Listen: Misty / The Vibrations
Misty

There are many, many covers of this classic. Some people will complain it’s a schmaltzy adult bore, or that it’s too camp. But be informed, the greats have done it in varying styles: Aretha Franklin, Donald Byrd, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughan, Richard Groove Holmes, Donny Hathaway, Julie London, Stan Getz even Timebox. I like them all. Interestingly, it can withstand many very different interpretations.

The Vibrations, like The Contours, were in that poor man’s Temptations or Four Tops category. Consequently, both often tipped into Northern Soul. Their version of ‘Misty’ though brings me right back to the Syracuse War Memorial October 30, 1965. The Vibrations, along with Pattie La Belle & The Blue Belles, were opening for The Rolling Stones. Bravely, they performed this clad in shiny purple chino suits; and the power of the vocal had ten thousand restless kids in silent awe. Check out the final high notes here, you’ll see what I mean.

Listen: Air Travel / Chris Farlowe
Air

A perfectly beautiful late Sunday afternoon in London during November, for me means cold, damp and drizzly, with plenty of grey. It was one such day in ’07 that Roger Armstrong and I made our way to the long standing Agra Indian Restaurant on Whitfield Street just near the Warren Street tube station after a long day at his big wooden kitchen table, rigged up with a turntable, his 45 library room at arm’s reach, post that morning’s Record Fair on Great Portland Street.

Agra has been around for decades. By many standards, the place needs a proper remolding. Not by my standards though. A half step down off the sidewalk onto the tatty, sticky carpet, the main room complete with that old England smell would convince anyone the place has serious history. It’s too close to hundreds of historic music landmarks not to. Capitol Radio was just the other side of the tube, Jonathan King’s UK Records office on Warren at Whitfield, University College where David Bowie & The Lower Third, The Riot Squad and Timebox amongst so many others played, not to mention the square adjacent, the precise spot where The Syn did their photo shoot on the tarmac of Whitfield Place.

In addition, the food is great. Not all fusion fussy and overly decorated. Not decorated at all really, just old fashioned home style Indian. Despite being about two blocks from where I lived that summer ’73, it wasn’t until decades later that Roger introduced me to the place.

Upon our exit on that particular day, what better than to find Chris Farlowe at that very first table, right near the doorway, sitting in front of a spread fit for three people. Apparently, he lived with his Mom just down the block for years.

More history in the making, not unlike this miserably rare UK EP, released in ’66 off the back of his new found chart success on Immediate that summer. Assembled from the A and B sides of his only solo single for Decca plus two unreleased songs from the same time. That time by the way, was ’64. Seemingly lifetimes prior to said summer and sounding it too. Pretty interesting to hear how unblemished his voice was just those few years earlier.

Listen: Mummy / Patto
Mummy

It’s not my ordinary form to write up a B side ahead of the A side, but in this case….

‘Mummy’ is clearly meant as a tasteless joke, and not really representative of Patto’s diverse musicality but it is a riot. It’s so sick, so twisted, I couldn’t help but love the record from first play. I would spin it on my college station constantly and always got nasty calls from mommy’s boys, pining for a home cooked meal and a hug.

When it comes to ‘Mummy’, I felt the same then as I do now. If you don’t completely love this, fine. But indeed if that’s the case, please do leave this blog now and never return. You are not wanted here.

Listen: Singing The Blues On Reds / Patto
Singing

Still reading? Good. Hopefully all the riff raff are gone.

‘Singing The Blues On Reds’ is much closer to the typical Patto groove, although a bit more straight blues rock than usual. I would guess it to be intentional on the band’s part, given the subject matter: tongue in cheek overview of white, drugged up rock band singing blues numbers on tour. Edited down from the 4+ minute album version, someone at Island smartly chopped out the last chorus’s lyric “screwing in hotel beds”. (All the other choruses: “sleeping in hotel beds”).

Didn’t matter, US radio wouldn’t play it anyways. I know you are not surprised. Me neither.

Nonetheless, Patto were brilliant, amazing, whatever the word is, on the American tour with Joe Cocker & The Grease Band / Mark – Almond, to promote ROLL ‘EM, SMOKE ‘EM, PUT ANOTHER LINE OUT, from which both sides of this hideously obscure, US only single came.

Listen: Dawn / Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds
Dawn / Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds

A perfectly beautiful late Sunday afternoon in London during November to me is cold, damp and drizzly, with plenty of grey. It was one such day in ’07 that Roger and I made our way to the long standing Agra Indian Restaurant on Whitfield Street just near the Warren Street tube station after a long day at his big wooden kitchen table, rigged up with a turntable, his 45 library room at arm’s reach, post that morning’s Record Fair on Great Portland Street.

Agra has been around for decades, and by many standards, needs a proper remolding. Not mine though. A half step down off the sidewalk onto the tatty, sticky carpet, the main room complete with that old England smell, convinces me the place has serious history. It’s too close to hundreds of historic music landmarks not to. Capitol Radio was just the other side of the tube, Jonathan King’s UK Records office on Warren at Whitfield, University College where David Bowie & The Lower Third, The Riot Squad, and Timebox amongst so many others played, not to mention the square adjacent, the precise spot where The Syn did their photo shoot on the tarmac of Whitfield Place.

Yikes.

Oh yeah, the food is great too. Not all fusion fussy and overly decorated. Not decorated at all really, just old fashioned home style Indian. Despite being about two blocks from where I lived that summer ’73, it wasn’t until decades later that Roger introduced me to the place. We took our time, covered a lot, as we do.

Upon our exit, what better than to find Chris Farlowe at that very first table, right near the doorway, sitting in front of a spread fit for three people. Apparently, he lives with his Mom just down the block. More history in the making.

Listen: Misty / Groove Holmes RichardHolmesMisty.mp3

There are many, many covers of Erroll Garner’s ‘Misty’ from ’54. Some people will complain it’s schmaltzy, a bore or that it’s too adult. But be informed, the greats have done it in varying styles: Aretha Franklin, Donald Byrd, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughan, The Vibrations, Donny Hathaway, Julie London, Stan Getz even Timebox.

Almost forty years later, in ’91, ‘Misty’ was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame, not surprising given one of the most common jokes about the RIAA’s recognition process is how out of touch they can be.

It’s a fact: like Bobby Hebb’s ‘Sunny’, ‘Misty’ weathers just about every genre well.

Listen: Beggin’ / Timebox TimeboxBeggin.mp3

If only ‘Beggin’ had been a hit for Timebox instead of The Four Seasons. If only any of Mike Patto’s seminal bands, of which Timebox was one, had gotten a break. It’s one of the great shames in the history of music. Now comfortably collectable, I’m sure every member of the band wishes they’d kept a box of ‘Beggin’- as if they’d managed one free copy.

It’s lack of success is indeed baffling, having gotten solid airplay even in the States. I heard it several times before the stations changed over to the now more known Four Seasons version. Hey, The Four Seasons had loads of great singles – no question – it just would have been nice to share a little.

In the UK, it struggled solidly on the lower reaches of the RECORD RETAILER charts (see below) during the summer of ’68, but sadly ended up being at best, a turntable hit.

Above: Record Retailer Top 50 / August 14, 1968

Listen: Bo Street Runner / The Bo Street Runners BoStreetBoStreet.mp3

If you recall the period (’64 – ’65), literally every week there were more English and US garage, blues based bands releasing singles, and some of us were twitching increasingly by the day. It was impossible to keep up, and the really obscure singles (like The Bo Street Runners), were probably hard enough to find around the UK, forget about in America and definitely in upstate New York. I’d seen a photo of this band in 16 Magazine – the publication always had one page toward the back with about 8 new band photos per issue, accompanied by a sentence or two (most likely press photos that arrived at the office with a record/bio).

The Bo Street Runners’ blurb mentioned winning a READY STEADY GO competition and releasing ‘Bo Street Runner’ via UK Decca as a result. Little did I know that years later RSG producer Vicki Wickham would become a close friend and gift me her entire record collection. True story. Good thing, I’d have been one of the first kids, in his single digits, to keel over from a heart attack.

Up there with some of the better tracks from The Yardbirds, Them, The Downliners Sect or The Pretty Things. ‘Bo Street Runner’, surprisingly an original song, is pure blue eyed RnB, right down to the maracas and obligatory tambourine keeping time with the beat.

Listen: Baby Never Say Goodbye / The Bo Street Runners BoStreetBabyNever.mp3

In hindsight, some signature names passed thought the ranks of their lineup, including a few guys from both Timebox and Patto, as well as Mick Fleetwood. His timeline is right up there with Ron Wood’s, having been with not only The Bo Street Runners, but also The Peter B’s, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and the original Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac.

Although a rather long standing BSR member, he only ever played on ‘Baby Never Say Goodbye’, the competitive cover of the Unit 4 + 2′s original and charting composition.

Listen: I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman / Whistling Jack Smith WJSKaiser.mp3

I know exactly what you’re thinking. Why in the hell is he writing about Whistling Jack Smith? Do I really need to bother visiting this blog again?

Well Billy Moeller aka Whistling Jack Smith (brother of Tommy Moeller who’s band, Unit 4 +2, Billy sometimes roadied for) was on Deram. All things cool in ’67 were on Deram, even The Les Reed Orchestra and Chim Kothari were hip by association – not to mention of course The Syn, The Move, Timebox, The Eyes Of Blue, The Crocheted Doughnut Ring, Tintern Abbey, Warm Sounds, The 23rd Turnoff…you get the point. And I was only too pleased that it had become a hit (#20 Billboard) in the States. I wanted Deram to stay in business, so to me this was good. Plus it was downright fun to hear it on the radio. Harmless, laugh along, don’t be so fucking serious music – nothing like droning funeral parlour label mates Procol Harum.

So yes, I liked Whistling Jack Smith.

And they released an album as well. This was crazy fun now.

Listen: Hey There Little Miss Mary / Whistling Jack Smith WJSMary.mp3

Next, the followup. Well a growth in sound was clearly in line if the career was to build the way Decca chairman, and apparently iron clad ruler, Sir Edward Lewis must have decided it should, given an LP was approved in short order, when hitmakers The Move or hipsters The Syn were not so fortunate. Within months of the ‘I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman’s spring/summer UK/US run, seems the public was inexplicably not following WJS’s musical moves and ‘Hey There Little Miss Mary’ was ignored by radio, press as well as said consumers – this despite regrouping the original hit making team, writers Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway with arranger Ivor Raymonde and producer extraordinaire (and he seriously did a LOT of great records) Noel Walker (not to be confused with Scott Walker of course).

Uh oh.

Listen: Ja-Da / Whistling Jack Smith WJSJada.mp3

No worries. There is proven truth to the ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’ theory- hence back to a hysterically fun, basic re-write of ‘I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman’. ‘Ja-Da’ so ridiculously similar, I’m surprised Cook/Greenaway didn’t chase the publishing. I’m glad I own it though, cause it is both fun and funny to play on occasion.

Again, not a blip, bubble or hint toward potential success. Sir Edward was not about to let this talent just wither on the branch.

Listen: Only When I Larf / Whistling Jack Smith WJSLarf.mp3

Then along comes a big break, just what the label needed and was hoping for, a 60′s version of an iPod commercial: the theme to a movie. The potential box office melter ,’Only When I Larf’.

‘Goldfinger’, ‘To Sir With Love’ and ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ move aside.

Instead trip, stumble, fall. A flop.

The writing was on the wall. Poor Billy should have never left the steady work of moving Unit 4 +2′s gear around. Now not only was he finished, they were between third base and home too, so no going back.

Can you imagine how awesome it would be if Whistling Jack Smith’s career had been allowed grow as it deserved to. He would have been at Live Aid, whistled on ‘We Are The World’, been remixed by Moby, collaborated with super talent MIA, not to mention help global leaders talk through their issues, met the Pope and gotten to put on well deserved weight. Yes he could have been Bono, and I don’t mean Sonny.

Except for one other small detail, he never whistled once on his records, instead The Mike Sammes Singers were brought in for the recordings.