Reupload - The Bingo Boys - Bobbie Bingo/Love Is Blind

 

Novelty number of the bingo appreciating kind

Label: Oriole

Year of Release: 1961

Bingo appears to be a declining business in Britain, with bingo halls no longer featuring in every town centre in Britain. Eighteen years ago, after my wife and I got hitched, we moved into a newly built block of flats next door to a derelict bingo hall in East London. Its interior was no longer filled with the sound of numbers being announced and frantic scribbling. It was, however, possible to hear the odd coo of a roosting pigeon and the occasional shout of "What are YOU lookin' at?!" from the building's resident homeless person as he wandered outside (nobody could ever accuse him of begging, he seemed to spend his life trying to get people as far away from him as possible with threats of violence if necessary). 

Fortunately readers, I've moved on in life, though the bingo hall in question still remains derelict, unloved and unused. Back in 1961, though, it would have been filled with the buzz of activity and this little 45 might have been a good theme for it. "Bobbie Bingo" is a number so chirpy and cheeky you can almost imagine the performers winking as they sang it. With a melody not a million miles away from "Me Old Mate Ghandi" off "Alas Smith and Jones", it's certainly very much of its time, with one eye on music hall ditties of yore and the other on the "freak novelty hit" prize.

Sadly, it wasn't to be and the tiny number of copies of this which have turned up for sale in recent years would indicate it sold very poorly. Like a lot of Oriole product, though, it's fascinatingly low budget and English - while they were often squeezed out of the marketplace by the larger labels, their cheap and cheerful attempts to get inside the hit parade often feel as if they say more about that era in Britain than EMI's fussy, precise productions (for example).

Justin & Wilde - Man's Eternal Fight/ Goodbye California

Ex-buskers with melodramatic plastic Northern Soul 45

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1973

I've always been intrigued by vocalists with unique powerful voices. I'm not talking about your bog-standard X Factor contestants who perform to perfection and could keep any cruise ship happy. I'm talking about vocalists whose voices have a divisive effect despite their technical ability - the Piafs of this world. 

The singer on this record has that effect. A few seconds after the stylus spins through the intro, you're introduced to a booming, sawing voice, sounding equal parts street cryer and soul star. It's Harry Secombe meets Harry Belafonte at a political protest. The song itself isn't bad either, being described elsewhere online as "Northern Soul", although I would be somewhat cautious about applying that label myself. While the track has the essential arrangements, the central rhythm and chorus is more akin to breezy early seventies harmony pop. Sticking it on at a Northern Soul night may result in a kung-fu kick being aimed at the DJ's turntable at the crucial moment. 

Justin and Wilde were apparently ex-buskers who left street performing behind in the seventies and went out on tour with the likes of Roy Orbison and Gene Pitney. Their real names were Louis Seyhe (who was Justin) and Laray Collins (who was Wilde, or Wylde for later Pye releases). Their debut single "All Alone" appeared before this in 1972, and following "Man's Eternal Flight" another three 45s slipped out on Pye before time was called. One of these, "Living In A Dream World", seems to be increasingly sought after on the collector's market (comparatively speaking) though I'm not quite sure why it has the edge.

Page Ten - Boutique/ Colour Talk

Larry Page's men toot and tinkle their way through a Carnaby instro

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1965

If you have a five pound note burning a hole in your wallet, the Larry Page Orchestra put out some fantastic easy listening arrangements of modern pop hits in the sixties, most of which are now very affordably available on CD. One such track, "Zabadak", eventually found its way on to the Reeves and Mortimer series "Bang Bang" as the perfect accompaniment to arguably one of their most surreal sketches. The rest of the LPO's work (let's call them that, nobody will get confused) is usually cocktail lounge sophistry of a relatively similar calibre.

Way before the budget was stretched to an orchestra and before the Page One label was a twinkle in Larry's eye, the ten-piece Page Ten group existed and their purpose was broadly similar. Their output was always meant to be more significant than this solitary 45, but both sides show a keenness to put a quality spin on the sunnier aspects of easy listening. "Boutique" is, as the name suggests, music to swing your handbag to while parading around the West End looking for threads, while "Colour Talk" is bit parts "University Challenge" theme and the sound you might hear in the background of a radio commercial seeking to appeal to hip young bachelors. 

In common with a lot of singles of this ilk, it sold unconvincingly; this kind of music always performed better when spread across twelve inches of 33rpm vinyl, selling favourably in department stores to people seeking dinner party backing music, not teens with Dansettes searching for three minute thrills. It hasn't even really been a footnote in Larry Page's career since and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who has heard it, or acknowledges it, but that my dear friends is what "Left and to the Back" is here for. 

The Bloomfields - The Loner/ Heads Hands & Feet - Homing In On The Next Trade Wind

 

Back by popular demand - it's The Futs plus orchestra! (kinda)

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1972

What a peculiar find. The Richard Harris directed 1971 sports film "Bloomfield", featuring Harris himself playing the title role, was one of those British flicks which drifted into cinemas and out again without much fanfare or harsh criticism, just a general shrug of the shoulders. Having made only mild impressions, it then drifted to the back of everyone's memory holes and presumably onwards to some storage vault at the British Film Institute somewhere (it certainly hasn't turned up on DVD yet, though YouTube has the full picture available if anyone's interested).

If it's remembered for anything much at all these days, it's probably the lush, dreamy soundtrack overseen by Johnny Harris, which is held close to the chests of a few discerning record collectors. The two key moments from it are presented across seven inches here, and of interest to Bee Gees fans is likely to be Maurice Gibb's track "The Loner" which would have formed the centrepiece of his 1970 solo LP had it actually seen commercial light.

For a proposed LP title track, it's shockingly brief - less than two minutes of melancholy pop backed by soaring orchestral swells and an acoustic bounce. It's a pretty and sophisticated listen, but arguably too short, sweet and subtle for its own good, and as such, it's unsurprising it wasn't a hit. This would likely have been the case even if Gibb had put his name front and centre of the recording.

Also of note is the fact that he recorded and co-wrote this with Lulu's brother Billy Lawrie, also a member of his unofficial Beatles-apeing project The Futs. This, it's safe to say, has less of a "laid down on tape after eight pints of Newcastle Brown" feel to it. 

Back soon

 

Hello readers. You'll be happy to know that my move to the Midlands is now complete. The dust isn't quite settled yet and there's a lot to sort out, and my wife and I were actually living out of bags in hotel rooms and AirBnBs for two months due to various agency and vendor driven issues, so it's been a complicated journey.

The next entry will go live on Sunday and I'll try to keep this blog updated as often as I can from then.

At the moment I'm looking forward to exploring my new town and the surrounding area, but some memories still nag at me. One thing I keep remembering about my last home is the fact that I lived only a short distance from a senior gentleman who always intrigued me. I'd generally pass his dwelling at night when I was giving my dog her evening walk; he lived in a pristine, modern ground-floor flat overlooking the beautiful award-winning local park. In the winter in particular I'd see him projected like a film through his window, illuminated by his overhead light. He was usually smartly dressed and wearing a hat, plucking vinyl from enormous, carefully catalogued shelves on his living room wall, often while settling down to enjoy a mug of coffee. I saw this evening routine of his dozens of times and through continued brief glimpses got more and more fascinated with his arrangement. 

He looked at least twenty years older than me and I'd walk past with frozen hands, jealous of the indoor warmth and his record collection, thinking to myself "What a brilliant retirement. What a fantastic place to live and wonderful things to fill the room with". Some people in the area would send out messages of their wealth and the fact they had done well in their lives through their large Victorian houses and new cars with personalised registration plates. Me? I always thought this man had got it right and nailed my own aspirations for retirement. I always hoped that one day before I left I'd see him out and about and we'd somehow have a chat about music, but it never happened. So I have no idea what he was listening to, whether it was classical, jazz, soul, funk, classic rock or even just the world's biggest collection of James Last records (though that would have been interesting too). 

I'm pretty damn sure his knowledge was vaster than mine, though, and I'm also sure that if he wrote a blog - and perhaps he did - the music would be an enviable selection and probably better, more carefully curated, than this one. It's inevitable. As I've established, he had at least twenty years on me, and I'm never going to catch up to that in any kind of one-on-one competition.