CBVD Episode 19

The latest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now up on Mixcloud, with an hour of all-vinyl tunes sourced from car boot sales and charity shops.  Featured artists include Sylvester, The B52s, Wings, Isaac Hayes, Harry Stoneham and loads more.

Use the player below or follow the link to the show page.



https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-19/

CBVD Episode 18

The newest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now online, with tunes from The Bodines, Frank Sidebottom, The Fall, Nina Simone, Londonbeat, Syreeta, and loads more, including Barbra Streisand covering David Bowie.

Use the player below or click the link to go to the page.  Happy listening!




https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-18/

Good Morning Good Morning

One sunny morning over the Easter hols this year I was pleased to find this record at a midweek car boot sale, still in great condition and costing just a pound.

Various Artists - Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father (1988)

Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father was organised by the New Musical Express and put out on their own record label in order to raise money for the charity Childline, founded two years before.  The NME managed to persuade a variety of artists to record covers of songs from this most beloved Fabs album, and it resulted in quite the mixed bag.

Low points are Hue & Cry's irritating jazz-funk Fixing A Hole, the two renditions of the title track by UK hip hop act The Three Wize Men, and UK no.1 single by Wet Wet Wet With A Little Help From My Friends.  I've just learned that the latter was in fact a double a-side with Billy Bragg's She's Leaving Home, which as far as I remember got none of the TV or radio plays, which is a shame as it's pretty good, especially in comparison with the inescapable Pellow smugfest on the flip.

Highlights include Sonic Youth's feedback-laden Within You Without You, Michelle Shocked's rather lovely Lovely Rita, and Frank Sidebottom's bonkers cover of Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite.  Top prize goes to The Fall, however, for an excellent effort on closer A Day In The Life, complete with runout groove gobbledegook.  All in all a good quid's worth and an odd little sort of time capsule from when the original Pepper was just 21 years old.


Also costing £1 was B.W. Goes C&W by Bobby Womack.

Bobby Womack - BW Goes C&W (1976)

United Artists weren't happy about soul singer Womack's desire to make an album of country covers, particularly in '76 when a move into disco would have been the obvious career move.  But when Bobby told them he wanted to call it "Step Aside Charley Pride, Give Another Nigger A Try", they let him go ahead with the project under the condition the title was changed to something more, er... commercial.  It sold poorly anyway, so I knew nothing about it until I spied it on a blanket on the ground at a chilly car boot sale in February.  As a lover of country soul I wasn't going to leave it there in the pile of Jim Reeves and Don Williams, especially with the wonderful front cover image, plus Bobby looking cool-as-heck on the back:

Photo from rear cover. A cropped version of this image was also used
on the country soul compilation Dirty Laundry: The Soul Of Black Country.

With Bobby's soulful takes on Charlie Rich's Behind Closed Doors (from the charity shop classic album of the same name), Eddy Arnold's Bouquet Of Roses, and an absolutely charming duet with his father Friendly Womack Sr. on Tarnished Rings, BW Goes C&W is something of a hidden gem, and a must-listen for country soul fans.  Only Big Bayou jars a little, but that's due more to the comparative tone than its execution.

You can hear three tracks from the album on the latest installment of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries, since it was this episode's Featured Album.

I spotted this great record sleeve in a local hospice shop recently, so naturally had to take a closer look.

Various Artists - Surprise Partie - Tous Les Jeunes (1973)
"Putting young people in the spotlight", according to translation of the sleeve notes.

Promotional sticker by Hennessy.

The term 'surprise partie' in France once meant much the same as it did elsewhere, but from around the 1950s it came to mean any impromptu get-together by young people, paticularly teenagers, with the "surprise" part no longer relevant.  Of course the record industry made the most of this trend, in particular Disque Vogue who really embraced the concept, putting out loads of albums on this theme in the 1960s:

A small selection of 'surprise partie' themed LPs from Disque Vogue.
I've no idea what the Guinea pig and penguin logos represent.

Surprise Partie - Tous Les Jeunes, which cost me a pound, plunders Disques Vogue's '60s vaults for recordings by a variety of pop singers and instrumental groups.  François Hardy and Petula Clark are well represented with three songs each, including a wonderful vocal version of The Shadows' Foot Tapper by Pet, called Mon Bonheur Danse ('My Dancing Happiness', according to Google translate) and of course François' hardy perennial Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles.

Others artists include guitar-wielding duo Les "Faux" Frères, who sound like they modelled themselves on the Everly Brothers; rock 'n' roll / surf 4-piece The "Octopus"; and a handful of solo artists, such as Stella, a teen pop singer whose songs have been described as "parodies of the Yé-yé style" and "engagingly sarcastic".  (These days she's a vocalist with French proggers and Steve Davis favourites Magma, after wedding drummer and founder Christian Vander.)

You can hear the Petula Clark track mentioned above on the latest Car Boot Vinyl Diaries, alongside those from Bobby Womack, plus lots more car boot and charity shop vinyl.  But first, here are The "Octopus" with their track Hurricane, played from the original EP on a tasty looking Dansette.

Cloudcast Episode17

Episode 17 of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now on Mixcloud for your listening pleasure, with tunes freshly plucked from the fields of Suffolk.  With a country soul gem for the Featured Album, a double bill for Novelty Island and a great long song for The Boot Of Loot, there's probably something for everyone.

Listen using the player below, or click the link to go to the show page.  And have a great Easter weekend!

Picture This

On visits to car boot sales I often see LPs and singles produced to exploit the lucrative children's market, many of them relating to successful films and TV shows, and the majority featuring characters and stories from cartoon animations.

At a chilly boot sale at the end of October last year I was delighted to spot this, and quickly snapped it up for £1:

More Willo The Wisp Stories - Narrated by Kenneth Williams (1983)

This LP on the BBC's in-house record label contains the audio from twelve episodes of the hugely popular TV series Willo The Wisp, of which there were 26 episodes in all (if you don't include a 90s remake, which I don't).  A dozen more can be found on the 1981 original release titled simply 'Willo The Wisp', but that one is seemingly a little harder to find.

The great Kenneth Williams voices the narrator of the title, and lead character Mavis, the very definition of an airy-fairy, with a heart of gold and a head full of not very much.  Williams' astonishing array of comic voices also brings to life her friends, who include Arthur, the cockney know-it-all caterpillar; and Moog (my favourite), a friendly but brainless dog-like character who regularly demonstrates that ignorance is indeed bliss.  The villain of Doyley Woods is Evil Edna; a walking, talking television set with wickedly magical antennae.  This used to make me and my sisters laugh a lot, since we have a nana named Edna.

Although some of the visual gags are lost without the animation, the 5-minute stories are still as sharp and funny as I remember them, in particular one called Magic Golf where poor Mavis (or "Mave" as Arthur calls her) loses the star on the end of her wand and with the help of her chums has to wing an inspection from the Dept. of Spells & Magic in order to advance to the position of 2-Star Fairy.

The collection is littered with fab BBC sound effects, including some some lovely Radiophonic Workshop-evoking "zap"s on The Joys Of Spring.  And of course you get the theme music bookending each story, that will take those of a certain age straight back to weekday teatimes just before the 5:40pm news.  Happily, a whole bunch can be found on YouTube, and since it's the appropriate time of year, here's The Joys Of Spring.

Be careful though; if you're anything like me you'll be drawn into a Willo The Wisp rabbit hole for the next couple of hours.

Well all right, just one more.  Here's The Thoughts Of Moog:

Bought the same day and also costing a pound was this LP from Hanna-Barbera Productions:

Yogi Bear and Boo Boo - Little Red Riding Hood and Jack & The Beanstalk
(1977)

Tucked up in their cave for winter, here Jellystone's smarter-than-average bear tells his old pal Boo Boo a couple of pre-hibernation bedtime stories.  The whole thing has a fun 60s vibe, the opening theme a perfect beat group pastiche, and Jack of Beanstalk fame described by Yogi as a dropout who'd sold all his personal possessions, "even his Beatle records" - imagine that!  Funniest of all is Little Red Riding Hood, portrayed as a sneaker-wearing, scooter-riding, jive-talking (she calls her Grandmother "baby") teenager.  Just like the original Red she takes zero nonsense from the Big Bad Wolf, but in this incarnation adds some Judo moves to subdue him, rather than relying on some random man with an axe to turn up and save her.

The almost constant incidental music and zippy SFX keep the stories moving at an engaging pace, and both tales are summed up in song; Jack's by a minstrel wielding a jangly guitar, and Red's in the form of a beat-style reading over a cool, finger-snappin' jazzy background.  Groovy.


In August last year I bought a pile of 50 pence 7" singles from one stall, among them this little beauty:

Tweety Pie - I Taut I Taw A Puddy Tat b/w Bugs Bunny - I'm Glad That I'm
Bugs Bunny (1970)

This 1970 single is on Music For Pleasure's children's imprint 'Surprise Surprise', and contains two Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies songs recorded and originally released on 78rpm shellac in 1950.  They feature three characters from the "Man Of 1000 Voices" Mel Blanc; Tweety and his nemesis Sylvester on I Taut I Taw A Puddy Tat (as played on the latest CBVD cloudcast) and our favourite rabbit on the b-side, with I'm Glad That I'm Bugs Bunny.  Both sign off with the Looney Tunes, er, tune, which is worth the 50p alone as far as I'm concerned.

Less good value for money was this, bought for £1 the following weekend:

Scooby Doo and the Snowmen Mystery (1973)

Scooby Doo and the Snowmen Mystery was released in 1973 as part of Music For Pleasure's 'Merry Go Round' series.  I was quite excited to find this, until upon listening it became clear that MfP's budget didn't run to hiring Don Messick and co. to play their parts, or even to licencing original material from CBS.  Instead, a handful of British voice actors were employed, which unfortunately is glaringly obvious from the collection of ropey US accents on display.  Fred actually sounds more like the original Shaggy, but worst of all is poor Daphne; saddled with a gruffer voice than the original Velma, she gives Dick Van Dyke's cockney chimney sweep a run for his money in the comedy accent stakes, as well as sounding like she's got a serious problem with tranquilisers.

Still, if you can get past this, the story isn't so bad.  After more beat group pastiche on intro song Mystery Incorporated the gang interrupt their vacation to investigate strange goings-on in Switzerland.  Their adventures lead them to uncover the usual plot by a super-baddie to take over the world, and there are some decent sound effects and musical interludes to keep things fresh.

Here's a small taste of Scoob and Shaggy's dialogue, followed by the Bacharach-ian What Would I Do Without You, to play us out.

CBVD Cloudcast 16

The latest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now on Mixcloud, with all sorts of car boot bangers and chazza choons.  The Featured Album is a collection of BBC Sporting Themes, there's a a great French-language Kinks cover from Petula Clark, and the rest of it runs the gamut from Tom Waits to Tweety Pie.

Use the player below or visit the CBVD Mixcloud page https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/

5x7

As I've mentioned before, I don't always have the patience to look through boxes of 7" singles, but when albums are thin on the ground I sometimes have a rummage, and somehow over the past 12 months I've amassed quite a few.  Here's a somewhat random selection.

Bought for 50p at a car boot sale last August was this well-known record from British vocal trio The Avons.

The Avons - Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat b/w Alone At Eight (1959)

After an inauspicious start, sister-in-law duo The Avon Sisters (stepsisters Valerie and Elaine Murtagh) dropped the "Sister" part of their name and teamed up with singer Ray Adams.  Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat was their debut single and their biggest hit, topping out at no.3 in the UK.  The song was first recorded earlier that year by US singer Paul Evans, who took it to no.9 in his home country.

I'm very fond of this cheeky but wholesome pop song about a frustrated motorist (driving what must be a fair sized vehicle considering the passenger load) and his polyamorous pal, especially the pleasing "de-doody-doom-doom" backing vox.

From the same seller and also costing 50p was another old favourite on Columbia, this time from Bobby Vinton.

Bobby Vinton - Blue Velvet b/w Is There A Place (Where I Can Go) (1963)

Blue Velvet was a top 20 hit for Tony Bennett in 1951, then The Clovers in 1955 and The Statues in '59.  Vinton had the most success with it, his piningly nostalgic rendition bagging two weeks at the top spot in the US in 1963.  Although it didn't dent the UK chart, it eventually achieved a no.2 placing in 1990 when it was re-released, four years after it had been heavily featured in David Lynch's noir of the same name inspired by the song.  The most recent version was Lana Del Ray's brooding interpretation, used in a TV ad for H&M in 2012.

Car boot season isn't up and running in my part of the world just yet, so I've been relying on the local charity shops for second hand music fixes.  This has meant mostly CDs, but a couple of weeks ago I bought the first lot of chazza vinyl of 2017; a handful of 50p singles including this on Disques Vogue from Pet Clark.

Petula Clark - Il Faut Revenir (You'd Better Come Home) b/w Un Jeun Home Bien (1965)

Founded in 1947, Disques Vogue began by releasing jazz by American and French artists, expanding into pop towards the end of the '50s.  Petula Clark signed with the label in 1957 and started having French-language hits in Europe as well as continuing to chart at home in the UK on Pye Records with songs sung in English.  She also recorded material in Italian, Spanish and German, and her worldwide smash Downtown was released in four different languages.

Il Faut Revenir (You'd Better Come Home) came out in 1965, and the b-side is a very tasty French-language cover of A Well Respected Man by label-mates the Kinks.  This cover was also released as an a-side the same year on the Vogue Productions imprint, with a song called Las Vegas on the flip.


Also on Disques Vogue is this by François Hardy, bought at a boot sale last summer (another 50p-er).

François Hardy - Si C'est Ca b/w Je Serai La Pour Toi (1966)

Parisienne swoon-inducing pop singer Hardy joined Vogue in 1961, and like Clark sings in Italian and German as well as French and English.  This single (the titles translate as If This Is It and I'll Be There For You) was a British release, made in England and distributed by Pye.  Both sides are lovely; Si C'est Ca features just minimal guitar behind Hardy's enchanting vocal, but the slightly more produced b-side Je Serai La Pour Toi just edges it for me.

Pye's association with Disques Vogue meant that they put out this next single on both imprints.  I bought a copy in a local E.A.C.H. (East Anglian Children's Hospice) shop at the very end of December last year for a pound.  (Sadly mine is the UK Pye version, not the rather sought-after French release.)

The Honeycombs - Have I The Right? b/w Please Don't Pretend Again (1964)

The Honeycombs were a squareish sixties London beat group, and were unusual for their time in having a female drummer; Ann 'Honey' Lantree, an ex-salon assistant to founding member and former hairdresser Martin Murray (rhythm guitar).  Have I The Right? was written by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikely, who'd later go on to write for many other artists, including Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky Mick & Tich, Pet Clark, Lulu and, er, Rolf Harris.  Produced by Joe Meek, the thumping beat of HITR? was bolstered by band members stomping on the stairs to the studio, to which Meek had attached a series of microphones using bicycle clips.  This beefy stomp plus the novelty of a big-haired girl drummer helped propel the single to the top of the charts in the UK plus three other countries, with worldwide sales estimated at a million.  Pye's canny practise of putting out multi-lingual releases was employed, with the German-language version reaching the same place in the German chart a month after the English original, and the label's penchant for artistic cross-pollination resulted in the band's fourth single being a cover of a Kinks song.  It was called Something Better Beginning, and it flopped.  Here they are with their smash hit to see us out.

You can keep up with all of my car boot and chazza finds by clicking the Twitter follow button at the top of the page, and hear me playing some of them on the all-vinyl cloudcast here: https://www.mixcloud.com/carbootvinyldiaries/

The good, the bad and the ugly

In the previous post on a Terence Trent D'Arby album I mentioned a hot August day last year when I returned home from a boot sale with quite a large haul of records, including several 78rpm singles.  Due to their age these are often the most interesting kind of car boot record, not only giving us an idea of the musical trends of their time, but also social mores and popular attitudes.  I bought ten in all on that sunny Sunday, and they cost 50p each.  Let's have a look at a few.

The oldest of the lot is a slightly strange-looking disc with a raised edge at the outer rim and a rather non-shellac feel to it.  It's also heavier than other 78s I've previously encountered.

Spot the odd one out.

The disc was produced by Zonophone Records in 1911 and is a double-sided reissue of two single-sided records originally released in 1905 and 1906, hence "The Twin" label.  At this time the recordings would have been made acoustically (i.e. into a horn), since electrical recording wasn't developed until the 1920s.

The Minster Singers - My Old Kentucky Home b/w De Ring Tailed Coon (1911)

Performed by a British quartet named The Minster Singers , Side 1 is a version of My Old Kentucky Home; an anti-slavery ballad written in the mid-1800s by American songwriter Stephen Foster.  Whereas My Old Kentucky Home is a song sympathetic to the abolitionist cause and has evolved into an important part of American culture, Side 2, De Ring Tailed Coon, is a different kettle of fish.

From around 1880 to 1920 the in US, and to a lesser extent the UK, there was a craze for what were known as "Coon songs".  Yikes.  These songs incorporated elements of ragtime and combined them with 'comedic' lyrics portraying very cartoonish stereotypes of African American people, often depicting them as lustful, lazy, dishonest and stupid with vices such as gambling and alcohol.  In the UK, white "coon imitators" would perform them at music halls, and when I say there was a craze, I mean that the songs were enormously popular with the public at large, with sheet music selling in the millions in the English-speaking world, and the language and imagery filtering into art, film, commerce and even nursery rhymes, before eventually (and thankfully) falling out of favour.  De Ring Tailed Coon is from the repertoire of Yorkshireman Alfred Scott-Gatty, who when he wasn't busy being an officer of arms spent his time as an amateur composer.  He wrote a couple of dozen of these "Plantation Songs" as he called them, and they were to become his most popular works.

Both sides of the Minster Singers record are sung in a terrible accent meant to imitate that of enslaved African Americans, although to my ears sound more like dodgy attempts at a Scots accent.  Here's a Youtube video I found of Side 2 playing on a gramophone. I'd like to think it was actually just a song about a racoon, but.... well, listen for yourself.

No less interesting but much more enjoyable to listen to are a pair of singles by Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark.

Dinah Shore and Buddy Clarke - Let's Do It b/w 'S Wonderful (1948)

Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark - My One And Only Highland Fling b/w
Baby It's Cold Outside (1949)

Dinah Shore

Tennessee native Dinah, born Frances Rose Shore, was a singer, actress and radio and television presenter whose recording career boasted 80 hits, mainly during the 1940s.

Her long career on the small screen included a 1970s daytime show that amongst the usual light entertainment and lifestyle guest stars also numbered the likes of Iggy Pop and David Bowie.

Here's slightly fuzzy clip of them both on her couch:

Buddy Clark

Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1912, Buddy Clark rose to fame as a popular singer, beginning like most stars of his era on the radio before moving on to a career shifting shellac. His biggest hit came in 1946 with Linda, a song written by Jack Lawrence at the request of showbiz lawyer Jack Eastman for his six year-old daughter, future Beatle-botherer and veggie sausage saleswoman.

The first disc I bought by this wholesome duo is a perky Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love) from the pen of Cole Porter, backed by a breezy rendition of the Gershwin standard 'S Wonderful.  The other is My One And Only Highland Fling, originally from the 1949 movie The Barkleys of Broadway.  Dinah and Buddy's version features a ropey Scots lilt from both, but not as toe-curlingly bad as those of Fred and Ginger in the film.  The flip is a charming rendition of Baby It's Cold Outside complete with sound effects of a chilly wind and slamming door.

The same year as this latter single was released, Clark was killed in a plane crash.  He was just 37.  During his very last radio broadcast he'd performed a comic rendition of Baby Face with the Andrews Sisters, entertaining them and the studio audience with his impersonation of Al Jolson.  Funnily enough, among this particular clutch of 78s bought last August were discs featuring both.

Al Jolson

Vaudeville singer and actor Al Jolson is perhaps best remembered for sometimes performing in blackface, a branch of minstrelsy with a complex history that played its part in the cementing of racial stereotypes as well as the popularisation of black culture.

He was born Asa Yoelson in 1886 in a small Jewish village in Lithuania, and after his mother died young he and his family emigrated to the USA where Al became a megastar of stage and screen.  In addition to his musical legacy he did tremendous work during WWII with the USO (of which he was a founder member), and despite his conservative leanings was a key player in the fight against racial discrimination via the promotion of black playwrights and actors on Broadway and in Hollywood.

The record of his I picked up features songs from the follow-up to his 1927 film The Jazz Singer; The Singing Fool.

Al Jolson - Sonny Boy b/w There's A Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder (1928)

Sonny Boy is a song of cloying sentimentality, which obviously had great appeal, since it sold a million copies and remained at the top of the US charts for twelve weeks.  My favourite use of the song is in the "Tuppy and the Terrier" episode of the Jeeves and Wooster TV series, where it's used to excruciating effect.

Here's the more chirpy flip side There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder:

Like Jolson, The Andrews Sisters were of recent immigrant stock, their Greek father Anglicising the family name of Andreas upon his arrival in the USA.  The close harmony trio of LaVerne, Patty and Maxine sold countless millions of records in their time, and became forces sweethearts of WWII during which they entertained Allied forces on three continents with the USO.

The sisters recorded a total of 47 songs with Bing Crosby, including the pair on this car boot 78:

Bing  Crosby and The Andrews Sisters - Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?
b/w Quicksilver (1949)

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? (not the Van Morrison single) was released in late 1949 and charted in January 1950, peaking at no. 24.  It was written by country artist Scotty Wiseman and later covered by the likes of Elvis, Eddie Cochran and Ringo Starr among dozens of others.  Its b-side Quicksilver is a lighthearted number about a fickle lover, and fared better, climbing to no. 6.  Doris Day also released a version the same year.

Here are Bing and the gals to see us out:

I hope you've enjoyed this peep into the past.  To keep up with my car boot and chazza finds in real time you can follow me on Twitter by clicking the button at the top of the page.  If you'd like to hear me giving some of them a spin go to the Car Boot Vinyl Diaries page on Mixcloud.

Neither Fish Nor Flesh

On one hot Sunday in the middle of August last year the first car boot sale I arrived at was heaving from beginning to end with vinyl and shellac to dig through.  I bought so many 45s, 78s, 12"s and LPs that I ran out of time, pennies and inclination to go on to the next port of call, and so returned home with a record bag bursting with 26 discs in all, plus a multi CD set in a faux LP sleeve.

Phew. 78s weigh a lot.

Amongst this heavy haul was Terence Trent D'Arby's 1989 album Neither Fish Nor Flesh, bought in excellent condition with the original booklet intact for £2.

Terence Trent D'Arby - Neither Fish Nor Flesh (1989)

Inside booklet, with rice paper pages.

Definitely looks like fish to me, Terence.

From rear of booklet.

Subtitled "A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope and Destruction", this 2nd album from the Manhattan-born singer, songwriter and musician (now releasing music under the name Sananda Maitreya) followed 1987's multi-platinum "Introducing The Hardline According To...".  Unlike Hardline, NFNF tanked, peaking at no.12 on the UK album chart before dropping out entirely after just five weeks.  Lead single This Side of Love fared even worse, scraping into the Top 100 at just no.83.

It seems that a combination of ego and ambition scuppered the project, with D'Arby making wild proclamations both about himself and his latest work, with the latter sounding very different from the chart-friendly pop smashes that characterised his debut. Even today on his website Sananda makes outlandish claims, such as that NFNF was a "formative influence on both what subsequently became marketed as 'Hip Hop', as well as what was sold as 'Grunge'".

Maybe he truly believes this, but it's a huge shame that such posturing probably put a lot of fans off from buying what turns out to be a phenomenally good record; one that's perhaps borne of overindulgence and ego-led ambition, but succeeds in melding funk and R&B to catchy, psychedelic pop.  There's a huge cast of musicians, with D'Arby himself on a variety of instruments including Fender Rhodes, sitar, timpani, "scratching" and er, kazoo.  He's also credited with things like "Aural Manipulations" and "Sound Manifestations", not to mention the highly intriguing and un-Googlable "Other Phaqueries".  Hmm.


It starts quietly, the spoken-word Declaration: Neither Fish Nor Flesh giving way to the sparse but melodic I Have Faith In These Desolate Times, whose harp accompaniment by "The Lovely Helen Davies" (sleeve notes) in the first half is joined by Terence on bongos in the second, before an abrupt end.  After the eerie and equally sparse It Feels So Good To Love Someone Like You it's not until the middle of Side 1 that things really get going, with the sexy pop-soul of To Know Someone Deeply Is To Know Someone Softly when That Voice is finally unleashed; those sweet, silken tones hitting all the right buttons and delivering the most romantic and least pretentious lyrics on an album that has its fair share of cringeworthy couplets.

From here the tempo increases and the song titles become snappier, highlights being AIDS story Billy Don't Fall, its punchy percussion and whistling keyboard riff reminiscent of hit Wishing Well; the staccato funk of You Will Pay Tomorrow; and minor soul belter I'll Be Alright, with lyrical nods to Prince and the Beach Boys.

Towards the end of the album song titles stretch out again with a corresponding lowering of pace, firstly with powerful deep soul ballad I Don't Want To Bring Your Gods Down. Stax-y horns and D'Arby's full-throated wail contrast with an intermittent minor-key violin part; an unsettling but typical and effective TTD touch.  Closer ...And I Need To Be With Someone Tonight is a solo a cappella with layers of TTD harmony, engaging for the way in which he's clearly enjoying playing around with his voice, but spoiled somewhat by lyrics like the clunky, "Though apartheid's a greater issue, I long to hear "I miss you" ". Erk!

It's a damn shame that this album didn't sell well, and although D'Arby's posturing may have deterred potential buyers, the bigger factor may have been a lack of marketing push behind it due to the eccentric and ambitious nature of both the artist and his creation.  I only say this because after loving the debut, Neither Fish Nor Flesh seemed to entirely pass me by at the time, even though I eagerly bought the follow-up Symphony Or Damn. Perhaps if NFNF had contained a sure-fire 'hit' to promote as a single it would have done better.  Whatever the reasons, if you've not heard it I urge you to give it a whirl, in case like me it means you've been missing out on a massively enjoyable record all these years.