No Business

 The King Brothers were a British pop vocal trio who achieved the peak of their fame in the early years of British rock ‘n’ roll.

Best remembered for recording Six-Five Jive, written specifically for Jack Good’s TV show Six-Five Special, and their cover versions of Standing on the Corner (a number four hit in 1960), and A White Sport Coat (And A Pink Carnation) (number six in 1957), the group was composed of three brothers – Michael, Anthony and Denis King - who first performed together professionally on the TV show Shop Window in 1952.

The trio had eight chart hits and were named "top vocal group" in the NME reader's poll in 1957 and 1960, the same years that they enjoyed their two biggest hits. But by 1961 things were changing, and although they would continue to record together until 1967 they would not have another chart entry after their cover of 76 Trombones made number 19 in the spring of 1961.

But that’s not the reason we love the King Brothers here at The World’s Worst Records. Oh no.

In 1967, at the very tail end of their career, the brothers recorded a four track EP – There’s no Business Like Our Business – ­to be given away to people attending that year’s Tupperware Distributors Conference, held in London. Three of the songs were hastily re-recorded versions of Broadway or Hollywood standards (There’s No Business Like Show Business, High Society and Good News), with the Kings accompanied by piano and drums, but the fourth track was a song specially written and recorded for the conference itself.

The Tupperware Brigade was co-written by the youngest King brother Denis (his name misspelled Dennis on the EP sleeve) and comic actor and scriptwriter John Junkin, Shake the roadie in the Beatles' A Hard Day’s Night and a well-known face on British TV and in films since the start of the Sixties. Junkin, who was once described as ‘looking like a lugubrious potato’, was also the first voice broadcast by pirate station Radio Caroline, appearing in their very first test transmission.

The King Brothers would not record again in the UK, although they did release a one-off 45 in Italy in 1969 with both sides co-written by Denis King and John Junkin - and by the end of the Sixties had broken up. Denis King became an award-winning composer for television, film, and musicals, writing the theme music for The Adventures of Black Beauty (which won the Ivor Novello Award), and composing themes and incidental music for over two hundred television series including Within These Walls, Dick Turpin, Two's Company, and Lovejoy as well as written over one hundred jingles for radio and television adverts. He has also worked on films, writing the scores to films including Holiday on the Buses (1973), Sweeney! (1977), and Privates on Parade (1982).

Anyway, here is the thoroughly wonderful The Tupperware Brigade along with the title track to the EP, There’s No Business Like Show Business.

Enjoy!

Download Tupperware HERE

Download Business HERE

That's Really Super, SuperClaire

Blog readers of a certain age will have memories – fond or otherwise – of It’s ‘Orrible Being In Love (When You’re Eight and a Half), the solitary hit single from Claire and Friends, issued by BBC records in 1986 and reaching the dizzying heights of number 13 in the UK singles chart in July of that year.

But did you know that Claire Usher (the apparently friendless Claire) also issued a full-length album? No, nor did I. Until a fortnight ago, that is.

Now I am the proud owner of a copy of SuperClaire, titled after her second single Superman (apparently a continuation of the ‘Orrible Being In Love story) and also containing Big Sister, the flip side to her hit. And it should come as no surprise that the man behind this ghastly project was one Michael Coleman, the Michael of Brian and Michael, of Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs fame, and also at least partly responsible for the dreadful St. Winifred's School Choir hit There’s No One Quite Like Grandma.

Stockport schoolgirl Claire Usher was ‘discovered’ by Coleman and producer Kevin Parrott (the Brian of Brian and Michael) when she was a pupil at St Winifred’s. The hit-making duo had her record a demo of Coleman’s song about a childhood crush, which Usher’s mum submitted to a talent-spotting feature on the BBC-TV children's programme Saturday Superstore, where – apparently - it beat a thousand other entries. After recording SuperClaire she appeared on one further 45, Welephant with the Singing Fireman, Graham Walker, before turning her back on fame for good.

Winning the show was exciting, she says, but her parents helped keep her feet on the ground. When she was invited to come back on the show a year later to hand over her trophy to the next winner, she turned them down because she had a netball match she could not miss as she was captain.

In adulthood, Claire Usher obtained a degree in drama and became a dancer, appearing in the stage show Riverdance on Broadway in 2000, and in the show's UK tour. She later wrote songs for indie pop band Shrag before becoming a teacher. Now married and living in Manchester with a daughter of her own, Claire Usher-McMorrow is that rarest of things, a former child star who is happy to be famous no longer. According to an article in The Guardian, every so often she gets a call from Where Are They Now-type shows, which she declines to go on because ‘you end up looking like a right idiot’. She also confided that she had no ambitions to enter her own child into a talent contest. ‘I can't imagine – to put your child up there to be criticised. Ugh… I'd like her to be the world champion of tiddlywinks. Become good at something totally random.’

Here are a couple of tracks from the wonderfully naff SuperClaire: Big Sister and her cover of the Mary Wells hit My Guy. Enjoy!

Download Sister HERE

Download Guy HERE

A Song-Poem Valentine (or Two)

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day, everyone!

A couple of Valentine-themed song-poems for you today: if you’d like to hear more can I suggest you check out this week’s World’sWorst Records Radio Show – a two-hour special featuring 60 minutes of vomit-inducing Valentine’s songs.

First up is a corker from the Halmark stable, credited to Bob Storm but actually featuring him duetting with Halmark’s ‘other’ (i.e. not Mary Kimmell) female singer, Dodie Frost. You can kind of forgive the ridiculous lyrics to Valentine’s Song as their composer, Kiro Obetkovski, clearly did not have English as his first language. With a co-composer credit nabbed by Halmark head honcho Ted Rosen – a bit of a liberty if you ask me, as he’s simply used one of the company’s clapped out song beds again – it’s an absolute hoot.

Born in 1943 in Macedonia, and currently (I believe) a resident of Indiana, Kiro Obetkovski, fancied himself a bit of a poet and, as O Kiro, self-published a slim volume – Alexandar’s [sic] Best Poems - in 1977. If the dreadful lyrics to Valentine’s Song are anything to go by, then that book must be essential reading.

Next is Norm Burns and the Five Stars and My Lovely Lovely Valentine, another effort from Lew Tobin’s Sterling label. Like Rosen, Tobin had a penchant for taking credit for the music on many of his song-poem releases; unlike Rosen, Lew at least attempted to compose something original most of the time. The lyrics to My Lovely Lovely Valentine are by Ruth Ekey, who also wrote the words to a couple of other songs copyrighted in 1973, Walkin’ Down a Country Road and I Sing to Keep From Crying. This particular disc appears to have been issued in 1972.

Enjoy!

Download Bob HERE

Download Norm HERE

Thanks to Bob Purse for the image!

New England's Finest

A recent discovery, and someone I shall be featuring over the coming weeks on the World's Worst Records Radio Show.

Currently living in Raleigh, North Carolina, Tom Arico is a New England musician who, tired of taking a back seat in cover bands, decided to set out in search of stardom, recording a series of EPs and his own full-length album – the Preacher – during the late 80s and into the 90s.

Originally from Bethel, Connecticut, his song Baby On the Way – issued in 1989 - became a turntable hit with some college radio stations (and especially DePaul University in Chicago), thanks to what can only be described as his ‘unique’ performance style. Tom is a proficient rhythm guitar player, but his odd, high-pitched nasal vocal will not be to everyone’s taste. A quick search of the ‘net will turn up thousands of references to Tom’s work, very few (if any) of them complimentary. Irwin Chusid is a fan: that should be recommendation enough.

In fact, the only person who consistently praises Tom’s work is Tom himself: his CDBaby page lauds him as ‘One of New England's finest rock artists’. The cheeky monkey even appears to have faked a wildly ecstatic audience going nuts during a live performance of his signature tune, The Preacher, at a concert in Jerusalem. As one on-the-ball Amazon reviewer was quick to point out, that same audience was equally ecstatic when they saw the Kinks perform Lola, for Tom seems to have lifted his stadium full of fans from One For The Road, the Kinks’ 1980 double live album.

Like many outside musicians, people question whether Tom knows just how good – or how bad – he is. He appears to be very serious about his work, but then you know that he has to be in on the joke when his latest YouTube video features a cover of the very same Ray Davies song.

He’s still out there strutting his stuff today, appearing regularly at open mic nights in and around New York State, and if you want to hear more a 20^th anniversary reissue of The Precaher is available from CDBaby, Amazon and all good outlets. 

Follow Tom’s YouTube channel HERE