Musical differences: Sven Klang's Combo

 

At last the film Sven Klang's Combo (as it was known on its UK release) is - at the time of writing, anyway - available to watch online here. This is a big deal as when I last checked a few years ago it wasn't possible to buy a DVD with the appropriate subtitles - and it's well worth seeing.  Benny Green reviewed it very warmly in Punch as the most convincing portrayal of a band's interactions he had ever seen on film. 

It's about a group of Swedish musicians in the late fifties, happy to play Dixieland jazz and other crowd-pleasing music until they are joined by a  saxophonist with Charlie Parker-type aspirations. Either with permission from the leader or out of devilment (I haven't yet rewatched the film), he plays a Parker-type solo in the middle of a dance, and the reaction is interesting: displaying none of that "Go home dirty Bopper" reaction which famously greeted Bruce Turner's joining Humphrey Lyttleton's band, the crowd opt to remain quite still until he has finished and the more familiar, danceable style kicks in once again.

The impression is given that they didn't stop in order to give their whole attention to this new musical experience; it was just an irrelevance. And their ignoring of this would-be revolutionary playing is worse, in a way, than outright hostility, raising the possibility that this is music which is not going to tear down the walls after all. 

I don't know whether the actors were musicians but a lot of the action centres around their rehearsing, which suggests that either they could play or they learnt the basics during the rehearsal period. A fair chunk of the film, or so I remember, shows them rehearsing. I see from wikipedia that it was based on a stage play, which would explain the rehearsal room setting. 

I should stress that you don't need to be a jazz fan to enjoy, and learn from, the film. It's also about the changing relationships within a group as the initial optimism and sense of a common purpose gradually starts to disintegrate, in this case  because of what the new member is bringing. A scathing mantra in the film is that "All Danes play Dixie" - and at the beginning that had been enough - but it could equally have been a film about a group whose initial bond through a love of Chuck Berry numbers starts to loosen over time.

That scene, the only one I remember vividly, also makes me think of a Matt the Cat interview in which Earl Carroll of the Cadillacs talked of how he was taken aside by an audience member when he tried  to jazz up a doo wop number in order to make it fresh for him again. As I remember the interview, he talked of its being a chastening moment - ie that he ought not to have forgotten who the concert was for - but I wonder ...

If you wish to know more about Earl Carroll I can recommend Forever Doo-wop: Race, Nostalgia and Vocal Harmony, which I've reviewed here. Written by John Michael Runowicz, a musician and academic who worked with Carroll, it discusses the difficulties and contradictions faced by veteran doo wop groups when performing for modern-day, mostly white, audiences. The fact that Runowicz is in such a privileged position - viewing the situation both from outside and as one of the musicians - makes for a compelling read overall.

Any, give Sven Klang's Combo a go is my advice. I saw it in an arthouse cinema - the GFT - in the seventies, so perhaps it only had that kind of audience in the UK, which would explain the lack of a DVD release, but watch it now while you can.

Postscript:

I have now had a chance to see it again - and fifty or so years on it doesn't disappoint. The cinematography is notable: much of the action is seen in long shot, placing the viewer well back in the hall watching the musicians rehearse or play. I suppose, as mentioned above, that that might show the piece's stage origins but it doesn't feel at all as though we are watching a glorified play. The story is framed by the characters looking back on the events of 1958, so the long shots and the film's being in black and white both help to convey the impression of distance; indeed, there is a feeling at times that we are staring at old photographs magically reanimated through the force of memory. (The time in which the main action is set is also reflected in the bandleader's late decision to switch from Dixieland jazz to rock'n'roll, following the fashion most likely to make money.)

The sparing close-ups - of people or objects - when they happen are, however, extremely effective. 

Certain "goodies" and "baddies" emerge as the story unfolds but in the latter case that's skilfully conveyed with a few suggestions fairly late on in what is quite a substantial film (around two hours). And the new musician, the breath of fresh air, proves not to be a unmixed blessing for those whose lives he transforms. 

The moment I remembered as the saxophonist interrupting proceedings with a bebop solo isn't quite as described: it comes at the end of an evening, pegged onto their farewell tune, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, accompanied by shots of an audience who seem tired out by that point, some hardly listening anyway. The bandleader, Sven Klang, is nevertheless greatly angered by this instance of insubordination but the solo doesn't last that long so it's not really as though further engagements might be in danger. 

The scene, and several others like it in the film, give almost a documentary feel in the way the audience members are depicted: there is no sense of self-conscious extras, only hints of a myriad of other stories which could be told. Another scene in which the group are playing at a wedding has the focus mostly on the guests, and the new husband's lack of response to an uptempo number from the band as his bride claps happily along suggests there will be trouble ahead - though that's another film.

Briefly at the beginning, and more extensively at the end, this journey into 1958 is framed by a commentary from the group members as they are today, and the latter section is especially touching, the gulf between youthful dreams and the reality of the here-and-now deeply affecting. The bebop musician says something to the effect that inside everyone is a burnt-out star occasionally capable of being lit once again via music; as to how far he is able to change the lives of those with whom he has come into contact, you will have to watch the film. But no wonder Benny Green, a saxophonist himself, was so taken with it: Sven Klang's Combo could easily have settled for a sentimental or a moralistic approach; instead you have a complex tale in which there are no outright winners - none who emerges wholly unscathed, anyway - and the notion of "loser" is rather more complex and multilayered than in many other films. 

I can only urge you to see this film - and I know I'll soon watch it again.

*

In fact I did, that very evening. Some other thoughts: there is some comedy with the two younger men who are part of the band as, struggling to comprehend their new bandmate's playing, imagine that his glass of gin is liquified heroin - funnier than it might sound. 

More seriously, the film includes instances of the selfishness which can accompany absolute dedication to one's craft - even though the lives of those who have made compromises aren't necessarily any better. When, at one point, it is revealed that the newcomer has let them down down there is no rancour shown by the compromisers, who seem to accept and understand that he plays by different rules. Yet there is a qualified sense of hope in several of the interviews to camera at the end ... I can say no more except to repeat that this film is well worth seeing, even though you may have to endure advertisements cutting in at ill-judged intervals.

As far as I know  there hasn't been a DVD release of the film with English subtitles so watching it here, ads and all, seems the only option for now.

Of Gospel Groups and Coastal Cottages ...

 

 

When I first heard the Flamingos' doo wop classic Golden Teardrops I was puzzled by the reference to "a cottage by the sea", which seemed an arbitrary place in which to picture the loved one. Did it perhaps signify something to the record's original audience which I had missed?

 ... I'll remember, 
No matter where you'll be -
In a crowded room 
Or a busy street
Or a cottage by the sea  ...

That was around fifty years ago but I didn't think to investigate further - until now.

Kommendable Kinks Kompositions

 

As the Guardian has published a list of the Kinks' 40 greatest songs which omits several of my favourites I've dusted off these notes about some of Raymond Douglas Davies's finest. 

Summer day reflections on two socially distanced Leitch gatherings

Donovan, that seeming child of faerie, recently turned eighty. He is still performing and only a week or two ago on social media trumpetingly denounced as "fake news" the possibility of his retiring. At the time of writing his most recent concert was four days ago, in Cork; another, in Galway, is scheduled for October.

I don't think I'll be buying a ticket should he ever venture to England again, but I'm glad I went to see him a few months ago at Richmond Theatre; it felt like a final farewell to one whose music had once meant a great deal to me.

Settling into my (very comfortable) seat an usher handed me a Donovan CD. Possibly this happened to everybody - I was rather late in arriving, so don't know - but for a moment it felt like a "thank you" from the veteran troubadour himself, a way of acknowledging all the cash I must have thrown his way over the years, though later I did entertain the unworthy thought that his merch people might have been trying to offload copies of the less well-known albums which hadn't attracted many buyers in the foyer.

A few years ago in these pages I described my disappointment at a 2004 Dono-concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the first experience to test my Dono-faith, nevermore to resume residence in my heart with the same ardency. As I finished that piece, I found myself being pulled two ways: he had meant so much, even if he was no longer what he had been. Then, still searching for the precise words with which to tie a ribbon neatly around the experience of those long years of fandom, I noticed that his official site had a link to a live concert in Germany ...

Click.

Your budget stationer's has left its Croydon once for all

 

Danish chain Flying Tiger Copenhagen has been based in Croydon's Whitgift Centre for at least seven years, but its store is now labelled as "permanently closed" on Google Maps. 

[Daily Express, 28 April 2026]

The above news is, as a friend of mine would put it, "A wee shame." Especially as Croydon's Tiger store is not the only branch of  these cheap but inviting stationer's-cum-giftshops to have closed in recent times; I mourn the loss of a North London branch which happily occupied many post-prandial minutes when I was working nearby.

More than a hundred Tiger establishments remain aroar in the UK though it seems that their days might be numbered too: according to a recent report the Flying Tiger company is about to be taken over by the private equity firm which acquired and rebranded WH Smith as TG Jones. That might not be the reprieve it seems: as 150 of those translated Smith's are now at risk of closure that surely doesn't augur well for other acquisitions.

The Croydon branch of Tiger seems to have been particularly popular with its customers, so why did it have to close? According to the Extra London News website it's merely one of many retail casualties, the result of "economic pressures, high business rates, and the post-pandemic e-commerce boom".

True, you can still find shops which stock inexpensive stationery and the sort of small impulse-purchase which Tiger specialises in but for me, at least, they aren't a viable alternative - even if, like Paul Simon, I took (and take) some comfort there. 

The blunt fact is that whatever their consolations most of the correspondingly cheap'n'cheerful emporia lack, or lacked, Tiger's style. Wandering into the branch of Wilkinson's (before its contraction) which was situated upstairs from Tiger in that North London mall I remained in a state of painful sobriety, acutely conscious that I was merely frittering away what remained of my lunch hour by looking through cheap tat. The moment I stepped into Tiger, however, its decor and choice of background music was enough to give me, however fleetingly, a kind of spiritual elevation: with Wilkinson's above me only in the literal sense I felt, for a moment,

little lower than the angels

And - to proceed at last to the point of this post - quite apart from their less inspired surroundings, Tiger's rivals never seem to stock the stationery item which I prize above all else: The Modestly-Priced A5 Unlined Notebook. 

Number One? Ah, that'll be THIS day ...

 

The soundtrack double album for the fifties-set British film That'll Be the Day was number one  on the UK charts today in 1973, or so I have recently been informed on social media. Its featured oldies helped foster a love in me for doo wop and rock'n'roll more generally even though I have never owned a copy. Tracks were played on the radio at the time - Luxembourg as well as Radio 1 - and I still recall the moment I first heard Frankie Lymon hitting a certain note on Why Do Fools Fall in Love.

The modest film, written by Ray Connolly, has endured, probably because it wasn't primarily conceived as a means of shifting records. Quite the reverse, in fact: the soundtrack LP came into being in order to raise the rest of the finance to make the film, as Connolly has said.

[Producer David] Puttnam went to see a small Canadian television marketing company and proposed building our movie around a plethora of old hits they could promote as a tele-marketed compilation album.

They would pump more than £200,000 into an advertising campaign, showing clips from the film, so all we had to do was put together a 40-track soundtrack album of oldies but goldies.

We’d always planned to have some songs in the film, but 40!

Shuttling between Count Arthur Strong's radio and video shows

Although I found Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show on Radio 4 entertaining I had reservations about whether it really worked as a sitcom, as opposed to an extended sketch or "turn". I could see that he belonged to a noble tradition of bumblers but a big part of the pleasure of, say, The Shuttleworths (the original Radio 4 series featuring John Shuttleworth), is the sense it conveys of the constricted world which Graham Fellows' creation inhabits: hospices, garden centres (with their newfangled "campuccinos"), fun runs etc. 

I didn't get a similar sense of a precisely realised setting during the Count's radio outings: such details of his showbiz career as occasionally escaped his lips in those shows seemed vague and fragmentary. Had his showbiz career all been in his mind? If not, just how far had he ascended on the showbiz ladder and what had gone wrong?

Safka's Metamorphosis

 

Today, or hereabouts, marks fifty years since West Country group the Wurzels had a UK Number One with Combine Harvester, their parody of Melanie's Brand New Key, a British hit in 1972. Memory insists, however, that the group originally sang a rather different version in live performance in which their lead singer, rather than boasting of having acquired a large and expensive item of farming machinery, merely declared his possession of a Brand New Pair of Underpants.

Let me say at once that I haven't heard those alternative lyrics for myself but I'm pretty sure that the existence of this ur-Harvester was reported in the music press at the time - or in one paper, at least. But as I used to read most of them and can't be certain of the date of this article, nor how many of those publications might await in digitised form in the British Library or elsewhere, it's not a search I feel particularly eager to begin - and if anyone tells me those yellowing pages haven't yet been scanned and I'll have to turn over page after inky page even to the edge of closing time then fuggedaboutit. 

I speak from experience. Researching a book, I once spent a fruitless day at the former newspaper library in Colindale, leafing through copies of the variety artists' paper The Performer. It was an enjoyable enough activity in one sense, as all sorts of interesting titbits presented themselves along the way, including a joke about the near-miraculous way in which a comedian well-known at the time had saved himself from drowning - "He clawed the d*** pier" - but no trace could be found of the vital piece of information which had been the sole purpose of my quest.

morecambeandwise

 Today, as is readily apparent on social media sites, marks 100 years since Eric Morecambe was born. I don't recall Ernie Wise's centenary making a similar hoo-ha last year, which is a pity: as with the pair's onetime TV guests, the Beatles, there have been many books, articles and documentaries about Morecambe and Wise, and, just as Ringo is given short shrift in some assessments, the role which Ernie played in securing the laughs for the pair often seems to be undervalued, as though Eric was really a solo act. 

Nohow and contrariwise. I don't suppose sculptor Graham Ibbeson had much of a say in it himself but there seems to me to be something fundamentally wrong about a joint tribute to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Laurel's birthplace, Ulverston, when Eric Morecambe is depicted on his own in the former Eric Bartholomew's home town; even with a pair of binoculars bunged on the statue to indicate interests beyond comedy no one is going to look at it and think: "Wow, that's one ace birdwatcher!"

How's that for serendipity?

 

Just realised that an edition of Serendipity with Sykora can be found online which takes its theme as the month of June, positively demanding comparison with the Maytime episode of the Russell Davies Song Show discussed in the previous post. It's harder to compile an equivalent playlist, however, as Sykora often plays only a brief snatch of music, not the whole record, with artists and even song titles frequently left uncredited. 

With thematically linked quotations from poems, newspapers and other sources added to the mix, the overall effect is more stream-of-consciousness than Russell Davies's May-minded show. Yet it works: Sykora's choices don't seem random because his links do serve to make us feel that the jumble of information is the musing of one man. I'd forgotten just how soft-spoken and intimate his presenting style is, ideally suited to night-time broadcasting, when the mind may be permitted to wander more freely than within the constraints of daytime programming. (My memory is that Serendipity was on late at night though other shows he presented about big bands and the like were early evening.)

The Serendipity show does not consist, as I'd thought, of the Great American Songbook plus a few token novelties but is genuinely wide-ranging, with music from many other countries included. His distinctive voice and avuncular manner make it feel all of a piece but it's less formally educational than Russell Davies's programme - not that Mr Davies is formal in manner, merely that the narrower scope of his musical choices inevitably teaches you a lot about that golden period of American songwriting between the twenties and fifties in particular, whereas the experience for the listener to a Serendipity programme is more like falling into a kind of dreamy pinball game, rapidly (but not violently) shot from one musical or literary idea to another.

May-minded

 

Today is the first of May, which reminds me of the much-missed Russell Davies Song Show. I once tried to analyse a episode broadcast around this time of year, hoping to find pointers for making a podcast equivalent of this blog. I didn't get much farther than buying a microphone before the madness wore off (there really ought to be a proverbial phrase advising caution about purchases made during this month) but the exercise did give me a keener appreciation of the craft involved in preparing an hour of radio which doesn't sound slung together.

Like his predecessor on Radio 2, Benny Green, who had created the blueprint, Russell Davies's focus in his show was on the Great American Songbook, drawing the listener's attention to forgotten or neglected numbers awaiting within that capacious tome, making surprising connections between songs and celebrating felicitous lyrics. 

80@80 (Spencer Leigh autobiography)

 

 

I have just finished reading Spencer Leigh's autobiography 80@80: A Liverpool Life in 80 Chapters, which was published in February last year, and can warmly recommend it. As the title suggests it has eighty chapters to tie in with its venerable author reaching the milestone of his eightieth year, despite the still-boyish features displayed on the cover. (How does he do it?)

A thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish for the musically inclined, it covers a wide range of genres, as you'd expect from his show On the Beat, a former fixture on Radio Merseyside, but there is much else besides. I didn't realise, for instance, that broadcasting and writing about music had been, in effect, merely a hobby for him until the mid-1990s and that for over thirty years he had a day job as an actuary - and appears to have been efficient and well-respected in that entirely different field too. 

No Off Switch: of Andy Kershaw and others

  I was sorry to hear of Andy Kershaw's death.  As he presented programmes on BBC Radios 1, 3 and 4 there will almost certainly be a tribute to him on one station or another in the coming days but in the meantime I can recommend his very entertaining, full-throttle autobiography, aptly entitled No Off Switch. It's mentioned in the reposted piece below, written in 2012:

Rock & Roll Man (musical about Alan Freed)

On Saturday I went to see Rock & Roll Man, an agreeable musical about Alan Freed, at the Cambridge Arts Theatre; this week it's playing at the Lighthouse arts centre in Poole, and if you are within reach it's worth a visit. As far as I know that will be the end of the production's short UK tour though it deserves a longer life. The show had a three-month Off-Broadway run in 2023; this British production has retained Constantine Maroulis as Freed, and the passion and conviction which he brings to the role are a big part of its success.

Neil Brand's radio play Stan repeated today on Radio 4 Extra

 

Not to be confused with a later television adaptation, Stan, Neil Brand's 2004 radio play about Stan Laurel, has just been broadcast again on Radio 4 Extra and will be available on BBC iPlayer for the next thirty days. Stan, the radio drama, is very good indeed and a natural for the medium; the TV version doesn't simply add visuals but has been considerably reworked: we see scenes from the pair's past rather than their simply being recounted by the elderly Stan. Nothing wrong with that, but the intimacy of the radio play, and in particular that feeling of luck and privilege in being magically present, unseen, at the last meeting of these two great clowns is diluted.

Crying My Heart Out For You: the flop which made Sedaka a hitmaker

 

Crying My Heart Out For You is one of my favourite Neil Sedaka songs. It's not wildly original, and was not a hit in the US or UK when it first came out - Italy is the only country which seems to have warmed to it - but for me the anguished wails which bookend this simple tale of love lost make the recording.

His later songs might have become more artful but Sedaka retained his love of doo wop. In 1993 he took part in a live radio broadcast hosted by the DJ Cousin Brucie and was so taken with the superb acapella group 14 Karat Soul, also appearing, that he sang a few impromptu numbers with them, including Earth Angel. These are understandably less than perfect - "I goofed it, I goofed it!" as he shouts when he messes up a couple of lines on the Penguins' classic - but there is obvious love and enthusiasm in the performance. 

Leaves off Snodgrass (after posting the following supplementary observations)

 

If you've read the earlier post about alternative Beatles histories, here are more thoughts about Snodgrass, the short story by Ian R. McLeod which imagines the group achieving success without John Lennon.

 In that earlier piece I had been relying on my memories of the original story and the film adaptation (above, with Ian Hart as Lennon); since then I have reacquainted myself with both, and it's interesting to note the differences between the two.

The Fabulous Beatles - literally

Listening the other day to Ray Connolly being interviewed by Tim Haigh on BooksPodcast about his novella "Sorry, Boys, You Failed The Audition", I remembered that it is well worth reading. There have been earlier attempts to evoke the Beatles in imaginative ways, some of which I'll discuss below, but Connolly has the distinct advantage of having known the group well, especially John Lennon - he's also written a biography of Lennon and, according to the critic Philip French, the protagonist played by David Essex in Connolly's film That'll Be the Day was based in part on John. (I haven't seen this claim made by anyone else but Jim McLaine's relationship with his mother does seems to resemble that between Lennon and his stern-but-loving Aunt Mimi.) 

Sans Everything

In 2019 I wrote a piece about a 78 rpm record which I'd picked up at a jumble sale or record fair in Glasgow in 1975 or 1976. The disc was credited to the Harry Donaldson Orchestra, the vocalist one Sanky Franks. The side I preferred began with a voice - Donaldson? The producer? - advising: "Hey Sanky, try to get a kick out of it!" - and as far as I'm concerned he did. 

When I left the family home I foolishly left the record behind, along with a lot of other stuff;  some years later a massive clearout which I only learnt about after the deed had been done meant that letters, books, music and even the odd piece of art vanished forever.

Yes, yes, I'd been foolish to assume that a little corner of the family home would remain forever mine but it was a painful lesson and that erasure of memories, or at least the precious objects triggering so many memories, remains a hard blow. 

This may help to explain why it felt important to find out whatever I could about that record, which isn't listed on discogs or other online sites. I didn't dream it into being, and I wanted to hear it again if I could, or at least find out as much as I could about it, to make it substantial, solid again, one thing retrieved from oblivion.

Farewell, My Lady Nickerteen

 

D.J. Taylor, who celebrated the songs of Allan Smethurst, AKA the Singing Postman, in a 2010 radio documentary, announced today on social media that the troubadour's muse Molly Bayfield (the Molly Windley who "smokes like a chimbley" in his most famous song) had  died. 

Smethurst's songs have considerable charm although the simpler world he describes seems so remote now that for a moment it seemed astonishing to think that the woman who inspired his most famous number had still been around for the first quarter of the 21st century.

A BBC News article by Laura Devlin describes the day, momentous only in retrospect, when Smethurst visited his old schoolfriends, Albert Bayfield, and his wife, Molly, in the seaside village of Mundesley, on the North Norfolk coast: