Matthew Bones - I Am The Pixi/ Two Sugars

Skippy, impersonation-ridden popsike from 1971 (not 1967, like YOU thought)

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1971

Once every so often, I stumble on a record so strangely out-of-time and absurd in its ambitions that I'm forced to stop what I'm doing and think "How the hell did this even get released?" The music industry is traditionally an unforgiving place where fashion faux-pas are given short shrift - but once every so often, a weird time traveller escapes out of the traps.

"I Am The Pixi" starts off like a vanity pressing of a comedy routine to be sold in working men's clubs, with Matthew Bones doing rather accurate impersonations of the singing styles of McCartney, Presley, Dylan and Lennon for nearly a minute. Then, having affectionately imitated the four biggest influencers in the pack of fifties and sixties rock, he launches into his own sprightly, skippy, orchestrally arranged melody about... er... being a pixie and having half his body underground. This would be fine fare for Middle Earth obsessed 1967, but by 1971 this would have seemed extraordinarily passé. There's not a guitar solo in sight here, just simple Nirvana (UK) influenced merriness.

For all of its fashion failings, though, "I Am The Pixi" is actually one of the most lovably cheery pieces of popsike I've heard in years, and it's utterly impossible not to be charmed by it. Innocent, silly, and sprightly, it will probably irritate the kind of people who find most material of this ilk trying, but for the rest of us it's pure joy. It could feasibly have been a hit in 1967 with a sympathetic summer release date, but what the hell the A&R Department of Pye were on in 1971 is a mystery.

Also a mystery is the identity of Matthew Bones. This appears to have been his only single and when it failed, he was obviously booted out of Pye's offices and back on to the pub and club circuit. Curiously, my Dad once told me about a club performer he saw in the early seventies who incorporated impersonations of respected singers into his set of covers and original songs, which makes me wonder if that was Mr Bones himself... but such acts were possibly not an uncommon sight in the variety clubs of the day.

As for the flipside, naturally it's a baroque pop song about a cup of tea not a million miles off Peter & Gordon's later material. What else did you honestly expect?

If you're reading this, Matthew, thanks so much for cheering me up this month with this lovely and quite unexpected find.