Not Friday on my Mind 64: Semi-Detached Suburban Mr James – RIP Geoff Stephens
Posted in Events dear boy. Events, Music, 1960s, Friday On My Mind at 20:30 on 29 December 2020
Song writer Geoff Stephens has died. The obituaries all mentioned Winchester Cathedral which was a hit for the group he set up, The New Vaudeville Band, no 1 in the US but no 4 in the UK. His song-writing CV is impressive (see link above.)
Co-written with John Carter, this was the third Manfred Mann single to feature Mike d’Abo on lead vocals and a no 2 UK hit. The lyric kind of prefigures the line, “She settled for suburbia and a little patch of land” in Albert Hammond’s The Free Electric Band.
The sound and vision in this Top of the Pops appearance aren’t quite in synch. (They are in this clip but the vision quality is poorer. Filmed off a TV screen I suppose.)
Manfred Mann: Semi-Detached Suburban Mr James
Geoffrey (Geoff) Stephens: 1/10/1934 – 24/12/2020. So it goes.