From the sublimely named LP Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake (don’t take up smoking kids). As I recall it came in a circular cardboard sleeve (and when released as a CD years later in a cylindrical tin resembling those tobacco was once sold in.)*
The Small Faces: Song of a Baker
*Looking it up it seems that the very first release was also in a tin but quickly replaced by the circular cardboard as the tin was too expensive and rolled off record shelves!
I saw in Tuesday’s Guardian that Zoot Money has died. He was one of the most celebrated performers of Rhythm and Blues in the early to mid 60s and a staple of the music press at the time.
His band had only the one real hit, though, Big Time Operator, which I featured here.
This is Zoot and his band playing what was in effect his signature tune
Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band: Barefootin’
George Bruno (Zoot) Money: 17/7 1942 – 8/10/2024. So it goes.
Dutch football legend Johan Neeskens has died. He was part of that magnificent Dutch side of the 1970s which reached the World Cup final twice in a row but unfortunately did not manage to win the trophy.
Neeskens also had a secondary assist on the superb goal – aided by a sublime pass from Johan Cruyff – he scored against Brazil in the 1974 World Cup .
Johannes Jacobus Neeskens: 15/9/1951 – 6/10/202. So it goes.
Kris Kristofferson, who died last week, was a man of many parts (literally as an actor but also a Rhodes Scholar, a soldier, helicopter pilot, singer and songwriter.)
It is for his songwriting and acting he will most likely be remembered for. Classic songs like Me and Bobby McGhee, For the Good Times and this one.
Kris Kristofferson: Help Me Make It Through the Night
The band’s first hit, no 3 in the UK in 1995. An objection to the female condition, the song’s lyric playing against lead singer Gwen Stefani’s appearance. Commercial imperatives, though.
Perhaps his most distinctive performance was his double bass line for Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side but that could be matched by the innovation on David Essex’s Rock On.
Lou Reed: Walk on the Wild Side
David Essex: Rock On
Brian Keith (Herbie) Flowers: 19/5/1938 – 5/9/2024. So it goes.
Sérgio Mendes, who popularised Bossa Nova in the 1960s, has died.
I remember this very familiar tune as getting a lot of airplay at the time but it wasn’t a hit in the UK. (Only Never Gonna Let You Go was, and it only got to no. 45 in 1983.) It is however probably the one for which he will be most remembered.
Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66: Mas Que Nada
Sérgio Santos Mendes: 11/2/1941 – 5/9/2024. So it goes.
Former Liverpool and Scotland footballer Ron Yeats has died.
His arrival at the club, along with Ian St John, was credited by the legendary Bill Shankly as being the turning point to propel Liverpool to the top of the English game in the 1960s. Prior to their signings Liverpool had been jogging along as a middling Second Division club. So impressed was Shankly by Yeats that he immediately made him captain. Promotion followed straightaway, then two Championships sandwiched Liverpool’s first ever FA Cup win. Such was his stature that he was nicknamed “The Colossus”.
Given all that it now seems surprising that Yeats was only ever capped by Scotland twice.
Ronald (Ron) Yeats: 15/11/1937 – 6/9/2024. So it goes.
