Malcolm Mitchell - The Wanted Man/ The Blues

Label: Oriole

Year of Release: 1960

It's always worth snapping up an obscure Oriole single if you see one lying around, for the pure and simple reason that many sold poorly at the time, and the label had an appalling habit of wiping master tapes. Seemingly, they believed - as some would have considered reasonable in the fifties and early sixties - that passing pop fads were really not worth keeping in any sensible archive. Ouch. A lot of the Oriole tracks you can still buy are either re-recordings or needle-drops from unplayed or judiciously filtered vinyl copies. The slogan on their company sleeves was "Young - New - Exciting", and their corporate philosophy seemed to be that anything that wasn't new deserved erasing from history. 

Malcolm Mitchell's "The Wanted Man" is so obscure that hardly anyone online seems to know it exists, much less own a copy. Discogs doesn't log its existence, and 45Cat shows no known owners (apart from me). It's an odd attempt at a pop hit, being a cover of the Israeli standard "Shir Habokrim". The original lyrics are apparently a cowboy's lament to the desert, which on this single are translated to the tale of a fugitive on the run. It has familiar, clinical 1960 production values with lots of precise, professional performances which never quite let go of the reigns. In other words, this is slickly performed early pop with plenty of echo and buttoned up delivery, and certainly not rock and roll or skiffle. 

Malcolm Mitchell was actually a solid friend of Bob Monkhouse, who he occasionally collaborated with musically, and a major jazz and big band figure throughout the fifties and beyond, being the first British musician (apart from the Duke of Windsor) to perform with Duke Ellington. He also issued a number of shellac 78 recordings on Parlophone in the fifties, and had his own television series on both Southern and the BBC. He eventually developed a lasting career in commercial marketing and advertising, producing the arrangement for the iconic Hovis television commercials and also did session work for various commercial enterprises, such as the promotional disc for Green Shield stamps in 1972. 

Clearly not a man who hid away from the world, then, which makes the obscure nature of "The Wanted Man" rather unusual. It's almost tempting to suggest that Oriole demanded he should hide away in the manner of a real-life fugitive for the crucial weeks around its release. 

Sadly, Malcolm Mitchell passed away in 1998, leaving behind three sons and one daughter.