Magic D7

When Midland Red disposed of 10-year old BMMO-built D7 class 4111 in 1964, it turned up in the USA, seeing use as a promotional vehicle at Hollywood's Universal Studios. The old girl later turned up on the cover of The Who's 1968 album Magic Bus - The Who On Tour. Despite the title, it was a studio album, only released in the US. I don't know how long the bus survived in the States, I just hope that it wasn't given to Keith Moon to play with!

Stutter Rap

Or Stutter Rap (No Sleep til Bedtime) to give it it's full title, this being a 1988 parody on Gangster Rap (No Sleep til Brooklyn) by the Beastie Boys, which had come out the previous year. Morris Minor and the Majors consisted of comedian Tony Hawks, on the right in the picture on the record cover, together with Paul Boross and Phil Judge.

The cover featured, appropriately, a splendid red 1950 split-screen moggie convertible, RVW 178, a car still with us today.

If you really want to hear the song, here is the official video, although sadly, the moggie doesn't appear. The chap in the blue wig at the end of it is former Queen bassist, John Deacon.

I Like It

A 1974 compilation of 1960s cover songs, most of which are of dubious quality (although one or two are OK), the performers, as is often the case on these budget records, remain uncredited. Sleeve design was by Peter Marriot, the photographer was Colin Glanfield. Of the models, he looks bored, she looks far more interested....... 20p well spent?

Chance meeting

More vinyl, more totty. This is actually a well-known album cover, Country Life by Roxy Music (1974), predictably banned by various dull people over the years. The reason for this posting now is that I now learn that the models, Constanze Karoli and Eveline Grunwald, were two German girls that Bryan Ferry met on holiday. Would they pose on the cover? Of course!! Excuse over....

The back of the sleeve is much less interesting

Hood's of Hammersmith

Another record acquisition, some sixty years older than that in the previous posting. This is made of shellac, rather than vinyl, and the cover is advertising Hood's shop in Hammersmith, selling Bicycles, Radios, Gramophones and records, an interesting combination! The shop in Fulham Palace Road still stands, but the block is largely empty.

The record within is The St Louis Blues, in this case by Hawaiian guitarist Frank Ferera (1885-1951), released in 1925.

Euro-cheese

The only reason that I bought this single (in a St Albans charity shop for 50p) was that it had an attractive woman on the cover and that I hadn't a clue who she was. As it turned out, Vikki, or Aeone Victoria Watson to be precise, was our Eurovision Song Contest  entry for 1985. Although I am not a particular fan of the event, we usually watch it on TV, although whether that included 1985, I couldn't say, being besieged by numerous small children at the time. The song, 'Love is................', apparently came fourth with 100 points, so did well, later reaching 49 in the UK singles chart. The poor girl was then put into the bargain bin at Woolies. She now lives in the US, recording New Age/Spiritual music as Aeone.

But was it any good? You had better judge for yourself, I couldn't possibly comment.........

Bobby Crush on the buses

If you were going to throw a piano party back in 1982, then I guess that Opportunity Knocks-winning Bobby Crush was as good a booking as ever, Mrs Mills having passed away in 1978 (he popped up looking, er, a little portly, on a tribute show about her, earlier this year). This album, one of two with almost identical covers, was recorded at Abbey Wood Studios and features 101 tunes played at break-neck speed; well, they would have to be.

The illustration on the cover is a caricature of a real bus, former Southport Corporation all-Leyland FFY 403, a vehicle that is still running at 66 years-old, being used in Torquay this summer.

Bobby Crush is still performing, including a regular appearance in panto as Dame, although there is little on YouTube. The clip below is an early one of him surrounded by a bevy (what else?) of girls in swimsuits whilst he plays a song in 23 seconds on a white piano.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKF4HfwSsm0

Is that you, Joanna?

Actress, comedienne and supporter of the Gurkhas, Joanna Lumley, was a model in her earlier days. Her are two anonymous appearances; on the front of a dreadful old record of piano covers, no doubt cashing in on the popularity of Mrs Mills, a much loved and accomplished player of the 1960s/70s and in an advert for Patons Wools, this from the Christmas 1969 issue of Woman & Home magazine.

London Girls

The 1983 single London Girls, by the ever excellent Chas & Dave, bought this morning in charity shop for just 10p. Worth it for the cover alone..........

Don't fancy yours much..........

The Singing Postman

Allan Smethurst, The Singing Postman, earned recording success in the 1960s with a series of folk songs sang in his native Norfolk dialect, which he wrote himself. The most remembered was Hev Yew Gotta Loight Bor? which won an Ivor Novello Award in 1966, but never made the charts.I am not sure how popular he was outside of East Anglia, but I knew his songs whilst growing up as, living in Bedfordshire, we received local Anglia regional TV programmes. Well after his retirement from music industry in 1970, he would be used as a sort of cultural touchstone "You've heard of the Singing Postman, well here's the yodelling greengrocer", sort of thing.

After the 1960s he appeared to return to obscurity, apparently having spent all his money. He died in 2000, aged 73.

This blog was prompted by the purchase of a couple of his albums in a local charity shop (actually they give away their records for a small donation - as much as you can carry!). They seem to hold up a decent price on eBay, all on vinyl too; were they not released on CD?

Here is a documentary about him from 1967.....

http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/756

Frank's Girl

Nancy Sinatra was born to Frank and Nancy Barbato on 8 June 1940. I knew of her pop songs, These Boots are made for Walkin' being the most famous, along with Somethin' Stupid, which she performed with her father, both records reaching number 1 in the UK in February 1966 and April 1967 respectively. The first song was a favourite of my dad, although the vision of Nancy wearing go-go boots and a mini skirt may have had something to do with it.....

She also did some modelling in the 1960s, this little selection being from the pages of King magazine, issue dated September 1967. King ran from 1964 until taken over by Mayfair in 1968.

My dad was right!

Nearly thirty years later, Nancy appeared in Playboy, still lookin' good........

Something for the teenagers

Two little advertisements from the pages of Picturegoer magazine dated 1958/59. Just the job for playing the latest tune by Miki & Griff...........

Of Steam and Suspenders

When searching through pictures of vintage pin-ups for inclusion in this blog (it's a tough job, etc.), I try to include something else in the pose. Thus, we have had Amanda climbing a stile, Jayne with her Jag and Fiona Richmond sandwiched between to big blokes and so on.

Sorting through some pictures recently, I came across this. Unremarkable, you may say. Model Jane Fairbanks looking a little distracted whilst disrobing in someone's living room from a 1970s issue of Spick magazine. What caught my eye however, was the record standing next to her right foot. Not just any old record, but a record of the sounds of steam engines, a copy of which I have had in my collection for many years.

The recording of the sounds of steam locomotives at work and subsequent sale on vinyl had been going on for many years, notably by O Winston Link in the USA and Peter Handford in this country. The record in this picture is Memories of Steam, recorded by Kenneth Grenville Attwood on the Longmoor Military Railway in 1969/69 and at Carnforth in the summer of 1968, during the dying days of steam on British Railways.The colour photographs on the cover of the album were by Ian Krause, but are misleading as none of the locations illustrated actually appear on the record itself. Further evidence of the photographer's (or the owner of the room's) interest in railways is the model of a Canadian National locomotive on the shelf behind. It's always nice to combine one's interests!

Kent Walton presents...............

ITV World of Sport's wrestling commentator Kent Walton was also a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg, presenting a couple of shows including the Honey Hit Parade (so named as it was sponsored by Honey magazine). This album, bought recently for 50p, features thirteen tracks as chosen by Kent, released to celebrate the show's first birthday in 1962, with contributions from singers such as Petula Clark, Miki & Griff, Lonnie Donegan and Benny Hill. As I don't have immediate access to a record player (still to be retrieved from the loft), most of the songs can fortunately be heard on YouTube.

Although Kent Walton was best known for his commentating, being involved for an impressive 33 years until 1988, he also produced several sex films in the early 1970s, using a pseudonym. It was said that the action in these films was not too far away from that seen in the wrestling ring................