10 Christmas hits from the UK. Part the second.

Two years ago I wrote a blog about 10 UK Christmas records.   https://kevinspondmusic.blogspot.com/2016/11/10-christmas-hits-from-uk-in-no.html 
At the end of it, I listed a few also-rans. I thought I would cover them in a little more detail and add a few more for a second festive ten. This time I will add the youtube links. 

Showaddywaddy were a big deal in the seventies, in the UK. They were a mainstay of Top of the Pops. Dressed in colourful teddy boy suits, they would become well known for their pop cover versions of old rock 'n' roll stuff. Their chart career started with some original lightweight "Rock 'n'n Roll" titled songs. Their third hit was Hey, Mr. Christmas. It only got to about number 13, but it would have been huge if they'd saved it for release during their run of seven top 5 singles.  However 1974 followed on the heels of Slade and Wizzard having huge success with their Christmas releases. Suddenly, Christmas releases became more commonplace. This track is a lot of fun as was most of their output.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyy0Leo3Lw4

Elton John was already a star by 1973 when he released Step Into Christmas. It was the year of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and also the year of a couple other Christmas songs, already mentioned. It got to number 10 in the UK, but nowhere in the Hot 100 and has become a standard, played year after year. I always kinda liked the 'b' side, Ho, Ho, Ho, Who'd Be A Turkey At Christmas, but that is less radio friendly. Not a great deal of action in the cover version section, so this is the one that always gets played.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoMHmsL2t3A

Bing Crosby is forever associated with Christmas, but not so David Bowie. Bing has a history of performing with other artists. At the time this was recorded, David Bowie had not. Most of Bing's American chart presence is based on Christmas and duets. This should not work. Two different styles from two different ages. Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth was recorded for a tv special in 1977, but did not get released officially until the 80's and has since become a perennial classic. A hit in the UK, but not even denting the Billboard 100.  Peace On Earth was, apparently, written for this, because David said he didn't like the old song. Apparently, Bing had no idea who David was, but his kids told him he should do it.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADbJLo4x-tk

Steeleye Span are an electric folk band. Not robots, but a folk music band using electric instruments. With the wonderful Maddy Prior on lead vocals, they could do no wrong. Of course, they would do a Latin Christmas record. Gaudete. Why not? I always sing along even with the words I don't recognise. I had done Latin at school, so it was not completely strange to me. Even if you have no idea, it is a wonderful sound.  Maddy's soaring vocals are incredible.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDc2FD-vy8M




Mike Oldfield, he of Tubular Bells fame, did a lot of stuff apart from his original master work. In Dulci Jubilo; there's that language again, is a joyous instrumental version of this well-known song. The video I have chosen, features Pan's People from Top of the Pops in one of their better routines. Very nice. My copy is on a white vinyl 12" single.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8xds3oFwfM










David Essex worked hard to not be a pop idol along the lines of David Cassidy or Donny Osmond, releasing several unusual style records. It only partly worked, because he did become a heartthrob and had a huge female following. Winter's Tale is another example of him trying to avoid the pop star cliche. A gentle ballad, it suited his distinctive voice, very well. Mike Batt and Tim Rice wrote this as requested by David.    
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjVy3iAq-5E

Thin Lizzy, great rock band. Christmas single? Perhaps not. Sex Pistols. Iconic punk band. Christmas single? Definitely not. However, a combination of the two gave a spirited rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas and Jingle Bells, calling the single A Merry Jingle, posing as the Greedies. A one-off combination. Great fun. I imagine alcohol and other stuff may have been involved. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN2bcS9shuY














Mud were a pop band with a great track record of hit singles [no puns were intended during the making of this blog] . They released a Christmas single as a Presley pastiche. A bit of a laugh. The video from Top of the Pops, with Les Gray using a ventriloquist's puppet, turned out to be a master stroke. People loved the song as a joke and also as a seriously sad Christmas tune. The dummy does the spoken bit far better than any human could have. This has a bit cut off due to the presence of a DJ who is persona non grata [there's that Latin education again]   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a61sUu5rcu8

Dora Bryan was a comedy actress, well known and loved in the UK. Cashing in on the success of The Beatles, she recorded All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle. One of my earliest favorite novelty songs. Still get a good deal of fun out of this. My family probably bought this before buying a Beatles track! 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWC3hvGtBBc









Chris DeBurgh gets a lot of stick for his music. Especially the post Woman In Red stuff. He used to be a credible folky performer but got very sloppy and sentimental in later years. Moving on. A Spaceman Came Travelling is indicative of his less tacky early product. A long saga of the story of Christmas. No jingle bells or huge production, just a simple tale, but highly evocative of Christmas for a lot of Brits. Someone put images to it, not an official video.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmZg7tvGN9o










There are some more. Greg Lake had a minor hit in the USA, so that might not count for this theme. There is a record, not played in some time, by a "glittery" pop star who we don't speak of, anymore. I will have to have some more thoughts and see what else I can find. We may go for weird Christmas songs next time, although there have been some weird ones already. 
Also, last year I wrote about 3 new Christmas albums. I have played them again this year and they are still really good and will become part of my Christmas music routine. 
https://kevinspondmusic.blogspot.com/2018/11/its-beginning-to-look-lot-like-christmas.html

Sci Fi radio show

Science fiction and music are my two favourite entertainments, but, apart from soundtracks they don't cross over as much as I'd like.

However, here's a single from one of my favourite sci-fi characters. Marvin is a manically depressed robot from Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have two of his singles, this is the best one. This is not in the show, on radio or tv or film or audiobook but is a great part of the history of the story.  He managed to record this despite the pain in all the diodes down his left side.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTXOW_jJdKE

Around 1978/1979, I was helping a friend of mine, called Paul. He was a dj in his spare time and had a friday night gig at The Top Of The World nightclub in Stafford, England. His latest boyfriend had left, so he asked me to help out. It was a lot of fun. One week they did a Star Wars theme and this amazing album by Meco featured heavily. The technical guy at the club even built a remote control, life-size R2-D2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWRWYYt47RI

For many years the only sci-fi single people could name was a daft novelty song in early sixties pop style. Sheb Wooley was a very ordinary looking guy and nothing like I expected when I eventually saw a video of him performing this. I was thinking about Monster Mash for this, but that's more of a horror standard than sci-fi.. It looks like A Purple People Eater To Me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz7Why57qVc

Red Dwarf is the second greatest sci-fi comedy of all time. The Cat is a great comic creation. This is the song he dreamt of doing in one of the early episodes. They released Tongue Tied as a single, but it didn't sound as good as the TV version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jnTzBeQJag

Some of the greatest TV sci-fi of the 60's came from the mind of Gerry Anderson with a bunch of puppet shows. They were unmissable for a kid growing up at that time. Even though I was very young,  the end theme to Stingray always sounded quite cheesy and could have been a spoof. I'm sure it wasn't, but it is an ear worm of a tune. Marina was a mute young woman who lived in the sea, the slave of Titan, the leader of the Aquaphibians, and was "liked" by the main character, Troy Tempest.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD96RQ1-wnY

Moving on from the early 60's pop sound, we come to David Bowie and his early fixation on space stuff. Space Oddity and Life On Mars could fit in here, but I think I'll choose Starman. This particular performance on Top of the Pops is cited by many people as the reason they got into music. Just the look and the attitude and, oh yeah, the great music.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYtRp9UNx8Y

More in the easy listening bracket, were the Carpenters and their odd dalliance with sci-fi, Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft. Karen Carpenter had a beautiful voice which lent itself to the, mostly, romantic songs they did. However, this was a little different.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teBV0EoJJY8

Classical music has always been used in sci-fi movies and shows, but there is one body of work that is synonymous with the genre. Strauss could not have foreseen his dance music would be used for outer space projects. Also Spracht Zarathustra is often played to set a mood for a sci-fi item in many shows nowadays. I wonder how many people are aware of its 2001 A Space Odyssey beginnings. I saw that film on a school trip and it had a huge influence on my love of sci-fi and expanded my love of music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-QFj59PON4

Combining sci-fi with fantasy and adding novelty and just plain weirdness, Leonard Nimoy singing about a hobbit called Bilbo Baggins must come near the top of the list. The video is so strange and quirky. Also seeing "Spock" smile is an unsettling experience for anybody. The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. Definitely in the so bad it's good category. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC35cQKHwzg

Crazy, camp, loud and colourful, Queen were a great band and Freddie Mercury was a wonderful performer. The showiness of the Flash Gordon movie was the ideal setting for one of their most immediate hits. "Gordon's alive!" The bits of  film dialog used on the single, became catchphrases.  Don't forget, we only have 14 hours left to save the Earth. Shouldn't that be save Earth, not the Earth?      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmrHTdXgK4

Roy wood is one of my top 5 favourite artists, his work withn ELO, The Move and Wizzard is some of the best pop/rock music ever. However his solo work goes places that his bands never did. Could a computer fall in love with its owner? Nowadays that is less strange an idea than before. Miss Clark must have really been something for the computer to fall so hard.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTxp7cqrQjA

One of the greatest sci-fi characters ever must be Max Headroom. Starting off in a British TV play about a dystopian future, moving on to an American TV series, a chat show, a music video show and a little success in the pop charts with The Art Of Noise. Paranoimia.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6epzmRZk6UU











I know there are more sci-fi related tracks out there. Many more. It is a big universe, vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big. Wait a minute. I've read that somewhere before. There will be a sequel, but no prequels. 

The TV influence.

When I was a kid, we had a black and white TV and two TV stations. BBC and ITV. That changed in the seventies, of course. However, from the beginning, music played a part in my tele watching. From very early on, I was a fan of Gerry Anderson's puppet shows. Fireball XL5 was my favourite and I can still sing that closing theme tune. Written by the genius Barry Gray and sung by children's TV presenter, Don Spencer. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8C8pyuOO5U

Top of the Pops was the show to watch if you liked pop music. It ruled the charts. An early appearance would rocket your record way up the charts. Usually, of course, you had to be somewhere in the charts to start with, just to be considered. That was the point of the show. It reflected the charts, but also influenced the sales of records. It is difficult to remember my earliest memory of the show. Most memories are from the 70's. However an earlier one that sticks out, is Little Children by Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas. Funnily enough, it was their first hit, not written by Lennon/McCartney.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GxEcYI09eI




Of course, the big TV show, for pop fans, came from America when they decided they needed their own Beatles. The Monkees was a huge show in the UK. Great songs, daft characters, lots of fun. And, for a pre-teen, it was very funny. They had several hits, but why bother with them? They had their own theme tune for goodness sake! And it was a corker! Here they come, walking down the street.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKs43dHBSWA





Of course, we had our own version. Ahem. Not really, of course. Pinky and Perky had a music show, where puppets sang the latest pop hits. Lot of weird characters with odd eyes that seemed to have a life of their own. Not many clips available, but this one isn't bad.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VFiX-w1LBc







The biggest TV influence on my music tastes was The Old Grey Whistle Test. A once-a-week, late-night show. They would have interviews and music videos. Live bands in a bare studio and album tracks played over odd-looking silent movies. The styles were all over the place. It's where I fell in love with Emmylou. It was also my introduction to Bob Marley. I always loved reggae, but that guy was something else. This wasn't just lightweight pop music, this was the real thing with real musicians and a charismatic lead singer. Concrete Jungle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIoBi1U-ASo

There were other music tv shows. One of which was a classical music quiz, where a team of  celebrity "experts" answered a bunch of questions. One round included the team having to identify a piece of music that the host played on a dummy piano. It was amazing how many times they got it. I loved the show, but was useless at it. I very rarely got anything right. I did once recognise a piece from Bach's Magnificat, my favourite classical piece ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo1x-62WmrI







Folk featured a lot. There were two programmes I remember. One featured an all male folk group
called The Spinners [not the Detroit ones]. I used to watch and enjoy it, but the tall guy would really annoy me by getting the audience to sing along by saying the words quickly at the start of each line. That really bugged me and still does. Fortunately I had Steeleye Span, an electric folk band, with the wonderful Maddy Prior on vocals. Their show was a must see for me. Can't find any individual tracks of the show, but this will suffice. Thomas The Rhymer is still one of my favourites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyQy-ixV36A

Country music is now a big part of my listening experience. Part of the reason is a canadian singer called George Hamilton IV. He had a show on the BBC for a while. A gentle voice, very relaxed.
Early Morning Rain is a Gordon Lightfoot song, but I had George's version before I heard the original. The first version is usually the one you stick to, original or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU-Ks-ES5bA











I had never heard of John Denver until his TV show came on. He was like nothing I'd ever seen. A huge smile that seemed to come through in his beautiful clear voice. He always seemed to be having a lot of fun on that show. Just laughing and having a blast. It was very infectious. But oh that voice! Sunshine On My Shoulders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5aQ2dLzzXs

In the early sixties a very strange show appeared and became quite popular and influential. Juke Box Jury had David Jacobs, the host, play records on a juke box, while a live audience and a panel of celebrity judges sat and listened, then voted it a hit or a miss. In the absence of video, you would watch the reactions of a very calm audience and a very stiff jury. The one with David McCallum is especially weird. It did have a kickass theme tune by the John Barry Seven, titled Hit or Miss. Yes, that John Barry. He of  the James Bond theme tunes fame.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whk-v90b3Rg

Another great source of music, was The Muppet Show. Not only the muppets themselves, but also
some of the wonderful music stars they had on. People like Elton John, Rita Moreno, John Denver. However, the one song that sits at the top of my favourite Muppet tunes, is Rainbow Connection as sung by Kermit.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaxoaKwx8tU

A huge once-a-year music show, The Eurovision Song Contest came to be loved and ridiculed at the same time. The ridicule came a little later, as the show opened up and let judges, and then voters, see the acts as they were performing. In the early days, there was just a panel of judges in each country, who listened and voted, without seeing the acts and sometimes without prior knowledge of the song. My first memory of seeing the contest was in 1967 when Sandie Shaw won with an atypical, for her, song, called Puppet on a String.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xnzPnyyWbY





Next time, science fiction and music.

My first radio show.

I have always fancied having a radio show along the lines of the one from Mark Germino's Rex Bob Lowenstein. Nobody is ever going to offer me that kind of chance. How about a podcast? Well, podcasts are really radio talk shows and my show would be all about the music.
What I have decided to do is a blog with links to music on Youtube, so it will have the shape of a radio show, if you take the time to watch or listen to the links.
The first few shows, I would do would be an introduction to the sounds that form the basis of my musical appreciation.

We would, of course, have to start with The Beatles. They form the foundation of my music house. I was already listening to all kinds of music before they exploded on to the world stage. I am playing it as
I write this and the intro gave me huge goose bumps. It crosses the barrier from their early pop band stuff to their cleverer production values of later years.
They cemented my love of all forms of music because of the sheer volume and variety of their different sounds.  Now which track should I choose. That's easy. A long time ago, I decided to pick one track and use that as my stock answer to the question "What's your favourite Beatles' song?". Makes life simpler. Ticket To Ride has everything you want from a Beatles track. I once heard this playing on a really good sound system in a menswear shop in Walsall, my home town. I had heard it lots of times before, but it still stopped me in my tracks.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws9TRxGCuww

The Beatles may be my favourite band, but my all time favourite single is not a Beatles release. Stay With Me by the Faces has everything you need to make half a dozen great singles, but it's all in one record.
 One of the few tracks that I turn up the volume for when it comes on the radio. Rod and The Faces were one of the few acts I regret not going to see live. The closest I got was a BBC2 Live In Concert special. They were such a talented band and always seemed to be having a good time.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQp7YOPdJ8

1970 was the year I really got in to buying records. I had a Sunday job on Warwick market, selling stretch covers for three piece suites.

The big record that summer was In The Summertime by Mungo Jerry. Just this week I got the 3 CD set titled Gold. All of their UK hits plus so much more. They were my 70's go to band, I would be very impatient for their next release. However, I got in to so much more in that decade and they soon dropped off  the airwaves.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvUQcnfwUUM

The big Christmas record of 1970 was I Hear You Knocking by Dave Edmunds. Such a different sound from anything else around at that time. I played it almost endlessly and he became one of the musicians whose new album I would buy, on release, the week it came out.  For a guy who preferred singles, that was a big leap.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTD5_FwdiBU

One of the bands I got into, slowly,  was The Move. Roy Wood was to become a big part of my collection in all his various guises. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ8VZZ6HVb8
The only record, I ever went hunting for was Chinatown. I paid a little over the odds for it. Still can't remember why I didn't get it on release. Got it at an excellent store in Birmingham, England, called Reddington's Rare Records. They had a stall on Warwick market, the site of my first weekend job, so I would very often sneak off and look through their stock.

The closest anyone ever got to the originality, variety and quality of The Beatles, was 10CC. If they had stayed together a little longer, who knows. They made such wonderful music, especially the original line-up. When Godley and Creme went off, they left the pop half behind, but they were the half I followed.  This is the first track they ever released although only 3 of them are here, just before 10CC. Neanderthal Man by Hotlegs stood out like a sore thumb from everything else, just like the band's look did during the Glam Rock era. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e0qYP_PTlY

In the pre-Beatle days and indeed sometimes afterwards, we would have a family night, playing grandad's 78 rpm records, both sides, no matter what they were. So many different voices and styles.
We never did that with 45s, but it was the 45s that stuck in my memory more. I would play all the records at both grandparent's houses, by myself. Difficult to pick out a track that stood out from the rest. However, one that strikes a huge nostalgic chord with me, whenever I hear it, is Anthony Newley's Why. Such a sweet sound from a different era. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8iFpJ7_xZA

My Uncle Les was a huge classical music fan and introduced me to lots of that stuff, but the most important thing he did, was to introduce me to the novelty record. The Goons are part of the reason I am like I am [wonderful, warm-hearted and sincere]. The Ying Tong Song is the first of many, many novelty/comedy records I was to own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nebe1zuEtbc

I always prefer recorded music over live stuff, partly because I get to re-live it over and over. One band I have seen live 3 times, is Status Quo, as recorded in this old blog of mine. https://kevinspondmusic.blogspot.com/2016/12/rick-parfitt-status-quo.html I remember buying Paper Plane from a shop in Smethwick. The shop is no longer there, part of a dual carriageway through the town, now.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhwCqAmggnM
.

There are two musical genres that I have fixated on at different times.
Country and reggae. Mostly with the reggae stuff it's blue beat/ska/lover's rock, but if you stick a reggae beat on something it will nearly always make it better. Although Bob Marley was the king, I was in to so many other artists before then. I think Liquidator by Harry J All Stars was the kick start for me, although I was aware of  and liked other reggae tracks.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTn01jjEFfY

In country music, one track stands out as being the first time I knew I was listening to country and not just some music from America. I was never big on seperating music genres and still try not to, although it is handy when you are trying to find a cd in a huge record store. Faron Young's Four In The Morning is, on the face of it, very corny olde tyme music, but so memorable.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXWV15YtEcQ

Finally, for this first radio show, it's about time I included somebody from the other gender. I first saw Emmylou Harris on The Old Grey Whistle Test, a late night show on BBC that introduced me to another world of music away from the Charts. I was a member of an album of the month club and ordered two of her albums from there and never looked back. She has such a voice. I can't really explain it in a public forum. Close your eyes and drift away to this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-PRts_RGeA

Many more tracks are coming to mind, so there will be a part two to this, but that's all for now.