The Intro
One-hit wonders Brian and Michael, aka Michael Coleman and Kevin Parrott (I’ll explain) toppled Kate Bush from her deservedly lofty perch with this tribute to Lancashire artist LS Lowry’s depictions of the industrial north west. Yes, Don McLean wasn’t the only singer to immortalise a painter in a number 1 song.
Before
Brian and Michael started out as members of a Stax-style soul band called The Big Sound who toured Europe in the 60s. In 1976, the comedy musical duo Berk & Jerk began, consisting of Coleman and Brian Burke, who had both been part of The Big Sound. Parrott, who had also been in the band, had become lead guitarist with Manchester rock band Oscar. The trio remained friends.
Coleman and Burke penned Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (Lowry’s Song) as a tribute to the artist, who had died in 1976. Lowry painted matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs, offering a unique view of life in the working class north. His paintings were very stylised, casting no shadows and featuring little personal detail, using only five colours. Why this song refers to them as being ‘matchstalk’ rather than ‘matchstick’, I have no idea.
At some point Burke & Jerk decided to become Brian and Michael instead (though they also used their old name on the record sleeve). They took this song to Parrott, who borrowed around £1,000 to record the song at Pluto Studios in Stockport. The studio, owned by former Herman’s Hermits rhythm guitarist Keith Hopwood, was in the same building as 10 cc’s Strawberry Studios. Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs was recorded over three sessions, beginning on 25 September 1977. Brian and Michael were backed by Tintwistle Brass Band, from the Derbyshire village where Parrott lived at the time and St Winifred’s School Choir.
Parrott tried and failed several times over to get the single released but eventually he managed a deal with Pye Records. It was released on 25 September but within weeks Burke decided to quit. As the record slowly but surely gained traction, Parrott found himself cast as ‘Brian’. Back in the 70s, singles could take ages to climb the charts. Here’s a very good example – this took five months to top the charts.
Review
Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs, not to be confused with the one Status Quo song that doesn’t sound like all their others, is one of those strange chart-toppers that could only have happened in the 70s or early 80s. Fair play to the duo/trio for writing a song about a surrealist northern artist as it’s certainly an unusual subject matter for a hit. But they overdo the ‘Ay up love, it’s grim up north, t’int it?’ image too much. To me, Lowry’s work shows the north in a realistic way, cold and grey, and by giving the figures little in the way of personality, he portrays the working class the way many saw them – as unimportant, identical figures. Brian and Michael go overboard, turning the north into one big caricature. ‘He painted Salford’s smoky tops/On cardboard boxes from the shops’ is true, but there’s no need to sound so happy about it, that’s a pretty grim lyric really!
The use of the choir is also too much. They join the duo on the chorus, which is fine, but there’s no need for them to also sing the children’s song The Big Ship Sails on the Alley-Alley-O towards the end. It’s sickly. And we know there was more to come from St Winifred’s School Choir. Though a spin-off LP, The Matchstalk Children, sank, they returned to delight and horrify the nation in equal measure with the 1980 Christmas number 1 There’s No One Quite Like Grandma.
After
Brian and Michael’s follow-up Evensong was a failure and so was the album The Matchstalk Men and second album I Can Count My Friends on One Hand. Coleman did however win an Ivor Novello for the Lowry tribute however, for The Outstanding Lyric of the Year.
Both Coleman and Parrott remained in the music business. Most notably, the former wrote and latter produced It’s ‘Orrible Being in Love (When You’re 8½), a number 13 hit in 1986 for Claire and Friends, a young schoolgirl and her mates from, you guessed it, St Winifred’s School Choir.
The Outro
In 2002, Coleman and Parrott became Brian and Michael once more, performing a reunion concert with the original St Winifred’s choir at Manchester’s Lowry Centre. 10 years later they formed The Matchstalk Men with Parrott’s brother Nigel on drums and Coleman’s brother Tim as lead vocalist. The line-up has changed since but the one-hit wonders remain, performing material from their two albums and hits from other acts from the 50s and 60s.
The Info
Written by
Michael Coleman & Brian Burke
Producer
Kevin Parrott
Weeks at number 1
3 (8-28 April)
Trivia
Births
9 April: S Club 7 singer Rachel Stevens
21 April: Cricketer Carl Greenidge
24 April: Field hockey goalkeeper Beth Storry
Deaths
9 April: Architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis
21 April: Fairport Convention singer Sandy Denny
Meanwhile…
23 April: Nottingham Forest won the Football League First Division title for the first time. Their manager Brian Clough, who guided their East Midlands rivals Derby County to the title six years previous. He became only the third manager in history to lead two different clubs to top division title glory.