Saturday 12 July 2008

THE SOUND OF LIVERPOOL A special day for all our musical legends! From The Great Frankie Vaughan to Eleanor Rigsby and Rexy Music,

By Jove Missus, I couldn’t leave that picture of the Fireman up for too long, far too depressing. So I thought a new entry in my Official Guide to Capital Of Custard was called for.

Today I am going to talk about the Musical City that is Liverpool. Yes, it’s not just Jam that we mine here; anyway they were a London band I think. No this is about the homegrown stars of Grotty Cash who have lead the world of popular music. And I’m doing this for Capital of Custard because personally I can’t stand them. No, give me Joe Loss or Tommy Dorsey anytime.


Mind you Missus, this day to celebrate the Fab Five is causing some controversy. I mean for goodness sake (I bet you thought I was going to say Hippy Hippy Shake next) a Beatles day! I thought we were building the future for the city besides; there are only Mick and Titch left. Of course after Titch’s comments following the opening night for Capital of Custard, there is still some resentment, but cutting his head off was going too far in my book. Going on and on about the Beatles after all this time is very tiresome.



I mean it was 1957 when they last performed together. Although who can forget them singing ‘Zone-Ticket to Ride’ on the roof of that tram, and Get Back, Get Back inside, the conductor shouted all the way through, you can hear it on the album.
Well it’s health and safety, you know. It’s like now if you ask the bus driver “can I jump off here”? And he says “No yer f-ing can't you wanna get me sacked”?

And I’ll tell you something else; I don’t care if this Beatles day is for charity, because if that Chiz Cole has something to do with it, I wouldn’t give him a free parking space. I think he’s cost me quite enough already with his Summer Pops Concerts. It may be Chiz Cole promotions but judging by how much it costs, it’s Nutty Slack finances.

Yes give the Beatles a rest it was too long ago. It’s like going on about winning the World Cup in 1945. Seriously, you ask the young people today to name a Beatles song the response is “Gorra spare ciggie mate”? Which I think was one by the Rolling Stoned. And if you tell them no, they say “ F-off Ya fat tw*t” which is probably something by the Sex Pistols. No idea!

Even the Beatles albums and massive hits like, Sgt Bilko’s, Childwall Abbey Road, Strawberry Tarts and Cleo Lane or Lily the Pink. Never heard of them. Amazing but true. Well how many of you can name an Al Bowley hit? And anyway, there are lots of other great Liverpool musical artists who equally deserve their own day.

How about a Michael Holliday….day …I mean a day to celebrate…alright maybe that would be too confusing; Mind you the Yanks have Doris Day.

What about Frankie Vaughan? Frank was a great star in his day and also a very nice man. He had
that famous song that became an anthem for anyone who owed rent and had the bailiffs coming round, “Doing a Moonlight” At least we have a well deserved statue of Billy Fury but if we want to show off the music and Culture of the city let’s have one of Frankie too. It would look marvellous doing one of his famous high kicks, especially if placed behind one of those Lambananas. Just don’t let that Tommy Steele do it, for god’s sake. Dumping his rubbish in the middle of the night! There’s a law against fly tipping mate! That statue he did of Leonard Rossiter as Rigby; looks nothing like him. It’s more like Miss Jones on Diazepam.


But yes, I would certainly wear a straw hat and carry a cane for Frankie Vaughan day.
We are almost there already with so many people around town wearing a baseball hat and carrying a can of Caines.


By Jove, there are lots of local stars we could celebrate with a special day. There is Sonia Day, which could come after Saturday. We could all drink whiskey on a Sonia Day. Didn’t Norman Lamont try to start this some time ago with Cilla Black Wednesday or something? I know he lost a fortune on it. It was something to do with her joining the Eurhythmics and the ELO and there was a fall out? It was the same day that the late Sonny Bono broke his leg. There had been a major fall in Chers.

You know it’s a shame the Happy Mondays are from Manchester, that would have saved a few quid in print costs and we could have had that dancing chap, what’s his name? He used to clean up for them, Bex Bissell or something. You know him, he’s married to Sylvester Stallone's mother, there was a flies on the wall documentary about them, all living together in Germaine Greer’s house with her husband who does the racing and is a raging coke addict. "I want my coke", he was screaming, terrible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4keJdGJAYM Mrs Bex Bissel.
But anyway we could have all danced like Bex for the whole day. Fun and fitness combined. You see I have got my thinking cap on. A bit more of an effort than a mop top and at least maintaining a bit of dignity.

I think Gerry Marsden gets enough play with his Bryan Ferry Roxy Mersey and the one they sing at the football, “I’m forever blowing bubbles” or something. Now before you start, I think Gerry is wonderful, in fact I never missed him on the Sooty Show with Matthew Corbett. By the way, I hear Sweep was arrested when he took out his water pistol at the bank recently.

Well he’s been hitting the bottle you know, he is very upset since Matthew sold him along with Sooty and Soo. What a swine that Matthew was. He wouldn’t let Harry Corbett near Sooty you know after he took over. Said it would confuse the children. They were probably confused enough turning the sound up on the telly every time Sooty spoke. Poor Harry, I remember him being humiliated on Wogan when Matthew wouldn’t let him have a go. He had to make do with Terry’s wig and pretend a steamroller had squashed Soo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PK7_Ueh9X0 sweep sings


Sorry, back to the main point. There are so many great musical stars from Liverpool even if we can’t have a special day for each one, we need to get them all in before Capital of Custard year is over.
There was the Four Seasons, their lead singer Vivian works in a supermarket now and is always happy to sign autographs. So if you ever want to meet The Four Seasons, Viv, Aldi is where you can catch her. The more I think about it, the more spring to mind.
The Netherley Brothers, T-Rex Makin, he did that novelty song “Hole in the ground” and “Boy Named Sue” and “ How could you believe me when you know I’ve been a lawyer all my life”.

We had Roger Hunt with his Mexican Whistle for half time and I’m gonna play Old Durham Town FC (Roger in action) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AJHXQJCQ1k and on a similar theme of course Bill Shankly and the Comets with Rock Around the Kop.

There was also that other chap who sang “Cream” and “Kiss”, his real name was Alfred Rode but he changed it to Prince. Actually when the police caught up with him for selling pirate CDs and knock-off videos around the boozers in Old Swan, they referred to him as, The Con Artist formerly known by his fingerprints.

I am not sure what we could do for Pete Wryly, apart from a house clearance.
Have you seen his gaff?

And one best avoided I think would be a Pete Burns Day! We couldn’t all go around the city pouting and telling everyone to F**k off. It would just be like a normal day, nobody would notice the difference. Maybe we could do it if it was just confined to the time he had his big hit “ I’m having one of my turns” was it? Or “ I’m so Dizzy”. I have to say when he had his band Bread or Aloaf (did they do Vienna?) and he used to hang out in Pube Records, or walk through town wearing only a thong, you had to admire his cheek. Well Mrs Chucklebutty did, he’s probably still got the teeth marks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ck-Uo52MOg (Pete in hayday)
Now who’s the other fellow, the one Wally Bradlow had wanted to ban from the Arena and then had to hide in the toilets when they were on, The Farmers, you know him, MacDonald or MacCropspray or something, they could get us all together for a day if they could just work out when best suits.

I tell you this though ladies and gentlemen, if I had my way, and I don’t care that she’s not from
Liverpool, because this would be a truly uniting national event, my choice would be to have an Anita Harris Day. Here she is with our very own Citytalk host and columnist Pete Murray. I would happily draw a little mole over me lip and don a leotard for that. By Jove yes! And I’ve still got the legs for it Missus, I’ve still got the legs!













Anita

Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye!

1 comment:

Tony Parrish47 said...

Thanks for doing this Prof. Much appreciatedf.