His yodelling style was not really to my taste but he certainly sounded distinctive.
In a commemoration like this, for this particular singer, there is only one song which is appropriate. The first of three consecutive UK No. 1s for him.
Frank Ifield: I Remember You
Frank (Francis Edward) Ifield: 30/11/1937 – 18/5/2024. So it goes.
Jimmy James and the Vagabonds is a band name I remember from the 60s. But I can’t say I could remember hearing any of their tracks. Their name appeared in the music newspapers of the day as a gigging and support band.
Lead Singer Jimmy James died a few weeks ago and his obituary was in The Guardian.
It was their version of the Neil Diamond song Red, Red Wine (a no 36 in 1968) that UB 40 latched onto to give them one of their biggest hits.
This was their first though very minor hit, a no 53 in 1967.
Jimmy James and the Vagabonds: I Can’t Get Back Home to My Baby
Jimmy (Michael) James: 13/9/1940 – 14/5/2024. So it goes.
I saw in the Guardian’s obituary column that Clarence “Frogman” Henry left us in April. So called because of the croak he employed in his first US hit Ain’t Got No Home, he only had three hits in the UK. I don’t remember ever hearing Lonely Street, but You Always Hurt the One You Love and (I Don’t Know Why) But I Do certainly rang a bell
Clarence “Frogman” Henry: (I Don’t Know Why) But I Do
Clarence “Frogman” Henry: 19/3/1937 – 7/4/2024. So it goes.
As I mentioned last week, Duane Eddy, the man who inspired so many electric guitarists of the 1960s, has died. He conjured a distinctive twang from his instrument.
This 1959 track, Peter Gunn, written by Henry Mancini for a TV series, might have been the inspiration for the theme tunes of all those 1960s spy movies. It certainly suited Eddy’s style.
Duane Eddy: Peter Gunn
DJ Johnnie Walker loved Eddy’s tune Because They’re Young (1960) so much that it became Walker’s signature tune.
Duane Eddy: Because They’re Young
But it is perhaps this track which is most appropriate for this post.
No sooner had I heard the news on the radio that Duane Eddy had died (and Richard Tandy of ELO too) than I opened the Guardian’s obituary page to find that Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues has made his final voyage.
Pinder was the last of the original five members of the Moody Blues still standing. Now only Justin Hayward and John Lodge remain of the later classic line-up.
Pinder’s contribution to that classic line-up was immense. It is fair to say that without his ability on the mellotron (an instrument he personally brought to the attention of The Beatles) The Moody Blues would not have sounded as they did, nor had the same success.
His piano solo on the original group’s biggest hit Go Now was no small part of its effectiveness.
This song written by Pinder was the B-side to Ride My See-saw but later appeared on the odd album Caught Live + Five. It was later a hit for The Four Tops but as usual Levi Stubbs shouted his way through it.
The Moody Blues: A Simple Game
This is another of my favourite Pinder songs:-
The Moody Blues: The Best Way to Travel (from In Search of the Lost Chord)
I always loved the piano ending to this track which was sandwiched between Have You Heard Part 1 and Have You Heard Part 2 on the LP On the Threshold of a Dream.
The Moody Blues: The Voyage
Michael Thomas (Mike) Pinder: 27/12/1941 – 24/4/2024. So it goes.
This was Love Affair’s second last UK hit (out of five) but was the least successful in terms of chart position. It’s a better song than the other four though.
When I first heard this I thought – because of the band’s name Reparata and the Delrons, very Fireball XL5 or Space: 1999 – the ship must be a space ship. Of course the clanking bell should have let me know it was perhaps a river boat.
Though the song didn’t even make the US top 100 it reached no 13 in the UK.
And now Mary Weiss, lead singer of US female vocal group The Shangri-Las, has died.
The group is perhaps best known for the teen gothic tragedy song Leader of the Pack. But this was their first (and only other) UK hit. Unusually for a clip of an early 1960s hit this is in colour.
The Shangri-Las: Remember (Walking in the Sand)
Mary Louise Weiss: 28/12/1948 –19/1/2024. So it goes.
This is one of those emanations of 1960s “swinging London” that never really resonated with anyone who lived hundreds of miles away from the place. It’s a pleasant enough ditty I suppose but I don’t recall it troubling the charts.
