One Hit Wonders #10 - Candlewick Green - Who Do You Think You Are?

Label: Decca
Year of Release: 1973

The way Simon Cowell waffles on, you'd think that the X Factor and its ilk were a revolution in television broadcasting, that the TV talent show slid straight out of his marvellous and unfathomable brain and on to the nearest beermat.  Why more people aren't prepared to challenge this fallacy is slightly beyond me - TV talent shows merely took a bit of a break in the nineties (ignoring Jonathan Ross's "Big Big Talent Show", which is probably a wise thing to do).  They weren't some new noughties phenomenon, although admittedly the methods and the presentation had changed by then.  "And what about the Eurovision Song Contest?" says a man at the back. "That never went away at all".  Indeed, my good chap.

One big advantage Cowell has had over his television genre's predecessors is that he has the necessary inside music industry knowledge to market the winners as stars.  That's something Hughie Green and his producer friends could never do with many of the musical acts on "Opportunity Knocks" - winning that particular show meant very little in particular apart from (perhaps) one minor hit and a career on the working man's club/ cabaret circuit in Britain.  Ask these lads.  After winning the show, their debut single "Who Do You Think You Are?" climbed to number 21 on the charts, and their tour van took them to all the social clubs in Albion where the best pie and peas could be had.  Follow-up hits were not forthcoming.  If the same fate had greeted Leona Lewis, rest assured her breakdown would be plastered all over the national newspapers.

Before we break open the knife drawer and give Candlewick Green an angry pricking, however, it's worth listening to this.  "Who Do You Think You Are?" is actually a ruddy good pop song, complete with gentle, washed-out hints of Northern Soul influences.  It may sound slightly suppressed in places, as if they're frightened to really let fly with the song, but they can't keep it entirely down - with the bouncy piano, parping brass, and brain-naggingly good chorus, it's actually a well crafted piece of work, and one which deserved to sell in far greater quantities.  The case for the prosecution would probably correctly cite the fact that the tune isn't their own - belonging to sometime sixties psych-poppers Jigsaw - and may have sat better with an artist with a more powerful, or at least more emotive, voice.  Still though, by the standards of most TV talent show winners, The Green come out of this extremely well.  Its self-conscious swagger actually suits the conflicting doubt and defiance expressed in the song very well, and it's a brooding but simultaneously slightly groovy piece of work.

Saint Etienne later covered the song in 1993, but finished two rungs lower in the charts with their effort.  As for Candlewick Green, they'd release several albums, including a surprisingly mellotron-heavy (though determinedly pop) eponymous effort in 1977.  The lyrics of this track otherwise tend to tempt me to mock their fate - "every day sees another star", indeed - but it's an old, old story now.  After nearly 37 years, it's time to drop the subject, ignore the ironies and enjoy the record, I'd say.

One last thing, though - can anyone please put me out of my misery and tell me what the Wikipedia listed "Pete The Plate Spinning Dog" act was like on "Opportunity Knocks"?  It sounds like a real crowd pleaser from this distance, but you never can tell.

This track is commercially available in all the usual places, and can be watched on YouTube too.  

One Hit Wonders #9 - Freddie Starr - It's You

Label: Tiffany
Year of Release: 1974

Readers, do you ever despair?  I sometimes despair.  Life's hard, and then just when you're looking for some kind of hope on the horizon, a sign that all is essentially well with the human race, you find out that the Freddie Starr single you picked up for 50p and bought as a joke was actually a top ten hit.  As if Ken Dodd's musical career didn't already nearly send you into a deep, dark depression.

The strangely under-referenced (perhaps for good reasons) "It's You" is perhaps more expected than Kenny Everett's attempts at chart smashes, or even Jasper Carrott's.  Despite his successful career as an "anarchic" comedian, Freddie Starr without question harboured ambitions to be a credible rock star which I'm sure have never faded - unbelievably, he even managed two very minor hit albums, the tragically titled "After The Laughter" in 1989, and "The Wanderer" in 1990.  The latter has nothing to do with the Kevin Rowland album of the same name I'm sure we can safely assume.  He even worked with some respectable industry figures, his greatest privilege undoubtedly being recording with Joe Meek in the sixties, a meeting of unpredictable minds I'm actually quite glad I wasn't anywhere near at the time.  

Sadly, whoever he recorded with, Starr's contributions to the pop world are largely forgettable.  "It's You" may have managed the number 9 slot in 1974, but it's an unremarkable slow tempo ballad with lyrics even Doddy would have rejected as overly saccharine.  Starr's voice is quite thin and reedy and smacks of insincerity - it's impossible to take seriously, in fact, even though the jokes seem non-existent, leaving us in a strange limbo.  Neither naff enough for a cheap joke, nor good enough to be a decent single, this just sits on your turntable seemingly trying its hardest to go unnoticed.  Robbie Williams may look like the bastard son of Freddie Starr, but it's clear who the superior singer and performer is.

The only really surprising thing about this disc is that people bloody well bought it in large numbers, which is interesting as they'd never really warmed to any of the man's singular recordings before, and never really did again. "It's You" clearly had something which clicked with both his fans and the general public, but it's not obvious to my ears what.  To get some perspective on this situation, it's worth remembering that The Who's "I Can See For Miles" finished one place lower in the charts than this effort.  I spit on the British record buying public.

One Hit Wonders #8 - The Young Idea - With A Little Help From My Friends

Label: Columbia

Year of Release: 1967

Shall I just tag this as "Beatles cover", "one hit wonder" and "bland" and wander off, with no explanations offered to the lot of you? Surely there are moments when a few flippant tags say far more than a rambling, 500 word analysis ever could?

Well actually, no, not in this case. True, the A-side, which climbed to number ten in 1967 - and seems to have been remembered by very few people since - is the usual load of old opportunistic gash, adding nothing to the original Beatles version and in fact probably subtracting a great deal. There is virtually nothing which can be said in its favour, and as a cultural artifact it should be positioned somewhere near a "Top of the Pops" budget album in the general league table of worthiness.

Nonetheless, Tony Cox and Douglas MacRea-Brown - the duo behind this record - were actually solid songwriters in their own right, and its the B-side we're really interested in here. "Colours of Darkness" later loaned its name to a "Rubble" psychedelic compilation album, but curiously wasn't featured in the series itself. It would have been sat at home happily amongst the other tracks, however - there's a brooding, orchestral backed moodiness to the track and a hypnotic, harp-plucked riff which repeats at regular intervals to a bleary-eyed, tranquil effect. Had this been released by Kaleidoscope, there's a chance we'd still be discussing it endlessly. As the arse-end of a Beatles cover performed by a duo whose work has largely been ignored until very recently, it hasn't enjoyed that attention at all. I predict that will change.

Revola Records have been kind enough to reissue The Young Ideas album "With A Little Help From My Friends" on CD and mp3 formats, meaning you can download the track from iTunes if you feel so inclined. I've included brief snippets of both tracks below in the meantime. You won't want to hear more than a bit of one of them in any case.

One Hit Wonders #7 - Kissing The Pink - The Last Film

Label: Magnet

Year of Release: 1983

"In the last film I ever saw/ they wore suits and they wore tiiieees..." Well, it's good to know that the actors in this particular film - whatever it was - hadn't taken up the David Cameron-endorsed trend of wearing suits without ties...

"The Last Film" was a very peculiar and - speaking purely for myself here - rather unexpected number 19 hit in 1983 for Kissing The Pink, a band who had originally been produced by Martin Hannett, and had also harboured ambitions to work with Brian Eno (which the record company thwarted). Whatever "Last Film" is in anyone's pocket thesaurus of pop styles, it's not particularly "commercial", preferring to slowly build up an eerie atmosphere of doom, despondency and general grief via peculiar monk-chanting backing vocals, "Generals and Majors" styled whistling noises, and bizarre lyrical imagery. Clearly the playlisters at Radio One were having some sort of existential crisis at the time, and it popped up on the radio more often than one would expect, even being used as the track which first introduced Dave Lee Travis' long-standing "Give Us A Break" quiz (Kissing the Pink = snooker - do you see?)

Unlike most one hit wonders, Kissing The Pink still have a credible career, most recently being seen working with legendary Dance producers X-Press 2 on their album "Makeshift Feelgood". They also released a number of club-friendly singles throughout the late eighties and early nineties, most notably "Stand Up" which sounded like much more of an obvious hit than "The Last Film", but somehow failed to make much of an impression.

This single is commercially available in all the usual places online.  You can hear "The Last Film" over on YouTube - thanks to season1steve for the upload.  

One Hit Wonders #6 - The Harmony Grass - Move in a Little Closer, Baby (b/w Happiness is Toy Shaped)

Label: RCA

Year of Release: 1968

We're back, you muvvas!  And whilst it would have been tempting to return reinvigorated with a huge great blast of satanic rock and roll, that would perhaps be a bit too predictable - so have a fresh slice of toytown psychedelia instead, rather in the manner one might enjoy a nice slither of Battenburg cake on a Sunday afternoon.

The Harmony Grass were essentially just sixties scene stalwarts Tony Rivers and the Castaways under another name, switching labels and desperately trying to get a hit by posing as a new act.  The Castaways specialised in a rather English bastardisation of American West Coast harmony pop, but despite airplay and some acclaim failed to really attract much attention.  The Harmony Grass, on the other hand, just about managed to chart with this, taking it to number 24.  The A-side is essentially a piece of fluff which stylistically predates the likes of the Bay City Rollers - forward thinking it may be in its production values, but essential it isn't.

It's the B-side most L&TB viewers will be interested in, which is a combination of twee toytown English pop and The Beach Boys, beginning with some intricate vocal harmonies then continuing to muse and speculate on the wonder of toys.  The entire sub-genre of toytown psychedelia was very much an afterthought by the nineties specialist music press, and the label wouldn't have been bandied around at the time at all (unless somebody can prove otherwise).  However, if the movement had existed there's precious little doubt that "Happiness..." would have been one of the spearheading tracks, an anthem for the movement alongside Jeff Lynne's "I Love My Toys".  Allegedly, Brian Wilson actually heard the track once and gave it the thumbs up for its arrangement, and praise can't really come much higher than that.  

Despite their studio skills, however, the Harmony Grass couldn't sustain the public's interest for more than this single, and the game was up not long afterwards.  

Download here (sorry for the pops and crackles)

One Hit Wonders #5 - Brown Sauce - I Wanna Be A Winner

Label: BBC

Year of Release: 1981

Noel Edmonds... so much to answer for.  Readers outside the UK may not be familiar with Noel, and for the benefit of those folks I have to reveal that he was (and arguably still is) the cuddly bearded Uncle of the airwaves*, dominating the popular culture of the seventies and eighties in particular, and even most of the nineties until he decided to get "dangerous", "dark" and "edgy" on our asses.  And he did, too - the last series of the Saturday early evening extravaganza "Noel's House Party" saw him tormenting small children with fake 'aliens', losing his patience with surprised members of the public, and generally wheezing his airy laugh all over the place in a demonic fashion.  That was my favourite series, incidentally, but everyone else had tuned out by then.

Way, way before all that, however, he presented a morning show called "Swap Shop" where children would phone up and attempt to swap their unwanted gifts with other kids all over the UK.  In case this sounds too dull, the show was interspersed with celebrity banter, and interviews and japes from co-hosts Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin.  And that, really, is where this single comes in.  Written by Noel Edmonds and BA Robertson (of "Bang Bang" and "I Knocked it Off" fame) it is actually a passable ditty sung by Keith and Maggie, and not dissimilar in its stylings to Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz who were extremely popular at the time.  Featuring some of the worst rhymes to grace a pop song ever ("Don't want to rule like President Reagan/ or kick a ball like Kevin Keegan" they blurt hopefully) and some of the most joyful, sugary riffs, it really shouldn't be treated as a serious product.  Indeed, it was originally supposed to have been a one-off song on the programme, but public demand lead to its release on BBC Records.  Listen once and you'll find an earworming little pop song, twice and the appeal will begin to wane, then three times and you'll be sick to death of the simplicity of it.  You can't help but wonder if BA "Kool in the Kaftan" Robertson would have added a few more twists, turns and melodic diversions to the disc if he'd known it would actually become a single.  

Whilst a few extra frills might have given the single Top Five status, public demand still took it to a creditable number 15 on the charts in January 1982, but that was the best it could hope for, and a follow-up single credited to The Saucers (also penned by BA Robertson) barely registered in the public's consciousness.  Keith Chegwin went on to appear naked on evening television instead of Maggie Philbin as the Cosmic Ordering of all heterosexual male teenagers everywhere got terribly mixed up, Maggie Philbin herself did (and still does) numerous pieces of television presentation work, and Noel, of course, presents the ridiculously popular "Deal or No Deal" quiz show.  But you'd have to be from Planet Zog not to have noticed that.

As for BA Robertson, his solo career had stalled by 1981, but he eventually co-wrote "The Living Years" - not with Noel Edmonds this time, but Mike Rutherford out of Genesis for his Mike and the Mechanics project.  Beyond the beards, one has to wonder whether Rutherford and Edmonds have much in common, although I find it hard to imagine Rutherford doing prank phone calls to all and sundry.  But you never know... perhaps Peter Gabriel dreads the phone ringing at some unearthly hour...

(*Footnote fact - Despite his cuddly Uncle image, Edmonds has made it known in interviews that he's a tough person to work for.  Read into that what you will.)

Download it Here

And watch it below.

One Hit Wonders #4 - Warm Sounds - Birds and Bees

Label: Deram

Year of Release: 1967

Warm Sounds were essentially the duo Denver Gerrard and Barry Younghusband who worked primarily as Andrew Oldham's right hand muso men for the Immediate label.  If a band required a stray song they might have (such as "Black Sheep RIP", for example, which was theirs) or needed some competent vocal harmonies or smart instrumentation, Denver and Barry were beckoned.  

Their own particular waxings under the name of Warm Sounds were, perhaps unsurprisingly, generally gentle and wistful affairs, like West Coast pop with soft English vowels thrown into the mix. "Birds and Bees" is all lazy vocalised noises which would be described as scat if they were energetic enough ("Ooh bap bap, ah bap bap" is the closest I can get to transcribing them)  pinging glockenspiels and idle basslines.  Some people would probably refer to this as "popsike".  

Whilst "Birds and Bees" did well enough aboard the good ship Radio London to climb to to pole position in that station's chart, it only got to number 27 in the official charts used by the music industry, supposedly the lowest position a Radio London number one has ever occupied in the real world.  We shouldn't pay too much heed to this fact, since their chart was largely based on airplay, guesswork and whoever the station owed a favour to at any given point, but its safe to say that there were probably many disappointed faces at the Deram offices as a result.

It was also the duo's only hit.  Follow up singles "Sticks and Stones" (on Immediate this time) and the rather berserk "Nite is A Comin'" (back on Deram again) were ignored by the public despite picking up further radio play, and the concept of Warm Sounds was subsequently put into the chest freezer.  Younghusband later worked with Donovan in his Open Road band, whereas Denver Gerrard released a solo album "Sinister Morning" which wasn't greeted with much more enthusiasm than the later Warm Sounds releases.

Download it Here

One Hit Wonder #3 -No Way Sis - I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing

Label: EMI

Year of Release: 1996

Suffice to say that this wasn't really very high on my list of potential blog uploads, and has been sitting waiting in those mythical mp3 wings for some time already... but when the news that Noel Gallagher was quitting Oasis broke, I couldn't resist a rare dip into relative topicality.  Let's face it, we couldn't have got less topical than "Loadsamoney (Doin' Up The House)" a few days ago, so a chance to be in synch with current events feels like a rare treat.

Before we focus on this single, I may as well say that I feel (at best) indifferent to Oasis' split.  Yes, I was a fan once, and still rate "Whatever" as being one of the more exciting Christmas releases ever - I can remember playing it non-stop all evening when I first got hold of a copy, thrilled by its energy and optimism.  By the time of "Be Here Now", however, the plot appeared to have been lost, nobody either within the band or outside of it appeared to have the knack of using a nice sharp pair of editing scissors on their material, and eventually they became reduced to the level of an occasionally good singles band whose albums were immensely patchy.  It wasn't supposed to happen that way, but anyone who wishes to argue with my perspective is wasting their time - I've heard it all before (both the arguments and the less-than-supersonic albums) and nowhere sums up the failings of "Be Here Now" better than the Sweeping the Nation blogsite here, which gives a blow-by-blow assessment of the album's content.  Nope, save your comments.  Honestly.  If you're hearing something I'm not, I'm thrilled for you, but no amount of  superlatives are likely to make me change my mind at this late stage.  Few British bands have had more written about them in the last fifteen years than Oasis, after all, and I've had plenty of time to change my mind.

Back in December 1996, however, I would happily argue the band's merits to anyone wishing to dismiss them as "plagiarists" or "thugs", and it was back then this bizarre little single was issued by none other than their tribute band.  This wasn't the first occasion a tribute band has sneaked into the charts, the Abba tribute act Bjorn Again managing much the same thing with the "Erasure-ish" EP in the early nineties - but suffice to say, it's not exactly a common occurrence.  ABCD, Alike Cooper and The Bootleg Beatles have yet to gain entries in the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles.

The story behind the track is perhaps more unlikely still.  The Coca Cola Company allegedly refused to allow Oasis to use the line "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" in their "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing"-apeing "Shakermaker" single.  The fear at the corporation's head office was that the Mancs would cause the public to associate the soft drink with cocaine, which would never do.  Cocaine hadn't been part of the recipe for some time, after all.  When No Way Sis decided to cover the track directly, however, the corporation decided to give the whole arrangement the green light.  Presumably as Oasis' tribute act, the cocaine which they may or may not have been alluding to would simply be pretend cocaine, and therefore would not ruin the brand's image.  This, at least, is the only explanation that's ever made remote sense to me.

To give credit to No Way Sis, this single nails their sound particularly well, parodying some of the Oasis riffs and cliches which were already becoming familiar and apparent, and it's not half-bad - but it really wasn't good enough to be a Christmas number one as some had rather optimistically hoped.  In the end, it had to settle for a number 27 position before waving goodbye to the charts in early 1997, and EMI rather ungraciously tore up the band's contract to record an album not long after (although why anybody thought there was a need for an Oasis tribute band to record an entire long-player is a moot point, and one which probably doesn't need much more emphasis).

Whilst having your own tribute act on Top of the Pops might seem like a major achievement for any band, 1996 was really the last window of opportunity anyone would have to cash in on Oasis' success.  Unlike The Beatles, who saw endless cover versions and novelty singles parodying or covering them charting throughout the sixties, the mania surrounding Oasis wouldn't weather the disappointment of "Be Here Now" in '97.  No Way Sis' release, then, was the last nod to the phenomenon of the Gallagher brothers, following Mike Flowers' effort the previous year, and festive follies around their catalogue would not make annual chart appearances.  A shame, as I wouldn't have minded hearing The Bootleg Beatles taking on "She's Electric" in 1997, but you can't have everything you asked for on your Christmas wishlist, can you?

Full tracklisting:

1. I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing

2. The Quick Sand Song

3. Good Times

4. I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (Instrumental)

Download it here

One Hit Wonder #2 - The Sorrows - Take A Heart

Label: Piccadilly

Year of Release: 1965

I'm not claiming originality or insight with this choice, of course - the track itself has appeared on the "Nuggets II" box set and has been much discussed since.  

Whilst I would have to take exception to anybody who is honestly prepared to argue that The Sorrows were better than The Who or the Kinks, or indeed any number of other more successful loud, pounding, rough rock bands of the time, they certainly deserved to climb higher than number 21 in the charts with this one.

"Take A Heart" pitter-patters its way towards some of the most aggressive, hollering and sneering vocals you'll hear, and is one, elongated pean to adolescent romantic frustration.  It's not an original piece of material, of course, and other versions of this song are available - but for me it's the ultimate version, and even on the live clip above it sounds pretty damn savage.  

Lead singer Don Farden later went on to have hits with "Indian Reservation" and "Belfast Boy" as a solo artist in the seventies, but neither are a patch on this.  

Thanks to Sirlongpass for the YouTube upload.

Apologies from me for the relative lack of uploads at present - I've been away on holiday and relying on delayed posts to get my stuff out there.  Hopefully normal service will be resumed very  soon. 

One Hit Wonder #1 - Gary Shearston - I Get A Kick Out Of You

Label: Charisma
Year of Release: 1974

This is the first in what will doubtless be a very occasional series of glimpses at One Hit Wonders. In an overwhelming majority of cases, it's apparent that despite having one frequently large hit, One Hit Wonders tend to fare less well for airplay than various cult bands who never really had a proper smash. So whilst you could twist your radio dial on to 6Music and hear (if you're lucky) The Fall, the odds of spinning it one day and hearing The Look's "I Am The Beat" or Airhead's "Counting Sheep" are less favourable. One Hit Wonders barely even get fifteen minutes of fame - it's usually one obligatory Top of the Pops appearance (back when it was broadcasting), a less-than-sell-out tour (whoops, The Shepherds Bush Empire isn't very full, is it, Nizlopi?) then a trip back home to sign on with the DSS after the album flops.

Australian folk artist Gary Shearston most assuredly did appear on TOTP in 1974 with this brilliant cover of "I Get A Kick Out Of You", but there's no YouTube evidence of it. Instead, this black and white transmission from elsewhere will have to do, and the reduced quality fails to distract from the lazy, weary majesty of Shearston's version. If Bryan Ferry had known precisely where to draw the line with his cover versions of classics, we might just have heard something like this - but perhaps not. This is so understated it's great, the world-weary desperation of the vocals tugging dramatically against the romantic strings. It's a tremendously odd single to have ever reached number 7 in the charts, but it managed nonetheless, and I can't help but think the world must have been a happier place for it.

Gary Shearston is something of an odd fish. He was already in his thirties by the time this was released, a career creating folk albums of Australian bush songs apparently behind him. Having moved to the UK and signed with Charisma, he managed two albums of rather more pop-orientated material, before eventually returning home to become a priest in the Outback. As careers go, that's an especially peculiar path. I have to confess that I've yet to stumble on either of his Charisma albums "Dingo" or "Greatest Stone On Earth", but if anyone's heard them, I'd be grateful to hear some views about their content.

Thanks to ianabroad for the YouTube upload.