Left and to the Back: One Hit Wonders #19 - Hylda Baker and Arthur Mullard - You're The One That I Want One Hit Wonders #19 - Hylda Baker and Arthur Mullard - You're The One That I Want Label: Pye Year of Release: 1978 Let's not beat around the bush too much on this one - this is quite simply one of the worst singles ever to enter the British Top 40. My Dad doesn't think so. My Dad thinks this is hilarious. On the rare occasions it pops up on television, usually as an example of either television or radio hell, he laughs quite heartily at the inept nature of the track. I, on the other hand, have never really been in on the joke. The concept behind this record is really rather simple. Olivia Newton John and John Travolta were both glamorous, admired and lusted after individuals in 1978, so what could be more comedic than taking two ageing and unglamorous British celebrities and giving them a "Grease" duet to cover? Quite a bit, as it turned out.

"You're The One That I Want" is really a piece of drunken pub karaoke before such a thing had been invented. In every bar-room karaoke session in the world, I'd be willing to bet there's a drunk, ageing couple in the corner who decide, against better wisdom, that it would be hilarious to take on a raunchy modern song much beloved of those young people. I've seen this done in bars around London with all manner of Lady Gaga, Girls Aloud and Katy Perry tracks, and it's been a chore to witness on those occasions, but I suppose credit should be given to Baker and Mullard for being way ahead of the game and getting their particular singalong released on Pye and sending it flying into the charts. You do have to give them further credit for being so diabolical, which was surely most of the point. Mullard bellows away and sings "Oh yus indeed", and Baker seems game enough but fails to hit the notes on several occasions. Trouble is, there's nothing actually funny about the failure, it's just gratingly awful, pure and simple.

Time has not been kind to this particular attempt at humour, and what we're left with is a screecher of a track which should never have been let out of the recording studio's doors. Much has also been made of the fact that their ill-rehearsed "Top of the Pops" performance (complete with fluffed lines and confused, bewildered looks) caused the record's sales to drop to unexpectedly low levels the following week, with numbers in the hundreds being occasionally quoted. I've always suspected that this is an exaggeration, purely because the single's chart movements (50-22-23-22-31-35) don't really suggest crashing sales at any point. What is more miraculous is the fact that there was any kind of demand capable of lifting this chartbound in the first place. Mullard and Baker were stars of the British screen for a great deal of their careers, with Mullard taking on roles in "The Ladykillers" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", whilst Baker enjoyed success in a variety of mainstream television comedies. This record was among the last things either of them did.

Whether further career opportunities would have emerged had it not been for this disc is difficult to say - both were in the twilight of their careers - but it surely can't have helped matters. Sometimes novelty records come with a very heavy price attached, a lesson many comic talents would do well to learn. The lesser-heard B-side "Save All Your Kisses For Me", on the other hand, is pure comedy gold, filled with asides and punchlines that really make you wonder why it was never the A-side (I'm just joshing, readers - it's an absolute dog of a flipside as well). Posted by Hylda Baker - Biography - IMDb Hylda Baker Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trivia (1) Overview (3) 4' 11" (1.5 m) Mini Bio (1) This dark-haired barrel-shaped comedienne and character actress was the daughter of a Lancashire comedian. She made her professional stage debut in 1915 aged 10 and toured for decades in variety and second rank revues, several of which she produced herself.

She had a reputation for being difficult to work with, but this was probably because she was a perfectionist and had to fight for equal treatment in the male-dominated world of British show business. Her most popular act was malapropism-filled gossip with a tall, mute stooge called Cynthia (who was nearly always played by a man in drag). Baker became nationally famous in 1955 after a guest appearance on the TV show The Good Old Days (1953) and was kept busy in TV and on stage for the rest of her career. When success came she lived the life of a star to the full: dressing in furs, buying a large house, driving huge cars and keeping monkeys as pets. She allegedly had a voracious sexual appetite and a liking for very young men and rumours circulated about wild parties at her Blackpool home. She only appeared in five films but these include the classic Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and the Oscar-winning Oliver! (1968) She is now best remembered for the role of Nellie Pledge in the TV sitcom Nearest and Dearest (1968). This ran for seven series and spawned stage and film spin-offs.

In it she played a prim northern spinster forever locking horns with her dissolute brother Eli after they jointly inherit their father's pickle factory. Her screen brother was played by comedian Jimmy Jewel . Off-screen the pair hated each other and their on-set battles became part of British showbiz legend. As the series progressed Baker found it increasingly difficult to remember her lines and began to rely on cue cards. This was the first symptom of the Alzheimer's disease that would eventually overwhelm her. Her next starring vehicle was the TV sitcom Not on Your Nellie (1974), in which she played Nellie Pickersgill - a thinly disguised version of Nellie Pledge - this time a teetotal spinster called down to London to run her ailing father's pub. This series was less successful and ended suddenly when the accident-prone Baker injured herself after slipping on prop beer that had been spilled on the studio floor. She sued the production company and effectively ended her television career. In 1978 she was teamed with cockney character actor Arthur Mullard to record a parody of the Grease (1978) anthem 'You're The One That I Want'.

This became an unlikely novelty hit, reaching number 22 in the UK singles chart and leading to the pair making a memorably embarrassing appearance on Top of the Pops (1964). Clips of this performance are often used in 'Worst TV moments' compilation shows. This proved to be Baker's TV swansong. Her memory was getting worse and she was unable to work. In 1981 she moved into Brinsworth House, a home for retired variety performers in Twickenham, Middlesex and then in 1984, as her condition deteriorated further, to Horton Psychiatric Hospital in Epsom, Surrey. She died there in 1986 from bronchial pneumonia. Hylda Baker is now a cult figure and is often quoted by today's British comediennes as an influence and a trailblazer. A one-women play about her life and career called "She Knows You Know" has played in London's West End and toured throughout the UK and Baker is becoming known to new audiences through satellite and cable TV showings and DVD releases of her TV and film work.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Hyldafan Spouse (1) Google+ When two or more singers collaborate on a song, the general idea is to make a hit – But that’s not always the case! Sometimes musical collaborations just don’t work out, or at the very least feature a weird combination of musical genres that just doesn’t seem to fit. No matter what the case, it’s clear that sometimes two is not better than one. Here are some of the worst music collaborations of all time… Nelly and Tim McGraw – “Over and Over” Hip hop start Nelly alongside country superstar Tim McGraw?…Talk about an odd couple. This unlikely duo collaborated on “Over and Over” back in 2004 in an attempt to blend hip hop with country music – two completely opposite musical genres. Nelly was quoted by Entertainment Weekly as saying this relating to hip hop and country music “(Both musical genres) come out of poverty-stricken communities, so putting those together, it’s gonna work — it just has to be done right”. Well Nelly, I don’t know that this one was done right!

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Phil Collins – “Home” Phil Collins is a legendary singer/songwriter that has been pumping out hits for over 30 years, which is why it’s a bit puzzling that he hooked up with a group of fast-talking hip hop stars on a collaboration that sampled his 1985 hit “Take Me Home”. The song went on to be somewhat successful, but this weird collaboration makes you wonder what Phil Collins’ was thinking when he signed on to do a song with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. I guess that’s what it takes to stay current in the music biz?!? Eminem and Elton John – “Stan” Eminem’s gay-bashing remarks laced throughout his songs and in magazines and interviews have proven to be highly controversial, and some may say have even catapulted the Detroit rapper to the top of the hip hop charts worldwide. In an attempt to shock the world at the 2001 Grammy Awards, Eminem performed his song “Stan” alongside Elton John who sang the chorus and played piano throughout the duet.

This may have been the most unlikely music duo of all time – A legendary British singer with over 50 top 40 hits throughout his long career, and a rapper from the streets of Detroit who had just recently taken the hip hop world by storm. The song was a huge hit, and it’s safe to say that the performance did shock the world (to say the least). Wu Tang Clan and Dhani Harrison (George Harrison’s son) – “The Heart Gently Weeps” One of hip hop’s most powerful groups, the Wu Tang Clan, teamed up with Dhani Harrison back in 2007 to cover the Beatles “The Heart Gently Weeps”. It seems odd to think about George Harrison’s son stomping around stage with the Wu Tang Clan (exaggerated!), but apparently he’s a huge Wu Tang Clan fan and jumped at the chance to collaborate on a song with the group. It should also be noted that John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is on lead guitar for this song – That makes for quite a mix of musical talent!

Tammy Wynette and KLF – “Justified and Ancient” KLF is a British band that was one of the leaders of the acid house movement of the late ’80s and early ’90s, and Tammy Wynette was one of the most popular country singers of the ’60s and ’70s with 17 number one hits during that time. In “Justified and Ancient”, country music and acid house trance music collided to form one of the most bizarre songs ever – and the video is equally disturbing. Tammy Wynette looks totally out of her element in this video. Wyclef Jean and Kenny Rogers – “The Gambler (Remix)” Wyclef Jean has collaborated with so many artists over the years, it’s hard to keep track of all of them. One of his most interesting collaborations was when he remixed country star Kenny Rogers’ hit “The Gambler”. It’s hilarious to hear Kenny Rogers “rapping” over a beat laid down by Wyclef – It sounds very uncomfortable! Ozzy Osbourne and Miss Piggy – “Born to be Wild” Ozzy Osbourne’s collaboration with The Muppet’s Miss Piggy is a bit over the top.

Other artists have made songs on various children’s shows, including The Muppets and Sesame Street, but Ozzy is the Prince of Darkness – It just doesn’t seem right! Easily one of the worst music collaborations of all time. Happy Mondays and Karl Denver – “Lazyitis (One Armed Boxer)” Karl Denver had a series of hits in the UK during the 1960s, and Happy Mondays is a British alternative rock band that was originally formed in 1980 and has since then disbanded and reunited several times. The two sides collaborated on a 1990’s song called “Lazyitis (One Armed Boxer)”, and the song was only able to reach number 46 on the UK Hit Singles Chart (and for good reason). The vocals are lacking (to say the least) in every way – very karaoke sounding. Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis – “Cruisin” It seems that actors and actresses are always trying to make the switch over to music, and they all have one thing in common – It never works! Case in point: Don Johnson, Eddie Murphy, and David Hasselhoff to name a few.

Gwyneth Paltrow teamed up with Huey Lewis, who’s best known for his many hits throughout the 1980s, to sing the duet “Cruisin” in 2000, which was a song from the movie “Duets”, which both the singer and the actress starred in. The song reached 109 on the U.S. Hot 100 charts, but it’s most known across the Internet as one of the worst duets ever. Tom Jones and Art of Noise – “Kiss” Tom Jones at his finest! The Art of Noise lays down an 80s sounding electronic track as Tom dances around and belts out this remake of Prince’s “Kiss”. Oddly enough, this song was Art of Noise’s most popular mainstream track. Although the Welsh singer has sold over 100 million records during his career, Jones may have been a little off with “Kiss”. K.O.s and Michael Buffer – “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble” Michael Buffer is the famous boxing ring announcer who coined the phrase “let’s get ready to rumble”, and his song of the same name was a collaboration with the K.O.s that was definitely not a knockout.

This song is so bad that it’s hard to describe – It’s better to listen for yourself… Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder – “Ebony and Ivory” There’s no doubt that Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder are two of the greatest singers of all time, but together they are a bit off the mark. This song about racial harmony may have a good message, but the song comes across as sounding a little bit corny. Because of this fact, “Ebony and Ivory” has been poked fun of over the years by shows such as Saturday Night Live, despite the fact the song was both a U.S. and U.K. number one hit for several weeks back when it was released in 1982. Blender has ranked this song as their number 10 worst song of all time, and the BBC 6 listeners have ranked it as the worst duet ever.

Ebony and Ivory – Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder by berussagroup Arthur Mullard and Hilda Baker – “You’re the One That I Want (Grease cover)” Both British comedy actors, the Arthur Mullard and Hilda Baker duo did a cover of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John’s “You’re the One That I Want”from the movie Grease, and the result is definitely comical. This one must be seen and heard, because the video is as bad as the singing. Mick Jagger and David Bowie – “Dancing in the Street” Both exceptionally good artists; one song gone horribly wrong! When Mick Jagger and David Bowie knocked out the song and video for “Dancing in the Street” in just one day, the result is a horrible rendition of the song originally sang by Martha and the Vandellas. Although the song hit number on the U.K. charts and number seven on the U.S. charts, it has been featured in countless “worst music collaborations” lists across the web & this one is no different.

Bing Crosby and David Bowie – “Little Drummer Boy” This very odd collaboration was actually very popular during the late 1970’s and early ’80’s – especially around Christmas time. Bing Crosby and David Bowie recorded “Little Drummer Boy” in 1977, and Bing died about a month after it was recorded (it wasn’t because of how bad the song was!). This strange rendition of the popular Christmas song has been called “(one of the) weirdest duets in history” and “epically bizarre” by the Washington Post. Five and Queen – “We Will Rock You” The British five-member pop group collaborated with Queen’s guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor on a rendition of one of Queen’s biggest hits, “We Will Rock You”. The single hit number one in the U.K. in 2000, but many believe that the song desecrates the original version. Like most other boy bands from the 2000 era, Five disbanded in 2001 and again in 2006 seven months after announcing their comeback – maybe it’s not working out because of songs like this one!

Hylda Baker - TV Celebrities - ShareTV [Complete List] BIOGRAPHY: This dark-haired barrel-shaped comedienne and character actress was the daughter of a Lancashire comedian. She made her professional stage debut in 1915 aged 10 and toured for decades in variety and second rank revues, several of which she produced herself. She had a reputation for being difficult to work with, but this was probably because she was a perfectionist and had to fight for equal treatment in the male-dominated world of British show business. Her most popular act was malapropism-filled gossip with a tall, mute stooge called Cynthia (who was nearly always played by a man in drag). Baker became nationally famous in 1955 after a guest appearance on the TV show "The Good Old Days" (1953) and was kept busy in TV and on stage for the rest of her career. When success came she lived the life of a star to the full: dressing in furs, buying a large house, driving huge cars and keeping monkeys as pets. She allegedly had a voracious sexual appetite and a liking for very young men and rumours circulated about wild parties at her Blackpool home.

She only appeared in five films but these include the classic Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and the Oscar-winning Oliver! (1968) She is now best remembered for the role of Nellie Pledge in the TV sitcom "Nearest and Dearest" (1968). This ran for seven series and spawned stage and film spin-offs. In it she played a prim northern spinster forever locking horns with her dissolute brother Eli after they jointly inherit their father's pickle factory. Her screen brother was played by comedian Jimmy Jewel. Off-screen the pair hated each other and their on-set battles became part of British showbiz legend. As the series progressed Baker found it increasingly difficult to remember her lines and began to rely on cue cards. This was the first symptom of the Alzheimer's disease that would eventually overwhelm her. Her next starring vehicle was the TV sitcom "Not on Your Nellie" (1974), in which she played Nellie Pickersgill - a thinly disguised version of Nellie Pledge - this time a teetotal spinster called down to London to run her ailing father's pub.

This series was less successful and ended suddenly when the accident-prone Baker injured herself after slipping on prop beer that had been spilled on the studio floor. She sued the production company and effectively ended her television career. In 1978 she was teamed with cockney character actor Arthur Mullard to record a parody of the Grease (1978) anthem `You're The One That I Want'. This became an unlikely novelty hit, reaching number 22 in the UK singles chart and leading to the pair making a memorably embarrassing appearance on Top of the Pops (1964). Clips of this performance are often used in 'Worst TV moments' compilation shows. This proved to be Baker's TV swansong. Her memory was getting worse and she was unable to work. In 1981 she moved into Brinsworth House, a home for retired variety performers in Twickenham, Middlesex and then in 1984, as her condition deteriorated further, to Horton Psychiatric Hospital in Epsom, Surrey. She died there in 1986 from bronchial pneumonia.

Baker had often alienated those close to her and less than a dozen people attended the funeral of the woman who had entertained millions in a career lasting over fifty years. Hylda Baker is now a cult figure and is often quoted by today's British comediennes as an influence and a trailblazer. A one-women play about her life and career called "She Knows You Know" has played in London's West End and toured throughout the UK and Baker is becoming known to new audiences through satellite and cable TV showings and DVD releases of her TV and film work. TRIVIA: Recorded a version of "You're The One That I Want" from 'Grease' with 'Arthur Mullard' (qv). The song with comically altered text as if the words had been slightly misheard (a trade mark for Hylda) such as "if you're chilled with infection, you're too sly to convey" made number 22 in the British charts in 1978. This earned the pair an appearance on BBC TV's Top of the Pops. Related sites for this celeb biography And On the Seventh Day.......

My walk with destiny began in 1965 with the formation of Ace and the Crescents with other pupils at Farnborough Grammar School. After approximating 'Pretty Face' by The Beat Merchants, we disbanded when denied the use of a guitarist's bedroom - the only place we could rehearse. His Mum had heard a Crescent say 'bugger'. Next, a unit that dare not speak its name mastered three numbers ('Money', 'Reelin' And Rockin'' and 'For Your Love') before GCE '0' levels loomed - and The Mothers of Invention's British concert debut in 1967 proved pivotal in informing not so much my 'artistic direction' as an attitude about presentation. Yet I wasn't to make a public appearance with a group until 1969 when Burnt Rubber were booed off at Hartley Wintney's Kiln Hall. This was mitigated by a romantic interlude in a backstage broom cupboard on the strength of parochial notoriety as a mainstay of Aldershot Arts Lab, and for three articles in the Schoolkids 0z during my editorship of Farnborough Technical College's student magazine, The South Briton.

By 1971, I was lead vocalist with Turnpike, a folk-rock quintet "getting-it-together-in-the-country" near Reading, not far from Traffic's famous cottage. We acquired only the merest renown in flashback when, though attributed erroneously to Clayson and the Argonauts, a circulated demo tape of my only composition for Turnpike, 'The Rake's Progress', was placed by John Tobler at Number 28 in Zigzag magazine's 'Fab Thirty' in 1977.

As an escape valve from earnest Turnpike, I had created Billy and the Conquerors with Tim Fagan, another University of Reading student, to perform items from a record collection that had grown after we started cutting lectures to scour the area for any emporium bearing the sign 'junk', 'second-hand' or 'bric-a-brac' in an obsessive search for artefacts from musical eras as far back as the 1920s - though most of them were post-war: Johnnie Ray, Lord Rockingham's XI, Anthony Newley's Idol 0n Parade EP, 'She's The 0ne For Me' from The Aquatones, The Elegants' 'Little Star', The Flee-Rekkers, The Dave Clark Five, Dave Berry, Five Live Yardbirds, Twinkle, Liberty's Rhythm 'N' Blues Vol 1: The End 0f An Era retrospective, anything to keep the ghastly Woodstock Generation present at arm's length. 'I can honestly say that I've never seen anything like it in my life' gasped a Wokingham Times newshound after an eighteen-piece Billy and the Conquerors hit the town's Rock Club.

0f every ensemble in which I have played a part, the Conquerors, titans of trash though we were, remain my favourite - and as long as I survive as an entertainer, so will mythical Billy. Even today, I experience our aural junk-sculptures and the seedy-flash visuals in daydreams. You had to have been there, but, failing that, you could read the 'Eddy and the Confessors' section in Chapter Five of Beat Merchants. My next venture, Average Joe and the Men in the Street, also absorbed the Conquerors' ramshackle grandeur - as did Clayson and the Argonauts, the more enduring entity that followed. During a fleeting sojourn in its string section, I noticed that the Portsmouth Sinfonia were victims of much the same passion. Another vital element in my cultural melting pot was Gallic chanson after I stumbled upon Jacques Brel via Scott Walker, and Charles Aznavour through his spot on a ITV variety show in 1972.

Six years on, Clayson and the Argonauts' go at 'The Ham' was to be dismissed by a New Musical Express critic, damn his impudence, as 'a slice of Aznavourian breast-beating that was all too appropriate under the circumstances.' By then, the group were mutating into a kind of traveling asylum. By a bilious coincidence, we had been championed by Melody Maker's Allan Jones for occupying 'a premier position on rock's Lunatic Fringe'. This and further coverage had been triggered by John Tobler's glowing NME report after we'd semi-gatecrashed a bill of pre-punk fare at Guildford Civic Hall in 1976, weeks after an incident that had concluded with us being hustled out of one Berkshire venue at gunpoint. 0n this threshold of eminence too, the drummer was gaoled for eighteen months, and two other key musicians quit; one fated to co-produce Hilda Baker and Arthur Mullard's duet of 'You're The One That I Want'.

Regardless, I muddled on with new personnel, and, after we made our London debut at the 100 Club (with the then-unsigned Jam) on 9 January 1977, I held Eldorado in the hollow of my hand fleetingly with a Radio 0ne In Concert spot, and a long run of headlining treks round Britain and Europe - always, it seemed, one week after Wreckless Eric and one week ahead of The Adverts. En route, the Argonauts and I were catalysts of the wreckage of a Luton auditorium; a near-lynching at Barbarella's in Birmingham; a car chase into the West End after a midnight matinee in Canning Town; a season in Amsterdam's red-light district (our 'Hamburg' period); female nudity at Islington's Hope and Anchor; male nudity in Bristol, and a net payout of ï¿½1.46p apiece after two weeks in Ireland (that had also earned six encores in Belfast, and a pelting with snowballs in Dublin).

Somehow, we made time to record our only (and very disinclined) single, an arrangement of Wild Man Fischer's 'The Taster' (coupled with a track from a hitherto unissued in-concert LP at London's Roundhouse). We were too unsure of ourselves for open mutiny when producer Hugh Murphy - fresh from a smash with Gerry Rafferty's 'Baker Street' - replaced our keyboard player's triplets with those of the late Tommy Eyre, formerly one of both Dave Berry's Cruisers and Joe Cocker's Grease Band, and destined then to be Wham!'s musical director. The Taster' rose to No. 3 in Time Out's chart (based not on sales but disc-jockeys' choice) - and Landwaster, the other side, spent a fortnight in the Belgian top twenty - but soon must come the hour when fades the fairest flower. A lengthy lay-off prefaced the first of many attempted Clayson and the Argonauts comebacks and the protraction of the group's intermittent recording schedule that climaxed with 1985's valedictory What A Difference A Decade Made album.

What had metamorphosed into a cumbersome big band (with horn section and backing chorale) had been pruned to two-guitars-bass-drums by the time we played our last show - as 'special guests' of The Nashville Teens at the Putney Half-Moon. While this door was closing, one that had opened was the awakening of a literary calling dormant since the Oz affair. A Record Collector article about The Dave Clark Five had come about after I'd run into their former bass guitarist in a Camberwell music shop in 1981. More articles followed, and a parallel second career as an author left the runway with my first book, Call Up The Groups!, in 1984. Hylda Baker - IMDb IMDb Actress | Soundtrack This dark-haired barrel-shaped comedienne and character actress was the daughter of a Lancashire comedian. She made her professional stage debut in 1915 aged 10 and toured for decades in variety and second rank revues, several of which she produced herself. She had a reputation for being difficult to work with, but this was probably because she ... See full bio » Born: Do you have a demo reel?

Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Hylda Baker's work have you seen? User Polls 1963-1967 Z Cars (TV Series) Mrs. Nesbitt / Madge Mills 1966 Emergency-Ward 10 (TV Series) Nellie Staines 1963 Best of Friends (TV Series) Hylda 1961-1962 Our House (TV Series) Henrietta 1957-1958 Be Soon (TV Series) Hylda 1978 Get It Together (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode) - Episode #3.6 (1978) ... (performer: "You're The One That I Want") - Episode dated 7 September 1978 (1978) ...

(performer: "You're the One That I Want") Not on Your Nellie (TV Series) (lyrics - 1 episode, 1974) (music - 1 episode, 1974) (performer - 1 episode, 1974) - Nellie Comes to Town (1974) ... (lyrics: "No, Not on Your Nellie") / (music: "No, Not on Your Nellie") / (performer: "No, Not on Your Nellie") 1972 Nearest and Dearest (lyrics: "Nearest and Dearest") / (performer: "Nearest and Dearest") thiswayup: Top of the Pops 78: 07/09/78 Top of the Pops 78: 07/09/78 Originally broadcast on 07/09/78 Watched by Chris Arnsby on BBC4 Peter Powell. “Hello!

As ever you're very welcome to Top of the Pops and here's the chart run down with just a slap of grease!” Chart music: Frankie Valli: Grease [24] This week there's chart fun when back-to-back pictures of Renaissance [20], and Exile [19] look like they could be photos of the same group. The Jam: David Watts [26]. “All the energy exploding on Top of the Pops!” gushes Peter Powell after The Jam finish. The Jam put in a good performance, and the audience bop along enthusiastically, but for me this song just doesn't do anything. Somehow this feels inappropriate. It's The Jam, an iconic band of the time, but I can't muster anything other than a shrug. The Jam: It's a little known fact that David Watts recorded a single called `I Wish I Could Be In The Jam` Leo Sayer: I Can’t Stop Loving You (Though I Try) [NEW]. Uh-oh. Now we're two for two. If The Jam really were exploding energy into the studio then Leo Sayer sucks it all up, at least to judge by the audience who stand around having their own private conversations while he performs.

For myself all I can do is observe that for a tiny man Leo Sayer seems to have an enormous mouth; he looks like the Mouth of Sauron. Maybe his perm covers up most of his head, making his normal sized bonce look smaller? Boney M: Brown Girl In The Ring [2]. Hooray it's Boney M! Boney M will save us from ennui! And they do. Boney M are brilliant even played in on videotape from an edition of terrible old variety show Seaside Special. They are of course relentlessly uncool but, in the words of comedian Richard Herring, they are so uncool they go all the way round past infinity and become cool again. If Boney M are in the UK for Seaside Special then surely a live appearance on Top of the Pops can't be far off; fingers crossed. The Motors: Forget About You [13]. The audience really like The Motors. Myself I'm less keen. Dee D. Jackson: Meteor Man [65].Hooray it's Dee D. Jackson! Dee D.

Jackson and her fabulous robot who were responsible for the song Automatic Lover back in March; a song which got in my head to the extent that I caught myself absent mindedly singing “I-am-your-automatic-lover-automatic-lover” at work. The performance starts brilliantly with some 1978 state of the art computer effects, and there's Dee D. Jackson all decked out in her best Blake's 7 cosplay gear but... where's the robot? It rapidly becomes clear that Dee D. Jackson and the robot have split, and the song while pretty good is no Automatic Lover. One minor mystery of this performance is where was it filmed? It looks like the Top of the Pops studio but there's no audience, and a couple of video effects are used which aren't standard for Top of the Pops (the spinning grid thing, and an overlaid shot where the output of several different cameras are faintly mixed over the main shot). Two explanations offer themselves. One; it was recorded in the Top of the Pops studio earlier in the day which allowed slightly more time to experiment with video effects. Two; it's a promo video recorded to look like Top of the Pops, like the promo video for Hong Kong Garden last week.

David Essex: Oh What A Circus [5]. I find it difficult to watch this promo film featuring David Essex as a detached third-party observer commenting on the ostentatious grief of a nation, and not compare it to the week between the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her funeral. “We've all gone crazy, mourning all day and mourning all night, falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right.” Herbie Hancock: I Thought It Was You [25]. It's time for Legs and Co. They're dancing round the same cube set as last week, but it has been stripped of its glittery foil covering. It's not one of Legs & Co's better routines. The lighting is too murky to see the routine properly. Sylvester: You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) [30]. Top of the Pops has made a clunking edit about 2 minutes 50 seconds into this promo video, and a trip to Youtube to watch the original reveals additional cuts to the introduction.

My initial suspicion was that cuts were made because the original film was too libidinous for the 1978 Thursday evening BBC1 set but it quickly becomes clear that the purpose of the edits is to keep Sylvester on screen as much as possible while reducing the length of the song by cutting out the instrumentals. The editing of this promo film acts almost as a mission statement for Top of the Pops; it's never about the music, or the song, it's about the performance from the lead singer. Manhattan Transfer: Where Did Our Love Go [NEW]. A cover of The Supreme's song. It's not bad but it feels out of step with the rest of the songs in this edition of Top of the Pops. The best moment comes when the lead singer decides to go the full John Travolta, and then starts singing directly to a young woman in the front row; to the amusement of the audience around her. Hi-Tension: British Hustle [9].A third outing for this song, although disappointingly it's a repeat of Hi-Tension's second performance; complete with Kid Jensen briefly dancing in the first wide shot. Arthur Mullard & Hilda Baker: You’re The One That I Want [50].

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Arthur Mullard and Hilda Baker's sparsely rehearsed cover of the Grease hit is one of those performances which crops up whenever someone wants to do a compilation of disastrous Top of the Pops appearances. Let's just say it's no Funky Moped, and leave it at that. Incidentally, as I'm never going to find anywhere else to mention this, track down Jasper Carrott's performance on Top of the Pops (28/8/75) and then watch John Peel's Rock Bottom segment from the 1992 TV Hell night. It's the same performance but the TV Hell clip starts with Jasper Carrott standing awkwardly on stage waiting for a cue. After a couple of seconds he pretends to use his microphone as an electric razor before the music cuts in and he starts miming. The microphone/razor gag must come from the studio master tape. I just find it amazing that, in 1992 at least, these tapes still existed at the BBC. Incidentally looking up the TV Hell clip will expose you to trace amounts of D*v* L** Tr*v*s and Paul Burnett's execrable song Convoy UK. Sorry.

Number One: The Commodores, Three Times A Lady. There's a running gag in the comedy series Arrested Development (bear with me this is going somewhere) that whenever George Michael Bluth mentions his bland girlfriend Ann Veal someone goes, “her?” That's pretty much how I feel about Three Times A Lady. It's inoffesive but every time I realise it's the song which knocked You’re The One That I Want off the number one spot my reaction is, “this?” Closing titles: Crown Heights Affair, Galaxy Of Love [29]. This week's credit update. Vocal backing is now by the Maggie Stredder Singers instead of The Ladybirds. After two weeks Mike Jefferies has been taken off Lighting and replaced by John Farr, which explains why the lighting seems more generic this week. There's no Director listed but Robin Nash is bumped back up to Executive Producer, and Stanley Appel is Producer. Got that? Good. Performance of the week: It was going to be Boney M, then it was going to be David Essex (another example of a song which has grown on me on a week by week basis), but actually it's Sylvester.

Posted by POPULAR COMEDIENNE'S CENTENARY - Fleetwood Weekly News POPULAR COMEDIENNE'S CENTENARY 10:13 10:13 Thursday 10 March 2005 THIS month saw the centenary of the birth of comedienne Hylda Baker - a former Cleveleys resident who was much loved on the Fylde coast. Hylda, who enjoyed a lifetime in the entertainment industry, lived in a luxury house in the town and was always happy to invite the press in to photograph her for many features about her work. Always secretive about her age, Hylda, daughter of Lancashire comedian Harold "Chubby" Baker, was actually born on February 14, 1905. The eldest of seven children, she made her stage debut aged 10. Just four years later, she rose to become a leading lady in musical revue. During the 1930s, she also developed her comic talents, going on to write, produce, direct and star in her own touring shows, first appearing in Blackpool in 1933.

The essence of her distinctive humour was a northern woman's desire to better herself with, sadly, her efforts always being undone by her malapropisms, one of her most famous being, "I feel I can safely say, without fear of contraception". Having headlined many summer shows in Blackpool, in 1955 Hylda appeared on The Good Old Days on BBC Television from the City Varieties in Leeds. After 40 years in the business, she found herself suddenly hailed as an "overnight" sensation, her catchphrase seemingly being repeated by the entire population as "house full" signs went up at every show in which she appeared. Having sensationally hit the jackpot, Hylda bought her luxury house in Cleveleys, furnishing it with her usual unique taste, happy to be photographed even in her bedroom as she celebrated her new-found popularity. When in residence, she had her own flag raised on the flagpole, complete with her famous catchphrase. That same year, Hylda also appeared at the North Pier Theatre in Blackpool. She had a huge, black and gold, American car which she proudly drove up and down the Golden Mile as she took her two pet monkeys out for exercise.

However, sadly, as meteoric as her fame had been, within a few years, the death of variety saw regular bookings slow down. So Hylda courageously turned her talents to straight acting and was much in demand as a character actress starring in both films and West End theatres. Then, in 1968, her career took a new turn when she starred with fellow comedian, Jimmy Jewel, in the Granada Television series, Nearest And Dearest. As Nellie Pledge, she helped run a pickle factory, the appealing vulgarity of the programme regularly taking it to the top of the ratings. Running until 1973, a stage version also toured the provinces and in 1970 broke all box office records at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool. The success of the show came despite the fact that Hylda and Jimmy Jewel could not stand the sight of one another, their open hostility quickly becoming the stuff of showbusiness legend.

Hylda went on to star in the sitcom, Not On Your Nellie and somewhat bizarrely, her final television appearance was in August 1978, when, aged 73, she appeared with comic Arthur Mullard on Top Of The Pops, singing their Top 20 comedy version of the Grease favourite, You're the One That I Want. Married briefly in her mid-twenties, unbeknown to her public she had been suffering from a form of dementia which had haunted her for years, ever since she had nursed her father through his long decline. Unfortunately, her last years were spent in virtual obscurity and, sadly this redoubtable pioneer of female stand-up comedy died alone in a psychiatric hospital in May, 1986. Trending Alan Clayson: One Dover Soul | UglyThings Magazine Alan Clayson: One Dover Soul by admin 19th Jul 2012 Comments [0] The release of his first new album for fifteen years presents Alan Clayson with the opportunity to write some interval notes Despite the global atmosphere of worsening financial anxiety, ONE DOVER SOUL, a new Clayson long-playing gramophone record has been cast adrift on the discographical oceans.

Since my debut as a recording artist in 1978—with Clayson & the Argonauts’ disinclined revival of Wild Man Fischer’s “The Taster” as a one-shot 45—my output has been, well, sporadic, particularly after a career as an author left the runway with Call Up The Groups!: The Golden Age Of British Beat 1962-67 in 1984. Soon I’d be scratching a living from my pen at an alarming pace. Output ranged from supermarket potboilers (some under pseudonyms) to the only English language life of Jacques Brel—which, when updated last year prompted Clayson Sings Chanson, a presentation that has been on the road ever since. Most conspicuously, there’s been the Backbeat film tie-in, Beat Merchants (a more extensive history of the British beat boom), authorised histories of the Yardbirds and the Troggs, and Death Discs, also the subject of a programme I scripted and presented on national radio.

Moreover, I not so much dipped a toe as plunged headfirst into many other—often unexpected—musical waters, such as a 2002 tome about Edgard Varèse, Frank Zappa’s boyhood hero, and the missing link between Stravinsky and John Cage. Thus my chief source of income came via what I wanted to do second best after my adolescent imagination had been captured by the allure of pop stardom back in nineteen-sixty-forget-about-it. That’s why if presented with a choice between a run of blockbusting biographies or merely getting by as an entertainer, the roar of the greasepaint would win every time, despite the countless occasions I’ve all but quit the business forever when, to quote from Tony Hancock’s suicide note, “things seemed to go wrong too many times.” This was instanced by an engagement in High Wycombe one April evening in 1985—for which I’d dashed from a record date notable for constant retakes of a minor guitar part. At home, the immersion heater hadn’t been switched on, necessitating a chilly shampoo.

I also swilled down an evil if energizing concoction of six raw eggs beaten up in a glass of Guinness as I waited for an overloaded van exactly one hour late. The janitor answered our banging but did not help lug careworn equipment into a darkened upstairs cavern with its echo of alcohol, tobacco and food intake from that afternoon’s wedding reception. Following a harrowing soundcheck, we busied itself in bar and dressing room until showtime before an audience of twelve (including the support act). Small too was the percentage of the gate as there’d been a freak cold spell with heavy rain all day. There was also something good on the TV and the local newspaper was on strike, thus precluding advertising. Next morning, I received an agitated call from our road manager to say four borrowed microphones had been stolen. This incident took place shortly before Clayson & the Argonauts—our very name now a millstone round our necks—made a seemingly final public appearance, opening for the Nashville Teens. By then, we were like a soldier fatally wounded that keeps fighting, not knowing how critical the injury is. To all intents and purposes, we’d been over for ages, a faded memory, a tattered newspaper clipping.

So we scattered like vermin disturbed in a granary. All that remained was the sound of our aural junk-sculptures as a spooky drift from the shadows in some lonely back-of-beyond palais, maybe one refurbishment from demolition. Yet there’d been moments when… Certainly, the wheels of the universe had been rolling in our direction as the watershed year of 1977 loomed. Suddenly, there was some kind of future with none of the leitmotifs of tragedy or farce that had blighted the previous two years. We had, for example, been hustled out of one night spot at gunpoint; the drummer had been gaoled for eighteen months, and two other personnel quit; one fated to co-produce Arthur Mullard and Hilda Baker’s hit duet of “You’re The One That I Want”; the other to father one of Girls Aloud. Yet I muddled on, and Clayson & the Argonauts made a London debut at the 100 Club (with the then-unsigned Jam and Stripjack, led by Lee Jackson, formerly of the Nice) on 9 January 1977.

Next up was a full-page Melody Maker spread, courtesy of its enthralled future editor Allan Jones, and me being spoken of and written about in the same sentences as the likes of Tom Robinson, John Otway, Elvis Costello—and ‘Wreckless’ Eric Goulden. During the resulting three years of expecting to be on Top Of The Pops next week, a sweep of events embraced more dates than could possibly be kept; a BBC Radio One In Concert, and headlining at the Marquee, back at the 100 Club, Amsterdam’s Melkweg and venues of similar standing round Europe—always, it seemed, one week after Wreckless Eric and one week ahead of the Adverts—as well as any number of university hops such as that in Belfast at the height of the Troubles where an audience was still demanding more after six encores. In parenthesis, among those second-billed to us somewhere in the Midlands were what became the Eurythmics.

En route, we were central to the wreckage of a Luton auditorium; a near-lynching at Barbarella’s in Birmingham; a punch-up and car chase after a midnight matinee in Canning Town; a season in Amsterdam’s red-light district (our ‘Hamburg’ period); some woman jumping onto the boards to tear off all her clothes at Islington’s Hope and Anchor, and a bloke doing the same during almost-but-not-quite a riot at the Granary in Bristol. Soon, we were past resistance to circumstances that made it impossible to go back to get up-get to work-get home-get to bed groundhog days. If the van had drawn up outside a ballroom on Pluto, it mightn’t have seemed that odd. Delivering “more than a performance, an experience” (Sounds), Clayson & the Argonauts were, therefore, a very ‘happening’—and hard-working—group. Somehow, we made time to record “The Taster,” a three-minute waste of time that started as merely part of a medley. We came to loathe it so heartily that we dropped our approximation of it from the set unless it was specifically requested – which it never was.

Nevertheless, Virgin Records had been convinced that “The Taster” was chartbound, and we spent an overcast day at London’s Psarm Studio—where Queen made “Bohemian Rhapsody”—trying to hack a single from a lump of solid acetate. After a blaze and subsequent fire brigade ministrations damaged the master tape, it crossed my mind to stir up a rebellion against “The Taster” and everything else I perceived was desecrating my self-picture as an artist and the Argonauts’ now thoroughly road-drilled musicianship. Yet, in the death—and in another expensive complex, Regent Sound—we were too unsure of ourselves for open mutiny when, say, Hugh Murphy, the producer foisted upon us—fresh from a smash with Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”—replaced our keyboard player’s triplets with those of Tommy Eyre, formerly of both Dave Berry’s Cruisers and Joe Cocker’s Grease Band, and destined then to be Wham!’s musical director.

“The Taster,” however, was a domestic ‘turntable hit’ and—proving some sort of point as far as I was concerned—its self-penned B-side, “Landwaster,” an excerpt from a then-unreleased in-concert LP, was a fleeting Top Twenty entry in Belgium after a radio presenter in the Netherlands started spinning it by mistake. Nonetheless, its ultimate descent into the bargain bin was a prelude to my ‘wilderness years’. For a while, it’d been business-as-usual until we couldn’t be bruited on posters as “Virgin Recording Artistes” anymore, as the label, smelling a perishable commodity, didn’t take up its option on further releases. It was all over too with Hugh Murphy—who’d grinned cheerfully and waved us farewell as we drove away from Regent Sound, but who—as we learnt later—had slagged us off (with particular reference to me) for our “unprofessional” behavior—though Clayson &the Argonauts’ saga was to climax with 1985′s valedictory What A Difference A Decade Made album earning rave reviews in both Folk Roots (!) and The Observer.

As this door closed, so opened one that awoke a literary calling dormant since my teenage contributions to the notorious Schoolkids Oz in 1970. A Record Collector article about the Dave Clark Five had come about after I’d bumped into their ex-bass guitarist in a Camberwell music shop. More articles followed—and then came Call Up The Groups!. A spin-off from 1995′s Beat Merchants was a tie-in ‘various artists’ album that kicked off with “The Man Of The Moment” (which rhymes “Nashville Teens” with “Swinging Blue Jeans”) by Clayson and an ad-hoc Argonauts. Beat Merchants also contained Dave Berry’s “The Moonlight Skater,” which I composed with Jim McCarty, drummer and co-writer (“Still I’m Sad,” “Shapes Of Things” et al) with the Yardbirds. As a nascent version had turned up on Raindreaming by Stairway (with vocals by Jane Relf, ex-Renaissance), Jim and fellow Stairway-farers, Clifford White (a New Age colossus) and Louis Cennamo (ex-Renaissance) were roped in for the Berry session.

In parenthesis, with its spellbinding melody and evocative lyrics, “The Moonlight Skater” satisfies every qualification of nothing less than a Christmas Number One, but, to paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies, I would say that, wouldn’t I? Dave Berry and Alan Clayson. This was one of many cultural diversions towards the turn of the century as I was also overseeing the records of others, beginning with an EP by Welwyn Garden City’s boss combo, the Astronauts. More far-reaching, however, had been Dave Berry’s ‘cover’ of a Clayson opus, “On The Waterfront” from What A Difference A Decade Made. Later, I graduated from starstruck fan to supervising and composing the lion’s share of Dave’s output on disc since 1996′s Hostage To The Beat album—and was recruited into his backing Cruisers.

“Alan remains the most unique musician I have ever employed,” reckoned Dave, “and it was entirely through him that my recording career revived in the late 1980s.” Because of him and Call Up The Groups!, I became something of a ‘face’ on the Sounds Of The Sixties circuit, and such networking paid off when I was enlisted to hammer keyboards as one of Screaming Lord Sutch’s Savages, and undertake a string of solo one-nighters in the north-east with Denny Laine, and, before that, a stint as musical director and bass player for Twinkle during her brief stage comeback in the mid-1990s. I functioned too as chief show-off in duos with accompanists of the calibre of Wreckless Eric and Dick Taylor of the Pretty Things—who likened bookings with me to “running downstairs at full speed without a handrail.” Dick Taylor, Alan Clayson and Arthur Brown. Then a telephone call in June 2005 exhumed what I’d imagined was buried forever.

That Christmas, Sunset On A Legend, a double-CD retrospective by Clayson & the Argonauts was released by a London record company—and twenty years after what was thought to be the last hurrah, the group was up-and-running again after, ostensibly, a one-off show at an ultra-trendy West End venue, attended by devotees from as far away as France, Holland Scotland and the USA. Moreover, the proceedings were filmed for release on the DVD, Aetheria: Alan Clayson & The Argonauts In Concert—and, immediately after the dust settled, we were approached for further ‘farewell performances’ as a ‘tribute band’ to ourselves. I’d been widening my work spectrum too with a solo act that now defies succinct description. This extended to prestigious supports to such as the Yardbirds at the Marquee; emerging as the Surprise Hit at this or that back-of-beyond festival; two appearances in Newcastle that drew what the promoter described as “extreme audience reaction,” and four visits to the States—ostensibly to plug books.

Expecting a dry, writer-ish lecture, those at this convention hall or that exposition centre could hardly believe I was real as I plunged into onstage excesses that occurred in the knowledge that I was unlikely to see any of these folk again—or was I? Within days of shaking off jet-lag back the first time in 1992, a package came from two ladies who’d been among those flocking round him like friendly if over-attentive wolfhounds after a soirée in Chicago, and who had each bought a What A Difference A Decade Made. As well as a long letter, they’d sent a sweatshirt with my image and the words CLAYSONFEST ’92 on the front. Apparently, I now had a North American fan club. Twenty years later, the few remaining members were twitchy with anticipation throughout the weeks leading up to the issue of ONE DOVER SOUL on producer Wreckless Eric’s Southern Domestic label, and containing twelve Clayson originals and an overhaul of “Un Grand Sommeil Noir”—verse by French symbolist poet Paul Verlaine set to music by Edgard Varèse.

Every note was hand-tooled in Eric’s studio in Norwich and—principally—when it was reassembled after he moved to a village near Limoges in south-west France with his North American wife Amy Rigby, a singer-songwriter of similar artistic appetite. Transported there too was an Aladdin’s cave of instruments, ranging from the newest-fangled synthesiser to the wheezy old harmonium I’d pressed when, with Eric at the controls, we’d recorded 1999’s “The Last Show On Earth,” a ballad concerning the aftershock of Screaming Lord Sutch’s suicide.

Because we’d led parallel lives during the sweep of events consequent to us each occupying “a premier position on rock’s Lunatic Fringe” (Melody Maker again) way back when, Eric and I hadn’t actually met until the late 1980s when his music came to encompass ‘techno, rave, jazz, drum machines, samplers, and I started having fun marrying it up with other things I like—trash rock ‘n’ roll, funk, soul, R&B, bubblegum, psychedelia… You get older and, if you can be bothered to look for it, there’s even more fun to be had.” Indeed, there is. As night thickened on the June day in 2008 after he picked me up from Limoges airport, a sonic adventure began in which two deeply middle aged men behaved at times like unrestrained children in a toy shop. The following morning, eyes parted on a region swimming with humidity, but the studio’s double-glazing stayed shut against the infiltration of noise both ways as Eric and I layered flesh onto the skeletons of four items for what would become ONE DOVER SOUL. Alan Clayson and Wreckless Eric.

As the week unfolded, everyday life ground to a standstill apart from us trying to stick doggedly to the demarcation line between producer and client. Having been on the other side of the fence, I understood the necessity of taking direction from one who had already apportioned trackage, short-listed devices and effects, and visualised each track’s overall ‘shape’. Crucially, our personal dynamic was such that utterances unamusing to anyone else might have us howling with laughter on the carpet. So far, so amiable. It was foreseeable, however, that I’d be bathed in tedium during this or that slow mechanical procedure, and Eric might have bitten back irritation at some of my back-seat-driver-ish suggestions. Nonetheless, off the assembly-line without fuss poured another three tracks, one augmented by Amy cooing like a sweetly bestial Emmylou Harris. In the teeth of the weather, we were still firing on all cylinders on the day before my departure—as instanced by “Heedless Child,” a Clayson-Goulden opus sturdy enough to warrant a rough mix to which we listened on a car stereo with the moon shining over slumbering woodlands.

In January 2010, I breezed into the studio as if my direct involvement with the album hadn’t been on ice for eighteen months. “Ice” is a crucial word here as Eric and Amy’s heating system had just exploded, prefacing Arctic conditions that prevailed until Tuesday. The cold kept us alert as we began by reviewing Eric’s continued work on ONE DOVER SOUL from my dodgy demos. He’d also improved upon what had been done already—for example, by wheeling in Ian Button from Death In Vegas to splatter drums here and there. When afternoon became evening, I’d fingered a stately mellotron linked to a Vox Continental, and was harmonising with my own lead vocal on autobiographical “The Old Dover Road” to Eric’s satisfaction –and my own by the time I lay as rigid as a crusader on a tomb. Distressing details why aren’t necessary, but my singing of “I Hear Voices,” an opus in and out of Clayson recitals for the past four years, was honed to razor-sharp piquancy.

Over the next four days too, I overdubbed mellotron to backing hinged on an auto-rhythm from an electric piano I’d found in a skip fifteen years before. Via means peculiar to himself, Eric had isolated this from the demo—as he did a quasi-military beat from an ancient Farfisa organ as the bedrock of “The Refugees,” started from scratch, and embracing a piano solo that wedded the salient idiosyncrasies of Russ Conway and Cecil Taylor after overall outcome shone through with appositely sepia-tinged clarity. Driving home after my return flight from Limoges, I couldn’t resist an earful of work-in-progress, and concluding that Eric Goulden had drawn from me the best I could give. For that reason alone, if ONE DOVER SOUL has the commercial impact of a tract from the Flat Earth Society, well, so what? For further information about Alan Clayson and ONE DOVER SOUL, please investigate

Question: Which 'Grease' track was covered by Hilda Baker and Arthur Mullard?
Answer: 'YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I WANT'