Richard's work is exceptional. So visit Richard's website here for more of his music: http://www.richardcampbellmusic.co.uk/ The "Star Bangled Banner" riff was sourced from freesound.org. It's a short extract from a selection of riffs. It was uploaded by "SusyChristianson" and is used under this license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
A radio show on the internet with no music featuring stories and some old interviews from my twenty years in radio. This week Star Wars chat, my first ever rollercoaster and a conversation with comedy legend Jimmy Tarbuck,
Recorded at Molineux Monday 17th July 2017 This week Jimmy Tarbuck lets us know about his show with Des O'Connor at The Grand, we meet JJR Films and Vloggs to chat about their movie 'Stay Inside', Ruel Dirham tells us about this summers big thing... the first Tom Tilly Mystery, we hear from the set designer for Brassed off and Nigel Barber talks about his role in Funny Girl. Music comes from Bayley with former 'The Open' frontman Steve Bayley sharing his music.
Tribute given by Jimmy Tarbuck at A Service of Thanksgiving for the Life and Work of Ronnie Corbett CBE #westminsterabbey #ronniecorbett #jimmytarbuck
Listen to John's 2015 interview with JIMMY TARBUCK. #jimmytarbuck
Don looks for what interests his lively mind and it is always an interesting half hour to see what has been trending. There was a lad on the television who has worked out how to save a fortune on shopping-by using vouchers He is only 16... but what a character! He goes on line and anywhere he can get discount vouchers he gets them and in one instance he reduced a shopping bill from £104 to £1.30. We discussed Jimmy Tarbuck who has allegedly historically sexually assaulted some bloke in the seventies. Don thinks this is all getting very silly and out of hand because no charges have been made yet (as usual). Even the speaker in Parliament has been accused of raping two men IN THEIR TWENTIES. He said he was socialising with one of his accusers just last week. We also looked at the balance in the presentation of news as events are taking place in the UK celebrating the war heroes who are still around….the North Atlantic convoys who took supplies to the Russians dodging U-Boats is one point of reference where many lives were lost and, at last, the bravery of these men is now being recognised and the few survivors are being airtime on television. To spoil this occasion there is mass coverage of Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement. Football has its importance but this was one item with which it should not have interfered. There has been a tragic speedboat accident in the West Country when a man was thrown out of the boat which then went out of control and circled around at high speed…killing him and a young girl…the other passengers were rescued but are in a bad way….This has happened because anyone can get in a boat and put to sea. It should all be licensed like cars…and you should have to take a test by law. . Finally,…The Cheshire Cats is still going strong and still raising money for sick kids…our lovely barmaid Michelle is going to do a parachute jump next week {weather permitting} to raise money for Alderhey Children’s Hospital….we are backing her with a thousand pounds….she’s worth every penny…and pulls a great pint…..the website is www.thecheshirecats.co.uk
Don looks for what interests his lively mind and it is always an interesting half hour to see what has been trending. There was a lad on the television who has worked out how to save a fortune on shopping-by using vouchers He is only 16... but what a character! He goes on line and anywhere he can get discount vouchers he gets them and in one instance he reduced a shopping bill from £104 to £1.30. We discussed Jimmy Tarbuck who has allegedly historically sexually assaulted some bloke in the seventies. Don thinks this is all getting very silly and out of hand because no charges have been made yet (as usual). Even the speaker in Parliament has been accused of raping two men IN THEIR TWENTIES. He said he was socialising with one of his accusers just last week. We also looked at the balance in the presentation of news as events are taking place in the UK celebrating the war heroes who are still around….the North Atlantic convoys who took supplies to the Russians dodging U-Boats is one point of reference where many lives were lost and, at last, the bravery of these men is now being recognised and the few survivors are being airtime on television. To spoil this occasion there is mass coverage of Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement. Football has its importance but this was one item with which it should not have interfered. There has been a tragic speedboat accident in the West Country when a man was thrown out of the boat which then went out of control and circled around at high speed…killing him and a young girl…the other passengers were rescued but are in a bad way….This has happened because anyone can get in a boat and put to sea. It should all be licensed like cars…and you should have to take a test by law. . Finally,…The Cheshire Cats is still going strong and still raising money for sick kids…our lovely barmaid Michelle is going to do a parachute jump next week {weather permitting} to raise money for Alderhey Children’s Hospital….we are backing her with a thousand pounds….she’s worth every penny…and pulls a great pint…..the website is www.thecheshirecats.co.uk
Ever seen the Wu Tang Clan in pantyhose? Is Jimmy Tarbuck the Loch Ness Monster? More illusion, confusion and self delusion with The Colonel
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the entertainer Jimmy Tarbuck. Originally from Liverpool, he began his career as a redcoat at Butlins holiday camp. He went on to become a compere at the London Palladium and fronted numerous comedy and game shows including 'Winner Takes All'. In recent years he's returned to the stand up circuit and is a popular after-dinner speaker. He's also turned his passion for golf into a new venture with a series of videos on the world's best and worst courses.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Oh! My Beloved Father (O Mio Babbino Caro) by Giacomo Puccini Book: The Essential Henry Longhurst by Henry Longhurst Luxury: Own set of golf clubs and balls
This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the entertainer Jimmy Tarbuck. Originally from Liverpool, he began his career as a redcoat at Butlins holiday camp. He went on to become a compere at the London Palladium and fronted numerous comedy and game shows including 'Winner Takes All'. In recent years he's returned to the stand up circuit and is a popular after-dinner speaker. He's also turned his passion for golf into a new venture with a series of videos on the world's best and worst courses. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Oh! My Beloved Father (O Mio Babbino Caro) by Giacomo Puccini Book: The Essential Henry Longhurst by Henry Longhurst Luxury: Own set of golf clubs and balls
Roy Plomley's castaway is comedian Jimmy Tarbuck. Favourite track: The Girls I Like by Max Miller Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica Luxury: Golf clubs and balls
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