Random Music Theme 2: Slight Return

Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry also wrote a second number one - "Feels Like I'm In Love" for Kelly Marie.

Sometimes though two-hit wonders are not failed novelties, but proper acts for whom it just goes wrong...

Slik


"Forever And Ever", no. 1, January 1976


"Requiem", no. 24, May 1976

The unions had a weird control over Top Of The Pops in the 1970s, Tony Burrows effectively being blackballed after he appeared three times on the same show (White Plains, Brotherhood Of Man and Edison Lighthouse) as it looked like the charts were a session musician carve-up (which they were).

Then there was the vexed question of miming. Some bands had their careers truncated by a bad performance (famously The Love Affair broke down in one of theirs, and The Walker Brothers were handicapped by John Walker missing a bunch of notes. So the industry decided to stick with the safer issue of miming. Can't do that, said the unions, you might have non-musicians performing. What you have to do, is bring the act that's going to mime along to the studios beforehand, and get them to play their songs for us to check they're good enough.

What this meant was that even the boybands had to be capable musicians as a whole. Either do the Kenny trick of parachuting a band in to pretend, or do the Rubettes trick of grouping session musicians together. The former approach was generally easier, because the whole chemistry thing had already been worked out. The problem was when said band had their own ideas.

Such was the problem with Glaswegian band Salvation. Talent-spotted by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter, the songwriters behind such hits as "Puppet On A String", "Congratulations" and most of the Bay City Rollers output, Salvation had their name changed to Slik and their rock edges smoothed into baseball shirts.

Worse, they weren't even allowed to play on their singles. Lead singer James Ure turned up to the studio to lay down his vocals, and found to his surprise that the backing tracks had already been made. Slik were only there to mime someone else's work, and pass muster for the live shows and TOTP. Shame. "Forever And Ever" is one of the greatest achievements in 1970s music. And "Requiem" - see? All linked - begins with Manuel And His Music Of The Mountains' biggest hit.

It was far too constraining for a band that, in various combinations, had already had a substantial body of live work behind them. Three singles and an album was all they could muster before they split from Martin and Coulter; the third single, "The Kid's A Punk", was an attack on a form of music the band was becoming more fascinated by. Ure indeed was in turn talent spotted by Malcolm McLaren when the Pistols ventured over the Scottish border, the svengali evidently thinking a clean-cut boyband star would be a shocking addition for his still-unreleased group.

Ure had a better idea, just go full-on punk with the rest of Slik. They therefore did so, under the name PVC2, albeit without success. Possibly because Ure had kept in contact with now ex-Pistol Glen Matlock, and left Glasgow for London to form The Rich Kids.

The remainder of the story is fairly mundane. The remainder of PVC2 formed The Zones, and then after their split Kenny Hyslop and Russell Webb joined The Skids (Richard Jobson, Stuart Adamson...). Easily the most successful of the ex-Sliksters, until Ure, who had discovered the magic of the synth and formed Visage with various scenesters, replaced John Foxx in Ultravox!, dropped the !, and hit paydirt with "Vienna". James Ure? Well, Midge, there was already a James in Slik (McGinlay, who left before PVC2) and so he just reversed the sounds. "Vienna" was a bit of a seller, but Midge would soon (co-)pen a bigger one...

Yes. Clive Dunn's was only ever meant to be a comedy bit of fluff, for example, none of those records was pretending to be something other than it was. And "Grandad" was written by a music legend. "Something Stupid" is close to being worse, only the strange quasi-Oedipal overtones perhaps saving it from bottom spot; something which was easily obtained by the even worse cover.

Although maybe it was better than JJ Barrie.

Owl City more recently as well.

Renée And Renato


"Save Your Love", no. 1, October 1982


"Just One More Kiss", no. 48, February 1983

So, let's go back to the inspiration for this thread. A theme from some of these two-hit wonders is that many follow-ups were pretty much identical to the original...this one even seems to have had the video filmed at the same time.

The most unexpected Christmas number one ever. "Save Your Love" was only the third release on Hollywood Records, run by husband-and-wife songwriter pair John and Sue Edward, and the first independent Chrimbo chart-topper. John Edward was in the Mannish Boys with David Bowie back in the day, and wrote "Save Your Love" as a mickey-take - fitting, he created Metal Mickey as well - of the sort of Eurosong tat that occasionally proved popular. He had in mind to sing it a singing waiter he saw on New Faces, a chap called Renato Pagliari, to do the male vocals, and musical theatre chorist Hilary Lester to be the better half. Hilary and Renato were born.

If you look (dare you) at the Save Your Love video, you will note that Renée does not mime. That's because Lester had already quit the duo to go back to musicals (she still appears on stage, recently as part of the Rat Pack tribute tour) and random models (there are at least two) appeared in her stead.

I doubt if anyone enjoyed their one hit wonderdom more than Pagliari. Happy not to take himself too seriously, he used to spend six months on the cruise cabaret circuit, the remainder in his Italian restaurant in Tamworth, where if you were lucky he wouldn't sing to you. Daughter was quite the ice hockey player, incidentally. He parlayed his 15 minutes into something more substantial - singing the "Just One Cornetto" advert theme, guesting on Little & Large and The Generation Game and so on, and even doing "Nessun Dorma" at Villa Park, being a familiar enough figure without outstaying his welcome (hello Kerry Katona).

Sadly, a year ago today, Pagliari died of a brain tumour. Hilary turned up at the funeral along with Tony Christie and the great and good of Tamworth society. RIP Renato.

Renato had a good voice and it was totally wasted on that awful song.

Of course, not all disco sucked...

Lipps, Inc.


"Funkytown", no. 2, May 1980


"Rock It", did not chart, September 1980

Electro injected the ailing and fly-infested corpse of a dance movement that had never really been that impressive with a dose of futuricity and kept it jerking along for a bit longer. You just needed the right voice to go with your self-produced synth.

At least that's what Steven Greenberg, who had tried and failed in Hollywood's music production world, reasoned. He produced a song called "Rock It" by playing everything himself and pressed up 500 copies to distribute as an advert for his services. They became a minor hit in his hometown of Minneapolis which encouraged him to go further.

So he put out adverts and a secretary, Cynthia Johnson, who sang part-time with a group called Flyte Tyme, stepped foward. Greenberg liked her voice, so he got her recorded on demo tracks for touting around the stations, and Casablanca Records fell in love with it. Greenberg called the concept Lipps, Inc and Casablanca released "Rock It" as a single. It made the dance charts, but had no real impact otherwise.

Never mind, they tried again with the other standout track, "Funkytown", and made a cheap video with a couple of models standing in as backing vocalists - indeed one of them stood in as Johnson herself, as Johnson is the one mostly on the right when the three are together (in the long-sleeved top) rather than the one with the Floella Benjamin hairdo.

This time it succeeded beyond expectation; a chart-topper in the States, only held off in Britain by the woeful "Crying" by Don McLean (not the Crackerjack presenter) and the even more woeful theme from MASH, "Suicide Is Painless", which was the preferred option to listening to it.

They followed it up with a re-issue of "Rock It", which missed the UK chart and only scraped as far as 64 in the Billboard, so as far as Britain was concerned Lipps, Inc was over. Their debut album "Mouth To Mouth" was a top five Stateside, though, and Lipps, Inc continued making dance-friendly records for the next few years with some hits in the dance charts (including an unlikely cover of Ace's "How Long"). Their run came to an end in 1985 as Jackson hype destroyed what little innovation there was in mainstream dance-pop, and rap came in with a pincer movement from the other side. Johnson's powerful voice was not wasted; she has been a member of Sounds Of Blackness since her Lipps, Inc run, and puts out some solo material. Greenberg moved into film-making, writing for musicals and now web design.

Windsor Davies & Don Estelle


"Whispering Grass", no. 1, May 1975


"Paper Doll", no. 41, October 1975

The list of Carry On stars who made the charts is surprisingly long. Big Bernard Bresslaw, that master of multiracial mammoths, had a top ten with "Mad Passionate Love" (with a smidgeon of then-fashionable chipmunking), sung in the gormless manner of his "Army Game" TV series character Private Popplewell - and had a top five with the cast of that series. Another Bernard, Cribbins, had a brace of top tens, one of which gave the Fairbrass brothers their name. Barbara Windsor tried to hit the charts during the Carry On heyday but missed - she had to wait until teaming up with Mike Reid in 1998, who in turn returned to the chart for the first time in 25 years since his top ten "The Ugly Duckling" (and which would be an inclusion for this thread had I found a follow-up on youtube...). Other stars - Kenneth Williams (usually as Rambling Syd Rumpo), Hattie Jacques (with on-screen twin Eric Sykes), Bill Maynard (see The 75 Club) and Frankie Howerd and June Whitfield (with a less than dirty cover of "Je T'Aime"), amongst others - tried, and failed, to become pop stars.

The most successful of the big stars was Jim Dale, who had a number 2 hit with "Be My Girl" before joining the Carry On gang (Dale was one of those nearly men in entertainment achievements - nearly a number 1 hitmaker in the UK, nearly one in the US as well - he wrote "Georgy Girl" which The Seekers took to runner-up spot in the Hot 100 - and nearly an Oscar winner as he was nominated for this latter track, before he finally nailed a major award, a Tony in 1980 for the title role in "Barnum", followed 21 years later by a Grammy for his spoken word versions of the Harry Potter books), although the first Carry On number one was in 1962 when Joe Meek recruited budding actress Wendy Richard for Mike Sarne's "Come Outside".

Windsor Davies though may have had the biggest seller for any Carry On star. OK, he only appeared in a couple, and "Carry On England" was the second-worst, but they were starring roles rather than the bit parts that Richard and other Carry On hitmakers like Rik Mayall/Nigel Planer played. It has to be said that his hits owed little to his Carry On appearance; they came from his role as the brutal sergeant in the comedy "It Ain't Half Hot Mum".

It was an obvious crossover. A show about the entertainment troops in the war, so there was lots of scope for musical numbers to be at least mentioned. And in those pre-DVD or even pre-VHS days one of the few ways to cash in on such programmes was to release records. They all did it; the likes of Hancock and Steptoe have album hits to their name, and the idea EMI had for IAHHM was to have Don Estelle, "Lofty" Sugden in the show (four feet nine in his stockinged feet), and possessor of the most beautiful and clear tenor voice, sing an album of World War 2 favourites. To tie in with the programme more, EMI added the show's anti-hero Sgt-Major Williams (Davies) to shout out various bits of encouragement and, more often, excoriation.

For a promotional single they went with "Whispering Grass", a song that had been made famous by The Inkspots in 1940, and written by father/daughter pairing Fred and Dot Fisher (ironically Fred was born in Germany). It provided an unexpected hit, and warranted a second single. "Paper Doll", with the Mike Sammes Singers (see Whispering Jack Smith) was chosen as the follow-up; it was not quite so successful. A third single ("Cool Water", the Frankie Laine classic) missed the chart, so Davies & Estelle remained two-hit wonders. Nevertheless the project continued with the release a couple of months later of the album "Sing Lofty", which made the top ten and sold 80,000.

The duo were friends off-screen as well as on and teamed together for appearances outside IAHHM, but Davies became the bigger star, headlining the sitcom "Never The Twain" and remaining in demand as a character actor. Estelle did make another single - a cover of "The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine" with fellow Rochdaleite and MP Cyril Smith (I swear I am not making this up) - but otherwise faded into the obscurity of shopping centre personal appearances selling home-made CDs and his autobiography. And occasionally turning up on television, one of his last appearances being in the League of Gentlemen.

The octogenerian Davies is still with us, but pretty much retired; his last television appearance was in "My Family" six years ago. Estelle sadly died seven years ago yesterday, aged 70.

Yeah, I think it would have worked better as a straight song, but it probably wouldn't have sold. But if you didn't like that, I'm not sure this other army-based sitcom-linked hit is an improvement...

Clive Dunn


"Grandad", no. 1, November 1970


"My Old Man", did not chart, May 1974

The decline in music from the 1960s to the 1970s might be summed up by the first record above. On 21 November 1970, Jimi Hendrix had his one and only - posthumous - week at number one with "Voodoo Chile". The next week, Clive Dunn's "Grandad" crept in at number 48. Destined for the Christmas market? Perhaps - but a strike at EMI delayed production for a fortnight, and the Christmas market was locked out by Dave Edmunds, who replaced Hendrix at the top of the charts, and remained there for seven weeks. Until dethroned by Dunn.

Almost depressingly, the song was written by one of the legends of sixties music. Herbie Flowers. Who? You may not have heard of him, but you have heard him. The most famous bassline in music history, from Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side", was played by Flowers. A studio bassist who had a sideline in composing - he had previously written Blue Mink's top 5 hit "Melting Pot" and bassed most of their singles, as he did for CCS, T.Rex, Sky, Bowie (including the number one "Space Oddity"), Elton John, Harry Nilsson, Rolf Harris ("Two Little Boys") and loads and loads of other acts. As indeed he still does, albeit concentrating on jazz. You can even book a lesson with him.

"Grandad" was a bit of a fluke, he was stuck for a hook for a song for Dunn when a friend announced his arrival by ringing his doorbell. Ding-dong. That was it. Flowers naturally played the bass on the record - he also played the euphonium...

But why was Flowers writing a song for Clive Dunn in the first place? Apparently they met at the afterparty of the Ronnie Corbett edition of "This Is Your Life". Flowers was introduced as a songwriter to Dunn, who said, OK then, write one for me. Dunn was one of the youngest of the Dad's Army stars, only just turned 50, but who had been stereotyped as an old man previously (he had been a curmudgeonly caretaker in sitcom "Bootsie And Snudge", featuring Alfie Bass of "The Army Game", see, it's all linked) and had missed the chart with a recording of the theme of that programme. He wasn't the first choice for Lance Corporal Jones - that was Jack Haig, later to be "it is I, Leclerc" in "Allo Allo", but who was otherwise engaged on kids' telly - but he slotted in the role a treat. Flowers just took the geriatric nature of Jones and put him in mufti.

Seldom has a label tried to remove a one hit wonder with such fervid effort. There were no less than three immediate follow-ups in similar vein, and an album, but all missed the chart. The fourth release was another sing-the-theme-toon effort from Dunn's latest vehicle "My Old Man"; a programme spun from a Ronnie Barker one-off, where an old man had been evicted from his slum in favour of a tower block. Dunn's wife Priscilla Morgan played his daughter in it...

It was not a success, and Dunn revamped the Grandad character for a children's TV series that ran for years with the most egregiously coached studio audience ever. He still tried to have further hits over the next few years, all in vain. Dunn retired from acting in the 1990s to run a bar in Portugal, where he lives in total retirement. 90 years old and having outlived the entire supposedly younger Warmington-on-Sea platoon, barring Ian Lavender...

Wasn't "Sound of the Underground" orgiinally Girl Thing's song? Not sure, I don't know that genre of music that well.

And the Pigeon Detectives were not too bad, but then I'm one who doesn't think britpop should have been murdered around 1998-1999 because it represented what was good in music, and there has been loads and loads of great pop-rock music in the last decade that went pretty much unheard by people who might have liked it.