This series started as an exploration of David Bowie's early influences ("Gnome" as in The Laughing Gnome) but has dri...

By way of an extended footnote to the previous post, more about repression in fifties Britain, this time through the prism of radio comedy,...

You can find out more about the the Britain in which John Lennon, Alan Klein and so many others grew up in Humphrey Carpenter's book Th...

  Listened last night to another of the very highly recommended LENNONYC "Beyond Broadcast" podcasts discussed in post 29 , this...

Only one more volume of the Fabulous 50s to go, but if you're not so keen on the tracks which don't come straight from the fridge (...

Here's the tracklisting (including some youtube links) for the 1958 volume of the Fabulous 50s series, plus some brief notes made at th...

Talking of those darlings of the Cold War, a current British TV comedy show has a regular sketch based on a very simple premise: the Beatle...

"C'mon, lads - let's reck not of the morrow!" One thing I haven't yet addressed in this scamper through the 1950s UK ...

Below is one of the few clips from Lipstick On Your Collar currently available on youtube, though I don't know how long for, so hurry. ...

The main point of looking at those 1950s CDs was to see what was in the charts before rock'n'roll, but I'm going to reproduce th...

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-fashion...

As this compilation series heads for the mid-fifties there are one or two portents of what is to come: the Sinatras and the Mario Lanzas may...

  As 1955 approaches this world is not set to last much longer. Johnny Ray, the final artist on this compilation, is not rock'n'rol...

Having talked in recent posts about the sickly nature of the pre-rock'n'roll British charts, now seems a good point for a quick loo...

 I have just seen Stop Dreamin' at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, where it's running till 6th November. Sad to report t...

Further musical connections, presented in more fragmentary a form than usual; an explanation will be furnished for the above image in due c...

Have just listened to, and thoroughly recommend, "Right", Said Ted and Myles, which can be heard until October 26th on BBC Ra...

Further investigation into JP Long takes us back to Stratford East as, along with M. Scott, he wrote Oh It's a Lovely War, the 1917 mus...

Have just found JP Long's lyrics for the original version of My Old Man's A Dustman, actually entitled What D'Yer Think of ...

This is to alert readers that a programme about the writers of Bernard Cribbins' comedy songs, Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks, is going to b...

Consider this post a Guardian-style Corrections and Clarifications column for earlier entries, as this is the first opportunity I've...

More information about Alan Klein, thanks to Spencer Leigh , author of Halfway to Paradise ...

Have just come across the original context for Damon Albarn's remark about Alan Klein's influence - a 1995 article in Q magazine ab...

And so to the the holy grail of this series about David Bowie's influences: Well At Least Its British , Alan Klein's 1964 solo al...

We are perhaps wandering away from Bowie and the Kinks in this entry, but thinking about Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to ...

This is more of a postscript to the previous two entries than a new undertaking, but worth placing separately as the ideas haven't come...

I must have been eight years old when I first heard Waterloo Sunset, in the year of its release, and - like just about everyone else in...

I've belatedly realised this series about early influences on David Bowie can't end without mention of Ray Davies and the Kinks. ...

This series of vaguely Bowied-related musings may be coming to a natural end. Or not. But this entry has the feeling of tying  u...

Have just found details of the 1975 Stratford East revival of What a Crazy World in which Ray Winstone (not playing the lead) made his debu...

Have just refreshed my memory of What a Crazy World. Very enjoyable and - unlike Three Hats for Lisa, much as I love it - ...

Joe Brown went on to star in another film of which I am very fond, called Three Hats for Lisa. It's also set in London, but with no...

More thoughts and connections suggested themselves after I finished the previous entry .  My own fault, I suppose, for picking up Spencer...

 Now here's a real oddity (no pun intended). This 1983 songbook, recently obtained for work purposes, has several previously unp...