And on Wednesday it was the turn of Jeff Beck to leave us too early. He was one of that group of English exponents of the electric guitar which sprang up in the early to mid-sixties. But Beck was the electric guitarist’s electric guitarist.
Sadly he never gained the commercial success on his own account to match his status with his peers. He really only had the one hit and that track, Hi-Ho Silver Lining, wasn’t representative of Beck’s musical tastes.
Another Graham Gouldman composition; but this one was most definitely a hit – for the almost anodyne Herman’s Hermits. In the US, where the Hermits had huge success, it was only released as a B-side but in the UK it reached no. 7 in 1966.
No Milk Today is lyrically very curious as a pop song, what with its emphasis on the down side of life. It has a very British feel to it, though, with its evocation of the daily morning delivery and terraced housing, “just two up, two down.” Nowadays the line, “the company was gay,” is likely to be read differently from back then!
For some reason I really like the bells in the “but all that’s left” sections of this.
Herman’s Hermits: No Milk Today
It seems the Hermits also recorded a version of Tallyman (see last week’s post) but it was never released, being thought not commercial enough by the group’s producer Mickie Most. This is a version they recorded in a BBC session. It’s introduced by the voice of Radio 2’s Sounds of the Sixties, Brian Matthew.
I mentioned when I began this category that The Jeff Beck Group’s Hi-Ho Silver Lining had been the runner-up in the competition which started off these musings.
Tallyman was The Jeff Beck Group’s follow-up single and as far as I recall failed to trouble the charts in any way and as a result is much less known these days than its predecessor. Tallyman has the distinction of being written by Graham Gouldman who composed 60s hits for among others The Yardbirds and The Hollies. Gouldman is now more famous for being a member of 10cc.
