Gnome Thoughts ... 12 (Damon Albarn on Alan Klein)

Have just come across the original context for Damon Albarn's remark about Alan Klein's influence - a 1995 article in Q magazine about Well At Least Its British, reproduced on a Blur forum:

This is the most colloquial record that I own. I discovered it quite by accident about five years ago in a charity shop, and it was instrumental in me making Modern Life Is Rubbish, and changing, and getting an idea of my own self.

Gnome Thoughts ... 11 (Well At Least Its British)

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 album. (Find details of the CD release with extra tracks on the RPM website here.)

That may overstate the case - I don't know whether Bowie has ever actually credited him as an inspiration - but as mentioned earlier Klein had the same manager (Ken Pitt), and Damon Albarn has said of him: "I can’t believe that David Bowie didn’t know him inside out, and the same with Ray Davies." 

So he's worth consideration, at least - and as there isn't much about the album already out there, this post could even be something of a public service.

But the big question is: now that I've had a chance to hear it, does Well At Least Its British provide the key to unlocking those early Bowie songs?  Or failing that, is it at all Kink-y?

Gnome Thoughts ... 10 (Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp)

We are perhaps wandering away from Bowie and the Kinks in this entry, but thinking about Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town in the previous post has reminded me of another succinct story in song which also made a lasting impression on me as a child: The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp, in the soulful version by O.C. Smith (above), a major UK hit in 1968.

Even if, as with Suggs and his response to the Kinks' Lola, I didn't really get it.

Gnome Thoughts ... 9 (Ray is in the details)

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 from me.

 Still fizzing with thoughts after the last entry, I was talking to a colleague about Waterloo Sunset and its possible influence on Bowie's songwriting. After a bit of mulling he cited Heroes - which instantly seemed obvious. It too couldn't really be described as a narrative, but it does have that image of a couple kissing which seems central to the song.

Gnome Thoughts ... 8 (Waterloo Sunset)

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 the world - realised it was something special.

Perhaps for a child the fact that it wasn't, strictly speaking, a love song had something to do with it, even though lovers figure in it. Certainly Davies' late friend and mentor Ned Sherrin said that was what made it unique in the pop charts of the time.

For someone growing up in Scotland, however, the song's setting was enough to suggest something magical, even if the Engerland in my head may not have swung like a pendulum do. My childish notions of the country and its capital came largely from Ealing films on the telly, all decency and community spirit, tempered by odd glimpses in police series of a modern day city seemingly awash with criminals, spies and pyromaniacs like George Cole  (below) in Gideon's Way.

Gnome Thoughts ... 7 (Bowie and the Kinks)

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

Gnome Thoughts ... 6 (music hall to rock)

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

One question I've been wondering was whatever has Alan Klein being doing since 1970, as wikipedia isn't any use in this respect. And why didn't he write more musicals - assuming he didn't? And why did that whole vigorous genre of Theatre Workshop musicals die out?

Gnome Thoughts ... 5 (What a Crazy, Violent Playground)

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 debut. Seems like his real-life father had a touch of the Harry H Corbett character about him, as he was so unimpressed with his son's performance he advised him to "Give it up, while you're ahead".

The songlist below is taken from a theatre programme reproduced on the Ray Winstone  tribute website, copperlilly, here. Interesting to see that numbers which  were written for the film like Independence, have been retained - in fact, Winstone's character, Chas, is one of the singers.

Gnome Thoughts ... 4 (What A Crazy World)

Have just refreshed my memory of What a Crazy World. Very enjoyable and - unlike Three Hats for Lisa, much as I love it - rooted in a very specific time. There's a lot of resentment from the parents, the father in particular (Harry H Corbett, who made his name at at Stratford East), about how much an office boy is earning these days.

Diversion: Which reminds me that a former boss who'd grown up in the sixties told me that you could have an argument at your work and storm out, certain in the knowledge that you would be fixed up with another job that same afternoon. So you could have as many arguments as you felt inclined, seemed to be the message. Unfortunately, by the time of our brief work acquaintance in the mid eighties I got the impression he was surprised and angered about where he'd ended up in a game of career musical chairs which had come to an abrupt halt. Luckily, I was only passing through his world. But that's another story - a play, even. Now all I have to do is rewrite to make it GOOD.

Sorry, that's my problem, I'll deal with it. (Or not.) To return to the film: although the title song mocks the parents for their negligence ("No one seems to notice me"), preferring bingo and betting to quality family time, there's a counterbalancing song shared by the mother and father, surrounded by their mates at the bingo hall and dog track (below) respectively.

Gnome Thoughts ... 3 (Three Hats For Lisa)

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 stage original that I know of, and songs not by Alan Klein but Newley collaborator Leslie Bricusse.

I have, on occasion, maintained that this is The Best Film Ever Made. But here, in the deep privacy of the unread blog, even I would have to admit that whatever the verve of the playing, we are veering more to Cliff Richard territory in the storyline (also by Bricusse, although the screenplay is by Talbot Rothwell). No pretentions to social criticism here, and the film is candyfloss-light and yet...

Gnome Thoughts ... 2 (Anthony Newley, Alan Klein)

More thoughts and connections suggested themselves after I finished the previous entry.  My own fault, I suppose, for picking up Spencer Leigh's book (below) again. But it is a very enjoyable read.  Drawing on interviews with over a hundred musicians for a radio series, the story of the early days of British pop is told almost entirely through the words of the musicicans involved, and there is a mass of detail which I haven't read elsewhere. Apart from a few chapters in individual artists it's arranged by theme - US stars on tour, novelty records, early British idols (including Anthony Newley), skiffle, TV programmes, the trad boom, etc.

In between each chapter there are a few pages of archive music paper cuttings, allowing you to see less than overwhelmed initial responses to records - did you know, for example, that Love Me Do "tends to drag about mid-way, especially when the harmonica takes over for a spell"? Glad I wasn't within Lennon's orbit when that little pronouncement appeared.

Another cutting announces that Stanley "Scruffy" Dale (a devious character known to me from Graham McCann's biography of Frankie Howerd) is the new manager of Johnny Kidd and that "this should get the 'Kidd' really going places."; in the main text one of Leigh's interviewees angrily laments the way the trusting Kidd was duped by his management.

Quotations are numbered, so it's very easy to use the index of contributors to focus in on individuals such as Newley (the book was first published in 1996) and Ken Pitt. You can buy it directly from the author's website, here, rather more cheaply than through a well-known shopping website. It's not a lavish volume but it is packed with fascinating comments from a whole herd of horses' mouths.

I've already mentioned my surprise on learning from the book that Ken Pitt, Bowie's early manager, was involved in Anthony Newley's management. Going systematically through all the the contributions from Pitt and Newley has yielded further information. The difference between Anthony Newley (above, on location for Jazz Boat, 1960) and performers who "came out of that rock'n'roll chain" is spelt out by the man himself.

Gnome Thoughts from a Foreign Country (The Vintage David Bowie)

 Now here's a real oddity (no pun intended). This 1983 songbook, recently obtained for work purposes, has several previously unpublished early Bowie songs, from his self-titled first album (1967) on Decca's hip offshoot label Deram, plus a few from his second album, also known as David Bowie, otherwise Space Oddity or Man of Words, Man of Music (1969). There are a few copies of the book on the net at the time of writing. The cover of the songbook, like many of the vinyl repackagings of the 1967 material, is deliberately misleading, but who cares if you already know what you're getting?

More unfortunate, in my view, is that the songbook is split between the two albums, possibly for fear that a book's worth of novelty songs would be too unpalatable. Space Oddity apart, the earlier songs are perhaps more interesting - although not necessarily for Bowie fans. Many have a distinct music hall influence, reflecting the pop of the time - the Kinks and Barrett-era Pink Floyd - and apparently it was released on the same day as Sergeant Pepper (which rather reminds me of Dave Clark - although in fairness it may have have been Clark channelled by Mark Shipper in his spoof biog - declaring that his group's rivalry with the Beatles could only be beneficial for both sides). 

But Bowie's vocals go back earlier, aping Anthony Newley's singing style.

Like an enormous YEAH YEAH YEAH! or The Hottest CD Box Set Ever Compiled?

Please note the question mark in the title as a) the set below is issued by Proper Records, whose quality control is not always of the best, and b) I haven't yet got my mitts on a copy.

But I still need to draw your attention to this four disc collection of the jazz which poet and funster Philip Larkin very publicly liked. Ignore the cruel remark of a friend who said that this blog would not be her first port of call for dependable information about musical figures; in the area covered by this compilation I can speak - er, with intermittent authority. At the very least.

I discovered Luis Russell (commemorated philatelically, above, by the homeplace hymned in his masterpiece) before realising Larkin was also a fan - before realising Larkin existed, in fact. But reading All What Jazz, his collection of music crticism, led me to other jazz artists and helped cement my love for Louis Armstrong.

Not that this was a forsaking of pop: I seem to remember that when the Beatles' Hamburg tapes eventually came out on vinyl I borrowed it from my local library along with an Armstrong memorial compilation (on Parlophone, incidentally), as though to test whether I could find the same magic in both.

Don, Paul ... and Bingo?

Several related things. Have just seen that James Paul McCartney, Macca's 1973 TV special for Lew Grade's ATV, is on youtube. This programme was done, I think, as a favour to Sir Lew, or a way of keeping him sweet, after he had bought Northern Songs from Dick James.

Cheapo Cheapo Records Latest - much the same

I was about to post this entry, all excited, when I realised that I was taking the information from a copy of Record Collector dated ... October 2009. It was an ad for a music fair in Brighton at which Cheapo's vinyl stock was being sold.

Harvey Fuqua: three songs

Mentioning Alan Warner in the previous post prompted me to look for an image of the doo wop compilation LP he masterminded which included You're So Fine. I didn't immediately find it but did come across a site, here, which is indeed by the same man, as his bio includes the information:

An Englishman who started out working for EMI Records in the UK, Alan was transferred to Los Angeles in the mid-70′s after having had some success producing records of Laurel & Hardy and vintage Hollywood Musicals, plus a multi-artist series called “The Many Sides Of Rock’n'Roll”, and far too many other compilations to mention.

What he modestly doesn't mention (assuming the bio is self-penned) is that his compilations of film soundtrack material were regularly praised by UK critics for the quality of the transfers - yes, even in those vinyl/cassette days it made a difference. And I did eventually find images of the doo wop compilation in the Many Sides ... series -see top and immediately below. Doubleclick on the image below for readable tracklisting and notes, which I presume were written by Mr Warner himself- another building block in my doo wop education, so a belated thank you.

I also note that his website pays tribute to the late Harvey Fuqua (top) by drawing attention to his songwriting credits. I didn't realise that Harvey Fuqua had written That's What Girls Are Made For, a very early (1961) record by the Spinners which I first found on a really obscure doo wop tape around the early eighties. Although - or because - the lead throws in quite a few Sam Cooke mannerisms it's a beautiful record - and as I hear it in my mind, before I scan youtube, I'm assuming Harvey would have been involved in the arrangement too, as the strings bear a close resemblance to the bridge of an obscure Moonglows side I particularly like called She's Alright With Me.

[Spellbinding Falcons - will that do?]

The day of the anniversary of my friend's death - or possibly the day before or after, as that's the kind of person I am - I saw a copy of The Northern Soul Story Vol. 1: The Twisted Wheel (above) in my local, not very impressive, HMV and after much dithering bought it. Below is a reasonable-sounding youtube clip of the song which struck me most, which I include as a final salute to him. Until I decide otherwise and add more. (Hey, it's a blog: we don't live by your petty rules, man.)

If you are a Northern Soul fan, no doubt the song below is a stone classic, so look away NOW, as I'm going to write about hearing it for the first time. And again, there will be stuff about the Spellbinders online, which you could look up if you wanted to; still reeling from a (living) friend's cruel decision not to read this blog it hardly seems worth searching for links to place here. I mean, the internet's a big place, so why don't you forage for yourself, eh? Ah, gone are those days of late December/early January when I was able to delude myself that I had a substantial audience - or even one faithful reader.

Greece is still the word: The Gospel at Colonus 28 years on

I wrote in an earlier entry, here, about seeing the superb acapella group 14 Karat Soul at the Edinburgh fringe in an early production of Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus coupled with another piece, Sister Suzie Cinema.

That post discusses my experience of seeing the group over the years, but the reason these notes have not been added as a postscript to that entry is that they have a momentary urgency - or will do if you are reading this before the end of August 2010: a bigger production of The Gospel at Colonus, featuring major gospel stars, is about to come to the Edinburgh Festival proper in August, which prompts me to add a bit more about  the show and about the original performers,14 Karat Soul, here.

Swanee Upping Concluded - Part Two

As so often when I've alighted on an idea for this blog, it's difficult to let go. I have been looking around the net for Sooty-related material and found that in 2006 Matthew Corbett, under his real name, presented what appears to have been a fairly low-key one man show in the place he now lives about his time with Sooty, entitled "25 Years Sticking Your Hand Up a Teddy Bear's Bottom."

Swanee Upping Concluded

The investigation is over and the mystery solved, thanks to the kindness of strangers on the BBC Radio 7 comedy messageboard, here, and some of those directly involved in Huddlines. Thank you to all who helped.

The regular lyric writers on Huddlines during that period were Jeremy Browne and Richard Quick (writing separately, Alan Stafford, the programme's last commissioned writer, says) so I may have got it wrong about Steve Brown's contributing to the show - although as Phil Pope did say he used to write with Steve Brown on Spitting Image and that Brown also contributed material to Radio Active, it's certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility he may have made the occasional contribution to Huddlines.

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.

Up the Swanee

Had what can only be termed a Russell Davies moment a few minutes ago. Which made me realise I may have been unnecessarily harsh in my dismissal, during an earlier entry, here, of that seasoned broadcaster's favoured method of selecting music for his show. But before elaborating on that - and in a transparent attempt to entice the reluctant reader onwards - let's go back ... back ... back ...

Back, in fact, to some unspecified date - which, I realise, isn't terribly satisfactory, although I can probably place it in 1997 or before. I was in Argyle Street, just off Oxford Circus (probably walking to Marshall Street Pool, which closed that year), walking past the London Palladium, when I espied none other than ... Phil Pope.

If you're American the name may not mean much to you but Phil Pope, along with Steve Brown, had the UK song parody field all sewn up in the 1980s. If it wasn't one, it was the other. Radio, TV, live theatre - I still remember Steve Brown's Barry White parody Aerobic Love, sometime in the eighties at the Edinburgh Fringe which culminated (the song, not the festival) in his getting up from the keyboard to reveal a perfectly constructed paunch.

A Distant Love - the Dells

One of my all-time faves from the Dells' doo wop years. One of the sides on the double album of Vee-Jay material licensed by Dick James's DJM which I found in Biggars music shop in Glasgow around 1976 - and a few days ago I was surprised to find it (the shop) was still there. I think the recording on that album was an alternate take as at the end of the record I possess you can clearly hear one of the singers start to sing the wrong words ("Across the -"). This is almost witlessly simple as a piece of songwriting but the singing has a nightclub kinda feel, reminding me that they recorded with Sarah Vaughan. Or possibly Dinah Washington. I won't check, as I'm still hurting from having been told that a friend won't read my blog; I'm only sorry the rest of you out there have to suffer. Anyway, this is such a simple song that on occasion I've taped the bass part and sung over it: along with In the Still of the Night one of the doo wop numbers which feels graspable by someone who can't sing in any accepted sense of the word. But I love this song for its directness.

Uptown Soul

Linked posts here, here, here and here.

Billy J, don't be a - eeeeeuuurgh!

Remember Clifford T. Ward? Gaye: "You're the tray of bright rings I upset yesterday" - or some such. Look it up somewhere: teacher, long blonde hair, possibly first championed by John Peel, possibly not. Sorry, I just don't have time for elementary online research, and there will undoubtedly be lot of fan sites about him. And I have recently been told - unkindly, in my view, but let it pass - that mine would not be the first online destination should a certain someone need dependable musical knowledge about any artist.

So why am I mentioning Clifford T. Ward at all, when there will be so many dedicated websites, and how can I hope to compete? Well, the answer is I'm not interested in the broad sweep of his achievements but only in one tiny but perfect fragment from his work. After the success or non-success of Gaye ("You allay my every fear in a most extraordinary way" etc), certainly a turntable hit of sorts if nothing else, he penned a ditty which may or may not have been called (again, I'm just too busy) Home Thoughts From Abroad, and it is a detail of that to which I direct the reader. From memory it runs:

I've been reading Wordsworth, Keats and Robert Browning [...]
I like the things they say and I like the way they say them,
You know, Home Thoughts From Abroad is a beautiful poem.

Yep, up there with Bernie Taupin and Marc Bolan in the lyrical achievement stakes. But the reason I mention him is something which happened to me on a train journey yesterday.

Cheapo Cheapo's Vinyl stock still for sale - updated link

If anyone reading this is interested in buying or enquiring about Cheapo Cheapo's vinyl stock, here* is an updated link. (If you're new to this blog, find more information about Cheapo by scrolling down the last few posts.) Presumably the Gumtree site only allows ads for a certain amount of time; this was reposted on 7 June. 13,000 records are available for £2000. A small sample is given in the ad but if you email the seller you will be sent a much larger list.

If the ad has disappeared again you can check if the stock is still for sale by going to gumtree, here*, or if that doesn't work, enter the following categories (click on screengrab below to enlarge)

I do hope the stock gets sold and not melted down or whatever. Perhaps the Museum of London could recreate the shop. Is there a record collector who could love all the styles represented?


*  Sadly, the links are no longer relevant.

Cheapo - slight return

Some days or weeks after my visit to Cheapo's old premises on January 19th  I went back - and this time actually crossed the road and pressed my camera against the window pane. Not much was visible on the day itself and I didn't bother uploading the photograph here, as one pile of debris looks pretty much like another, but that worn floor in the image taken from flickr in the prevous post now makes the following foggy image more readable, so here it is: Click to make it larger.

[Add title which punningly alludes to all songs mentioned]

There is an episode of the UK sitcom Hardware (sadly, the clip above has been removed) in which Peter Davison, playing himself, gazes upon a photograph of Kenneth Branagh in a cafe and says something like: "Doesn't really do it for me, but you know - well done him." That's sort of what I feel about the disc below. I include it here, however, because it was a favourite of a friend whose anniversary is coming up soon. Spent a bit of time on youtube checking for what can only be termed the bootingest version - and this seems to be it, with what seems like an authentic vinyl whump:

Cheapo 2008

Found this on flickr, dated February 2008, credited to Federella. Think you can glimpse some CDs bottom left, but it's mostly DVDs, which began to crowd out CDs in the front of the shop. The figure is looking towards the back, wherein a range of viny and jazz/nostaligia, classical etc CDs lurk. It certainly gives a sense of how cosily cramped the premises were; I'm proud to think I may have contributed to the wearing out of the floor. Click for a larger image.

Cheapo - a musical tribute by Alastair Dougall

I stayed on for an hour at work to add more to the previous blog entry. Getting home, I googled "Cheapo Cheapo closed" and found this musical tribute by Alastair Dougall, which suggests there's plenty of grief to go round. I haven't picked out all the words yet but it sounds beautiful. And who needs words when you have music? Although I caught bits and pieces like "Phil's still frowning in the grave." And the song is also a lament for the dispossessed of the record industry, and the artefacts they produced: Cheapo is the place "where old albums go to die."



Update: Alastair has kindly forwarded the lyrics and given me permission to quote them here:

CHEAPO CHEAPO RECORDS by Alastair Dougall


An open door, past the pushers and pimps and whores, that was Cheapo Cheapo Records, three full-to-bursting floors.
Phil the owner, perpetual frown, keep you head down when he's around...
If you want to piss him off, just ask him what's in the shop.


Goodby, goodbye, Cheapo Cheapo Records, Rupert Street won't be the same...
Closing time, Cheapo Cheapo Records, green paint peeling in the Soho rain...
It's a shame no one will look through your racks again.


The famous, the failed, deleted and the super-rare, second-hand and never played, the has-beens and the never-were...
Priced up the same, best check on the condition, don't ask Phil for your money back, there's no receipts or compensation...


Good bye, goodbye Cheapo Cheapo Records, where old albums come to die
Closing time, Cheapo Cheapo Records, you could pick out a classic for a song...
But it's a shame the way those Cheapo days have gone.


...Rock and roll and jazzy noises, funk and country m/f voices, soundtracks, classical, spoken word,
And piles of promos no one's ever heard....


Goodbye, goodbye, Cheapo Cheapo Records, Phil's still frowning in the grave...
Closing time Cheapo Cheapo Records, you surely lived up to your name...
But it's a shame no one will look through your racks again.

Alastair Dougall's myspace page with more songs and info about him is here. 

Earlier blog entries working through my feelings about the closure of Cheapo:

A Wreath for Cheapo (this is the main one)
Nowhere (to buy records) Boy
Cheapo Revisited (photographs of the premises as they are now)
Cheapo Cheapo's vinyl stock up for sale (includes link to ad on gumtree site)
Cheapo Cheapo Closure Closure (an unexpected chance to go through the racks again - kind of)

Cheapo Cheapo Closure Closure

Hmm ... not quite as I would have wished in every particular, but those who have read the earlier posts lamenting the loss of Soho's Cheapo Cheapo Records may be gratified to learn that I have unexpectedly achieved what amounts to a kind of closure today. And it all came about from a conversation at a party (ooh, get me) on Sunday.

I was talking about records to a former bouncer and mod, who bought a lot of Northern Soul in Cheapo, which led to my googling for recentish comments about the shop and finding the Gumtree advertisement mentioned in the previous entry. I emailed enquiring about CDs (the ad only mentions the large stock of vinyl) and today phoned to arrange a time to come and view whatever there was. I said to my colleague, only half-joking, "This feels like happiness," comparable to a wonderful moment during my dominie incarnation when I was given a week off normal duties (still paid, mind you) to take part in a sitcom summer school. Ohhh yessss. And the knowledge that my colleagues received no comparable dispensation made it, I have to admit, all the sweeter. (The eventual fate of a sitcom I wrote a few years later kind of balances things out, but no more o'that.)

Anyway, off I trot to a warehouse near Hanger Lane. The actual process of reaching it is unnecessarily arduous, largely because the directions at a bus stop are, in effect, upside down, causing me to stride away from my goal until I can figure the matter out. Not to worry, I say to myself: it's a kind of a quest, Christopher Vogler-like. Riches and fulfilment await once the obstacle of my essential stupidity in practical matters such as these is overcome.

Cheapo Cheapo's vinyl stock up for sale

Just spotted an ad on the Gumtree site offering Cheapo's vinyl stock for sale:

13,000 records are available at the price of £1 each, for those willing to buy in bulk. These were the stock of the famous Cheapo Cheapo record store in London before it closed down.

Details, including a small sample of what's available, can be found here [LINK OUT OF DATE: GO TO BLOG ENTRY HERE TO FIND OUT WHETHER AD STILL RUNNING].You can email for a list of more than 5000. The ad was posted on 26th April, so it may be that the stock has been already sold. [update: received an email confirming stock still available.]

Earlier blog entries about the closure of Cheapo:
A Wreath for Cheapo
Nowhere (to buy records) Boy
Cheapo Revisited

Notes from Nowhere Boy

Question: Does the world need yet another review of Nowhere Boy?
Answer: Almost certainly not, but I am impelled to record my comments.

Talking about the Brian Jones biopic Stoned in an earlier entry, here, I said that whatever the facts of the matter, a coherent narrative had been assembled - ie that it worked as a film if you didn't know about Jones's story beforehand and weren't already wedded to a specific theory about the manner of his death. The idea of Jones being intimidated at times by his builder, Frank Thorogood, which came over in more than one account I've read, was downplayed in the film, which chose instead to emphasise the idea that Jones taunted the builder with his rock god lifestyle, as it made the film's conclusion - that the taunting  escalated to the point where Thorogood snapped - more logical. It's not the only story which could have been fashioned out of the mass of available material, but it certainly makes sense.

I have to admit that with a Beatles-related film, however, I'm much more inclined to be picky about details. This may be partly because, having researched the Jones material for my own non-project, I'm more aware in that case of choices having to be made - but also, perhaps, because of  a proprietorial sense about the Fabs which I've never felt about the Stones: they weren't "mine," but belonged to my two elder brothers, one of whom actually styled himself "Mick" on occasion. The Stones were a more grownup interest; the Beatles belonged equally to all five of us (doubleclick to double your viewing pleasure).

And hey, John Lennon was my favourite going right back to the days of those Beatle chewing gum days, when you'd get some pink gum and a photo, all for however much it was. And since then I've devoured most (who can say all?) of the Beatles-related literature out there. Hey, I even own a book devoted to the "Paul is dead" myth, although I've never done more than skim it. Reading about the Stones for the specific purpose of researching a play was interesting but not wholly involving, as they weren't "mine" (which may well be one among several reasons why I never nailed the play).

So what do I think of Nowhere Boy? I certainly enjoyed it, but it was impossible to discard my baggage while watching. I won't try and write a proper review but will simply make some notes about things which struck me.

Fisk Jubilee Singers radio play alert

Only caught the last twenty minutes of this so will refrain from detailed comment but am posting this to alert people to this play, The Jubilee Singers, which will be available on the BBC Radio 4 website, here, for one week, ie until 22nd May. It was written by the late Adrian Mitchell and originally intended for the theatre. All the background you need is in the above link although there is a more detailed account, here, of why it wasn't produced onstage as intended.

All I will say for the moment is that it felt like there was a missing dimension: you could imagine how much the presence of the singers onstage for the whole time would have added. But more of this later.

It was directed by Marilyn Imrie, whose name has become enshrined (for me) in the phrase "Marilyn liked it," after another producer had put forward my radio play about a doo wop singer without otherwise exciting any interest - or, more to the point, development money. I still plan to make a recording of it, even it counts as a vanity project. And all I can say about it with reasonable certainty is that if you have chosen to read the posts here (rather than scouring the pages for non-existent downloads then exiting in disgust) you will probably get something from it.

Frayed armchair to hold you

A few years too late to appease my father (see entry here) but I can't resist including this story by Dave Itzkoff from the New York Times, found via the excellent Hey Dullblog, a site for "people who think about the Beatles maybe a little too much" - which covers most of my immediate family.

Forty Years On, Vatican Tells The Beatles They Passed the Audition

Davieswatch

Davieslisten, really: the continuation of my quest to work out how ace broadcaster Russell Davies manufactures, on a regular basis, that there radiophonic Red Fire. I've been paying close attention to the latest Russell Davies show (broadcast last Sunday and available online here  until about 9pm BST Sunday 16th May) and have been pleasantly surprised to find that it's less "May-minded", to use his phrase from last time. In fact, there isn't really much to do with dates in this edition at all.

True, the first recording came from fifty years ago but thereafter the driving force behind the selection of this week's records was a phrase which appeared in that first song: "some day" or "someday". This then provided an excuse to play a range of songs employing one or other version of that word or phrase. Well, no, not excuse, as the subtle differences in nuance were genuinely interesting. And that week's choice of container allowed some comparatively unusual choices for this programme, including Judy Collins' famous version of Someday Soon.

Donovanagain - again

Caught up in a madness I cannot fully explain, I have become a Friend of Donovan's - in the limited, online meaning of the term - and watched a bit of footage of him performing during some kind of film award thing recently. First he plays Sunshine Superman - but during Mellow Yellow two people came out and joined him, and you know what? I enjoyed it. Mellow Yellow has become a bit like Happy Birthday: everyone knows it and it's fun. People were clapping along, having a good time, and the presence of others onstage made it seem revived, refreshed, especially as those people were just messing around. The Donovan Concert to which I linked in an earlier entry (see below) now only survives as a few images on his website; this three or so minutes of him singing recently is on youtube so maybe it'll last longer. Anyways, here it is. And my new "friend" tells me that he has been celebrating his birthday - so happy mellow yellow birthday, Mr Leitch.

They Turned Me On - Part Six: Those Unheard or There is a Balm in Islington

Granted, it doesn't look too good now, and may in fact have disappeared altogether since this photograph was taken, but Reader, please to believe that this building was once a proud branch - perhaps, indeed, the main one - of the Dalziel Co-operative (always pronounced "Copa-ray-tive") in my  home town.

As mentioned in a much earlier entry, here, they always did well with their Santa presentations at Christmas, but the reason this branch in particular may fit into this series about the influence of broadcasters on my musical tastes lies in a vague sense of the aural equivalent of deja vu (deja etendu?) when, over the years, I've heard the odd Sinatra track - for example, Rain during the opening of a play called Buddleia in 1996 - or, in  one case, an obscure Fats Waller airshot called Lila Lu. Too long ago to remember with any accuracy, but I can only presume that if I heard them, or recordings like them, over the airwaves in any location it would have been in the above building in happier days - for me and the Copa-ray-tive.

Aurelian Chimes - not

Chimes by the Pelicans is one of my favourite doo wop recordings. Think I first heard it in the late nineties - certainly in time for me to nominate it as one of five faves on the doo wop shop board in September 2000 in a post archived on this blog here.

I first came across it on a CD reissue (above) of two compilations of rhythm and blues tracks mostly or exclusively on the Imperial label which had been compiled by Canned Heat's Bob Hite, if memory serves. I see from Mike Callahan's Imperial discography on the excellent Both Sides Now website, here, that both albums were originally issued in 1968.

Hubert Gregg's autobiography

Mention of Hubert Gregg in the previous post reminds me that I have now read and thoroughly enjoyed his autobiography. It is available exclusively from the official Hubert Gregg website here.

Just to be clear, there is a separate book, entitled Thanks for the Memory (and also well worth reading), mentioned in an earlier entry, which consists of Gregg's salutes to his musical idols, and can be found fairly easily secondhand online. His autobiography is entitled Maybe It's Because ...? and has a wealth of anecdotes about his life in the theatre in addition to his own musical adventures. 

Both books call to mind the distinctive broadcasting style feted earlier (indeed, Thanks for the Memory arose out of two radio series) but the autobiography also has an occasional acerbic note which might not have passed muster at the Beeb (I won't spoil the surprise; let's just say you will never listen to Jack Hylton's records in quite the same way again). It also conjures several vanished theatre worlds - and by sheer coincidence, a colleague had been discussing Robert Atkins with me a few days ago after I had read it.

There are various setbacks and near-misses which seem to have dotted Hubert's life but - if it doesn't sound too Lear-like to put it this way - they are offset by his actual successes and the simple fact that he endured for so long. The radio shows may have been a relatively small part of his overall output but I think he is right when he says in the book that no one who subsequently climbed on the nostalgia bandwagon could do the particular job which he did, which I think comes down to the sense he always communicated of a direct involvement in the music and the implied courtesy, as I said in the original blog piece, here, of the carefully scripted links.

I'm a fan of AA Milne's grown-up writing and the style both of Hubert Gregg's autobiography and of his radio links seems similar: there is a sense of compression, of musicality almost, which suggests the hard work was done in the writing so that the act of reading is remarkably easy and moreish. (When someone told Milne that a piece of his in Punch seemed "funny without trying" he admitted: "That's what it tried to be.") I will forever be in Hubert Gregg's debt because he took seriously what could have been a throwaway programme and introduced me to much of the music which I still listen to and love - and indeed much of what I buy in the course of my job reflects my memory of those programmes.



See also They Turned Me On - Part Three: Hubert Gregg

They Turned Me On - Part Five: Russell Davies

There are a few more broadcasters I'd like to salute before bringing this occasional series to a conclusion. Gearing up to do my own podcasts (well, I've bought the microphone, anyway), I thought I'd attend a bit more carefully than normal to Russell Davies's regular BBC Radio 2 show this week (access it on the Radio 2 website here). Not that I don't enjoy it on a regular basis anyway, but as such a range of music and artists is included, I thought I'd pay a bit more attention to the links, to see just how he squeezes them all in and makes them seem of a piece in my personal quest for the secret of Broadcasting Man's Red Fire.

If you have read earlier entries in this series then you may remember that Ken Sykora got over the problem of selecting records by calling his 1970s show for Radio Clyde Serendipity with Sykora: provided some associative process, however tenuous, could be cited then just about anything went.

Which, following my own paperless trail, reminds me that Bob Holness of British TV quiz show Blockbusters fame actually hosted a programme of that title - I mean Anything Goes - on the BBC World Service. It enlivened many a late night/early morning for me when I was working as a security guard in the 1980s - though Holness's task was rather easier as the show was wall to wall listener requests, and even spoken word recordings, pastoral-tragical or whatever, were permitted.

Oddly, though, he chose Duke Ellington's Things Ain't What They Used to Be as the theme rather than the Cole Porter song suggested by the programme title, much as Hubert Gregg eschewed Thanks for the Memory and chose Nelson Riddle's arrangment of Time Was for his programme. Odd, that: is it about not being in thrall to one song, or prohibitive costs for regular use of particular songs? I think in Gregg's case it was about the title being foisted on him, and his shaping the programe, over time, to reflect his own particular enthusiasms (and how do I know that? Because I've now read his autobiography, which I'll discuss in the next entry).

What? No, that was a different Things ... And made different again when recorded by Max Bygraves. What? You haven't? Oh, but you must - at least once, anyway:

Stoney Endgame (Brian Jones)

Talking of music biopics, here's one which is resolutely non-doo wop but of particular interest to me, as it dramatises the last days of ex-Rolling Stone Brian Jones. I don't think there was a critical consensus about this film's merits but I was fascinated by it as I had laboured unsuccessfully some years before to create a coherent stage play linking Brian Jones with AA Milne.

Jones had bought what had been Milne's home (he died in 1956) as part of his attempt to get-it-together-in-the-country after a series of drugs busts and troubles with his personal and professional relationships with the other Stones; he famously drowned in the pool which I think had been added by the American couple who had owned the place in the interim.

The play failed overall, probably because I was never able to get a real sense of who Jones was, nor to bring out any connection between the two men which seemed more than "an accident of geography" as one literary manager rather devastatingly put it: a painful lesson that if a play doesn't have a shape then ultimately dialogue counts for nothing. Whether that experience should make me particularly well qualified to pass judgement on the film or debar me from comment, my review, which has already appeared on a well-known shopping website, follows. I have come unstuck in the past when trying to update reviews on the hoof, so will add further thoughts separately.