Dora Hall - Did He Call Today Mama?/ Time To Say Goodbye

Label: Calamo

Year of Release: 1963

Dora Hall is an old friend of the blog, of course, and I've already gone into enormous depth about her absurd and almost certainly unprecedented and unrepeated career in vanity recording.  Whereas most self-released artistes press up 200 records for their friends and family and the people who fancy them, Dora was married to a millionaire plastic kitchen utensils magnate.  This meant her records were regularly given away free with purchases of picnic-ware, airtime on cable television was bought, and she ended up an ubiquitous presence in the USA for decades without ever having a hit single.

Of course, it would have been a lot more fun if Dora Hall had been an exponent of experimental noise or political agit-prop, but the fact her husband's money bought her time with some of the finest session musicians in the country often meant that some of her singles weren't bad free gifts at all.  Several veer towards the Northern Soul end of the spectrum and sound no worse (and in many cases better) than acclaimed efforts from small indie labels operating in that sphere, and her takes on tracks like The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" actually have kicking horn sections and a gritty edge that is surprising.  She chose her material and musicians wisely and was much more than a middle-of-the-road character.  

"Did He Call Today Mama" - by Randy Newman, no less - is another example of her picking a winner.  It's a swinging borderline Northern Soul song with an edge of desperation about its lyrics, a beautiful kick about its performance, and a world-weary vocal from Hall who doesn't have a fantastic voice, but knows how to deliver the sentiments.  It's true to say that her television appearances sometimes made her seem somewhat naff and perhaps distracted from the quality of her recorded work, so I'd ask doubters to listen with a fresh pair of ears.  Some of these singles are so cheering I only wish they were more easily available in the UK.

Dora died in 1988, but she'll always have a special place in this blog's heart. 

Public Skool - Baby Come Back/ Walking The Rat

Label: Logo

Year of Release: 1980

By 1980 punk was pretty much dead, but there were still a few pops and snaps going on in the fireplace  after the flames had been urinated out.  The "Oi!" movement, feverishly promoted by everyone's favourite British tabloid hack Gary Bushell, continued to give punk some occasional music press and radio presence.  Then, besides that, there were still a few records created by music industry session folk and chancers who hadn't quite realised that the game was almost up.

All the evidence points to this being a record made by a studio group having a laugh with the idea of making a Mockney punk record, much like The Strawbs attempt to go punk under the name The Monks a couple of years before.  The A-side, a cover of "Baby Come Back", is actually pretty good despite this, adding a football terrace edge to a track which wasn't short of foot-stomping qualities to begin with.  New Wave keyboards combine with "Oi!" vocals and glam banging to create a track which is fun without being essential.

The B-side is odder still, and if it isn't a piss-take then I'm sending my bullshit detector right back to the branch of Maplin I bought it from.  "Walking The Rat" is a wide-eyed punk track about taking a pet rodent out for a walk in public on a leash rather than a dog. Oh the anarchy.  "He's walking, walking the rat!" chant the backing vocals enthusiastically, and to cap it off we learn that the animal is called Pat.  I think I can detect a tiny bit of contempt here, and if this isn't a record made by serious session musos who felt that punk was either a bit silly or had made a mess of their careers, I'll be amazed. The presence of David Mindel on the production credits may be a clue - here was a man who wrote the "Jim'll Fix It" theme in the seventies, and was also in a band with Mike Read, penning the phased popsike classic "If (Would It Turn Out Wrong)" on his way.  It may be that a punk band were offered him as a producer for this session and simply accepted him as the right man for the job (those dog-rough glam rock credentials on the original 'Jim'll' theme perhaps did partly qualify him) or it may have been that he was in on a joke here.

Whatever, we're left with a punk curio which has been a guilty pleasure for many people over the years, and I suspect I'm not alone in enjoying this a wee bit more than I should do.

Perfect People - Polyanna/ House In The Country

Label: MCA

Year of Release: 1969

It's tempting to think that absolutely every last half-good drop of British popsike is in wider distribution now, but as this particular disc proves, there are still lesser known surprises out there.  The official A-side to this record ("House In The Country") has already been compiled on "Piccadilly Sunshine" and is available on iTunes and Amazon and no doubt other commercial sites besides, so I'm not going to trouble myself too much with the contents of that one beyond providing you all with an edited 45 second clip of its charms.

The B-side "Polyanna", on the other hand, would have been a more logical choice, and it's somewhat surprising it was overlooked.  The simplistic but frankly bizarre lyrics appear to be exhorting a young lady not to commit suicide by throwing herself into a river, but this is pure rainbow-coloured sixties pop in all other respects.  Basslines swoop and plunge majestically in a manner Macca would respect,  the horn section kicks into the chorus giddily imitating the vertigo of a high bridge over a river, and the whole thing has a merry urgency about it and enough hooks to drag in even the biggest popsike cynic.  The vocals are perhaps slightly too gruff to truly compliment the contents of the rest of the song, but this is a fine piece of work otherwise - and when you spot Mike Leander's name in the credits, it becomes clear why.  Whilst he later became widely known for introducing Gary Glitter to success, in truth the Walthamstow born Leander had cut his teeth as an incredibly skilled arranger long before, working to brilliant effect on excellent records by David McWilliams, Ben E King, The Rolling Stones and Colin Blunstone before this one.  He also arranged The Beatles "She's Leaving Home" while George Martin was unwell, putting him in the unique position of being the only other arranger to work with them.

"Polyanna" isn't a lost classic to file next to the Fabs, but it's potent sixties pop which deserves a lot more attention than it's received so far. "House In The Country", on the other hand, seems to be a Manfred Mann off cut (penned by Hugg, Man and Hugg) which is merely OK-ish - twee, chipper and pleasant, the kind of fare you'd find halfway through the sixth volume of "Circus Days".

As for who Pleasant People are, my guess is that they were a studio group rather than a "proper" live gigging band, but if anyone knows differently, please do get in touch.

Dog Rose - Paradis Row/ Sunday Morning

Label: Satril

Year of Release: 1972

Well, this is a thorny mess.  Nobody can seem to agree on the band line-up for this recording at all.  The press release Satril Records put out for this single quotes entirely different personnel to the members eventually listed on their solitary 1972 LP release "All For The Love Of", and the only reasonable explanation is that as soon as this group imploded, the label quickly hired another bunch of musicians together to carry on under the Dog Rose name.  It's also possible that the name was owned by the label and musicians were hired for songs accordingly until a hit came.  

Confusion aside, "Paradis Row" occupies the same area as a great many early seventies pop singles, with a tiny drop of popsike in its veins, some anthemic McCartneyesque melancholy (the same strand inhabited by the theme to "Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?") and a streak of Edison Lighthouse bubblegum.  Gently slapped bongos introduce swaggering riffs and beatnik-styled lyrical patter, and this eventually cascades into a huge rainbow streak of a chorus.  Regardless of who may or may not have been responsible for this, it's a bit of a buried gem, a could-have-been that never was.

The flip is much  more bizarre.  The press release describes it as "back to the fifties and rocking and rollin' down the avenue", but the jaunty pub piano, distortion and treble seem to be recalling The Kinks if anyone else.  Virtually absent of bass and overloaded with top-end screech, Graham Coxon would probably nod in approval at the lo-fi approach on offer here, though God knows what anyone made of it at the time.

If you were in any line-up of Dog Rose at any particular point and want to conclusively clear up a mystery here, please do get in touch.  

Sounds of Lancashire - Sliced Tomatoes/ Back to Bach

Label: Pye Disco Demand

Year of Release: 1975

I suspect the fact that Fatboy Slim sampled large chunks of The Just Brothers "Sliced Tomatoes" and plastered them all over "Rockafeller Skank" is a known fact even to the laziest of sample-spotters these days.  Already a Northern Soul classic by the time Norman Cook found other uses for it, the Brothers' sparse yet strangely brilliant track enjoyed a revival in clubs and on the airwaves after his plundering, and hasn't really gone away since - in fact, Demon Records put out a 7" vinyl reissue only last month, much to my relief as I'd been after a reasonably priced copy for some time.

What is perhaps less appreciated is the fact that Fatboy Slim was not the first person to get his grubby paws on it.  Back in the seventies, numerous record labels in the UK - Pye and Spark being the most notable criminals here - were quick to spot trends on the Northern Soul circuit and often put out cover versions of the main floor fillers which had often been long unavailable over here, if they were ever available at all.  Largely consisting of session musicians watching the studio clock, these rush-released discs veered in quality from being fair facsimiles to downright shoddy.  If you look on ebay, you can still see many of them, even the rarest ones, up for sale at bargain basement prices. There's a simple reason for this - nobody wants them.  They're the vinyl equivalent of the boyfriend or girlfriend everyone went out for a week because they looked a tiny bit like somebody else they fancied a lot more.  Do not DJ with any of them if you value your life, or at the very least your reputation.

"Sliced Tomatoes" by the mysterious Sounds of Lancashire takes things one step further, however. Noting the sparseness of the original, the session musicians in this case have decided to "helpfully" spruce the gaps in the record up with some burbling analogue synthesiser tinsel, creating a Moogy Wonderland disco record where a Northern Soul one should more logically be.  It bubbles and squeaks its way through the familiar Just Brothers riff like something out of a parallel universe where a Lieutenant Norman Cook of NASA was born twenty years earlier and dicked around with early synthesisers rather than turntables, probably wearing a spacesuit and saluting a lot during his routines.  I'm not making a case for this actually being good, mind you. Anyone expecting a Northern Soul version of Stereolab is going to be horribly disappointed.  However, it's absurd enough to warrant coverage on a blog as ridiculous as this one.

The actual proper A-side "Back to Bach" is another remake, this time of the brilliant "Bok to Bach" by Father's Angels.  That version covers similar territory but doesn't do so in as interesting a way.

Happy New Year everyone, by the way! I do have some genuinely good and completely obscure records lined up for the next couple of months at least, so don't surf away just yet. Please.