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)

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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)

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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

366. Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel – Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) (1975)

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The Intro

Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) is one of the best examples of a song where the original intention of the writer is largely ignored by the masses. Like REM’s The One I Love, a spiteful song that has, because of its title, become popular at weddings, for example, with little attention paid to the lyrics. Steve Harley’s number 1 is to most a song about positivity, about enjoying yourself, about seeing the ones you love and soaking up the good vibes. For Harley, it was a giant ‘fuck you’ to the original Cockney Rebel, who dared to question his authority. He showed them who was right, and how, with this glam rock classic.

Before

Harley was born, ironically, Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice on 27 February 1951 in Deptford, London. His father was a milkman and his mother a semi-professional jazz singer. He contracted polio aged two, and between the ages of three and 16 he spent a total of four years in hospital. Aged nine, Nice began classical viola lessons, and guitar a year later. While recovering from major surgery in 1963, aged 12, he fell in love with literature, enjoying the poetry and prose of giants including DH Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, and the lyrics of Bob Dylan, all of which would influence his music as he grew older. At 15 he wrote an autobiographical poem called ‘The Cockney Rebel’.

At 17 Nice left school and became a trainee accountant at the Daily Express before making the move into reporting, working for a variety of regional newspapers in Essex before settling with the East London Advertiser. Becoming disillusioned, Nice moved into the folk club scene in 1971, performing on line-ups featuring John Martyn and Ralph McTell, and busking on the underground He grew his hair and refused to wear a tie in his day job, and got the sack in 1972. His replacement was Richard Madeley.

Before the year was out, Nice’s stage name became Steve Harley, and he decided to form a glam rock band. The original Cockney Rebel consisted of Harley as singer, his friend from the folk scene Jean-Paul Crocker on electric violin, Stuart Elliott as drummer, Paul Jeffreys on bass and Nick Jones on guitar. Jones was quickly replaced by Pete Newnham but Harley decided Cockney Rebel were not going to be your average glam rock outfit. They ditched guitars and Milton Reame-James became their keyboardist. Labels were soon showing an interest in their demos, and they signed with EMI Records.

The first Cockney Rebel LP, The Human Menagerie, was released in 1973. Debut single Sebastian was a number two hit in Belgium and the Netherlands but never troubled the UK charts. Harley set to work writing a hit single, and proved he could when Judy Teen soared to five in 1974. With Alan Parsons, he co-produced follow-up album The Psychomodo, which featured number eight hit and inspiration for a classic 80s advert, Mr Soft.

By the time that single had reached the top 10, Cockney Rebel effectively didn’t exist. Harley has always maintained the understanding within the group was that he was the songwriter, but Crocker, Reame-James and Jeffreys chose to quit after demanding they be allowed to contribute. While Harley searched for a new band he released his debut solo single Big Big Deal, which proved to be anything but. Shortly afterwards, with Elliott back on drums, he hired guitarist Jim Cregan, who had played bass for Family, keyboardist Duncan Mackay and bassist George Ford. To ensure everyone knew where they stood this time around, the group was renamed Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, and they recorded their first album together, The Best Years of Our Lives.

Harley penned Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) within days of the original Cockney Rebel split. Harley was distraught and very bitter, and had the idea to write a dark blues song in order to get his feelings off his chest. One day in November as the new group were recording, Harley performed Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) as a slow dirge. Parsons saw something in it but suggested they speed it up and rephrase the chorus and Harley agreed. One of the masterstrokes was the addition of tacets before the verses, which is the deliberate use of silence. As Talk Talk singer Mark Hollis wisely noted, the space between the sounds can be as important and effective as the music. It added drama to the song, and although it’s been played to death so it’s impossible to imagine hearing it for the first time, it will have left the listener wondering what was on Harley’s mind next.

The instrumental break was originally to be a saxophone, but Cregan had the idea to play it on his guitar and give it a flamenco feel. Harley has noted since how difficult it’s been over the years for band members to perform live, as it was in fact three composite takes. The addition of female backing singers was another masterstroke. As well as Yvonne Keeley, Linda Lewis and Liza Strike there was Tina Charles, who would be number 1 a year later with I Love to Love. After having them sing the chorus, Harley liked the idea of having them add some ‘oooh la la la’ as a nod to Rubber Soul-era Beatles. The excitement grew throughout recording. Harley’s revenge was going to be very sweet. When the finished product was played to EMI’s head of A&R, Bob Mercer, he was blown away and uttered only two words. ‘Number one.’

Review

It might be considered a ‘glam’ tune, but to me Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) is pure pop brilliance from that memorable intro to the fade. Parsons deserves more credit for wrapping Harley’s barbed lyrics inside a shiny chart-friendly package. Not that Harley doesn’t deserve all the credit he has received over the years, once Parsons set him on the right path. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I am among those who has misunderstood part of this song over the years – it’s only now that I discover it isn’t ‘I’ll do what you want, running wild’, but ‘Or do what you want, running wild’. Which is a key part of Harley’s message to Cockney Rebel Mk1 really. By all means, come and watch me now, see how well I’m doing without you, it’ll put a smile on my face… or just do what you want, because I don’t care really what you do anymore.

Perhaps Harley and Parsons’ success in making a pop classic did too good a job in masking the real message, as the backing vocals, as great as they are, distract from the lyrics. I’ve also only just discovered he makes it explicit who his ire is directed at, the second line being ‘And pulled the rebel to the floor’ – an obvious reference to Cockney Rebel. Of course, you could argue that Harley is being precious and needs to get over himself, but even then you’d be hard pushed to argue what a great, slick tune this is, and that it never gets old.

In 2015 it was reported the single had sold around 1.5 million copies, and the Performing Rights Society have confirmed it as one of the most played songs in British Broadcasting history, and over 120 covers, and counting, have been recorded.

After

Fresh off the back of their number 1, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel released The Best Days of Our Lives, which reached five in the album chart, and Mr. Raffles (Man, It Was Mean) was a top 13 singles hit. However, Harley produced the next album Timeless Flight alone, and it was a failure. More experimental than their previous LP, the critics slated it and its singles tanked. The final album by the band, Love’s a Prima Donna, fared better thanks to a faithful and timely cover of The Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun. Released in the long, hot summer of 1976, it was their final hit, reaching 10.

Harley featured on The Alan Parsons Project’s album I, Robot in 1977, and that July he announced Cockney Rebel were no more. He moved to America to work on his debut solo album, but Hobo with a Grin, released in 1978, fared badly. It featured his friend Marc Bolan’s final studio performances before his shock death. When his next album The Candidate also tanked a year later, he was dropped by EMI.

The 80s were, in Harley’s own words, his wilderness years. When The Best of Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel was released in 1980, along with a reissue of Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), he formed a new Cockney Rebel. Over the next few years they had failure after failure, despite working with big-name producers like Midge Ure and Mike Batt. However, Andrew Lloyd Webber was planning a single to promote The Phantom of the Opera, and Batt suggested Harley audition to be the male voice on the title track. Harley succeeded and together with Sarah Brightman they had a number seven hit on their hands in 1986. He starred as The Phantom in the video, and won the audition to play him on stage, but the role was given to Michael Crawford instead.

1986 also saw the debut of an advert that fascinated and terrified my six-year-old self in equal measure, which Harley was inadvertently responsible for. Trebor had rewritten Mr Soft as the soundtrack to an advert for their Softmints, and asked Harley to record it, but he declined and an effective soundalike was used. The quirky, catchy song was perfect for this bizarre ad, as you can see here. So successful was the long-running campaign, Mr Soft was re-released in 1988. Years later when Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was used to advertise Viagra, Harley wittily remarked that Mr Soft would have been more appropriate.

In 1989 another Cockney Rebel incarnation was created and Harley would flit between solo and band work for years to come. Upon its fourth reissue, Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was back in the top 40, thanks to its use in a Carlsberg advert. It reached 33. Only two years later it was in the public eye again thanks to it being featured in The Full Monty. Harley branched out into radio work in 1999 when he became the presenter of Radio 2’s nostalgic The Sounds of the Seventies. It was so popular he would end up presenting it all year round until it ended in 2008.

Harley became involved with the charity Mines Advisory Group in 2002, later becoming an ambassador. The first album released under the Cockney Rebel name in 29 years, The Quality of Mercy, saw the light of day in 2005. A 30th anniversary remix of Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was also released that year, and the original garnered attention yet again in 2015 when Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May began a campaign to download the song to help Harley pay for a speeding fine. He reunited with the most successful incarnation of Cockney Rebel for a tour performing The Best Days of Our Lives in full, also in 2015.

The Outro

The Cockney Rebel leader unveiled his sixth solo album, Uncovered in 2020. Consisting of some of his favourite material by other artists, he released The Beatles’ I’ve Just Seen a Face as a single, but the intended tour was postponed due to COVID-19.

And what became of the original Cockney Rebel? Elliott remained as Harley’s drummer throughout his career, and Jeffreys and Reame-James had some success in the prog rock band Be-Bop Deluxe, while Crocker performed with his brother in obscurity. Jeffreys was among those who died in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. He was with his bride returning from their honeymoon.

Of MKII, Cregan became a session musician, working mostly with Rod Stewart. Mackay appeared on Kate Bush’s first three albums and George Ford went off the radar. He died in 2007.

The Info

Written by

Steve Harley

Producers

Steve Harley & Alan Parsons

Weeks at number 1

2 (22 February-7 March)

Trivia

Deaths

22 February: Violist Lionel Tertis
26 February: Police officer Stephen Tribble (see ‘Meanwhile…’, below)
28 February: Writer Neville Cardus
3 March: Theatre organist Sandy MacPherson/Poet TH Parry-Williams

Meanwhile…

26 February: 22-year-old Metropolitan Police officer Stephen Tibble is shot and killed after giving chase to a fleeing Provisional IRA member.

28 February: The Moorgate tube crash kills 43 people and injures 74 when a London Underground train failed to stop at the Northern city Line’s southern terminus and smashed into its end wall. It is considered the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground. 

1 March: Aston Villa, chasing promotion from the Football League’s Second Division, win the Football League Cup with a 1-0 victory against Norwich City at Wembley Stadium.

4 March: Comedy acting legend Charlie Chaplin, 85, is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. 

7 March: The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, who disappeared from her home in Shropshire in January, is discovered in Staffordshire. She had been strangled on a ledge in drains below Bathpool Park near Kidsgrove. 

365. Pilot – January (1975)

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The Intro

Scottish pop-rockers Pilot are best known for their single Magic, yet it was this timely ode to January that earned them their only number 1. Except that happened in February. Ah well, better late than never.

Before

Pilot were formed in 1973 by singer and bassist David Paton and keyboardist Billy Lyall. Both had been members of the Bay City Rollers before they became big – Paton from 1969-70, Lyall from 1969-71 – so it was ironic they became stars in their own right during the time of ‘Rollermania’. After recording demos with drummer Stuart Tosh, they signed a management contract with John Cavanagh and Nick and Tim Heath, the sons of famous bandleader Ted. Soon they were signed with EMI Records, and after recording their debut LP, From the Album of the Same Name (clever), session musician Ian Bairnson joined officially as their guitarist. The album featured string arrangements by Richard Hewson, who had worked on The Beatles’ The Long and Winding Road. It was produced by Alan Parsons.

One of England’s most famous rock producers, Parsons was born 20 December 1948. He began work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios in 1967, aged 18, and his first credited work was on Abbey Road in 1969. He was then an engineer on Wings’ first album, Wild Life in 1971, and Red Rose Speedway two years later. But most famously, he helped engineer Pink Floyd’s legendary The Dark Side of the Moon, that same year.

It’s fair to say Parsons had the magic touch, and that was certainly the case when Pilot’s second single (the first, Just a Smile failed to chart), Magic, was released in 1974. That killer chorus must have made Paton and Lyall a fortune in royalties over the years, as this song has been used countless times on TV and film. I was surprised to see it only reached 11 in the UK charts, but five in the US (it was their sole hit there).

January was the first material released from Pilot’s next LP, Second Flight. Paton wrote this one alone, and said it wasn’t about the month – his inspiration came from a character in a book his wife was reading at the time.

Review

January has an excellent opening, with Parsons showing his skills off nicely. Those epic guitars sound really ahead of its time, and the soundscape makes you sit up and take notice. So it’s a bit of a disappointment when the actual song takes over. Not that January isn’t any good. It’s a nice little pop song. It just doesn’t live up to the admittedly lofty expectations set up by the intro. January’s been telling lies and driving Paton mad, but despite that, he’s pleading ‘Don’t go/Don’t go’ and longing for her to go see him. It then changes tack lyrically, with Paton apparently singing about how the success of Magic had opened doors for Pilot. His lyrics here don’t really make that clear, although ‘I can glow/I can show’ is quite effective. Other than that, it’s a bit vague. The intro returns again though to keep you interested.

I found myself singing ‘January/Sick and tired, you’ve been hanging on me’ for days afterwards, so job done. It’s certainly better than anything I’ve heard by the Bay City Rollers. A great idea to put the idea in the minds of record-buyers to buy a single called January in the quietest commercial month of the year too, when singles historically have found it easier to climb the charts. Yet it was on 1 February that January made it to the top, and it stayed there for three weeks.

After

Call Me Round and a new version of Just a Smile couldn’t crack the top 30 after January. Morin’ Heights, their third album in 1976, got nowhere, and by the time of their fourth, Two’s Company (1977), only Paton and Bairson remained, working with session musicians. They had other projects on the go at this time though, namely, The Alan Parsons Project. Parsons’ progressive rock outfit had a revolving door of contributors, and they were long-standing members, with Paton helping from 1975-85 and Bairson from 1975 until 2002, on and off. Tosh was also involved from 1975-78, and Andrew Powell, who had arranged January, would work on orchestral elements between 1975 and 1986.

Apart from Lyall, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1989, everyone involved would have future number 1 success. Powell produced Kate Bush’s debut album The Kick Inside, and her chart-topper Wuthering Heights (1978) featured Paton and Bairnson. Tosh became an official member of the second phase of 10cc that year, when Dreadlock Holiday was their last of three number 1s. Parsons achieved the rare feat of two number 1s by two separate artists in a row when Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel’s Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) toppled January.

The Outro

Paton and Bairnson returned to Pilot in 2002 with the album Blue Yonder. Between 2003 and 2006 they co-wrote Westlife’s hits Obvious and Amazing, which peaked at three and four respectively. In 2014 they reamed up with Tosh once more to release A Pilot Project. Bairnson, who suffered with dementia in later years, died in 2023, aged 69.

The Info

Written by

David Paton

Producer

Alan Parsons

Weeks at number 1

3 (1-21 February)

Trivia

Births

18 February: Footballer Keith Gillespie/Footballer Gary Neville

Deaths

8 February: Nobel Prize organic chemist Robert Robinson
12 February: Director Bernard Knowles
14 February: Biologist Julian Huxley/Writer PG Wodehouse

Meanwhile…

11 February: Margaret Thatcher, who had served as Edward Heath’s Education Secretary, defeated him in the Conservative Party leadership election to become the first female leader of a major British political party. To say she would become one of the most divisive figures in British history would be putting it mildly.

13 February: Britain’s coal miners accepted a 35% pay rise offer from the government.

364. The Tymes – M/s Grace (1975)

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The Intro

Here’s an unexpected number 1 for a soul group who had a US chart-topper in 1963 and had struggled to get near that level of fame again. The Tymes kept on trying though, and were rewarded 12 years later with their one and only stint at pole position in the UK.

Before

The Tymes, hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had nearly 20 years under their belts when M/s Grace was released, having formed in 1956 as The Latineers. The line-up featured Donald Banks as bass, Albert Barry as first tenor, Norman Burnett as baritone and George Hilliard as second tenor. Learning the ropes on the local circuit, they became a quintet when George Williams became their lead vocalist in 1960.

They were signed to Cameo-Parkway in 1963 and were an instant US success, when debut single So Much in Love, written by Williams, topped the Billboard chart. It also reached 21 in the UK. Their debut LP, named after the single, also featured a popular cover of Wonderful! Wonderful!, previously a hit for Johnny Mathis. But after the title track of the follow-up, Somewhere, The Tymes couldn’t maintain their popularity. They tried releasing records on their own Winchester label, but it folded after two singles. Then they were dropped by MGM after another two releases. There was a brief comeback on Colombia in 1968 with a cover of People from the musical Funny Girl, which only scraped into the US chart but reached 16 in the UK. They were soon dropped again.

Longtime producer Billy Jackson bought them time at Gamble & Huff’s Sigma Sound studio in an attempt to get them signed, but to no avail. However, RCA decided to sign them. Meanwhile, John Hall of the band Orleans and his wife Johnanna had written a doo wop-style love song about a sophisticated lady called Miss Grace that wasn’t really suitable for his band, so they asked their publisher to pitch it elsewhere. She went to The Tymes, who were happy to oblige, though they did cleverly suggest making ‘Miss’ a ‘Ms’, a term growing in popularity in the mid-70s, which suggested a rather hip, progressive woman. It was the second single released from the album Trustmaker, and fingers crossed it would do well after You Little Trustmaker was a top 20 hit.

Review

M/s Grace has an elaborate opening, bringing to mind Gamble and Huff’s slick work. But it then turns into a more old-school, upbeat soul number, which is difficult to dislike. But I’m not sure there’s enough there to really love. It’s one of the more minor number 1s of the decade, but nonetheless, it would have been a welcome blast of sunny optimism, always needed in the post-Christmas malaise of January. There’s bags of energy, and it’s nice to hear of veterans who’ve struggled for years coming good. This nation does love the underdog.

The Outro

Weirdly, M/s Grace had the opposite effect to So Much in Love. While it was a number 1 in the UK, it tanked in the US. The UK revival of their fortunes didn’t last long either, as they never had another top 40 entry. After decades of the same line-up, by 1976 Berry and Hilliard had been replaced by Terri Gonzales and Melanie Moore. The former later recorded a solo album with Chic’s Nile Rodgers, and the latter worked with Chaka Khan. Williams died in 2004, aged 69, Banks in 2011, aged 72, and Hilliard in 2014, aged 73. Berry and Burnett remain, and still tour with a new line-up.

The Info

Written by

John & Johanna Hall

Producers

Billy Jackson & Mike Chapman

Weeks at number 1

1 (25-31 January)

Trivia

Deaths

16th Duke of Norfolk, Bernard Fitzalan-Howard – 31 January

363. Status Quo – Down Down (1975)

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The Intro

Status Quo are considered somewhat of a novelty these days. A stereotypical denim-clad boogie rock band, pumping out the same three-chord guitar anthems for decades. But they were enormously successful, in the UK at least. They hold the record for most hits by any single band in chart history, and in the 70s they were a credible force to be reckoned with. Yet they only topped the charts (officially) once, with Down Down, the first new number 1 of 1975. It took some time to find fame though.

Before

Status Quo began life as The Scorpions (not to be confused with the German heavy metal band) and were founded by singer and guitarist Francis Rossi and bassist Alan Lancaster at Sedgehill Comprehensive School in Catford, London. Classmates Jess Jaworski on keyboards and Alan Key on drums completed their first line-up back in 1962.

Key was replaced by John Coghlan the following year, and they renamed themselves The Spectres. They were playing weekly at a sports club until they were discovered by budding pop manager Pat Barlow, who got them gigs further afield around London. When Rossi, Lancaster and Jaworski left school in 1965, the latter quit the group and was replaced by Roy Lynes. The Spectres began writing their own material, and later that year they met guitarist Rick Parfitt while he was playing in The Highlights at Butlin’s. He and Rossi became firm friends.

A year later they signed with Piccadilly Records and began releasing singles, the first being I (Who Have Nothing). With psychedelia on the rise, The Spectres became Traffic in 1967, but after an argument with Steve Winwood over who came up with the name first, became Traffic Jam. Parfitt joined soon after this as rhythm guitarist and vocalist, and in August they changed their name to The Status Quo.

Their first hit is one of their best. Strange to think that if they never achieved anything after it, Pictures of Matchstick Men would still be remembered as a psychedelic classic. Sounding like The Troggs on acid, with a monster riff, it’s arguably the best song they’ve ever made, and their only US success. It reached number seven in the UK in 1968 and Ice in the Sun climbed to eight later that year, but the album Picturesque Matchstickable Messages from the Status Quo (yes they really called it that) failed to chart. The 1969 follow-up Spare Parts bombed too, by which point The Status Quo had dropped the ‘The’.

The 70s began with more failure. The albums Ma Kelly’s Greasy Spoon (1970) and Dog of Two Head (1971) got nowhere. Having said that, the single Down the Dustpipe in 1970 earned them a chart spot at 12, and at least they had moved on by ditching the psychedelic sounds and outfits and turned to the ‘no frills’ approach that would stand them in such good stead for years to come. Lynes had left Status Quo in 1970 and was replaced by studio guests for the next six years. They finally returned to the charts with the 1972 self-produced LP Piledriver, and Paper Plane flew to eight in the singles chart. The hits came thick and fast from 1973 onwards – Caroline and Break the Rules climbed to five and eight respectively.

Down Down, the first single from their forthcoming eighth album On the Level, was written by Rossi and Bob Young, who had been hired as their tour manager in 1968. The unsung Young is considered the unofficial fifth member of the band, helping to write many of their biggest hits and providing harmonica on stage and in the studio. Down Down was inspired by the first single by Tyrannosaurus Rex, Debora, and was originally called Get Down. It may well have been renamed due to Gilbert O’Sullivan’s number 1 of the same name in 1973. Rossi wrote the lyrics on an American tour, and claims the lines ‘I want all the world to see/To see you’re laughing, and you’re laughing at me’ were directed at his ex-wife and the British press.

Review

While far from Status Quo’s biggest fan, I think in small doses they’re really enjoyable and a breath of fresh air, and Down Down is one of their better tracks, that somehow has stood the test of time better than some of their other hits. The chorus in particular is as dumb and silly as it gets but extremely catchy and the ‘Frantic Four’ create a great wall of noise. It’s great to hear a rock band back at the top and listening to this and seeing footage of them at the time, you can see why they were so popular, before they got old and became figures of fun. Not one you can analyse much really, but that’s not a criticism in this instance.

Andy Bown became their keyboardist in 1976, also playing rhythm guitar. For the next five years, every Quo single reached the top 10 or just missed it, most notably their cover of John Fogerty’s Rockin’ All Over the World. This top three hit, with which they opened Live Aid in 1985, became perhaps their signature track. I always assumed it was one of their own songs. The title track of 1979’s Whatever You Want, another rock staple, reached number four. The album also featured Living on an Island, a rare ballad, sung by Parfitt.

The 80s started off well for Status Quo when What You’re Proposing shot to number two, but there was dissension in the ranks. Years of partying were starting to take their toll, and cocaine and booze use was through the roof. Coghlan left in 1981 and was replaced by Pete Kircher. The standard of their material was slipping, not that you’d know that from their chart placings. Everyone in the band bar Rossi hated Marguerita Time, which is a great example of where Quo went wrong in the 80s. It was too pop, too reliant on crap 80s synths, and in Lancaster’s words ‘All it did was advertise that we were a bunch of nerds’. But while many loyal fans in the ‘Quo Army’ turned their noses up, the pop fans loved it in late 1983.

The following Christmas saw Rossi and Parfitt enlisted to help out on Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?. They were supposed to sing the ‘here’s to you’ harmonies on the bridge, but were both so hungover from the night before, their only contribution was supplying a big bag of coke and dicking about on the video. Their lines were sung by Paul Weller, Sting and Glenn Gregory instead.

Live Aid marked the end of an era as it was the last time Lancaster performed with the band. He had been living in Australia for some time, and while there he discovered a new Status Quo album was being recorded with John ‘Rhino’ Edwards on bass and Jeff Rich on drums. Lancaster took out an injunction to prevent them using the name ‘Status Quo’, which halted production on In the Army Now. It was eventually released in 1986 and the title track, an unusually downbeat (for them) cover of a song by Bolland & Bolland, was a smash-hit, reaching number two.

There was definitely a lack of inspiration becoming apparent, as they released two singles in 1990 that were just medleys of rock’n’roll hits. The Anniversary Waltz – Part One even featured Dion’s The Wanderer, which they released as a single in 1984. And then in 1994 they reworked their top five hit from 1988, Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again) for Manchester United. Come On You Reds was written and produced by Status Quo, but sang by and credited to The Manchester United Football Squad. It was number 1 when the team won the FA Cup, and remains the only soccer song by a club team to top the charts. Only two years later there was controversy when Radio 1, under a new regime which was trying to attract young listeners, refused to include Status Quo and The Beach Boys’ joint cover of the latter’s Fun, Fun, Fun on their top playlist. To be fair, it was awful.

Rich left in 2000, and Matt Letley took up his place behind the drumkit. Five years later Rossi and Parfitt had cameo roles in ITV soap opera Coronation Street, in a storyline which involved them being sued by Les Battersby. They performed at his wedding as compensation. That December it was announced Parfitt had throat cancer but he had recovered within the year. A cover of the country song The Party Ain’t Over Yet in 2005 was their last decent-selling single, reaching 11.

In 2010 Rossi and Parfitt recieved OBEs for services to music, and it was reported they had patched up their differences with Lancaster. A charity remake of In the Army Now, credited to Status Quo with the Corps of Army Music Choir reached 31 in the charts, and is their last hit at time of writing. The following year a retrospective documentary, Hello Quo! was released in cinemas, and in 2013 their action comedy Bula Quo! came out. Yes, Rossi and Parfitt starred in a movie, in which Status Quo became involved in a mafia operation. It co-starred Jon Lovitz. God only knows what this project turned out like.

That was a big year for the Quo Army, as the classic Frantic Four line-up – Rossi, Parfitt, Lancaster and Coghlan – reunited for a series of dates that ended in 2014. Once the dates were through the previous line-up returned, but with Leon Cave on drums. Yes, the Quo seemingly go through drummers like Spinal Tap. Rossi’s schoolmate and original keyboardist Jaworski died that year.

But it was Parfitt’s illness and death in 2016 that made the headlines. He had retired from live performances that October after suffering a heart attack, but it wasn’t enough to save him. After suffering an injury to his shoulder, he died of severe infection in a Marbella hospital on Christmas Eve. It seemed unfathomable, as he and Rossi had always seemed indestructible, and inseparable. Despite this, his mourning pal decided to continue the band. Richie Malone became their new rhythm guitarist.

The Outro

Status Quo’s last album to date is Backbone, their 33rd and their first not to include Parfitt. The album sold very well, reaching number five. They appeared on the Christmas Day edition of The Great British Bake Off, performing Rockin’ All Over the World, but their tour was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, one could imagine coronavirus turning the world into a wasteland, and yet Rossi would still be stood tall, playing three chords until the end of time.

The Info

Written by

Francis Rossi & Bob Young

Producers

Status Quo

Weeks at number 1

1 (18-24 January)

Trivia

Births

20 January: Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith
21 January: Footballer Nicky Butt
24 January: Comedian Lucy Montgomery

Meanwhile…

24 January: Donald Coggan was enthroned as the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Every UK Number 1 Store is live!

/ robbarker1979

You can buy signed copies of my first book, Every UK Number 1: The 50s, here! And at £10, you’re saving 99p compared to Amazon. Give to me, not Jeff B!

The UK singles chart is the soundtrack to our lives and a barometer of the nation’s mood and tastes. And ever since 1952, the battle for the number one spot has had us all talking as well as dancing.

In this fascinating spin-off from everyuknumber1.com, as seen in the Daily Mirror, music journalist Rob Barker comprehensively reviews all the best-sellers of the 50s, delving into the wild lives of the artists and the real stories and secrets behind the hits. He also counts down the influential events that shaped them, as we moved from rations to never having it so good.

Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Cliff Richard were among those who transformed the lives of young people throughout Britain, and taught a country battered by war how to have fun again. 

Find out which chart topper was written by an illiterate rapist who formed his own prison band. Who was the first woman to top the charts? And which hitmaker lives on as Cockney rhyming slang? 

Every UK Number 1: The 50s has all the answers on the decade in which pop took its first steps, before rock’n’roll shouldered in and left the baby boomers all shook up.