Jerry Leiber

Very sad to read that Jerry Leiber (above, left) is dead.

Click here for a link to a 2001 interview with Leiber and Stoller at the NFT to promote a documentary about their work. I remember it well because I was present and even got to ask a question. It covers most bases and is well worth reading in full. Below are some brief extracts.

But if you're in a hurry, what with your busy schedule and lack of any sense of musical history, the gist is: they put in the hours and we all benefited.

Q: How unfinished was the song Stand By Me when Ben E King brought it to you, did you make the arrangement on the spot?

Cheapo gone MADD

Saw this for myself tonight, already knowing it was inevitable, as I had seen, a few days after the last entry, signs of some kind of counter being put up in the Cheapo Cheapo Records space, but above is final proof. It has happened. The shop I loved, the place which sustained me through amateur and professional associations (oh, read the relevant entries, if you can be bothered to find them) is now ... "London's first mango-based dessert and coffee lounge."

Don't get me wrong: I endorse the consumption of fruit - at least in theory. And it's a  bold move to have an eaterie in the heart of London's West End. Who could have seen that coming? But will the customers be nourished as I was?

Further Up the Swanee

Received a delightful message from Phil Pope (see previous post), claiming to be "honoured" (as who should not) by his mention in this blog - but disclaiming any credit for the Sooty song.

Which leaves Steve Brown in the frame ... only it now occurs to me that as the melody of Swanee was unaltered in the Huddlines broadcast - even the verse was used - adding topical lyrics would not have been beyond the capabilities of any number of writers who contributed to the show over the years. I can't remember the whole of the verse as sung by Roy Hudd in the broadcast but I do recall in place of the original's "Somehow I feel / Your love is real" his chuckling treatment of the new-minted description of the vanished bear -

He's small and blonde,
He waves his wand...

- a fragment which I decided, on balance, not to incorporate into my oration.

I think (but am not certain) that the Corbett father-son friction would have been around 1977-78, but I don't know whether that was when it became a news item, so I can't even be precise about the year Huddlines might have picked up on the story.

A few more details can be found here in an article written on the eve of Matthew Corbett's final TV show, although my memory of the Tibballs book suggests that when Harry is quoted in the article as saying "my son had cleaned me out" he may have been making a literal reference to all the tiny, painstakingly constructed Sooty sets being removed from his workrooms as part of the deal with his son; in the Tibballs book he talks about feeling red hot needles were going through him as he watched all this precious cargo - his life, in effect -  being loaded up and taken away.

Stand By Me - Part One

I can't remember when I first heard Stand By Me. It may even have been the Lennon reworking, as my earliest definite memory is of dancing to his version during one of the regular rock'n'roll nights at Tiffany's, Glasgow, in 1975, the enduring Rollin' Joe reassuring us (or himself): "John Lennon's coming home."

Ralph, William and Jake (and Davey) or Act As Known

Since completing the previous post about Jake Thackray I have made three attempts at new subjects, but the Thackray-related topic which keeps pushing itself forward is that of Ralph McTell, forced to bear witness, chorus-like, to his friend's retreat from performing.