Music

376. The Stylistics – Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love) (1975)

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The Intro

Philly soul group The Stylistics notched up many hits in the 70s, thanks largely to the unique falsetto of Russell Thompkins Jr and slick production of Thom Bell. But by the time they had a number 1 in the UK their fortunes were sliding in the US and they had a new production team.

Before

The Stylistics came about when two Philadelphia vocal groups merged in 1968. The Monarchs – Thompkins, James Smith and Airrion Love, joined forces with James Dunn and Herb Murrell of the The Percussions. Two years later they recorded debut single You’re a Big Girl Now, written by their road manager Marty Bryant and Robert Douglas from their backing band Slim and the Boys. It became a regional hit for Sebring Records and got them signed with Avco Records. They re-recorded it and it reached seven in the US Billboard R&B chart in 1971.

Avco approached Bell to be their producer in the hope he could work his magic on them the way he had with The Delfonics. However he was unimpressed with their audition and only agreed to work with them because he liked Thompkins voice. Avco gave Bell creative control and so he built most songs around Thompkins. Within the year they were number three in the Billboard Hot 100 with You Are Everything. Two of their best-known hits followed in 1972 – Betcha by Golly, Wow and I’m Stone in Love with You, which were their first entries in the UK charts, at 13 and nine respectively.

The hits kept coming over the next few years, notably, in the UK, notably Rockin’ Roll Baby, reaching six in 1973, and most famous of all, the classic soul of You Make Me Feel Brand New. This duet with Love reached two here and in the US, where it became their biggest hit. But it was one of the last songs that Bell was involved with, and they split in 1974.

That same year they were teamed up with songwriters and producers Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, better known as Hugo & Luigi. Together they had co-written or co-produced big hits in the 50s and 60s including Twistin’ the Night Away, Shout and, and George David Weiss, Can’t Help Falling in Love. Also thrown into the mix was songwriter, producer and arranger Van McCoy. He had co-written the classic I Get the Sweetest Feeling in 1968. He became a pop star in his own right shortly before arranging Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love) when his disco smash The Hustle, produced by Hugo & Luigi, lit up the charts earlier in the summer of 75.

Review

There’s no escaping the fact working with Hugo & Luigi was considered a step down for The Stylistics, despite their new producers having an impressive pedigree themselves. I have mixed feelings about Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love) because it’s grown on me and if it is less slick, it’s a great chorus and has bags of energy, and Van McCoy’s arrangement, while very similar to The Hustle, doesn’t overpower the song and complements it well. The lyric is hardly original, a poor guy tells a woman he may not be able to promise much but his devotion.

Not only that, I’m not actually a fan of Thompkins’ falsetto. I love falsettos, but his is overdone I find. He gets away with it here though. You do have to wonder what is the point of the other singers though, there’s a great video of the group performing this on a rooftop, and the choreography is hilariously messy. But it’s all good fun in a rather cheesy, dated 70s way.

After

Although they were lucky if they scraped the top 50 in America in this era, the UK hits continued for a while for The Stylistics. Na-Na is the Saddest Word reached five, Funky Weekend climbed to 10, and an inevitable cover of Can’t Help Falling in Love hit four in 1976. $7,000 and You, in 1977, was their last chart entry. Their next producer was Teddy Randazzo and the group felt they were looking out-of-date next to disco. They ended the 70s with a small role in the film adaptation of the musical Hair (1979).

The Outro

The Stylistics were reunited with Bell in 1980, but couldn’t recapture the magic. Dunn left that year and Smith a year later. Raymond Johnson was recruited but when he left in 1985 they became a trio. To date, their last album was Love Talk, released in 1991. They continued to tour until 2000 when Thompkins left. Line-up changes have continued ever since, and Thompkins formed The New Stylistics in 2004.

The Info

Written by

Hugo & Luigi & George David Weiss

Producers

Hugo & Luigi

Weeks at number 1

3 (16 August-5 September)

Births

22 August: Actress Sheree Murphy

Meanwhile…

16 August: Football hooliganism was on the rise in the 70s, and on the opening day of the English league season, hundreds of fans were arrested at games across the country.

19 August: The campaign for the release of George Davis, convicted of armed robbery, culminated in Headlingley cricket ground being vandalised, causing the scheduled test match between England and Australia to be abandoned.

21 August: The unemployment rate reaches the 1,250,000 mark.

27 August: 14-year-old Tracy Browne is badly injured in a hammer attack on a country lane at Silsden, near Keighley.

375. Typically Tropical – Barbados (1975)

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The Intro

Here’s a number 1 that is very 1975. Typically Tropical’s Barbados combines two of the decade’s crazes in the UK – the package holiday, and political incorrectness – earning itself the status of a summer smash. Holidays overseas were getting ever cheaper, resulting in songs like Y Viva Espana by Sylvia Vrethammar becoming huge, and controversial sitcom Love Thy Neighbour, about a black couple moving next door to a racist, was an ITV mainstay.

Before

Typically Tropical were two Welsh audio engineers, Jeff Calvert and Max West, who worked at Morgan Studios. Based in Willesden Green, London, Morgan was used by some of the biggest stars of the 70s, including Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd. In 1974 Calvert had returned from a holiday in Jamaica, and felt inspired. He and Hughes penned Barbados in two hours, sitting down with a piano and a guitar before heading to Morgan to put a demo together. On the strength of that demo they signed a three-single deal with Gull Records, and Barbados was to be the first.

Now known as Typically Tropical, they recorded a proper version, and used a fine roll call of session musicians, including guitarists Chris Spedding and Vic Flick, legendary drummer Clem Cattini (been a while since we’ve heard of him) and Blue Mink’s Max West and Roger Coulam on keyboards.

Review

Oh dear. If you’re equipped with the knowledge that the men behind this are two white Welshmen pretending to be black, it makes it pretty hard to stomach. Talk about racial stereotyping… the intro begins with ‘Captain Tobias Willcock welcoming you aboard Coconut Airways Flight 372’… The song is sung from the point of view of a Brixton bus driver who can’t wait to be back on the island, reunited with his girlfriend ‘Mary Jane’. It’s a joke about ganja, get it? You know, because he’s black? Awful.

What can I say in its favour? Well it’s a decent tune, so much so, it went to number 1 again when the Dutch Eurodance outfit Vengaboys reworked it into We’re Going to Ibiza! in 1999. I expect you’re more likely to hear that than Barbados on the radio anymore as it’s more PC, and that’s certainly fair enough. If it wasn’t for the stereotyping, I’d actually prefer Barbados, as I couldn’t stand the Vengaboys at the time.

After

On the strength of reaching number 1, Typically Tropical made the album Barbados Sky. Two singles came from it, Rocket Now and Everybody Plays the Fool but they failed to chart. They also released songs as Captain Zero, Calvert & West and Black Rod between 1975 and 1979, but they sank too. They did however score a hit when they wrote Sarah Brightman’s I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper in 1978.

The Info

Written & produced by

Jeffrey Calvert & Max West

Weeks at number 1

1 (9-15 August)

Meanwhile…

14 August: Hampstead entered the UK weather records with the highest 155-min total rainfall at 169mm.

15 August: Olive Smelt, a 46-year-old woman from Halifax, is severely injured in a hammer attack in an alleyway.

374. Bay City Rollers – Give a Little Love (1975)

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The Intro

In the summer of 75, Bay City Rollers were the biggest band in the UK. Their cover of The Four Seasons’ Bye Bye Baby had become the biggest seller of the year, they had their own ITV series, Shang-a-Lang, and ‘Rollermania’ was considered the new ‘Beatlemania’. There was one more number 1 to come.

Before

Give a Little Love was penned by Johnny Goodison and Phil Wainman. Goodison had been a member of The Brotherhood of Man’s original line-up in 1969 until 1971, and Wainman was a former colleague of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, producing many of their hits including The Sweet’s number 1 Block Buster !. They conjured up an anthem for their loyal fans to hold their tartan scarfs aloft and sway away to.

Review

By starting Give a Little Love with ‘It’s a teenage dream to be 17/And to find you’re all wrapped up in lo-o-ove’, Goodison and Wainman are ensuring every adoring teenage girl feels like singer Les McKeown is speaking directly to them about their love of the Rollers. The whole song is a love letter to the fans and I can imagine tears being shed to this one at live shows. It’s OK as far as this sort of thing goes, but it goes on a bit, and the single version is strangely missing the strings that were included in the album version – did this get rush-released to capitalise on Bye Bye Baby?

After

Bay City Rollers capped off the end of their peak year with the album Wouldn’t You Like It?, featuring the superior string-laden version of this single, and non-album track Love Me Like I Love You climbed to four. With the UK theirs, they next looked to repeat their fame in the US with the help of Clive Davis, head of Arista. It paid off in early 1976 when Saturday Night, a UK single from 1973, reached 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, the pressures of megastardom took their toll on bassist Alan Longmuir, one of the original members of the band. He was replaced by 17-year-old Ian Mitchell from Northern Ireland, the first non-Scottish member. Money Honey and a cover of Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want to Be with You were huge hits in the UK, peaking at three and four respectively.

From 1977, the fortunes of the Rollers faded. It’s a Game reached 16, but You Made Me Believe in Magic only just scraped into the UK top 40, and it was their last single to do so here and in the US. Mitchell quit and was replaced by Pat McGlynn, and there were arguments over the band’s future direction. They worked with Harry Maslin, a producer for David Bowie, but it didn’t work out.

At the end of 1978, McKeown quit and manager Tam Paton was fired. They decided to become a new wave band, and became simply the Rollers. South African Duncan Faure became the new singer. But they couldn’t come close to the fame they had in the mid-70s, and called it a day in 1981. In 1982 Paton was convicted of gross indecency with two teenage boys aged 16 and 17.

The inevitable reunions with shifting line-ups soon began and continued throughout the 80s and 90s. 1999 saw the classic line-up of McKeown, Alan Longmuir (Derek declined), Stuart ‘Woody’ Wood and Eric Faulkner performed on the final New Year’s Eve of the millennium outside Edinburgh Castle. Paton found himself in the news several times in the last few years of his life as further allegations of his predatory past came to light. He was arrested for child sexual abuse charges in 2003 but they were later dropped, and he was also accused of trying to rape McGlynn in a hotel room in 1977, but it was decided there was insufficient evidence. Original singer Gordon ‘Nobby’ Clark claimed in 2016 that Paton had urged the band to have sex with paedophile Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning. Paton died in 2009 of a suspected heart attack.

In 2007 the ‘classic’ line-up of the group plus Faure announced a lawsuit against Arista for ‘tens of millions’ in unpaid royalties. But their move was delayed by a 2010 lawsuit by Clark, Mitchell and McGlynn against the band. It took until 2016 for the original case to be decided, with an out-of-court settlement in which parent company Sony Music awarded each member £70,000.

The latest incarnation of the Bay City Rollers began in 2018, and includes Wood. Alan Longmuir died in 2018 after falling ill while on holiday in Mexico, and Mitchell died in 2020 from throat cancer. McKeown died of a cardiac arrest in 2021, aged 65.

The Outro

In 2023, ITV broadcast the documentary Secrets of the Bay City Rollers. DJ Nicky Campbell, who was himself abused as a child, highlighted the shocking abuse members of the band suffered at the hands of Paton.

The Info

Written & produced by

Johnny Goodison & Phil Wainman

Weeks at number 1

3 (19 July-8 August)

Births

30 July: Artist Graham Nicholls
31 July: Radio DJ Stephanie Hirst

Deaths

7 August: Labour MP Jim Griffiths

Meanwhile…

19 July: Hatton Cross tube station was opened, completing the first phase of the extension of the London Underground’s Piccadilly line to Heathrow Airport.

1 August: The Government’s anti-inflation policy came into full effect. During the year, inflation reached 24.2% – the second-highest recorded level since records began in 1750, and the highest since 1800.

373. Johnny Nash – Tears on My Pillow (I Can’t Take It) (1975)

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The Intro

US reggae singer-songwriter Johnny Nash is best known for the uplifting and inspirational I Can See Clearly Now, but he only scored one number one, and it’s this lesser-known track, which isn’t the Tears on My Pillow that immediately springs to mind.

Before

John Lester Nash Jr was born 19 August 1940 in Houston, Texas. This shy boy sang in the choir at Progressive New Hope Baptist Church in South Central Houston. Aged 13 he was working as a golf caddy, and he impressed retired businessman Frank Stockton with his singing so much, he arranged an audition for a local TV show. Nash went down so well, he made regular appearances for three years, and was earning more than his father.

In 1956, aged 16, Nash was signed with ABC-Paramount and released his first single, the self-explanatory A Teenager Sings the Blues. It made little impact but he did chart in the US with a cover of Doris Day’s A Very Special Love. His eponymous LP was released in 1958 and a year later he made his film debut in the adaptation of Take a Giant Step.

In these early years, his label marketed him as a rival to Johnny Mathis. He mostly ignored rock’n’roll, and crooned ballads on several labels, to little success. By the 60s, he was looking decidedly old-fashioned.

Nash’s career picked up when he and manager and business partner Danny Sims moved to Jamaica in 1965. Sims opened a new music publishing business, Cayman Music. A year or so later, Nash went to a Rastafarian party where a little-known group called Bob Marley & The Wailing Wailers were performing. Nash was awestruck and got to know Marley, his wife Rita, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, and got them signed to Cayman Music.

Jamaica transformed and rejuvenated Nash’s career. He, Sims and Arthur Jenkins formed JAD Records and released rocksteady single Hold Me Tight in 1968, and it was a big hit, reaching five in the US and UK. Follow-up You Got Soul reached six, and so did Cupid in 1969.

By the time I Can See Clearly Now came along in 1972, JAD Records was no more and Nash was signed with Epic. It was a number 1 in the US but somehow stalled at five on these shores, which is surprising, such is its enduring appeal. When Nash died a few weeks ago, this classic had top billing in his obituaries. The album it came from, with the same name, had four songs by Marley, one of which, Stir It Up, had also been a hit and is better known in its version by The Wailers. Third single There Are More Questions Than Answers climbed to number nine, and was later used on a regular round of A Question of Sport in the 80s when I would watch it with my dad, despite having next to no interest in sport.

But I digress. As Marley came into his own and superstardom beckoned, Nash was doing the opposite. In 1974 he decided to move back to Houston to live a quiet life on a ranch with his new, third wife, Carlie Collins. Which makes the success of Tears on My Pillow (I Can’t Take It) all the more surprising. It was a cover of reggae artist Ernie Smith’s I Can’t Take It, and the renaming caused Smith to miss out on initial royalties. Was it renamed to lead people into thinking it was a cover of the Little Anthony and the Imperials classic from 1958? Perhaps. It doesn’t help that the chorus contains the lines ‘Tears on my pillow/And pain in my heart”.

Review

It’s baffling to me how this overtook I’m Not in Love as number 1 – though there’s some continuity considering that contained the famous ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’ line. It’s a nice enough dose of light reggae, but there’s nothing to make it stand out really. Also, it’s a bit too upbeat to make you believe Nash is hurting. I like the initial move from the intro into the reggae rhythm, but then it doesn’t do enough to keep me interested. The spoken word section is poor, but Nash is in fine voice otherwise. I Can See Clearly Now is a much better track, so why did this do so well at the time? It’s a strange one. Nash hadn’t had a hit in three years, so there was no momentum there, other than there was a market for reggae-pop tunes, as the superior Everything I Own had been number 1 a year previous.

After

In 1976 Nash had a number 25 hit with a cover of Sam Cooke’s (What a) Wonderful World and then seemed to decide on planned obsolescence, releasing a couple more singles before dropping off the radar. He concentrated on family life and helping local causes. There was a brief resurgence in 1986 with the album Here Again, but then he vanished again. In 1993 he set up the Johnny Nash Indoor Arena in Houston and helped poor youngsters to have riding lessons they couldn’t afford otherwise. Nash died of natural causes on 6 October 2020, aged 80.

The Info

Written by

Ernie Smith

Producers

Johnny Nash & Ken Khouri

Weeks at number 1

1 (12-18 July)

Trivia

Births

12 July: Actress Hannah Waterman
15 July: Actress Jill Halfpenny
17 July: TV presenter Konnie Huq

372. 10 cc – I’m Not in Love (1975)

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The Intro

With a thud resembling a human heartbeat it begins, and then the ethereal, icy voices float in around a warm, liquid electric piano line, enveloping the listener in a never-before-heard aural ecstasy. I’m Not in Love is not only 10 cc’s best number 1, it is their masterpiece, and one of the greatest chart-toppers of the 70s.

Before

Following the success of Rubber Bullets in 1973, the Mancunian quartet proved they weren’t a flash in the pan when The Dean and I reached 10 in the hit parade. Joined by second drummer Paul Burgess, they embarked on a UK tour before returning to Strawberry Studios to work on second album Sheet Music. Released in 1974, it featured the singles The Wall Street Shuffle (another number 10 hit) and Silly Love (24). Sheet Music helped the band make inroads in the US.

However, 10 cc were struggling financially. They were still signed to Jonathan King’s UK Records and haemorrhaging money due to a meagre royalty rate, so they needed a bigger label. Fortunately, they had a song that would blow the minds of record company executives.

I’m Not in Love was written in 1974 and stemmed from Eric Stewart’s wife Gloria complaining that he didn’t say ‘I love you’ to her enough. So he went away and tried to think of a clever way of saying it without making it explicit. A very 10 cc thing to do. The lyric about the picture on the wall hiding a ‘nasty stain’ refers to a photo of Gloria that he had used in his bedroom at his parents’ house

He wrote most of the melody and lyrics on the guitar, and asked Graham Gouldman to help him finish it in the studio. Gouldman suggested some different chords for the melody and came up with an intro and bridge. After two or three days they had a bossa nova guitar-led version to present to the other band members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. All four worked on recording the first version, with Creme on guitar, Gouldman on bass and Godley on drums. Stewart later recalled Godley and Creme didn’t like it, particularly Godley, who said ‘It’s crap.’ Stewart was taken aback and asked for something constructive to work with, and Godley told him to ‘chuck it’. So the original demo was wiped, which is a shame as it wold be fascinating to hear how the song developed.

Stewart and Gouldman instead helped Godley and Creme with Une Nuit a Paris, but Stewart noticed staff at Strawberry Studios were singing the melody to I’m Not in Love, and suggested they try again. Godley remained sceptical. He and Creme were considered the more ‘arty’ of the band, while Stewart and Gouldman came from a more ‘pop’ angle. Godley relented on the condition they ‘totally fuck it up’ and not use instruments, relying on voices instead. I’m Not in Love was back on.

Am acoustic guitar guide track was recorded first in order to help with the melody, but they then concentrated on creating a wall of vocal sound. Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing ‘ahhhh’ 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, creating a ‘choir’ of 48 voices for each note. To keep the voices running through the track, Creme suggested tape loops, having become obsessed with them since Revolution 9 from The Beatles. Stewart created 12 , each 12 inches long, to play through separate channels of the mixing desk.

Godley backed down on the ‘no instrument’ rule, but they were kept minimal. Stewart played the electric piano, Gouldman used an electric guitar for the rhythm melody and Godley borrowed Creme’s Moog synthesiser for the heartbeat drum sound. For the bridge and middle eight, Creme played the piano and replicated some lyrics that were rightly omitted: ‘Don’t feel let down. Don’t get hung up. We do what we can – do what we must.’ Gouldman added a nice touch of bass, and a toy box was double-tracked out of phase for the middle eight and fade-out.

It’s interesting to note that after spending so much time on the production, they decided Stewart’s guide vocal couldn’t be improved on. It was so heartfelt they kept it in. Godley and Creme recorded the backing vocals. That haunting keyboard that comes in when Stewart sings ‘It’s just a silly phase I’m going through’? It’s not, apparently a keyboard, but a chorus of treated kazoos.

The recording was just about finished, but Godley felt it was lacking something. Creme remembered when testing the grand piano mics that he, apropos of nothing, said ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’. Stewart soloed the line, and they felt they had something, but not the right voice. While considering this, their secretary Kathy Redfern entered the studio and whispered ‘Eric, sorry to bother you. There’s a telephone call for you.’. Creme jumped up and said she had the perfect voice. It took some coaxing but Redfern put down the famous whisper, and I’m Not in Love was complete.

Review

A common criticism of 10 cc is that, while they were clearly uncommonly stuffed with talent and brimming with ideas, their songs lacked heart and soul. You can’t say that here. I’m Not in Love was one of the most beautifully intelligent songs yet to top the charts, and a fascinating glimpse into the male psyche. Here, Stewart is steadfastly refusing to acknowledge his feelings, but he can’t stop the tide of emotion he feels. He may claim it’s a ‘silly phase’ but he doth protest too much, to the extent of being arrogant and cold. ‘Don’t think you’ve got it made’ is a pretty cocky way of making his point and telling the muse not to tell her friends suggests he’s ashamed of loving her.

Try as he might though, he can’t stem the tide of emotion, represented by the gorgeous sound of the celestial choir, a million voices telling him ‘don’t fight it, feel it’. Just at the point it sounds like it will completely overcome him, he comes up with another comeback, but the voices remain, and will always return. The ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’ section is inspired, and it seems too good to be true that it was a happy accident. Or maybe Creme subconsciously said it because that is the very essence of the song? This man is unable to reveal his true feelings, be they love or hurt, because he was told as a child to ‘man up’. And a lifetime of thinking like that is doing him harm. When he sings ‘You’ll wait a long time for me’, it’s through gritted teeth.

Production-wise, I’m Not in Love is light years ahead of most if not all other number 1s from 1975. A lush mix of prog-rock and pop with far-out effects, but yet very commercial at the same time. Godley and Creme did a great job of fucking it up, and the use of the choir is so good it sends shivers down my spine, but at the heart of I’m Not in Love is a great pop song, with a beautiful performance from Stewart.

After

10 cc’s manager Ric Dixon invited Nigel Grainge, head of A&R at Mercury Records to Strawberry to hear the track and he was blown away. With the rest of the album The Original Soundtrack in the can, they signed with the label for a million dollars. This infuriated Creme – as far as he was concerned, 10 cc were about to join Richard Branson’s fledgling Virgin label, but he and brother-in-law Stewart were on holiday with their wives.

10 cc released Life Is a Minestone as a preview of their forthcoming LP The Original Soundtrack and it reached seven. 10 cc knew they had a great song to follow it, but at six minutes-plus, how was I’m Not in Love going to fare as a single? Stewart refused to edit it at first, but backed down and they made a four-minute version for the radio. I’d advise not bothering with the edit. It’s pretty clumsy. Fortunately, it began selling well, so well in fact, public demand meant the full version began to be played instead.

The Outro

Not only were the band vindicated when it spent a fortnight at number 1 in the UK, it also went to two in the US. A year later Godley was telling the NME that I’m Not in Love was his favourite 10 cc song, a far cry from the ‘crap’ judgement he originally had. By the time 10 cc had their third and final number 1, he and Creme were no longer members of the group.

The Info

Written by

Eric Stewart & Graham Gouldman

Producers

10 cc

Weeks at number 1

2 (28 June-11 July)

Trivia

Deaths

2 July: Actor James Robertson Justice

Meanwhile…

30 June: UEFA reduces Leeds United’s ban from European competitions to one season on appeal.

5 July: 36-year-old Ann Rogulskyj from Keighley, West Yorkshire is badly injured in a hammer attack in an alleyway.

371. Windsor Davies as B.S.M. Williams and Don Estelle as Gunner Sugden (Lofty) – Whispering Grass (1975)

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The Intro

Yes, your eyes don’t deceive you, that’s two characters from a BBC sitcom, up there, at number 1. For three whole weeks in the long, hot summer of 1975, Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, stars of, ironically, the Jimmy Perry and David Croft comedy It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, ruled the hit parade with a trad-pop ballad from 1940.

Before

Thanks to their Second World War sitcom Dad’s Army, Perry and Croft were one of the most successful comedy writing duos of the 70s. Their second series set in the period, It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum had begun in 1974. Set in the fictional village of Tin Min in Burma during the last months of the conflict, and chronicling the exploits of a Royal Artillery concert party, Perry and Croft were recalling their own experiences in the war. It was another huge success, running until 1981, but you’ll probably never see it repeated ever again. There’s a fair bit of homophobia directed at camp character Gunner ‘Gloria’ Beaumont (Melvyn Hayes) and one actor, Michael Bates, blacked-up to portray Indian Bearer Rangi Ram.

The most enduring character was Windsor Davies’ Battery Sergeant Major Tudor Bryn ‘Shut Up’ Williams, an imposing, ferocious officer, who hated how his troop were stage performers. So much so, he would often call them a ‘bunch of poofs’. Among his victims was Don Estelle’s diminutive Gunner ‘Lofty’ Harold Horace Herbert Willy Sugden, but even Sergeant Major Williams could not help but enjoy Lofty’s lovely tenor voice.

Davies was born in Canning Town, London on 28 August 1930, but the family returned to their roots in the Welsh village of Nant-y-Moel in 1940. After he left school he worked as a coal miner before undergoing National Service in Libya and Egypt between 1950 and 1952. He then moved into teaching but also got the acting bug, performing amateur dramatics before turning professional in 1961. He had his first film role in 1962 in The Pot Carriers, and television roles followed, often as figures of authority, and was a paid heavy in the Doctor Who story “The Evil of the Daleks” in 1967, and was a sailor in The Onedin Line in 1971.

When Davies got the job on It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, he based Sergeant Major Williams on his superiors during National Service. With his catchphrases of ‘Shut up!’, ‘Hello lovely boy’ and ‘Oh dear, how sad, never mind’, Davies somehow made a complete bastard rather lovable. When a cast spin-off album was made, putting Davies and Estelle together was a natural decision as they spent four years touring the clubs as a duo before they became famous.

Estelle was born Ronald Edwards on 22 May 1933 in Crumpsall, Manchester. At the age of eight he was evacuated to Darwen, Lancashire to escape the German bombing of the city. In Darwen he found his voice and became a boy soprano at his new local church, and continued to sing at his old one when he returned home. He joined local charity group the Manchester Minstrels and took part in a BBC Radio talent show in 1954. It was while working as a warehouse manager by day and performing in clubs by night that he first met Davies.

On days off he worked as an extra for Granada Television and made his TV debut throwing darts on Coronation Street. Arthur Lowe, then a regular on the soap, suggested to Estelle that he should contact Perry and Croft, and as a result he landed a bit part in Dad’s Army in 1969, returning a year later for several episodes. Measuring only 4ft 9, Estelle was the perfect man to cast for the ironically nicknamed Lofty, and next to the towering Davies, they made for a great mismatched pair.

Whispering Grass was a near-faithful cover of The Ink Spots version from 1940, but it was originally recorded by Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra. Fred Fisher, a Tin Pan Alley songwriter, wrote it with his daughter Doris. 

Review

This is understandably considered a novelty number 1, and is certainly a weird idea, especially for anyone not around at the time. However, once I got past Davies’ in-character recital of some of the lyrics, I was pleasantly surprised. Estelle really does have a lovely voice, and other than Davies popping up again in the middle briefly (and is he helping with the backing vocals?), it’s played completely straight and is very similar to The Ink Spots version. It’s a sweet, endearing tune, and it took me back to the early days of this blog when most of the songs I covered were of this ilk. Lovely, boys.

After

Such was the popularity of their Whispering Grass, the duo followed it up with a cover of The Mills Brothers’ Paper Doll, which just missed out on a chart placing. They also recorded a full album together, Sing Lofty, in 1976.

While It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum was at the peak of its popularity, drawing in audiences of 17 million, Davies also starred in Carry On Behind (1975) and Carry On England (1976), where he played… yes, another comically angry Sergeant Major. He also had a role in the 1978 Welsh rugby film Grand Slam.

Such was the unmistakably rich quality of Davies’ voice, he had no shortage of voiceover work when It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum ended in 1981. I will have likely first heard his dulcet tones on the children’s sci-fi series Terrahawks (1983), where he played… a sergeant major. He also provided voices in Paul McCartney’s Rupert and the Frog Song (1984) and an advert for Cadbury’s Wispa. From 1981 to 1991 he starred alongside Donald Sinden in the ITV sitcom Never the Twain, and in 1997 appeared in an episode of another Perry and Croft sitcom, Oh Doctor Beeching!. Davies retired in 2014 and moved to the south of France with his wife. He died on 17 January 2019, aged 88.

Estelle fared less well. After It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum was axed, he starred in a BBC adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and had small roles in the films A Private Function (1984) and Santa Claus: The Movie (1985). He formed Don Estelle Music Publishing and released cassettes of his recordings on his Lofty label for years to come, but disappeared into obscurity.

He cut a rather tragic figure towards the end of his life, performing in his Lofty outfit in shopping centres beside his tapes, and was understandably bitter, but perhaps unreasonable, that his most famous role would never be shown on TV again in repeats. There was a return to the small screen for him though, thanks to his appearance as Little Don in early episodes of The League of Gentlemen in 1999. In 2001 he played a dirty old man in Page 3 girl Jo Hicks’s cover of The Benny Hill Show theme Yakety Sax.

The Outro

Estelle spent the last few years of his life living in New Zealand, but he returned to the UK weeks before his death. He needed a liver transplant but was too ill to undergo it, and he died in Rochdale Infirmary on 2 August 2003. He was buried with the oversized pith helmet he wore as Lofty.

The Info

Written by

Fred & Doris Fisher

Producer

Walter J Ridley

Weeks at number 1

3 (7-27 June)

Trivia

Births

19 June: Rower Ed Coode

Deaths

27 June: Conservative MP Arthur Salter, 1st Baron Salter

Meanwhile…

8 June: Peter Samuel Cook, aka The Cambridge Rapist, was arrested after stabbing a young woman at a nurses’ hostel.

9 June: Parliament proceedings are broadcast on radio for the first time.

13 June: UEFA places a three-year ban on Leeds United from European competitions following the behaviour of their fans at last month’s European Cup final.

14 June: West Midlands Ambulance crews stage a ban on non-emergency calls in a dispute over pay and hours.

17 June: Leeds United lodge an appeal against their ban from European competitions.

19 June – A coroner’s court jury returns a verdict of wilful murder and names Lord Lucan as the murderer in the inquest on Sandra Rivett, the nanny who was found dead at his wife’s home in London seven months previously.

370 Tammy Wynette – Stand by Your Man (1975)

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The Intro

One of America’s biggest-selling singers, Tammy Wynette was known as the ‘First Lady of Country Music’. However, her most famous hit, Stand by Your Man, has long been derided by feminists for its slavish devotion to men, and it takes on new meaning when her stormy marriage to singer-songwriter George Jones is considered.

Before

Virginia Wynette Pugh was born near Tremont, Mississippi on 5 May 1942. Her father, a local musician, died of a brain tumour when she was only nine months old. Her mother left her in the care of her grandparents and moved away. Pugh taught herself music with the instruments her father had left behind.

A month before graduating, Pugh married Euple Byrd. They moved around and Pugh took on a number of jobs to make ends meet, including working in a shoe factory and as a barmaid. She began performing at night, but Byrd didn’t support her ambitions in country music. When she left him, she claimed he said ‘Dream on, baby’ as she drove away. Years later at one of her concerts he asked her for her autograph and she signed it ‘Dream on, baby’.

In 1966 Pugh and her three daughters moved to Nashville, Tennessee in the hope of a record deal. She was turned down repeatedly, but her luck changed when she met Epic Records producer Billy Sherrill. He got her signed and it was he that suggested the name change to Tammy Wynette when he noted she reminded him of Debbie Reynolds in the film Tammy and the Bachelor (1957).

Wynette’s first single Apartment No. 9 failed to chart but Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad went to three on the Billboard country chart, and several hits followed. In 1967 her duet with David Houston, My Elusive Dreams, was a country number 1, and she won a Grammy for I Don’t Wanna Play House. Further country number 1s followed, notably D-I-V-O-R-C-E (a number 1 for Billy Connolly later this year) in 1968. For a time, Wynette and Sherrill thought this would become her signature song, but it was followed by the original release of Stand by Your Man.

The song that elevated Wynette to superstar status came very quickly, written in 15 minutes at Columbia Recording Studios in Nashville. It was the first time Wynette had written with Sherrill, and she had little faith in her ability. She wasn’t keen this song and felt it stretched her voice too far. When she went home and played it to Jones, who she married a year later. He wasn’t a fan either and that could well be due to perhaps feeling it was a comment on their rocky relationship.

Review

Stand by Your Man may have made Wynette a legend in country music, but in a way it haunted her for the rest of her life. To its critics it made Wynette seem weak, that no matter her man’s flaws, she would stay by their side and thinks others should too, because you need a companion ‘When nights are cold and lonely’. And she had more than her fair share of troubled times with men, which makes the song seem even more autobiographical. She had already been married twice by the time she was with Jones, and after their divorce she claimed that he would beat her and even threaten her with a shotgun.

This information can’t help but cloud your opinion of the meaning behind this song, yet Wynette always maintained that the message she was trying to send to women is that if they truly love a man they should forgive him his shortcomings, ‘Cos after all he’s just a man’. Sorry Tammy, but considering what you went through, I’m going to side on the feminists on this one.

Another problem I have with Stand by Your Man is – and I know to some this may be sacrilege – but I really do not enjoy Wynette’s voice here. That faux-emotional way of wringing out every word gets my back up, as does the way she sings the title. I prefer Dan Akroyd and John Belushi’s rendition in The Blues Brothers (1980). And yet she won a Grammy in 1969 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for it, so what do I know? Worth noting that it’s Elvis Presley’s favourite backing singers, The Jordanaires, on this single and many of Wynette’s others.

After

Stand by Your Man was her highest-charting single in the US, reaching 19 in the Billboard Hot 100. It was also used in the drama Five Easy Pieces in 1970. The 70s saw Wynette and Loretta Lynn rule over the country charts. Between 1970 and 1975 she scored eight country number 1s.

It is unclear why Stand by Your Man went to number 1 in the UK in 1975, but the most likely reason was the high-profile divorce of Wynette and Jones, which was finalised that March. The split inspired Til I Can Make It On My Own, one of her biggest hits, in 1976. Despite the divorce, they continued to work together until 1980, and her final country number 1 was a duet with him, Near You, in 1977.

She rounded up the decade with her 1979 autobiography Stand by Your Man, by which point she was on her fifth and final marriage, to singer-songwriter George Richey. A year previous she had claimed she was kidnapped and assaulted by a masked man, resulting in a broken cheekbone and bruising. One of her children, Jackie Daly, claimed in her 2000 memoir that the claim was in fact made to cover up domestic violence from Richey, which he denied.

Like so many stars of the 60s and 70s, the 80s were difficult for Wynette. Her iconic status slipped along with her sales. Plagued by illness since the 70s, with a chronic bile duct problem, she became addicted to painkillers, resulting in a stay at the Betty Ford Center in 1986, the same year she joined the cast of CBS soap opera Capitol. She enjoyed a minor comeback with 1987 album Higher Ground and collaborated with Emmylou Harris, but in 1988 she filed for bankruptcy.

In 1991 Wynette suddenly found she was a pop star once again thanks to The KLF. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty asked her to record vocals for a new version of Justified and Ancient (Stand by the JAMs). Wynette didn’t have a clue where or what Mu Mu Land was and must have found the video particularly baffling, but did it anyway and the single went to number 1 in 18 countries, though not in the UK sadly, where it stayed at two.

She then found herself involved in a very public argument with future First Lady Hillary Clinton, when she said in a 60 Minutes TV interview ‘I’m not sitting here as some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette’. The singer was furious and penned a letter to her, saying ‘With all that is in me, I resent your caustic remark. I believe you have offended every true country-music fan and every person who has made it on their own with no one to take them to the White House’. Clinton later apologised when she saw the negative press she was getting.

Her 1993 and 1994 albums, Honky Tonk Angels and Without Walls respectively, featured duets with big names including Dolly Parton, Elton John, Smokey Robinson and Sting. A duets album with Jones also followed in 1995, called One. There was one more UK number 1, sort of, when she was among the stars on the Children in Need version of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day in 1997.

The Outro

Wynette was only 55 when she died on 6 April 1998 of a blood clot in her lung, but so bad had her health been over the years, it’s a wonder she lived as long as she did. Much like her most famous song, her life divides opinion. You may see her as a strong role model for women or a domestic violence victim who couldn’t help being attracted to horrible men. The truth is likely somewhere inbetween, and whatever her private life, she was a much-loved entertainer.

The Info

Written by

Billy Sherrill & Tammy Wynette

Produced by

Billy Sherrill

Weeks at number 1

3 (17 May-6 June)

Trivia

Births

18 May: Scottish snooker player John Higgins
22 May: Badminton player Kelly Morgan
27 May: Chef Jamie Oliver
29 May: Spice Girl Melanie Brown/Comedian Sarah Millican
4 June: Comedian Russell Brand

Deaths

20 May: Sculptor Barbara Hepworth
21 May: Historian AH Dodd
3 June: Admiral Sir Christopher Bonham-Carter
5 June: Actor Lester Matthews

Meanwhile…

27 May: The Dibbles Bridge coach crash becomes the worst accident ever on UK roads when a coach runs away following brake failure and falls off a bridge near Hebden in North Yorkshire, killing the driver and 31 female pensioners.

28 May: Bayern Munich defeat Leeds United 2-0 in the European Cup final in Paris, France. When Leeds player Peter Lorimer has a goal disallowed, angry supporters invade the pitch and tear seats away from the stands.

31 May: The European Space Agency is established, with the UK being one of the 10 founding members.
Also on this day, vile depraved Jimmy Savile began his long-running family show Jim’ll Fix It on BBC One.

2 June: Freak snow showers occur across the country, even as far south as London, which hadn’t happened since 1761.

5 June: In the EEC referendum, 67% of voters support continuing membership. There weren’t buses travelling round with lies emblazoned on them back then, you see.

369. Mud – Oh Boy (1975)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Mud were always too in thrall with the 50s, and clowning around far too much, to go down in history as glam rock lynchpins, which is a shame as Tiger Feet is one of my favourite number 1s of the 70s, and Lonely This Christmas is one of the more memorable festive number 1s. But this third and final number 1 shows how stale they, and the movement that made them famous, was becoming.

Before

Fresh from the success of their Christmas number 1, Mud tried to gain a Valentine’s Day chart-topper with The Secrets That You Keep. They nearly managed it too, reaching three. Their next single was a cover of Oh Boy! by The Crickets, which had reached three in 1958 and came from their debut album The ‘Chirping’ Crickets. Meaning Chinnichap were only involved with production this time around, and soon, their partnership with the band was over.

Review

I can’t work out why Chapman and Chinn, who had proven time and time again how to get the best out of pop for several years by this point, chose to suck this rock’n’roll classic of all its energy and turn it into a stately stadium rock-style stompalong. It does the song and Mud a disservice, and although smothering the production with harmonies perhaps masks its weakness to an extent, it also means there’s barely any sign of singer Les Gray. In the original, Buddy Holly puts across brilliantly the excitement of waiting to meet a lover that night. You get none of that feeling here.

There’s also a strange section where a mystery woman sings too, which is even weirder when you watch it being performed in the video above. If you don’t, Mud briefly pretend to hang a cleaner who mimes this part…

After

Further Mud releases came thick and fast throughout 1975, but the band parted ways with Chinnichap and they left RAK. Moonshine Sally, L-L-Lucy and Show Me You’re a Woman all went top 10, and they were briefly joined by keyboardist Andy Ball. They also appeared in a bizarre musical comedy called Never Too Young to Rock. In 1976 they moved away from glam, and the number 12 hit Shake It Down was a decent stab at disco. A cover of Bill Withers’ classic Lean on Me was their final hit, reaching seven that December. That year, Gray was part of the Green Cross Code public information campaign Children’s Heroes.

By 1978 they were signed to RCA Records, and Brian Tatum had joined as keyboardist, but Gray decided to try a solo career and quit. Mud tried to carry on, and hired Margo Buchanan as their new singer, but they couldn’t recapture the spark, and they split in 1979. The original incarnation of the band performed one final time, at drummer Dave Mount’s wedding, in 1990.

In 1980 Gray began a new incarnation, dubbed Les Gray’s Mud, that he toured with in various incarnations for the rest of his life. While fighting throat cancer, he died in the Algarve, Portugal in 2004. Les Gray’s Mud continued as Mud II with the rest of the original band’s blessing. Mount died in 2006. Bassist Ray Stiles joined The Hollies in 1986 and is still with them now. Guitarist Rob Davis, known for dressing up as a woman on stage, had the most prominent career post-Mud. Following a chance meeting with dance producer Paul Oakenfold in the late-80s, he began writing lyrics to club tunes. In 2000 he had two number 1 smashes – Toca’s Miracle by Fragma and then Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) by Spiller. Most famously, he co-wrote Kylie Minogue’s classic Can’t Get You Out of My Head with Cathy Dennis in 2001.

The Outro

Oh Boy was, I think, Chinnichap’s last number 1, after several years of chart domination.

The Info

Written by

Sonny West, Bill Tighman & Norman Petty

Producers

Mike Chapman & Nicky Chinn

Weeks at number 1

2 (3-16 May)

Meanwhile…

3 May: West Ham United won the FA Cup for the second time, by beating Fulham 2-0 in the final at Wembley Stadium. Alan Taylor scored both goals.

368. Bay City Rollers – Bye Bye Baby (1975)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Taking over the mantle of The Osmonds, the Bay City Rollers were the teen pop phenomenon of the mid-70s. With their cherubic looks, long hair and parent-friendly rock singles, for a time they were considered to be the next Beatles, and were adored by their loyal ‘Tartan Army’.

Before

Their roots began in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1964, with a trio called The Ambassadors. The Longmuir brothers, Alan on acoustic, younger brother Derek on drums, and older cousin Neil Porteous, also on acoustic. They only ever performed once, at a family wedding. From there, they became The Saxons, with Alan changing to electric bass and school pal Gordon ‘Nobby’ Clark joining as singer. While still at school, the band would perform at local dance halls.

Several line-up changes down the line, The Saxons met former big band leader Tam Paton for the first time, and he added them to his roster. By then their repertoire consisted of covers of The Kinks and mainly contemporary US artists.

Some time in the late 60s they decided they wanted a cool, American-sounding name. They settled on ‘Rollers’ but wanted a random US place chosen by a dart throw at a map. The first attempt would have seen them become the Arkansas Rollers, but the second attempt saw the dart land near Bay City, Michigan. Among the nascent Bay City Rollers line-up were bassist David Paton, from 1969 until 1970, and keyboardist Billy Lyall, from 1969 to 1971. Together, they founded Pilot, who hit number 1 in February 1975 with January.

In 1971 the Bay City Rollers signed with US label Bell Records and released their first single, a cover of Keep on Dancing, which was a hit for The Gentrys in 1965. The Rollers were an instant hit, soaring to nine in the UK. But two singles in 1972 failed to chart. That year Eric Faulkner joined the ranks as guitarist. Fourth single Saturday Night narrowly missed out on a chart place the following year and Clark became disillusioned and quit. He was replaced by Les McKeown and when 16-year-old Stuart ‘Woody’ Wood replaced John Devine on guitar, the classic line-up was formed.

Despite never quite reaching the top spot, 1974 was a hell of a year for the boys. Debut LP Rollin’ scored them three top 10 hits with Remember (Sha-La-La-La) (six), Shang-A-Lang (two), Summerlove Sensation (three) and non-album single All of Me Loves All of You reached four. They were one of the country’s biggest-selling acts, and in 1975, ‘Rollermania’ was coined as they embarked on a UK tour. Tartan was in vogue.

Their next single and the one that finally went to number 1 was the opening track on forthcoming second album Once Upon a Star. Bye Bye Baby had been a hit in the US for doo-wop legends The Four Seasons in 1965, when it was known as Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye). Penned by group members Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, the original is leaden by comparison, but Crewe and Gaudio knew how to write hits, and this is the third cover of their songs to reach number 1 – The Walker Brothers had The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore in 1966 and The Tremeloes covered Silence Is Golden a year later. The Four Seasons would have a number 1 in their own right too, co-written by Gaudio, but that’s a year away at this point.

Review

The Rollers’ version is much better, with fuller instrumentation and a faster, more effective rhythm. It opens with a mournful McKeown coming to terms with the fact his time with his loved one is up because he has to leave. But it’s not for the usual reasons you’d find in love songs – especially not by a bunch of squeaky-clean pop idols. No, Bye Bye Baby is about a man saying goodbye to his lover because he’s already married. The evidence is there for all to hear: ‘You’re the one girl in town I’d marry/Girl, I’d marry you now if I were free’… and:

‘Should have told you that I can’t linger
There’s a weddin’ ring on my finger
She’s got me and I’m not free’.

I have to confess I quite like Bye Bye Baby. The subject matter gives it an extra dimension, and Phil Wainman’s production makes it an infectious singalong. I doubt I’d ever put it on by choice, but over the years I’ve found myself singing it at random times, so it’s got under my skin. On the basis of this song alone, I’d argue Bay City Rollers were a better than average mid-70s pop band, but having heard other material, the constant ‘shang-a-langing’ gets really bloody tedious.

After

Bye Bye Baby held the top spot for six weeks and became 1973’s bestseller, and there was more to come in 1975 for the Rollers. During its number 1 run, the band even got their own children’s TV series, featuring the lads in comedy sketches and star guests dropping by. What was it called? Shang-a-Lang, of course.

The Info

Written by

Bob Gaudio & Bob Crewe

Producer

Phil Wainman

Weeks at number 1

6 (22 March-2 May) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

9 April: Footballer Robbie Fowler
20 April: Civil servant Oliver Robbins
2 May: Footballer David Beckham

Deaths

27 March: Composer Sir Arthur Bliss
3 April: Actress Mary Ure
14 April: Actor Michael Flanders
23 April: Actor William Hartnell
24 April: Badfinger singer Pete Ham (see Without You)

Meanwhile…

25 March: A large rally by the National Front was held in London in protest against European integration.

5 April: One season after their relegation, Manchester United were promoted back to the First Division.

9 April: Classic historical comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail was released.

13 April: Cambridgeshire Police believe a 22-year-old woman who was raped at her bedsit was the sixth victim of a rapist who had been operating across the city since October 1974.

24 April: Unemployment exceeds the 1,000,000 mark for March 1975.

26 April: A conference of Labour Party members voted against continued membership of the EEC.
Also on this day, Derby County won the Football League First Division title for the second time in four seasons.

367. Telly Savalas – If (1975)

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The Intro

It’s an obvious fact that I’ve mentioned many times before, but what a weird barometer of taste the singles number 1s are. Just when I’m applauding record buyers for sending Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) to the top, it gets replaced by… this. A slushy spoken word cover of a Bread song (the second by David Gates, after Everything I Own), recited by Hollywood actor Telly Savalas, best known at the time for his iconic role in Kojak. Strange times.

Before

Aristotelis Savalas was born in Garden City, New York on 21 January 1922, the second of five children to ethnic Greek parents. As children, he and his brother Gus would sell newspapers and polish shoes to support their struggling family. Savalas could only initially speak Greek when he started school. After graduating from high school he worked as a beach lifeguard. Despite being an excellent swimmer he was unable to resuscitate a father who had drowned. His children watched on as their father died, and it affected Savalas so profoundly he spent the rest of his life promoting water safety.

Savalas was drafted into the United States Army in 1941 and served for two years before he was discharged following a car accident in which he was seriously injured. He spent more than a year in hospital with a broken pelvis, sprained ankle and concussion.

After the Second World War, Savalas moved into media, but not as an actor. He hosted radio shows and then became a director at ABC on news and sports programmes during the 50s. His move into acting was an accident. He was asked to recommend an actor capable of doing a European accent (a pretty vague question) and when the friend he suggested failed to turn up, Savalas covered for him, and made his debut on Armstrong Circle Theatre in 1958. He became in demand for the next few years as a guest star for programmes including Naked City.

Savalas made his film debut in Mad Dog Coll (1961), and received much acclaim for Birdman of Alcatraz a year later, getting nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. He was rapidly losing his hair, and chose to shave his head for his role in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), remaining bald for the rest of his life. Some of his best-known work in the 60s included The Dirty Dozen (1967) and as Blofeld in the James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969. That year he also had his first role as the lead in Crooks and Coronets.

He was already recording music before the role he became best known for, with his debut LP, This Is Telly Savalas… released in 1972. He leant his distinctive husky voice to easy listening covers of tracks including Johnny Cash’s I Walk the Line.

Savalas first played Lt. Theodopolus “Theo” Kojak in the TV movie The Marcus–Nelson Murders on CBS in 1973. Based on true crime, Savalas went down a storm as Kojak, and five series were made between 1973 and 1978. A lot of the character’s eccentricities came from Savalas, including sucking on lollipops. The character’s catchphrase ‘Who loves ya baby?’ became one of the best remembered of the 70s, and Savalas won an Emmy and two Golden Globes for Best Actor in a Drama Series.

In 1974 Savalas recorded his second album, Telly. It was more of the same, this time produced by Snuff Garrett, a big name in the 60s. Among the covers this time around was a spoken word version of If, which had been a big hit for soft rockers Bread in the US in 1971, reaching number four. Bread were always more popular in the US than the UK, where it failed to chart.

Review

Savalas’s version is very similar… well, apart from the one glaring difference. Whether it was because he was never going to reach the high notes of Gates, or a stylistic choice, he chose to use his deepest, most sincere and meaningful voice and recite the lyrics instead over a melodramatic production. It’s… well, it’s not actually as awful as it sounds. There have been worse number 1s. It is laughably dated and terribly over-the-top though, and even taking into account how popular Kojak was at the time, this one is a mystery. Gates’s lyrics are reminiscent of Charles Aznavour’s She, which put its muse on a pedestal, making her an enigma and wonder. A certain type of record buyer clearly loved this Hallmark card style of tacky romance.

The video of Savalas performing If above makes for hilarious viewing. He’s stood, fag in hand, gazing at a giant face of a blonde woman, who looks scared and confused by him. I urge you to watch. They really don’t make them like this anymore. If shares the top spot for shortest number 1 title ever with 19 by Paul Hardcastle from 1985, fact fans.

After

Savalas released two more LPs in the 70s – Telly Savalas (1975) and Who Loves Ya Baby in 1976. Two years later he starred in Capricorn One, and Kojak was cancelled after five seasons. If wasn’t Savalas’s only amusing spoken word contribution to British culture. In recent years footage has resurfaced from three short films made for cinemas – Telly Savalas Looks at Portsmouth, Telly Savalas Looks at Aberdeen, and Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham. All are unintentional comedy gold.

With Kojak no more, the late-70s and 80s were leaner times for its lead. He featured among all-star casts in The Poseidon Adventure in 1979 and Cannonball Run II in 1984 and had cameos in Tales of the Unexpected (1981) and The Equalizer (1987). From 1985 onwards there were TV movies that gave him the chance to reprise his most famous role, but they didn’t have the same impact as before.

The Outro

As the 80s became the 90s he found more time to indulge his many hobbies, including poker (he finished 21st in the 1992 World Series), golfing and collecting luxury cars. Savalas was also a philanthropist, and took a special interest in Greek causes. Back in the 70s, he had been the sponsor for bringing electricity to his ancestral home in Ierakas. Remembered fondly for his compassion and generosity, Savalas died on 22 January 1994, one day after he had turned 72. His final film, Backfire! was released posthumously a year later.

The Info

Written by

David Gates

Producer

Snuff Garrett

Weeks at number 1

2 (8-22 March)

Births

12 March: Co-chairman of the Conservative Party Amanda Milling
21 March: Snooker player Mark Williams