Gnome Thoughts ... 39 (Liltin' Hilton or Wherefore to Bradfooord?)

I thought this blog's series of posts about the early David Bowie, entitled Gnome Thoughts, had come to a natural end but today I heard Ronnie Hilton's version of The Laughing Gnome, recorded in 1967, for the first time, and could not stay silent.

Gnome Thoughts ... 24 (1956 charts, Hullensian overtaken)

As we cruise into the second half of the fifties in this series rock'n'roll is really kicking in, though big ballads and old-fashioned razamatazz can still be found in this representative cross section of what the British public were being subjected to over the airwaves. Rock With the Caveman, an early and not wholly convincing British attempt to rock, was written by Lionel Bart. Ronnie Hilton's No Other Love is the old guard, still in good voice.

Interesting footnote: Anne Shelton's corny but cheerful Lay Down Your Arms, which features at the end of Lipstick On Your Collar, was engineered by ... Joe Meek, producer extraordinaire: the future was just around the corner. And note this volume ends with Heartbreak Hotel, which was to change the lives of the young Lennon and McCartney.

Gnome Thoughts ... 15 (Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks alert)

This is to alert readers that a programme about the writers of Bernard Cribbins' comedy songs, Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks, is going to be broadcast on BBC Radio 7 on Tuesday 19th October at 2.30pm if you're in the UK. And even if you're not, Radio 7 has a Listen Again facility for one week.

Don't bother clicking (or, armed with this new knowledge, refrain from further clicking of) the above image, which is a screengrab. Instead, go to the relevant BBC 7 page here, where it should be available on the BBC iplayer soon after the broadcast.

I'll be very interested to hear the programme, as I don't know much about the writers (Rudge is on the right, above), although I do remember reading Noel Coward praising one of the Cribbins hits on Desert Island Discs.