Wham Zam, Thank You Man

In the last post, I mentioned Harold Spiro, a songwriter whose career I have touched upon occasionally on the blog, but without going into too much detail. Let me correct that now.

 

Harold Jacob Spiro was born in 1925. Spiro’s family ran a confectionery business in London, but young Harold wanted to be a songwriter. He found a way into the world of showbiz through writing verses for greetings cards, but his first big break came in 1962, when he wrote There’s Never Been Another Girl, which was recorded by Kenny Lynch. Over the next couple of years he wrote for acts as diverse as Andee Silver, one of the singers with the Joe Loss Orchestra, ‘comedians’ Mike and Bernie Winters, and even the Yardbirds: Spiro co-wrote Little Games with Phil Wainman, who would go on to have huge success as a producer for The Sweet, the Bay City Rollers, Generation X and even my beloved XTC.

 

Later successes would include songs for Cliff Richard, the Troggs and Freddie Starr. Then came Nice One, Cyril, a song with a tagline purloined from a TV advert for sliced bread, repurposed to celebrate the on-pitch exploits of Tottenham Hotspur player Cyril Knowles.

 

Nice One, Cyril was a huge hit, and quickly adopted by fans on the terraces, much to the chagrin of Tottenham Hotspur’s management team, who had commissioned their own song, Hot Spurs Boogie that, although performed by the team and given official backing, sank without a trace. Nice One, Cyril won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Novel or Unusual Song.

 

In 1974, Spiro and then-writing partner Valerie Avon (of hit vocal trio the Avons; real name Valerie Murtagh) hit paydirt again, with Long Live Love, their third attempt at Eurovision gold. The song, performed by Olivia Newton-John, was chosen as the British entry that year. Long Live Love was the pair’s third attempt at penning the Song For Europe: they began in 1969 writing Can I Believe, which was shortlisted and performed by Mary Hopkin on the BBC, but lost out in viewers’ votes to Knock Knock, Who’s There? Cliff Richard revisited the song for the 1970 contest, and Clodagh Rogers recorded a second song, My World of Beautiful Things the following year, which lost out to Jack In The Box.

 

In 1975 he wrote a song for a nine-year-old singer from Liverpool called Malandra Burrows. Burrows would not hit the charts, although a decade later she would join the cast of hit soap opera Emmerdale Farm and, in 1990, enjoy a number 11 hit with Just This Side of Love. Many more hits and misses would follow over the next 20 years, including more football songs and even a record written for the mechanics of his local garage. He died in Cyprus in 1996, but six years after his death his song We’re On The Ball was picked as England’s official World Cup song for 2002: recorded by Ant and Dec, the song went to number three in the UK singles charts. A fitting tribute to a man who loved music and football equally.

 

But it is Harold’s performing career we’re most interested in today. For along with his success as a songwriter, he also attempted to break into the charts as a singer, utilising the pseudonym Hoagy Pogey, a tribute of sorts to Hoagy Carmichael, of whom Spiro was a big fan. As Hoagy, Spiro ‘dresses up like a ten-year-old boy in shirt, bow tie and plus fours, and to complete the image paints on a false moustache. This dumpy creature looking like “Tweedle Dum” does not walk on stage, he runs in on tiptoe,’ according to an article on the Harrow Observer. They obviously had strange pre-teens in Harrow in the 1970s. The writer of the article seemed to think that Hoagy was trying to market himself as Britain’s answer to Tiny Tim, although Spiro’s vocal style owes more to Peter Skellern… an atonal Peter Skellern at that.

 

Harold/Hoagy issued a number of 45s in Britain and in Europe, beginning in 1972 with Don’t Ya Know/Why Don’t You Go Away on Decca’s progressive imprint Deram. Both sides were written by Harold Spiro, Valerie Avon and Tony Hiller, and the single was even given a US release.

 

The team followed that with another football song, this time credited to Northeast featuring Hoagy Pogey, A Ticket For The Game. Two more singles from the trio would follow, Falling In Love With You-Hoo-Hoo-Hoo/Nothing Better and Wedding of the Year – a song inspired by the wedding of Princess Anne to Captain Mark Phillips - backed with the truly awful Wham Zam, on which Spiro attempts to affect a Jamaican accent.

 

In 1974 Valerie left the act and Hoagy moved to Pye for the final two singles. First came the ragtime jazz-flavoured Cincinnati Sammy backed with Oh Was It Love, two Tony Hiller/Harold Spiro penned songs, and, in November 1974 – and this time credited as Hoagy Poagy – the final 45 appeared, One Step Behind The Music and Lies, again with both sides by Hiller and Spiro. In 1984 Hoagy would make a brief reappearance, this time without Hiller on board, for a one-off single credited to Hoagy and the Terrace Choir, The Last Football Song backed with Here We Go.

 

Here are a couple of cuts from Hoagy/Harold’s impressive career, Wham Zam and Wedding of the Year.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Wham HERE

Download Wedding HERE