Who Loves Ya, Baby?

-->

I’m sure that the vast majority of you can recall that jaw-dropping moment when you first heard Telly ‘Kojak’ Savalas open up his maw to destroy the David Gates song If; his flat, emotionless ‘sing-speak’ performance inexplicably catapulting the TV cop to Number One in the UK charts in 1975.

What you may not know is that Telly released a string of awful albums and singles during a decade-long personal vendetta against decency and good taste. And here are a couple of prime examples from his 1974 album Telly  - You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling (issued in several countries as the follow-up single to If) and his cover of the Peter Skellern hit You’re a Lady, plus the A-side of his obscure 1975 UK single Who Loves Ya Baby.

Greek-American actor Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas (January 21, 1922 – January 22, 1994) enjoyed a career which spanned four decades. The second of five children, he was best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, which ran for five years and built on Telly’s success in the TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1972). Savalas’s other credits include parts in the movies The Young Savages (1961), Pilate in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), the Battle of the Bulge (1965) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). He played supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). A fine actor he may have been: a world-class poker player he may have been as well – but a singer he certainly wasn’t...as these three tracks amply prove.

Telly's recording career kicked off in 1972, pre-Kojak, with the album This Is Telly Savalas (featuring covers of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash songs) for DJM. However it was only after he gained worldwide fame as the lollipop-sucking detective that he struck pop gold. Over the next 10 years he released a further half-dozen albums in the US and Europe. He was surprisingly popular in Switzerland, where he somehow managed to record and release two different songs – Some Broken Hearts Never Mend (which unbelievably topped the Swiss charts in 1981) and Lovin’ Understanding Man (recorded the same year) - utilising almost exactly the same backing track!

As an aside his brother George - who appeared in Kojak as the inept sidekick Sergeant Stavros -  also recorded, although his album of traditional Greek melodies - Hellas, You're Beautiful, I Love You - is actually quite good.

Enjoy!