Muff - Hurdy Gurdy/ Why Did You Leave Me

 

A piece of late popsike from future music mogul Muff Murfin

Label: Mother

Year of Release: 1971

This isn't the first time we've featured Muff (stop sniggering at the back) on this blog. His glam rock single "Sexy Sexy Lady", which combined with his name probably caused a spike of misguided Google referrals to my otherwise innocent blog, was dealt with here. 

His rightful full name is Muff Murfin, and these days he's a successful radio station mogul, and during the seventies also ran Birds Nest Records and "The Old Smithy" Recording Studios. His recorded output prior to all this is often worth a sniff, though. "Hurdy Gurdy" here is, for example, a Peter Lee Stirling (aka Daniel Boone) penned popsike ditty which will possibly irritate as many people as it delights with its naive lyrics and jaunty melody. The B-side, as its title suggests, is a much more straight-ahead ballad.

Muff's solo career would rapidly take a backseat to his business concerns, and besides "Sexy Sexy Lady" his only other release in the seventies was the glammish "Do The Hand Jive" on United Artists in 1975. He was a man of many styles and approaches, but ultimately he seemed to taste more success in the executive chair rather than the recording studio booth. 

Muff - Sexy Sexy Lady/ Burnin'

Label: Bell

Year of Release: 1974

One of the unfortunate things about Operation Yewtree and its associated glam rock/ seventies pop investigations and arrests is that everything has been poisoned. Everything. For instance, we all know that a lot of glam rock artists were drawing on fifties rock and roll traditions for their lyrical inspiration, so it's not unsurprising that you will occasionally find songs about hanging out at the "hop" with the teenage boys and girls. None of these were indicative of any Savile-styled "hiding in plain sight" indidents, or anything else sinister. They were just teen bop hits, that's all. 

"Sexy Sexy Lady" by Muff, though, is highly unlikely to get any airplay today. For a start, the performer's name is subject to huge misinterpretation, and in combination with the song title might even get this blog internet visitors for all the wrong reasons (hello newbies! Soz, no lady pics here). Then there's the lyrical content, about a girl who is "hardly" sixteen, and is still at school, and drinks gin on the rocks, and is a "sexy sexy lady". Mmmmm. Possibly unlike the girl in question, this hasn't necessarily aged well, but these recordings do have to be put into some kind of context. They were targeted at a teen audience and tried to strike a chord with teenage lifestyles. At the time, nobody would have batted an eyelid. Imagine it in the soundtrack to "Grease" and you're in a more appropriate ballpark. 

Still, that thumping, thwacking glam beat and those keen guitar lines are indicative of a great noise, and something which possibly could have been a hit at the time. Bell Records were churning out smash after smash at this point in the seventies, and more sympathetic airplay could have pushed this one on to Top of the Pops.

As for who Muff is, it's almost certainly Muff Murfin who owned a recording studio in Kempsey, Worcestershire around this time, and also worked occasionally with songwriter Rod McQueen. Muff is a highly successful radio station mogul these days, who also writes radio and advertising jingles, and also co-ran a record label (Birds Nest) with Elektra/ Dandelion man Clive Selwood in the seventies. A fascinating and varied career, then, and while he may have had no actual hits despite having several other singles out in the seventies, he's a lot more successful than most other people who have featured on this blog.