Christmas cavalcade 2023 - Part Three

Well, with just a day to go before we all get to fill our faces with turkey (or whatever your chosen alternative might be), there’s just enough time for one last installment in this year’s Christmas cavalcade.

 

If you were listening to the festive edition of the World’s Worst Records Radio Show earlier this week, you would have heard me playing snippets from a cute 1960s kid’s Christmas tale, Shirley Higginson’s The Lisping Elf. Well, here’s the whole thing for you to do with as you will. 

The Lisping Elf was issued at least twice -once in the early 1960s on Corpat Records (my copy, picked up in an antiques centre in Exeter, comes from this original pressing) and again, during the second half of the 1970s, by LEI records. The charming music (which always reminds me of the kind of thing you would hear during BBC schools’ broadcasts during the 1970s) was composed by Tommy Banks (a.k.a. the Reverend Thomas Banks) one half of the Canadian folk duo Tom and Judy. Ms. Higginson was an author – based in Edmonton I believe - who specialised in fables for children: her other works include Ralph the Flying Dog and Ice Cream Sneakers.

 

Next is a recent (like, this morning) YouTube find courtesy of the always excellent Thrift Store Vinyl channel. Issued in 1974, here from Austin, Texas are the Wilson family (well, the Wilson kids at least) ‘singing’ Santa’s Surprise. 

Composed by Dick Culp and Billy E. Nix (guitar player, songwriter and owner of Ben Records), the Wilson family would issue at least one further record on Darva, the 1976 single Candy Cane Castle, backed with Running Through The Sunshine.

 

And finally, for this year anyway, here’s a song-poem oddity from Gene Merlino. Professional vocalist Merlino did most of his song poem work for two labels, Preview (as Gene Marshall) and Columbine (as John Muir), but also recorded for a number of other companies under a variety of different names. 

Some time back, obscure music collector Sammy Reed unearthed a 45 on the George Liberace Songsmiths label (Lee’s violin-scratching brother had his own publishing company, which also dabbled in the song-poem world), the rather fun and jaunty Santa’s Mommy Must Have Had Quintuplets, and although the vocalist is not credited on the disc itself (the only credit is for the lyric’s author, Clate Hazelwood), the singer is unquestionably Merlino.

 

Well, there you go. Enjoy these tracks, and I shall be back soon with some decidedly un-festive fare for you all.

 

Happy Christmas!

 

Download Lisping HERE

 

Download Surprise HERE

 

Download Mommy HERE

Christmas Cavalcade 2023 - Part Two

A bunch of random, Christmassy nonsense for you today, brought together simply because these singles are seasonal and have not featured on the blog before. Make of this lot what you will.

 

First up, from the late comic actor Frank Kelly, is Christmas Countdown, a song that provided the man best known for playing Father Jack Hackett in the brilliant (if now somewhat overshadowed by having been co-created by a toxic loon) sitcom Father Ted. Not only would Christmas Countdown reward Frank with a top 30 hit in British singles charts (during Christmas week 1983), but it also saw him performing on Top of the Pops! 

The disc had first been issued, in Ireland, in 1980, on the tiny Lunar Records label, but it was resurrected two years later and became a surprise hit locally, making number eight on the Irish charts. It was also a top 20 hit in Australia. Kelly had form when it came to Christmas-themed novelties: in 1979 he issued (via Dublin label Crashed Records) the new wave-inspired comedy single Dear Santa, this time credited – in a tip of the hat to Mr Lydon – Rotton Frank. As it’s the season, I have also included that track here for you to enjoy (or endure!)

 

Next is the A-side of a 45 from Bob Anthony, the cabaret singer whose tribute album to the island of Jersey I featured on the blog back in November 2021. This time he’s singing about spending the festive season in the slightly less exotic locale of London: Christmas in London first appeared as a single in 1978 (on Bob’s own Regis Rose label, based at his home address in Bognor Regis), before being compiled as part of his early 1980s album Magic of London.

 

America’s amateur poets and lyric writers were hot on Christmas. So it should be no surprise that there are quite literally hundreds of festive-themed song-poems out there. All of the big names of the genre, including Rodd Keith, Gene Marshall, Cara Stewart and Norm Burns have Christmassy clunkers in their catalogues, and many have already appeared on this very blog, but to round off today’s post is one I have not featured before now. 

From the pen of Norridge Mayhems, a.k.a Norris the Troubadour, here are the Seaboard Coastliners – an entirely studio-fabricated band (and the same act that appeared as the Ping Pongs on the utterly brilliant Pinky Tail) – and the wonderfully atonal Christmas Time Philosophy. 

I love this track. The singer could not sound more bored, and it's clear that whoever has been given the job of trying to keep time has never seen a drum before. It feels as if the only thing on the minds of the participants is to get this recording finished as quickly as possible and get down to the pub to begin their own seasonal celebrations. 

The song first appeared on the 1976 double LP Our Centennial Album, before being compiled on the rather wonderful song-poem collection Daddy, Is Santa Really Six Foot Four? In 2003.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Santa HERE

Download Countdown HERE

Download London HERE

Download Philosophy HERE

Christmas Cavalcade 2023 - Part One

You will have to forgive me for the paucity of posts this year, it's been a busy one. One of the unfortunate byproducts of aging is having to deal with health issues (in others as well as myself), the death of family and friends (and friends who have become family), and life in general: this year I have published my latest book, moved house twice (which resulted in putting my entire record and CD collection into storage for six months), made several 'live' appearances and have been beavering away on my next tome. So, apologies for so few blog entries during 2023; I hope to make it up to you in 2024.

But it's almost Christmas, and what would this time of year be without a handful of festive failures for you? that's right, it's time for the first installment of the annual Christmas Cavalcade! Hold on to your Santa hats...

First up is both sides of a 45 issued in the US in 1975, the first of two singles issued by The Whales Featuring Rathbone and His Tuba. Their debut was this bizarre, and utterly pointless cover of the 1958 hit from David Seville and the Chipmunks, namely The Chipmunk Song, backed by a cover of a 1948 number originally popularised by singing cowboy Gene Autrey, If It Doesn't Snow on Christmas. The Whales' schtick was to do the opposite of what the Chipmunks had done so successfully, namely instead of speeding up the vocal track to sound like tiny furry creatures, the producers of this dreck (Mickey Joe Yannich and Bobby Lee), slowed the vocal down to suggest the sound that a huge, lumbering ocean leviathan might make. Unsurprisingly this and the follow-up, I Want to be the Only Whale (to Graduate From Yale) were not hits, and the Whales sank without a trace.  

And talking of Chipmunks rip-offs, the year after Alvin and Co had their big breakthrough, Capitol Records retaliated with Dancer, Prancer and Nervous (the Singing Reindeer) and their debut offering The Happy Reindeer. Like the Whales, these three also issued a second 45, coupling The Happy Birthday Song with I Wanna Be an Easter Bunny. Capitol clearly thought they had a hit on their hands, even issuing a promotional EP featuring the voice of Nervous introducing segments for regional radio play, but although The Happy Reindeer was a modest hit, the follow-up failed to chart and that was the end of that. Incidentally, the B-side of The Happy Reindeer, Dancer's Waltz, was simply an instrumental version of the plug side.

So, enjoy these three tracks for now... there will be more soon!

Download Chipmunk HERE

Download Snow HERE

Download Happy HERE

Like a Pig in Mud

Now, I realise it has been quite some time since I last posted on the blog, but I have been rather busy! We're currently in the middle of our second house move in less than six months, and hopefully by the time most of you read this my husband and I shall be happily ensconced in what will be our forever home.  

I've also been publicising my latest book, Queer Blues, and a lot of my time has been taken up writing my next book - more about that as we get closer to publication day.

But I have been remiss: It's been months since I brought you any silliness, so here is something that will hopefully keep you all happy until this year's Christmas Cavalcade begins.

I found this particular disc recently when looking around for something I had not previously played on my WFMU programme, The World's Worst Records Radio Show. Happily, this little treasure of well-meaning Christian pop was discovered more than a decade ago by our friend and song-poem collector Bob Purse, and posted on the now-defunct WFMU blog... is that serendipity or synchronicity?  

I really don't know where to begin with this nonsense. Don't Be Left Behind, Pig in Mud (II Peter 2:22), and Look at The Mess were all written by G.M. Fretto, and issued in 1984 on a three-track EP credited to Farinella-Siena-Fretto. The same three tracks also turned up on the 1986 album by Mi'Chelle Nelson, Don't Be Left Behind. Messers Gerald Fretto, Joe Farinella and Mark Siena all appear on that record too, although this time Siena is credited as Mark Sena. Both album and EP were released by G.M. Fretto Records - the only products, as far as I am aware, ever to appear on the label. 

Based in Rochester, New York, Mister Fretto and his crew specialised in a peculiar jazz/God rock hybrid. Instrumentally, the opening track Don't Be Left Behind has elements of jazz, funk, and progressive rock, and is accompanied by some ill-fitting lyrics about spiritual redemption. The title, one assumes, comes from the idea that should you not have sought absolution for your sins you will be left behind when God (in whatever form he or she chooses) decides to revisit our planet and gather up the faithful. 

Judging by the subtitle, Pig in Mud (II Peter 2:22) is clearly based on a bible verse. The verse itself is indeed quoted in the lyric: 'A dog goes back to its own vomit, and a pig that is washed heads back to the mud,' or somesuch. I'm sure it's all very important and meaningful, but frankly, to this atheist it is simply baffling. The final song, Look at The Mess is the most 'traditional' of all three songs, but even this has odd, discordant backing vocals that add an unsettling note. It is all very peculiar.

Searching Discogs you will find no further releases from Farinella-Siena-Fretto or from Mi'Chelle Nelson, and neither Joe Farinella nor Mark Siena appear to have recorded anything else. However, as Jerry Fretto, our man has issued at least three albums of Christian praise, the most recent being the 2012 collection The Joy Ahead. He had a period of ill health following his last album but happily is still around today, as is Mark Siena, who now works at the Calvary Chapel in Niagra; sadly I could find no trace of  Joe Farinella, but I hope he is healthy and well.

Here are all three tracks from the wonderfully odd EP by Farinella-Siena-Fretto: enjoy!

Download Behind HERE 

Download Pig HERE 

Download Mess HERE

Here Come the Mad Hatters

One of those albums that is forever turning up in ‘bad album cover art’ lists, for years I had assumed that the sole album by the Mad Hatters (or the Mad-Hatters, as they appear on the disc’s labels) was the product of some evangelist folk duo.

 

How wrong I was.

 

I had presumed, you see, that the crucifix-like symbol emblazoned across the artist’s ensemble had some sort of religious connection. Now, thanks to the ever-wonderful Thrift Store Vinyl YouTube channel I know better. It is, in fact, the logo of the National Tuberculosis Association, for the Mad-Hatters (or the Mad Hatters) album – believe it or not - is a collection of ‘comedy’ songs about tuberculosis. 19 of them, some under a minute long, with titles such as I Had Tuberculosis, T B Girls, Soft is the Voice of a Fungus and the singalong hit Pneumonoultramicroscopic-silocovolcanokoniosis.

 

A product of the Greene County Tuberculosis Society of Springfield, Missouri, the album carries no date, but I would suggest it pre-dates Van Morrison’s T B Sheets by a couple of years. The cover mentions Admiral Asterbloom, a character from US comic strip Mr. Abernathy, which ran for three decades from 1957, and the song Pneumonoultramicroscopic-silocovolcanokoniosis references Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious from the soundtrack to the 1964 film Mary Poppins, so it would be a fairly safe bet to say that the album dates from no earlier than 1965 and, judging by the quality of the cover – one of those old-type US covers with a slick pasted onto a blank white cardboard sleeve – I would suggest that it was most likely issued before the end of the decade.

 

But who were the Mad Hatters themselves? Were they two nurses – or volunteers – working on a Missouri TB ward who thought they could raise a few dollars by selling an album of their silly songs? No doubt a few copies sold, as it turns up for sale now and again, but not many I would assume. The album originally came with an insert offering people the chance to purchase more copies at $3.25 apiece; I wonder how many actually took them up on that offer?

 

As usual, if you have any more information please feel free to share it. In the meantime, enjoy a couple of tracks from the brilliantly bonkers The Mad Hatters.

 

Download I Had Tuberculosis HERE

Download Nurses Marching Song HERE

The Greatest Record Buy in the History of the Business, Apparently

According to whoever wrote the Discogs blurb, ‘Hit Parader was a music magazine. Which also sometimes produced rare EP's and 7" vinyls [I could stab them just for using that utterly unnecessary ‘s’]. These records include coversongs. The covers are very well done and are very close to it's original artist. The names of the different artists who sung these tracks are unknown. For a reason. These records were made as a statement to the music industry; that the record prices are too high. They wanted to show that it could be done cheaper with the same quality’ [sic].

 

True, there was a magazine called Hit Parader. A pop music monthly, it ran from 1942 until 2008 and printed song lyrics, articles, pin up pictures and the usual teen fare. There was clearly a link between that and the label – both were based in Derby, Connecticut, and the discs were advertised extensively in the pages of the magazine - but that’s about where the truth in the Discogs description ends. 

To claim that the covers featured on the Hit Parader Records EPS are ‘Very well done and are very close to [the] original artist’ could not be further from the truth. Sure, some are more than passable, and not unlike the quality of the UK’s Embassy label, which put out copycat covers of pop hits in the 1950s and 1960s. However, frankly, many of the cover versions featured on these EPs are nothing short of diabolical. So cheap and shoddy as to be embarrassing.

I would seriously question the notion that ‘These records were made as a statement to the music industry’, and that the magazine ‘Wanted to show that it could be done cheaper with the same quality,’ too. The records were not produced to ‘stick it to the man’, but to make money, and the quality is nothing like as good as that of the similar product marketed by a major label. 

The label began, in the late 1950s, as Song Hits, offering six covers of recent chart singles by anonymous performers for ‘The giveaway price of just 69 cents’, as their own advertising claimed. Handily, readers of the magazine could pick up the latest disc at their newsagent. Similar schemes had existed since at least the 1930s: Hit of the Week and Durium, both launched in the early 1930s, were flexible records sold at newsstands in the States, but by the 950s and the advent of the 45, hard vinyl records marketed in this way were becoming more popular, and far cheaper to produce.

 

Hit Parader Records may have started with good intentions, but by the time the beat boom came around they had all but given up. In early 1964 they issued an EP containing a cover of I Want To Hold Your Hand that is so abominable it defies belief: it should not surprise you that I featured this very same recording on this very same blog five years ago. This very same cover version would turn up time and time again, issued by a number of different budget and cash-in labels and credited variously to Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots (on the album Merseymania), the Liverpool Beats (on the eponymous album issued by Rondo records), and others including the Beats and the Mersey Beats of Liverpool (not The Merseybeats). Confused? You should be.

 

Anyway, here are a couple of tracks from the Hit Parader label: from HP-31, issued in 1964, is a reasonable version of Leader of the Pack, complete with the most pop art, Joe-Meek-esque bike smash I’ve ever heard, and from 1966, a wonderfully naïve version of the Beach Boys classic Good Vibrations. You can find the version of  I Want To Hold Your Hand and read all about Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots HERE 

If you tune in to the World's Worst Records Radio Show next Wednesday (August 16, Episode 231) you'll hear me play Good Vibrations, alongside a truly ghastly version of the Trashmen's Surfin' Bird. 

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Leader HERE

Download Vibrations HERE

Beyer Than Die Beatles

It's been a while... my apologies for the (quite literal) radio silence of late. It's been a busy few months, with a new book about to be published and a house move taking place, so I hope you'll forgive me.

I am indebted to the lovely Miss Mei for bringing Klaus Beyer to my attention. German outsider artist Beyer, born in Berlin in 1952, has been making music for decades, but is probably best known for his bizarre reworkings of pretty much the entire Beatles canon.  

Working from home, Beyer began deconstructing the Beatles in the 1980s, taking their original recordings to pieces, removing the original vocals, and adding his own off-key ramblings. It's a karaoke car crash, leaving enough of the original song intact so that even the casual listener would instantly recognise it, before that same listener is beaten around the head by the onslaught of Beyer's voice. It is both unnerving and fascinating.  

Looking not unlike the late Daniel Johnston (who, of course, also adored the Beatles) Beyer - and his tape deck - has been performing live since 1985; he has performed in Brazil, Namibia, France, Austria, and Iceland, and has even played the legendary Hamburg club the Indra, the very same place that the Fabs made their German debut in August 1960.  In his spare time, (while working by day in a candle factory) he made short animated films and did some bit-work in German films, but it was for his all-consuming passion for the Beatles that he achieved fame (of sorts). 

Have a listen to a couple of examples of his work and see what you think.

Enjoy!

Download Hey Jude HERE

Download All Together Now HERE

Chou-Chou-be-doo, Where Are You?

In the mid-1980s, a young Belgian singer, known only as Baby Chou-Chou (occasionally credited as Baby Chouchou), released a half dozen singles in their own country – all of them awful and all worthy of a place in the World’s Worst Records Archive.

 

This singing moppet was initially presented to the world as a genderless star of the future - on some of their 45 sleeves Chou-Chou is styled as a girl, on others they look more boyish, possibly subscribing to Eddie Izzard’s maxim that ‘They’re not women’s clothes. They’re my clothes.’ The genderfluid outlook was enhanced somewhat by the choice of material, with songs such as Je Ne Suis Pas Une Fille à Papa (I am Not a Daddy’s Girl).

 

But she was a young girl, related in some way to Sicilian singer Di Quinto Rocco, born Rocco Befumo in May 1949; apparently, he chose the ‘di Quinto’ prefix as he was fed up with always coming fifth in singing competitions. According to Discogs, Baby Chou-Chou is Rocco’s Goddaughter, but I believe she may actually be his niece: at one point in the 1980s, he was performing with said niece, Christine Befumo, who now appears to be working in Italy and no longer involved in showbusiness. I have not been able to verify yet if Chou-Chou and Christine are one and the same, there is absolutely nothing about her on the ‘net or in any of the press archives I subscribe to, but I suspect as much.

 

The majority of Baby Chou-Chou’s output appeared on the Little Star label, a company that specialised in singing kiddies and that appears to have been owned by Di Quino Rocco. Other ‘singers’ (and I use that word advisedly) on the label include pre-teen boy Filippo Di Curto, the teeny winner of a kiddie talent show Pamela Chiffi, and Franco Befumo, Di Quino’s son. Most of the songs issued by the company were written (or co-written) by Rocco Befumo.

 

Rocco’s greatest successes came when he was singing with children. In 1980 his record company, Philips, paired him with a young girl singer called Cardillo Giusy for a ghastly single, the sugary and sentimental Je t’Aime Bien Papa (I Love You, Daddy), that the duo also recorded in Italian as Ti Voglio Molto Bene Papa. In 1981 the pair followed this up with the equally saccharine Bonne Fete Maman, and even to this day, Di Quinto Rocco can often be found performing alongside a pretty, albeit adult, woman. It made perfect sense to him to attempt to turn Baby Chou-Chou into a star. It’s just a shame that she, and the other children on his label, were so hideously untalented.

 

Anyway, until more detail can be uncovered about the young lady herself, here are a couple of tracks from her discography, namely the A-side of her 1988 single (her last, I believe) La Bière Aux Chocolats and, from 1986, On m’Appelle Belle (They Call Me Pretty).

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Biere HERE

 

Download Belle HERE 

Charlie Barlow Sings!

Alan Stratford Johns (born 22 September 1925) first came to prominence, here in the UK at least, in the mid-1950s, in a string of small parts in movies and theatre, before hitting the big time as Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow in the long-running BBC police series Z-Cars and its many spin-offs.

 

Johns grew up in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, and served as a deckhand in the South African navy during World War II. After the war, and following a short period working in accountancy, he became involved in amateur theatre. In 1948 he bought a one-way ticket to Britain and learned his craft working in repertory theatre at Southend-on-Sea. One of the first roles he was offered was in a Christmas musical, which he turned down as he felt he did not have the vocal chops. He did, however, stay with the company for almost five years, and during that time changed his name, dropping ‘Alan’ and becoming known, simply, as Stratford Johns.

 

Early film appearances included a bit-part in the classic Ealing comedy The Ladykillers (1955), and, in 1957, he made his British TV debut in the Associated-Rediffusion series Destination Downing Street, but it was as Barlow that he would become one of the most familiar and popular faces on British television. Charlie Barlow appeared in five TV series, four as the star: Z-Cars (1962–1965); Softly, Softly (1966–1969), Softly, Softly: Taskforce (1969–1972), and Barlow at Large (1971-1975, retitled Barlow in its final seasons). The character appeared for a final time in 1976, in the series Second Verdict.

 

Johns’s film appearances include 1970’s Cromwell, with Richard Harris and Sir Alec Guinness. Later roles included appearances in the George and Mildred movie, the 1980 big screen version of the popular sitcom, and in Ken Russell’s 1988 films Salome's Last Dance and The Lair of the White Worm. His many stage credits include Daddy Warbucks in the original West End run of Annie, and the Ghost of Christmas Present in the stage adaptation of the film musical Scrooge.  Guest appearances on TV include The Avengers, Department S, Doctor Who, Great Expectations, Blake's 7 and I, Claudius. He can be seen, alongside Clare Grogan and Moly Weir in the video for Young at Heart, the 1984 hit by Scots band The Bluebells. One of his final roles was in the TV series Heartbeat.

 

Outside of acting, he and his wife (and her aunt) ran a hotel and bar for actors in St Martin’s Lane (which opened during the 1950s and closed in 1976), and in the mid-1960s there was a popular photographer used by members of the acting profession, the Stratford Johns Studio, in Marble Arch. He was also the author of the children's book Gumphlumph, which he read on the children's television series Jackanory and narrated for album release.

 

But that’s not why we’re here, is it? We are here because, in 1965, he released an album Stratford Johns Sings, on His Master’s Voice. A selection of ballads which, as he himself admits in the sleeve notes, were chosen ‘quite deliberately’ because they were ‘square’. It’s a delight: Johns’ stentorian voice blasts its way through 14 songs, including Summertime, Beautiful Dreamer, and How to Handle a Woman. In other hands it could have been awful; somehow Stratford Johns Sings manages to be charming, if a little amateur and vainglorious. It’s clear, though, that the actor knows his limitations: on the back cover Johns writes about how he has taken singing lessons but that he realises his voice has been somewhat ravaged by too much drinking and smoking. He even enlists his children, offering their opinions on his vocal abilities. The producer of the album goes unnamed, but I’ll lay you a pound to a penny that the man behind this was Norman Newell, one of EMI’s in-house A&R men, whose career I touch on in my book The Velvet Mafia.

 

Johns died on 29 January 2002: his wife, Nanette Ryder (the daughter of actors Morris/Maurice Parsons and Mona Ewins), who he had married in March 1955, outlived him by four years and two days.

 

Here are a couple of tracks from Stratford Johns Sings: You Stepped Out of a Dream and You Do Something To Me. Enjoy!

 

Download Stepped HERE

Download Something HERE

Toy Boy Tunes

 

Born on 9 October 1947 – John Lennon’s seventh birthday - Sir Roderic Victor Llewellyn (better known as ‘Roddy’) is a British baronet, garden designer, journalist, author, and television presenter best known for his eight-year relationship with Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, the younger sister of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

 

They were introduced, at the Café Royal in Edinburgh in 1973, by Lady Anne Glenconner. At the time, Roddy was a gardener and, at 25 years old, a full 17 years younger than the princess.

 

The much-publicised relationship was a factor in the dissolution of the princess's marriage to the Earl of Snowdon. In 1976, photographs of Roddy and Margaret in Mustique appeared in the press, and Roddy was outed as Margaret’s ‘toy boy’. Llewellyn issued a public statement, saying that ‘I much regret any embarrassment caused to Her Majesty the Queen and the royal family, for whom I wish to express the greatest respect, admiration and loyalty’.

 

The Queen was not happy, according to Princess Margaret’s authorized biographer, Christopher Warwick, who said that ‘The Queen didn’t approve of Roddy or of the relationship, and she thought that in all of this Roddy business, her sister was behaving badly.’ However, Lady Glenconner would later tell Vanity Fair that, ‘After Princess Margaret’s funeral, the Queen, she said, ‘I’d just like to say, Anne, it was rather difficult at moments, but I thank you so much [for] introducing Princess Margaret to Roddy ’cause he made her really happy.’ Personally, I find it difficult to believe that our later monarch would say ‘’Cause’, but there you have it.

 

At the height of their eight-year relationship, Roddy was persuaded to spend a few days in a recording studio. The results were issued as Roddy by Philips in 1978. According to the note, in Roddy’s own handwriting, on the reverse of the sleeve, ‘Like lots of other people I have always wanted to make a record, and I feel very fortunate to have now done this. We all had a lot of fun recording the album – hope you enjoy it too.’

 

He may have ‘always wanted to make a record’, but there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that he would not have had he not been at the centre of a high-profile scandal. Musically, it’s slick, synthy, lightweight stuff, but the simple fact is that Llewellyn cannot sing. There’s a difference between bumbling through a few bars of a song at home and standing in front of a microphone in a professional studio, attempting to cut a hit recording. The voice is too mannered, too thin and too flat. I’m sure he did have ‘a lot of fun’, and today, with a little touch of autotune and a more forgiving backing, he might have gotten away with it, but when you’re crooning along to what is essentially the soundtrack to a seventies sitcom there’s no room to hide.

 

Produced by Tony Eyers, who specialised in recording musak-versions of standards for the foreign market (including Reggae Music Played By Tony Eyers, and Tony Eyers Plays Beach Boys, both issued in Sweden in 1977) but will be best known for writing I’m On Fire, a hit for 5,000 Volts, featuring the voice (if not the face) of Tina Charles.

 

By the beginning of 1981, Roddy and Margaret were through and, on 11 July 1981, Llewellyn married Tatiana Soskin, a daughter of film producer Paul Soskin. The couple have three daughters, Alexandra, Natasha, and Rosie.

 

In 2009 Roddy succeeded his elder brother David (better known as ‘Dai’), to the Llewellyn baronetcy. Roddy and Dai had a difficult relationship, and barely spoke to each other after the elder Llewellyn talked to newspapers about his brother’s relationship with a royal. 25 years after his relationship with Margaret had ended, Roddy Llewellyn told the Daily Mail that he still could not bring himself to forgive his brother’s ‘betrayal’. Dai dismissed him as a ‘snob and a resentful, chippy little twerp’, but the brothers were reconciled shortly before Dai’s death.

 

Now aged 75, he’s still working and he’s still singing. Apparently, when he went to meet actor Helena Bonham Carter, while she was preparing to play Princess Margaret in the Netflix drama series The Crown, ‘He started singing a song in my kitchen,’ she revealed to the Sunday Times. ‘He came to tea with me and Harry [Treadaway], who plays Roddy. He was so fun and warm — that’s what she needed. He’s very musical.’ Well, I’ll leave you to make up your own minds there, with a couple of tracks from Roddy: Missing Her Again and Crazy World.

 

Enjoy!

 

Download Missing HERE

 

Download Crazy HERE

Ol' Blue Eyes's Bark

Frank Sinatra is one of those singers who always gets a pass, the commonly-held belief that he was a great singer makes him seemingly untouchable when it comes to the kind of folk – like me – who write about bad music.

 

But that’s a shame because there are some truly horrific examples in the Sinatra canon, a couple of which I offer up for you today.

 

Singer and actor Francis Albert Sinatra (born 12 December 1915), known as the ‘Chairman of the Board’ and ‘Ol' Blue Eyes’, Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers in the world. He began performing in the mid-1930s, performed with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey and, after signing as a solo artist with Columbia Records in 1943, became the idol of the bobby soxers, selling out venues and starring in the weekly radio show Your Hit Parade (more about that later).

 

He also forged a highly successful career as a film actor, appearing in 60 movies and winning an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in From Here to Eternity in 1953. Among his screen credits are the hugely popular musicals On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), and High Society (1956). He left Columbia and signed to Capitol, releasing critically acclaimed albums including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Only the Lonely (1958), and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).

 

Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums: through his lifetime he sold over 150 million records. Sinatra may be best known for his string of classic performances, from Fly Me To the Moon to Strangers in the Night and, of course, My Way, but he also recorded a significant number of clunkers during his career, especially in the early years. While with Columbia he was often at loggerheads with Mitch Miller, then head of A&R at the label. It was Miller who insisted that Sinatra record the execrable Mama Will Bark, as a duet with shapely starlet Dagmar, which Billboard dismissed as ‘a silly novelty piece [which] proves that Dagmar is better seen than heard’. Legend has it that Sinatra was so angry with Miller that he never forgave him: when the pair passed each other in a hotel lobby, Miller extended his hand to greet the singer, but Sinatra snarled, ‘Fuck you! Keep walking.’

 

Then there’s Sinatra’s version of Woody Woodpecker. In the 1940s Sinatra was starring on the radio show Your Hit Parade and, as a consequence of this, was often called on to perform songs that were doing well in the charts that week… one of which was Mel Blanc’s Woody Woodpecker, a major hit in 1948. Although Sinatra’s lacklustre performance of this monstrosity was never supposed to be released, in 1974 British budget label Windmill Records put it out on a collection of Sinatra rarities, I’m Confessin’, and the recording has been in circulation ever since.

 

He made the occasional misstep during his Capitol years too: take, for example, the ridiculous version of Old Macdonald (awful, but admittedly better than Elvis’s stab at it, and his 1960 campaign song High Hopes With Jack Kennedy. That’s not to say his later career was free of faux pas. His disco version of Night and Day is truly horrible (the disco-fied All or Nothing at All was more successful, but still nasty), as is his cover of Paul Simon’s Mrs. Robinson, where Sinatra alters the lyrics (most egregiously the line ‘Jesus loves you more…’ becomes ‘Jilly loves you more…’, and confused an entire generation) and attempts to turn a rather wonderful pop song into a big band swing number.

 

Outside of his recording career, Sinatra’s somewhat colourful personal life included turbulent relationships with wives Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow, and rumours of his association with mob bosses followed him his entire career, leading to his being investigated by the FBI for his alleged relationship with the mafia. He became one of the best-known members of the Rat Pack, an informal group of Hollywood stars and recording artists that originally included Sinatra, Errol Flynn, Nat King Cole, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (Bacall and Sinatra were set to marry following Bogart’s death, but Sinatra called the wedding off after shortly after the couple became engaged, in mid-1958), but is probably best known for its Las Vegas iteration, of Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. In 1963 his son, Frank Junior, was kidnapped and Sinatra paid $240,000 ransom for his safe return.

 

He died, aged 82, in May 1998, leaving behind an incredible body of work, including the two songs I present for you today, Mama Will Bark and Woody Woodpecker. Enjoy!

 

Download Mama HERE 

Download Woody HERE 

The Future Is Now

Happy Friday, my friends, a happy New Year to you too, and a big welcome to the world of New York-based outsider musician Neil Dick.

 

I first heard of Neil through his inclusion on one of Irwin Chusid’s Songs In the Key of Z collections: a home cassette demo of The Future Is Now, which appears on the third volume of the series. More recently I was reminded of his brilliance by fellow incorrect music enthusiast and Sheena’s Jungle Room DJ Miss Mei, who posted his entire 2006 album, also called the Future Is Now, on YouTube after CDBaby decided to cease production of physical discs and make it almost impossible to find Neil’s album.

 

Which is a huge shame, as it really is a wonderful thing. As Neil himself said at the time of release, ‘I take great pride in presenting my debut album… Having been a music lover nearly all of my life, I consider this album as a coming to fruition of really “finding myself” musically.’

 

Neil was, he tells us, ‘An avid listener of popular songs on the radio as early as the age of five.’ A few years later, at his mother’s insistence, he ‘Took piano lessons for a couple of years… which came in handy in the future. In high school, I discovered I had a good singing voice. I would sing many of the popular songs of that era to myself, but was too shy to pursue this skill before audiences. Decades later, having overcome my shyness, I started performing in karaoke events in clubs.’ These karaoke spots emboldened him and encouraged him to pursue his dream of releasing his own music.

 

Neil purchased his own synthesizer, and found himself a studio, Olive Juice, to record his debut full-length album. Eleven of the 12 tracks on The Future Is Now were written by Neil himself: the twelfth, Broken Heart, was composed by his friend Andrew Singer, aka rap artist soce the elemental wizard (all lower case, just like k.d. lang). Many of the tracks on the album originally appeared on a demo cassette, released in 1998 under the name Neil Darins. That cassette also includes several Neil Dick originals that would not be re-recorded for The Future Is Now, including the rather sweet I Really Flipped Over You, and The Edmonton Song.

 

In the 1950s, Neil was at school with Chuck Negron, a founding member of the band Three Dog Night. The pair reconnected backstage in 2004, and one of the tracks on the album, It’s a Small World tells the story of their friendship.  

 

An active member of New York’s LGBTQ community (he gets a credit on the soundtrack to the 1995 film Wigstock: the Movie), having recently turned 78 (he celebrated his birthday on 21 December), Neil is no longer making music but is still working, currently as part of the staff of the New York Language Center.

 

Enjoy a couple of tracks from the extraordinary The Future Is Now, Neil’s ode to Chinese cookery I Love That Red Sauce, and the magnificent, uplifting title track The Future Is Now. For more, check out mei Clover's YouTube channel, where you can find the entire album, as well as a couple of tracks from Neil's 1998 demo cassette.

 

Enjoy!

Download Sauce HERE

Download Future HERE