Just Quackers

A recent discovery for me, but apparently somewhat well-known in the North of England at the end of the 70s and into the early 80s is comedy ventriloquist Penny Page and her little multicoloured friend, Googi the Liverpool duck.

The first anyone outside of Liverpool would have heard of Penny and Googi would have been when they were selected to appear on the first show of a new BBC-TV talent series, Rising Stars… only then they were known as Pepe and Poppets. It was only in September 1979, just as recording was about to begin, that the duo changed their name. the ‘clever and funny’ act (according to The Stage) did well on the show, their reception no doubt aided by the fact that it was filmed in Blackpool, virtually their own back yard.

The pair made it through to the finals of the show, presented by the terminally unfunny Lennie Bennet, and issued their first single, Googi the Liverpool Duck the day before the final was due to air. Young Penny was hoping for great things, and convinced that their big television break could boost their earnings form around £150 a week to over £1,000, when a blackout by BBC technicians meant that the show did not make it to the screen.

Wallasey-born Penny (real name Joan Critchley) had been in the business since 1974, winning a Sunday People sponsored talent show, although she had her first break at the age of 12, winning first prize for her vent act at Butlin’s. Her TV exposure brought offers of work flooding in, and that Christmas penny and the Wacker Quacker appeared in panto with comedian Tom O’Connor at the Liverpool Empire and, apparently, stole the show. Soon Liverpool’s Lewis’s department store was selling Googie hand puppets, but when the final of Rising Stars finally aired (more than three weeks after it was originally scheduled) they lost out to 16-year-old singer Jacqui Scott.

Still, they soon landed a summer season at Pontin’s holiday camp, and similar bookings would follow, including a residency over Easter 1981 at the Floral Pavilion, New Brighton, where she had first appeared as a teenage ‘lido lovely’ in a local revue. It seems that another well-known Scouse singer, Cilla Black, was even asked to perform Googi the Liverpool Duck by an audience member when she performed in Australia.

Penny married Welsh-born singer David Alexander, who also recorded for Ace Recordings. She adapted her show, with Googie getting into trouble for using colourful language (to go with her colourful hair and wellies), but by 1986 Penny was tiring of the local scene and the expectation that her act would become more blue, deciding instead to concentrate on entertaining children. She introduced a new puppet to her act, Skittles the dog, but before long was back playing to adult audience with Googie accused (by The Stage) of possessing ‘the foulest of foul mouths’. The pair appeared on Guys and Dolls an international talent show which aired on BSB’s Galaxy channel (no, nor me…) in late 1990, and continued to perform locally, usually on a bill with David Alexander, until 1995 when, sadly, David passed away. It appears that penny put Googi back in her box for good at that point, but she continues to promote David’s work, repackaging his many albums and making them available for his fans.

Anyway, here are a couple of tracks from Penny and Googi: the a-side of their first 45, Googi the Liverpool Duck and their 1981 release That Bird Song.

Enjoy!

Download Duck HERE

Download Bird HERE

Sing, Anna-Lisa, Sing!

A new discovery, well new to me anyway, the bonkers-as-all-get-up Swedish singer Anna-Lisa Ingemanson.

Born in Stockholm in 1909, she released at least two albums, Musik Med Trio and Med Orkester, and a half-dozen Eps and 45s, the first (Songs for Solo Piano) on Sela sometime in the late 1960s, and all the rest on her own ALI label, with titles such as Den Lycklige Nudisten (the Happy Nudist) and Var Jag Går I Skogar, Berg Och Dalar, or Where I Walk In Forests, Mountains And Valleys. All of these self-released discs seem to date from around 1971-1975.

She became something of a star on Swedish TV, turning up on variety shows such as Bättre sänt än aldrig (Better Seen Than Never) with one of her pooches to sing a song. There’s footage from one of these shows on YouTube, Anna-Lisa caked in white makeup, in a white dress with white fur trim, cracking a whip accompanied by a nonplussed white poodle. She looks like a cross between Leona Anderson and the Del Rubio Triplets, and sings like the orphaned niece of Mrs Miller and Natália de Andrade. What’s not to love? 

In 1976 she appeared, as Emma Messerschmidt-On-The-Rocks, on three tracks (including a re-recording of The Happy Nudist) on the musical comedy album Lasse Mansson Presents Bad Old Days, a direct spin off of Bättre sänt än aldrig. from what I can gather this would be her last recording, although she continued to perform for at least another decade. It appears that Anna-Lisa was still making the occasional live appearance in the mid-1980s. Swedish music blog Sunkit reports that she once turned up to a gig, complete with the obligatory poodle and with a cassette player over her shoulder. She explained that, ‘my piano teacher must not be up this late’, before launching into her set with her usual whip-cracking gusto.

More recently one of her recordings, Oxdragarsång (the opening track of her debut album Musik Med Trio), turned up on a cassette-only release Club Sunk in Sundsvall Hit Explosion Volume One, a tribute to some of Sweden’s more outré performers put together by Peter Webb and Daniel Westin, who ran an outsider music club night. Others have collated Anna-Lisa’s recordings onto CDr, but no official compilation has been issued… yet. She died in February 2003, at the grand old age of 93.

Here are a couple of tracks to whet your whistle: Oxdragarsång, from her 1972 debut album Musik Med Trio, and from her second album, the 1973 release Med Orkester, Oh, En Sån Underbar Morgon or Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.

Enjoy!

Download Oxdragarsång HERE

Download Underbar Morgon HERE

Katinka, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor

The House of Music (or The Music House Volume One as the title appears on the disc’s labels), is one of the oddest things I have purchased recently. Just seven tracks, totalling a tad under 19 minutes, this blue vinyl, 12-inch, 45 rpm release is more of a mini-album or EP than a full blown LP.

The songs on The House of Music were composed by Bridget Harrison, arranged by Kenny Clayton and sung by a six-year-old child luxuriating in the name Katinka. Issued in 1980, The House of Music appears to have been the only disc issued by independent label Tatti Records of Penrith, Cumbria, however, two of the tracks were picked up and released on 7” by Carrere later that year on a one-off Tatti/Carrere custom label.

I can tell you a little about Kenny Clayton’s career, which can be traced back to at least a decade before The House of Music saw the light of day. As both a producer and musical arranger he worked with Matt Monro, Petula Clark, Anita Harris, Spike Milligan and countless others. However I’ve not been able to find a single word in print or on the ‘net about the two ladies involved in the project – Bridget and little Katinka. Although Katinka would now be 46, so perhaps not quite so little anymore.

Never mind, because this is a truly wondrous release. ‘Nonsense Nursery Rhymes are a part of childhood yet there have been no new ones for over 100 years,’ the brief note on the reverse of the sleeve announces. ‘This record makes the context more topical and uses the music of today to which children can dance and play’.

Harrison wrote songs in a variety of styles for this bizarre little project, clearly in the hope of appealing to kids too savvy for your average nursery rhyme recording. The album includes two disco tracks, I Am A Twinkling Star which rather worryingly recommends that six-year-olds drink champagne, wear fur coats and use make-up if they want to make a splash, and the less celebrity-conscious A Double Decker Bus. The aforementioned seven inch featured a version of I Am A Twinkling Star remixed for single by Carrere staffer Freddy Cannon (not THE Freddy Cannon), and the album version of Watching Tele. If that sounds like an odd choice for a potential chart hit, remember this was the same year that the St Winifred’s School Choir hit big.

Other cuts on the album included kid-friendly fare about ponies, hens and lollipops, plus a religious song, My Very Own Prayer to Jesus, sung beautifully out of tune by Katinka. It’s mad, and hugely entertaining.

I wish I could tell you more about it. Ah well, what I can do is share some of this with you. So here, for your delectation, is Katinka singing My Very Own Prayer to Jesus and the album version of I Am A Twinkling Star.

Enjoy!

Download Jesus HERE

Download Star HERE