The song was written by Gavin Sutherland and Rod Stewart later had a big hit with his version but this is the original.

I actually saw The Sutherland Brothers and Quiver playing live in Glasgow just after they’d had a couple of hits.

The Sutherland Brothers Band: Sailing

The Small Faces and The Faces were both talent filled bands whose members were not just adjuncts to lead singers Steve Marriott and Rod Stewart. Guitarist Ronnie Wood famously went on to join The Rolling Stones.

Bass guitarist Ronnie Lane also had a (relatively) successful post Faces existence making several albums with his band Slim Chance – curtailed somewhat by the diagnosis of his multiple sclerosis in the 1970s wich eventually led to his death in 1997. So it goes.

The Poacher was one of his hits.

Ronnie Lane (and Slim Chance): The Poacher

Just to show that, even putting Bob Dylan to one side, the 1960s were not a singer/songwriter desert.

Tim Hardin: How Can We Hang On To A Dream?

Hardin wrote a lot of good songs including:

Reason To Believe, better known perhaps for Rod Stewart’s version.

If I Were A Carpenter a hit for The Four Tops

and The Lady Came From Baltimore (loads of people.)

One of the few bands from Scotland to make it (relatively) big, The Sutherland Brothers teamed up with Quiver in 1973, after which they had their greatest success.

The Sutherland Brothers most famous song is probably the pre-Quiver era Sailing but of course that was only because Rod Stewart recorded it.

Their later song Arms of Mary actually made the UK top ten in 1976 but this one was a more minor hit. I still prefer it though.

The Sutherland Brothers and Quiver: (I Don’t Want To Love You But) You Got Me Anyway

The good lady told me she caught Mike d’Abo (the former Manfred Mann frontman, successor to Paul Jones) on TV last week talking about one of the songs he wrote, Handbags And Gladrags. She got the impression it had been written for Rod Stewart but I said I was sure Chris Farlowe had recorded it first.

D’Abo apparently said he had to write a woodwind part for Stewart but since he doesn’t write music he had to have someone transcribe it.

Whatever, the song has since become more widely known as a result of The Stereophonics recording and the version which was used as the theme music for Ricky Gervais’s “The Office” TV series.

I dislike the Stewart and Stereophonics versions both. (I can’t remember “The Office” one clearly. I didn’t watch that show.)

In theirs the relevant lyric is rendered as:-
“the handbags and the gladrags that your grandad had to sweat to buy you,”
which is okay but implies a willing benevolence on the grandad’s part and is rather sweet.

However it means something completely different – and much less damning – compared to the original:-
“the handbags and the gladrags that your grandad had to sweat so you could buy,”
which is more redolent of the wastrel ways of an ungrateful grandchild.

This is Chris Farlowe’s version (from 1968):-

There is, by the way, a connection of sorts between Chris Farlowe and myself. But I don’t want to make too much of it as I have read he has become something of a right winger and BNP adherent. (If this is not the case I apologise to him.)

There are no prizes for getting the connection as it’s pretty obvious.

I mentioned Australian band Python Lee Jackson in a recent post about the Nice.

Despite the band’s origins the voice doing the singing here is unmistakable – and not Australian. There are varying accounts of how Rod Stewart came to do the vocal on this track.

In A Broken Dream was, I believe, the first single – as opposed to EP (ask your Mum or Dad; or even your Grandad) – in the UK to have a picture sleeve. Prior to that each label had its own generic sleeve with a circular cut out so that you could see the label, song title, artist, composer, lyricist and copyright info printed on the label. These would have a lower unit cost as they were used for every single the label put out.

You Tube had this listed under Rod Stewart, despite the fact it wasn’t released under his name. I had heard Rod no longer wished to be associated with this track and hounded unmercifully those who referred to it.

Blame You Tube, Rod, not me.

Edited to add: Rod now seems to have come to terms with this as I’ve since seen him perform it on TV.