Saturday, 14 September 2024

Casting Out Demons Again

It staggers me to realise that, after penning this blog for almost 17 years now, I have only featured A. A. Allen’s incredible output once, seven years ago when I posted Crying Demons (now updated), a staple of pretty much every ‘worst records’ list compiled. Crying Demons is a classic noted, on the reverse of one of Allen’s many releases, as ‘one of the most amazing recordings of demons speaking through people who are possessed by them. Recorded in an actual service where A. A. Allen is actually casting out demons and these demons are talking and saying, “I will not come out; you cannot cast me out!” etc. A real lesson and Bible study in demonology. Convinces the worst skeptic that demons are not only real but that God has given His servant power over them. Proves demons are real today!’

 

Crying Demons was just one of the dozens of bizarre releases from Pastor A. A. Allen’s Miracle Revival Recordings label, established in the mid-1950s. Today, I present you with another of these wonderful curiosities, in full: Did God Call the Apostle Paul to Preach the Gospel to the Black Man?, noted as Allen's heartfelt attempt at integration. His shows were open to both Black and white audiences from the start, although in the years before the Civil Rights movement came to the fore, he often had trouble convincing Black audiences that they were welcome to participate, even though he was one of the first white preachers to tour with a Black gospel choir.


In that previous post I skirted over Allen's colourful life, but here is a more detailed version of his rather wild story, should you care to read it.

 

Asa Alonso Allen was born on 27 March 1911 (or possibly 1910) in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas. His parents, Asa and Leona, decided to name him after his father and his father's uncle, a Presbyterian minister. And that’s about all his real origin story and the Legend of Preacher Allen agree on. The Young Asa was brought up with two brothers and four sisters, but the children were neglected – both parents have been castigated in the ‘official’ story of Allen’s upbringing as ‘drunkards’ – and the Allen kids were raised in poverty.

 

According to Allen’s own version of his backstory (or his wife’s anyway: the source for most of his legend seems to come from her 1954 book God’s Man of Faith and Power), his parents made home brew liquor behind their shack, and his mother is supposed to have continued to drink heavily while she was pregnant with Allen. A favourite pastime of his parents was to give Allen and his siblings some of their home brew liquor until they were drunk. Then they would sit back and laugh at their children's drunken antics until they would either fall down or pass out. Allen's mother reputedly filled his bottle with liquor to keep him from crying, and he would go to bed nightly with a baby bottle filled with the home brew.

 

Tobacco was also plentiful, and Allen claimed that he learned to smoke before he was old enough to go to school. His father was a talented musician, and the local church asked him to lead their choir. He usually did so, according to family lore, while drunk. Young Allen caught hold of those talents and sometimes stood on the street comer singing to the crowd for nickels, and dimes.

 

Apparently all this happened before Asa was four years old, as at that point his parents rocky relationship finally broke, and Mrs. Allen took Asa and his siblings off to Carthage, Missouri, where she remarried: another drunkard, unsurprisingly. One of his brothers died young, leaving his mother and stepfather with six young mouths to feed. By the time he was in his teens he left home for good, paying for his own liquor by picking cotton and digging ditches. When the Great Depression hit, he started brewing and dealing in bootleg booze, He returned home to his mother, and the two of them began to operate an illicit speakeasy.

 

After hearing a woman preacher in Missouri in 1934, he began to dedicate his life to God. His marriage to Lexie in 1936 and the arrival of his first child strengthened his conviction and he decided to train for the ministry, with Pentecostal denomination the Assembly of God.

 

It’s the perfect colourful story: a young man on the road to hell finding redemption in the lord and mending his wicked ways, but although there’s no denying Allen’s early life was rough, he clearly embellished the drama to enhance his brand’s value. For Asa Alonso Allen was very much a brand, and this is all grist to the mill when you’re headlining healing shows under a tent that can sit up to 20,000 people at a time.

 

He began work as a healing, singing minister, but found it difficult to support his growing family, and decided instead to take on a permanent role in a church in Texas. Then, in 1950, he attended an Oral Roberts tent revival meeting. Inspired, he began holding his own evangelistic meetings. Soon it was being claimed that people attending his meetings were being healed in their seats as he preached. In 1951 he bought his first tent: his touring ministry was a massive success and by 1953 he was appearing regularly on radio stations across the U.S., Mexico, Cuba, and Latin America.

 

Two years later, Allen was pulled over for drink driving in Knoxville, Tennessee. He would later claim that someone had put something in his drink at the local restaurant. The Assembly of God organisation asked him to pull out of ministry for a period, and recommended that he be dropped from their church. Allen claimed that he resigned from the AoG before they had opportunity to ask him to leave, but the truth of the matter was that he was defrocked by the AoG for ‘conduct unbecoming a minister’. Allen’s expulsion was based on the fact that he jumped bail: according to a spokesman for Knox County Criminal Court, Allen had been arrested by the highway patrol on a charge of driving while under the influence of an intoxicant, but ‘the case did not come to trial because Allen failed to appear, forfeited his $1,000 bail and left the State. If ever enters Tennessee again, he can arrested and tried on the charge.’ Allen simply told the press that ‘you cannot believe everything some jealous preachers say!’

 

From here on in Allen would continue as an independent minister. He started his own publication, Miracle Magazine, which by the end of 1956 had over 200,000 subscribers. He began the Miracle Revival Fellowship aimed at ordaining ministers and supporting missions, and founded his own record label, Miracle Revival Recordings. He became one of the first preachers to appear regularly on national television: at his peak, he appeared on fifty-eight radio stations daily as well as forty-three TV stations.

 

But controversy was never far away. He remained a heavy drinker, yet Lexie would insist that the frequent attacks on her husband were ‘communistically inspired’. She took umbrage with newspaper the Sacramento Bee, whose investigation of her husband’s ministry following his arrest for drink driving was scathing. It found one of the people Allen had ‘healed’, a man who, it had been claimed, had only weeks to live as he had been invaded by ‘a cancer demon’. This man, brough to Allen in a wheelchair as he was unable to walk, was in fact revealed by his doctor to be perfectly mobile and, although he was indeed suffering from cancer, had several years of life left in him.

 

Lexie Allen was apoplectic: the paper was in league with the devil, she stated, and was trying to quiet Allen for the paper's own ‘Communist purposes,’. She claimed too that the newspaper was under ‘Communist control.’ Her ire was magnified by a quote which appeared in the newspaper from the American Medical Association, which made reference to the many faith healers who carried ‘shills’ as part of their entourages who would be miraculously healed in the tent service, dramatically throwing away their crutches and praising Allen for his incredible healing powers.

 

Allen’s staff backed up their claims of their boss’s powers by stating that he had caused an earthquake in California after being refused use of a civic auditorium there. They warned the editors of the Bee that they should watch out for the vengeance that was coming their way.

 

The Bee continued on its mission, calling Allen’s travelling show ‘a burlesque, and a parody of true religion… redolent with claims of healings which are purely imaginary.’ Their work caused many headaches for the Allen organisation, but they recovered from them. In 1958, in Phoenix, a local rancher gifted his 1,280 acre ranch to Allen: at the time of his death, following further donations of land, Allen’s Miracle Valley headquarters covered 2,400 acres of Arizona and even had its own airfield. 

 

Nothing seemed to touch him. In 1959 he was sued for unpaid taxes by the IRS, but successfully petitioned that his organisation A. A. Allen Revivals, Inc., was exempt as a corporation ‘organised and operated exclusively for religious and educational purposes with no part of its net earnings inuring to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.’

 

In 1965 – three years after his divorce from Lexie - the charismatic Allen visited Britain to host a series of revival meetings. It did not go well. He had his fans, but newspapers castigated his showy approach. The following year, after further shenanigans in Toronto, Nottingham’s Evening Post and News reported that as well as laying hands on the sick for healing, Allen ‘sends out blessed handkerchiefs or pieces of his old revival tent which are said to bring health and prosperity to those receive them. An advertisement in Allen’s Miracle magazine asks for pledges of $100 or $1000 for “a prosperity cloth cut from the old white Miracle Tent”. Another ad in the same magazine assures the reader that, through faith, he can get anything he wants from God by clipping a coupon and sending it, with a donation, “to Brother Allen for prayer in my behalf”. You could even buy the sand scooped up from apart of Allen’s revival tent ‘where several people saw Jesus walking’.  

 

Allen died on 11 June 1970, in a hotel room in San Francisco, officially of ‘acute alcoholism and fatty infiltration of the liver.’ It has been reported that police found his body in a ‘room strewn with pills and empty liquor bottles,’ although perhaps unsurprisingly some – including family members - have claimed that the coroner falsified the report after receiving a bribe. Followers tried to keep the business going, but by the end of the decade the Allen organisation was declared bankrupt. 

 

Here, in its entirety, is another one of the many controversial albums issued by Miracle Revival Recordings'A. A. Allen's Famous Sermon On Integration', Did God Call The Apostle Paul To Preach The Gospel To The Black Man? Issued in the mid-60s, side two features Allen's regular singer, the rather excellent Gene Martin who, following Allen's death, toured the US with his own ministry the Gene Martin Action Revival.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Side One HERE  

Download Side Two HERE  

Friday, 30 August 2024

More Oddly-Shaped Balls

Following on from my previous post, I am indebted to my friend Huw Spink, curator of the Teatles Book – a magazine about the Beatles and their love for tea. Huw saw that post and kindly sent me a copy of the disc you are now (hopefully) enjoying, the solitary release from Maralene and Gareth. 


Gareth is, of course, Welsh rugby hero Gareth Edwards. Maralene was Maralene Powell, who later became Maralene Nash after marrying Welsh singer Ryder Nash.

 

Issued by Cambrian Records of Swansea in 1972, the A-side of the disc, Wyt Ti Weithiau (Do You Sometimes), is a Welsh-language version of the 1971 Lee Hazelwood-Nancy Sinatra hit Did You Ever, although the original composer of the song – Bobby Braddock - gets zero credit on the sleeve or the disc itself. Likewise the flip, Maralene’s solo performance of the country hit Rose Garden, sung again in Welsh as Gardd O Flodau (A Garden of Flowers), does not credit songwriter Joe South: the only composer credit on either side of the release is ‘geiriau’ (‘words’) ‘D. Elwyn Davies', and neither original publisher receives a credit either. Presumably, the team at Cambrian assumed that they would sell so few copies that they would get away without paying the piper, as it were. Naughty!

 

An aside, but one that my donor might find interesting: Joe Jones, the managing director of Cambrian, signed Welsh singer Mary Hopkin while she was still a teenager. Mary recorded several sides for Cambrian, but only issued by the company after the phenomenal success of her Apple Records debut, Those Were The Days. Between 1968 and 1971 several Eps and a 45 were released (none of which bore any credit for Apple), and in 1979 all ten of the tracks she recorded for the company would be licensed to Deca for the album The Welsh World of Mary Hopkin.

 

The backing act on Wyt Ti Weithiau and Gardd O Flodau is an unnamed, but eager, cabaret five-piece consisting of electric guitar, bass, drums, cheesy Farfisa-style keyboards and the most hyper tambourine player you’re ever likely to come across. My guess is that at least some of the players were members of Maralene’s family band, the 4 Ps, which included brother Aubrey Powell, sister Denise and brother-in-law John Price. Maralene has a pleasant early 70s pop voice, but Gareth should not have been let loose in a recording studio. God love him, he’s game for having a go, but he really should have stayed on the rugby pitch: the star player was the country’s youngest-ever captain, and formed a brilliant partnership with Barry John (see the previous blog post).

 

Between 1967 and 1978 Edwards won 53 caps for Wales, including 13 as captain, and during his tenure the Welsh side dominated the Five Nations Championship, winning the title seven times, including three grand slams. In 1969, Edwards was named Player of the Year in Wales, and in 1974 Edwards was named BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year. The following year he was awarded the MBE.

 

Maralene, who sadly died in 2011 aged just 60, released several recordings over her career, all in Welsh, either solo or with the 4 Ps. Luckily for us, Edwards would never sing (at least, not for general release) again.

 

Here are both sides of this wonderful little record. Enjoy!

 

Download Wyt Ti Weithiau HERE 

Download Gardd O Flodau HERE 

Friday, 16 August 2024

Oddly Shaped Balls

My command of the Welsh language is pretty much non-existent, as my many Welsh friends will attest to. But I do love Wales: I lived there for several years, have holidayed there extensively and we recently thought about moving there permanently. I would be happily living in the South Wales valleys right now had we found a house within our budget and with enough space and a decent garden for the dog.

 

I have a tremendous respect for the country and its culture, but even if that were not the case I would not normally attempt to extract the Michael from a language I do not understand. However, I am going to make an exception here, for the pompous spoken work passage in the title track to this obscure EP makes it, I reckon, a suitable candidate for inclusion in the World’s Worst Records.

 

Issued in 1971 by Welsh-language label Wren Records of Llandybie, Carmarthenshire, Barry John a Cherddi Eraill gyda Parti Menlli, to give this release its full title, translates as Barry John And Other Poems With Party Menlli, Parti Menlli being the name of the choir involved and Barry John being the title of their reworking of the Welsh classic Sospan Fach (Little Saucepan).

 

The EP consists of five songs, all Welsh classics with new lyrics (or poems, as the title suggests), with the choral group accompanied by renowned harpist Morfudd Maesaleg. The rugby-playing legend, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 79, does not actually appear on the record himself.

 

Parti Menlli were led by conductor Aled Lloyd Davies, a leading exponent of the traditional art of Cerdd Dant, the singing of poetry to harp accompaniment, where the harp plays one melody and the words are sung to a counter melody. Known also as Meibion Menlli (the Sons of Menlli), Parti Menlli came from Ruthin, and had previously won first prize at the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli in 1962 for male vocal groups with between eight and twelve singers. They issued five Eps between 1966 and 1971, with the five track Barry John a Cherddi Eraill being their final release.

 

If you like Welsh folk music, you’ll love this. If – like me – you enjoy sonorous spoken work recitals – you’ll love this too. Here are all five tracks from Barry John a Cherddi Eraill gyda Parti Menlli: I hope you enjoy them.

 

Download Barry John HERE  

Download Agor Grwn HERE  

Download Rheingerdd HERE  

Download Ronsyfal HERE  

Download Amen HERE  

Friday, 9 August 2024

All You Need is a Furtive Shake

Another song-poem coupling for you today, and a pair of absolute classics of the genre from the great Gene Marshall who, of course, also worked under the names Gene Merlino and John Muir amongst others. 


Here are both sides of the late 1977/early 1978 Preview release Shake Your Good Stuff backed with the utterly bonkers All You Need is a Fertile Mind.

 

The lyric to Shake Your Good Stuff was composed by Herman Earl, although why anyone would want to admit to writing this rubbish is beyond me:

 

I want you, baby, all night long

I’m gonna love you like a, love like a bone

Shake your good stuff all day long

I want you baby to come into this house

I’m gonna love you like a cat love a mouse

Shake your good stuff all night long

Shake your good stuff till the cows come home

Shake it all night long

Shake your good stuff

Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it

 

Just drivel. Copyright in these 140 seconds of utter nonsense was registered by Preview’s publishing arm Rivian Music in November 1977. I’ve not found anything else written by Mr Earl, but I would be surprised if this were his only attempt at pop immortality, and I would love to hear some of his other attempts at poetry or song lyrics.

 

I was always under the impression that the version of All You Need is a Fertile Mind that appeared on the Bar/None compilation The American Song Poem Anthology: Do You Know the Difference Between Big Wood and Brush back in 2003 was dubbed from a substandard copy. Anyone who heard this album will know that the backing instrumentation on this particular track is muffled and distorted, and not up to Preview’s usual standard (if you can call it that). So imagine my surprise when I recently dug out my own copy of the 7” and discovered it was actually released like that.

 

The cut you have here has come straight from my personal collection, and it’s just as awful as the one Phil Milstein had access to when he was compiling The American Song Poem Anthology an essential collection, incidentally for anyone interested in the genre. It’s such a shame that the instrumentation is buried under the muddy production, as there’s a really interesting lead guitar break about 90 seconds in which is barely audible but well worth listening out for.

 

And those lyrics! Who couldn’t love a song that opens with the line ‘Wow! Look at all that pornography!’? All You Need is a Fertile Mind is one of the very few song-poems about masturbation, only in this instance the writer insists that your average onanist has no need to waste his or her (or their) money on porn magazines, a ‘material waste of photography’ apparently, when anyone with a dirty mind and a decent memory can knock out a quick hand shandy. Yeah! It doesn’t quite compare to the brilliance of the Who’s Pictures of Lily, but then what could?

 

All You Need is a Fertile Mind was written by Francis ‘Sonny’ Fernandes, with copyright in the song once again registered by Rivian Music in October 1977 and, like Mr. Earl, this appears to be the only one of Sonny’s lyrics to be given the full Preview package. A shame, as I’m sure there was much more in Mr Fernandes’s own fertile mind that was worth mining.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Stuff HERE

Download Fertile HERE

Saturday, 3 August 2024

Rodd Keith Lives!

I can’t believe that it’s been two months since I last posted here but I have been finishing what will be my next book, due out next April, so hopefully you’ll forgive me.

 

A song-poem obscurity for you today, two early, jolly, Preview tracks from the great Rodd Keith from what would have been only the eleventh (or possibly twelfth, should a PV 1000 turn up) 45 issued by the company. This disc does not appear in Phil Milstein’s American Song-Poem Music Archives discography, so I’d guess it’s one of the harder-to-find releases from their early years. Although neither song is particularly spectacular, I’ve decided to share it with you because of its rarity.

 

The rather fun, upbeat coupling of My Heart Lives, backed with A Song For You was issued by Rodd Keith and the Raindrops sometime around February/March 1966.

 

The more pop-centric of the two tracks, My Heart Lives was penned by J.V Davidson. Jessie Davidson wrote or co-wrote several other song-poems, including at least one further song that was recorded by Preview, ‘Sweetheart Steve’, recorded by Bonnie Graham and issued sometime in 1967. Other titles include the rather magnificent False Love Has Thrown Our Hearts Out of Time, So Happy Together, Those Happy Days, and My Sweetheart, all copyrighted in April 1967. I would hazard a guess that My Sweetheart and Sweetheart Steve, both co-written by Preview staffer Gene Brooks, are the same song.

 

Jessie had form as a song-poet: she had previously sent her lyrics to Buddy Bregman Music Productions; in the summer of 1965 Bregman registered copyright in her songs Down the River, and Long Live Together. Jessie (again with Preview’s Gene Brooks) also wrote The River of Love that same year. A few years earlier there existed another amateur lyricist named J.V. Davidson-Houston: could this have been our Jessie too?

               

Bregman, like many involved in the song-poem trade, had a ‘proper’ career in music. The Nephew of songwriter Jule Styne, he worked legitimately as an arranger, producer, and composer, numbering productions with Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and Ethel Merman on his CV, and co-wrote two minor US chart hits in 1956.

 

The flip side, the vaguely bossa nova-ish A Song For You was written by Billie Colbert. Featuring some nice, Herb Alpert-inspired trumpet and a slightly discordant female backing vocalist, Billie had previously submitted the same song to Buddy Bregman in 1965. This leads me to ask, were Billie and Jessie friends, or was Bregman connected to Preview? I’ve not come across a connection before, but it seems too much of a coincidence to me. Another Bregman songwriter, Jewell Perry, also wrote the lyric to an early Preview 45, Gravy Train, so there may have been some crossover between the two companies in Preview’s early days… it definitely deserves some further investigation.

 

Anyway, for now, enjoy both sides of this rare Rodd Keith 45, and I’ll be back soon with some more terrible tunes for you to endure!

 

Download Heart HERE

Download Song HERE

Friday, 7 June 2024

What's in a Name?

It has been several years since I last wrote about song-poem outfit Tin Pan Alley, but I don’t believe I’ve ever gone into much detail about their subsidiary labels, Pageant and TPA.

 

First, here’s a short recap of the history of one of the greatest, and most prolific, of all song-poem setups.

 

Tin Pan Alley was founded as a sheet music operation in 1941 by songwriter Jack Covais who, unable to hook up with an established publisher, wound up self-publishing instead. Opening a small office on Broadway, by 1943, the year he hooked up with arranger Edie Gordon and produced his first hit, the patriotic anthem Let Freedom Ring, he had begun to dabble in the murky world of song-poem publishing. Covais continued to publish legitimate material, including the wonderfully-titled I Want Some ‘V’ Mail From my Female’ in 1944, and, in 1952, the company’s first physical release came out (on both 10” 78 and 7” 45), with both sides penned by Covais himself. It didn't seem to bother the Brooklyn-based Covais that there was already an outfit called Tin Pan Alley, run by Frank Capano in Philadelphia, which issued its first recordings in 1946.

 

Initially, the company began by providing custom pressing and musical arrangement work for small bands and artists keen enough to get a record out to self-finance the project. Some of those records have gained a reputation among serious doo-wop collectors and can now fetch hundreds of dollars. Because of this, several have been widely bootlegged. But pretty soon, emboldened by their success as a vanity publisher, Tin Pan Alley became a full-blown song-poem operation.

 

Jack Covais was pretty serious about his business, forming his own publishing company (Juke Box Alley) and copyrighting his compositions. He was not averse to taking the big boys to court either if he felt his copyright had been infringed:  in 1957 he sued Atlantic Records over their Laverne Baker hit Tra La La, which he claimed copied his own Check Your Heart, and CBS  over their tune I Hope You Don't Know What You're Doing which, he believed, ripped off his composition What's It Gonna Get You.

 

Jack Covais died in 1964 in Richmond Hill, New York, and his business was taken over by his brother before being passed on to his nephew, Sal Covais (I am, at this point unsure if that is the same Salvatore Covais who was a member of several New York doo-wop acts in the early 1950s, or if that was another relation, perhaps Jack’s brother). Sometime after, probably around the end of 1971 (the first copyright entry I’ve found for the Florida address is January 1972; 1971 copyrights have the company still in New York), Sal moved the entire operation to Florida, where he set up an office in the town of Sarasota.

 

Whereas Tin Pan Alley had previously used several different song stylists of varying, but usually at least bearable quality, once moving to Florida the company relied on just one singer, the woefully flat Mike Thomas, until even he had enough of the garbage he was being offered and he was replaced by a group, first the Melodiers and then the utterly terrible New Image. It’s clear that Sal Covais moved to Florida for the weather, not the talent pool, as almost all of the later Tin Pan Alley-related discs are shockingly bad.

 

While in Florida, it seems that Sal decided to launch two new labels for his song-poem productions, TPA (fairly obviously from the initials of Tin Pan Alley) and Pageant. I have several discs on both imprints, and like all Tin Pan Alley releases none of them feature any publication dates, however thanks to Sal’s odd but seemingly sequential numbering system it seems that TPA came first, and probably pretty soon after the move to Florida: the first TPA release I have is a Mike Thomas recording, catalogue number TPA 60-607, A Central Jersey Special written by John Reynolds, backed with My Prayer, written by Melva J. Lunceford, and copyrighted by her in April 1971. This is the earliest Tin Pan Alley release I have that features the Sarasota address, and it appears to have been issued in the summer of 1972: Juke Box Alley registered a copyright claim for My Prayer in July of that year.

 

Utah-based poet Melva J. Lunceford was a prolific song-poet, submitting her lyrics to Ted Rosen’s Halmark outfit - her songs Singing in His Reign and Prophets in Eclipse were issued on an EP in the early 1970s – and Hollywood Artists, who issued two more of her songs on their Music of America albums.

 

Pageant seems to have come shortly afterwards. Although Pageant discs do not feature the TPA prefix in their catalogue numbers or an address for the company, it’s obvious that Pageant and Tin Pan Alley are one and the same: Mike Thomas is performing with the same shoddy band that backed him up on his Tin Pan Alley releases, and the songs are again published by Juke Box Alley, the publishing house that Uncle Jack set up all those years earlier. I’ve no idea why Sal Covais decided to diversify, unless perhaps there was some disagreement within the family over who owned the rights to the Tin Pan Alley Name, but not long afterward both TPA and Pageant vanished, and the company was back to using their full moniker.

 

Here, for your delectation, is Mike Thomas with two songs issued by Pageant and written by Robert A. Baird, Change the Rule and Something Wonderful. I believe the single was issued around 1972/73: the ‘72’ in the catalogue number may be just a coincidence, but Baird registered copyright in several other songs during 1972, including Flicker of a Flame, Hey Nashville and Tell Me On the Telephone, as well as in Something Wonderful (Just Happened to Me), the full title of the B-side.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Change HERE

Download Wonderful HERE

Thursday, 25 April 2024

Superspiked

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you brought two titans of comedy together for a disco single? Well, wonder no more!

 

Credited on the label to Bill Oddie And The Superspike Squad (Featuring John Cleese) but on the picture sleeve to the Superspike Squad with Bill Oddie and John Cleese, Superspike (Parts 1 and 2) was issued by Bradleys – the same label that issued the vast majority of the Goodies pop output – in February 1976.

 

Although best known for their individual successes in seminal comedies The Goodies and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Cleese and Oddie were old friends, first crossing paths at university in the Cambridge Footlights, before going on to appear in the long-running radio comedy show I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again. Both wrote for, and occasionally appeared in, the satirical hit show That Was The Week That Was, and both wrote for the ITV comedy Doctor in the House. More recently Cleese had appeared in The Goodies Christmas 1973 episode The Goodies and the Beanstalk.

 

The Superspike Squad was ‘A chorus of international athletes’, including sprinter Ainsley Bennet and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Sue Reeve, with support from professional backing singers the Chanter Sisters, who had worked on records for Elton John, Roxy Music, Pink Floyd and others. Doreen Chanter wrote Star, a 1982 chart hit for Kiki Dee.

 

Superspike, a spiked running shoe emblem complete with a patriotic, Union flag tongue, was the official logo of the International Athletes’ Club, and was used to raise funds to pay for equipment and training for British athletes. The International Athletes’ Club had originally been formed in 1958, ‘In order to provide a medium for discussing, representing and promoting the views of the body of contemporary international athletes in the U.K.’

 

With lofty ambitions to raise £500,000 over three years, the hope would have been that the single would bolster these funds, and help to send Britain’s elite runners, gymnasts and other sportspeople off to compete around the world, specifically the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and the 1980 games in Moscow.

 

Superspike was advertised as ‘The funniest and funkiest record of the year’, although as you'll soon tell it really wasn’t: funky hits from 1976 included both Car Wash and Daddy Cool, and when it comes to comedy, Richard Pryor, Rutland Weekend Television and Pam Ayers all did rather well that year too. As one contemporary reviewer put it, ‘Needless to say, this record is exactly what you'd expect from Messrs. Oddie and Cleese - complete nonsense. Bill does his Funky Gibbon bit with a little help from Basil Fawlty… all in aid of a fund to help Britain’s athletes.’ Record Mirror put it more succinctly: ‘The record could easily be called “Do The Funky Plimsoll”… Good cause, maybe, uninspired definitely.’ 


Sadly, neither the single nor the Superspike campaign were a success, and by the time the Montreal games came around, in the summer of 1976, the whole thing had been forgotten.

 

Anyway, here are both sides of this fascinating, if flawed, piece of pop and comedy history. 


Enjoy!

 

Download Part One HERE

 

Download Part Two HERE

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