I saw in the Guardian on Wednesday that Chip Taylor has died.

Though he was a performer in his own right he is better known as a songwriter; perhaps best remembered for Wild Thing, a song The Troggs had a huge hit with and was then taken up by Jimi Hendrix.  The Troggs later recorded Taylor’s very different Any Way That You Want Me but in the meantime Taylor composed Angel of the Morning,  brought to prominence by Merrilee Rush and later a hit in the UK for P P Arnold.

I must confess that until I read Taylor’s wiki page  I hadn’t realised that he was a brother of actor Jon Voight (and therefore uncle to Angelina Jolie) nor that he had co-written I Can’t Let Go, a UK no. 2 for The Hollies in 1966.

The Hollies: I Can’t Let Go

James Wesley Voight (Chip Taylor): 21/3/1940 – 23/3/2026. So it goes.

Coincidences and confluences. P P Arnold, who was the backing singer on The Small Faces’ Tin Soldier which I featured recently, also had a great influence on The Nice whom I mentioned several months ago now. They were formed to be her backing band. However they quickly broke off to do their own thing.

Angel Of The Morning is the object of the most spectacular mishearing of a lyric I have ever encountered. Someone I was acquainted with once asked the good lady and myself why the singer (Angel has been covered by just about everybody – I think it was the Merrilee Rush version) was asking her lover to, “just brush my teeth before you leave me.”

It is of course, “just touch my cheek.”

And yes, Jim, I did split an infinitive up there.

P P Arnold: Angel of the Morning

Just brush my teeth before you leave me….