Screaming Lord Sutch

[Graham]

I deal ONLY in 78s, Graham.

Nice try about the 20s-30s blues. I know how much they sell for. I know someone who bought one for several thousand pounds two years ago.

The answer is 'no'. I sometimes get a Billie Holiday or Bessie Smith, but if you're looking for the likes of Blind Lemon Jefferson Wee-Wee, you're barking up the wrong tree at Satan's crossroads!

PHILIP

Philip,

Yes, well! I don't deal in records, but do have a huge interest in the blues and have a (very) small collection of 78's which I would never sell so don't even ask....

....no, I don't know of anyone who has an original Terraplane Blues, either.

Cheers,

Graham

[sdreid]

I miss Lord Bucket Head.

[Limehouse]

Hi Limehouse!

Looking at the YouTube clip I'd say Heinz wasn't singing, either! If that isn't miming, I dunno what is!

What a shame about your close brush with stardom! Who knows what this might have led to? But family comes before fame, every time.

A bloke I worked with years and years back played bass for various local bands around Brum, and just happened to answer an ad in Melody Maker asking for bass-players to audition as session musicians. He auditioned, and got the job as bass-player in The Overlanders, a 'synthetic' group formed by a record-company to make a cover of 'Michelle' by The Beatles. A short time later the record was at No 1 and I don't think my acquaintance even played on it! Anyway, he milked his sudden fame for all it was worth and I believe he now runs a bar in Nashville. Bloody good luck to him, I say!

I'm close to retirement and still waiting to be discovered....sniff.

Cheers,

Graham

Hi Graham,

Melody Maker! Oh, that takes me back! I always read that in the 1970s. My husband (snob) ridicules me and says I should have read NME!

When I lived in good old Chingford (where my family still live) a bloke up the road was a dummer in a band. He was mates with my brother-in-law and one day my sister phoned me in great excitement to tell me that Charlie was going to be in the group picked to perform the UKs entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. He was the dummer in Coco! That was the begining of the end for UK entries!! I loved the Overlander's version of Michelle.

George/Phillip, I doubt the film was Live it Up either. My brother was 13 at the time and it was most likely wishful thinking!

I adored Norman Wisdom as a child. I absolutely loved him to bits. A while back i saw a programme about his relationship with his family and it put me right off. he never stops being 'Norman' and always has to be showing off to everyone. Poor man, he's over 90 now and rather sweet but can't accept that he's not the big star he was. Having said that, I think he's massively popularin Albania.

Cheers

Limehouse

[George Hutchinson]

I miss Lord Bucket Head.

He still posts here, Stan. His ID is...

No. I won't.

PHILIP

[BillyE]

Hi Philip. I've heard three different performances of Lord Sutch singing "Jack the Ripper" and only in the 1977 rather discoish version do you hear him say "Mary Kelly", but I'm thinking it was always the lyric. My guess, and probably a poor guess, is he thought it more dramatic, scary, cinematic, atmosphiric, or whatever to scream, and scare the audience when he got to the name part of the song. Or at least that's how it seemed to me.

[George Hutchinson]

Hi Billy.

The 1963 recording - the original Decca record - isn't a scream. It's a kind of laughing mumble. He's definitely not saying the words 'Mary Kelly'. I discussed this matter with his biographer a couple of years back and he felt the same.

PHILIP

[anna]

Hi Philip,
Just got back onto this thread,and saw your reply.
Have to ask him the story again, but if I recall correctly Meek was returning from the studio when he saw the boys hanging around....being the 60's according to Gerry he hung around quite a few places..coffee houses,record shops etc!(He had a winklepicker and Brylcream addiction also)..he still wears winklepickers today!!!!!! I think it is almost certain that he has the tape.
His mum recalls the day when she got the phone call,and how worried she was that her little Gerry would be corrupted by the world of music!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! Previous to this.......
He has tons of stories from the time, including when his poor old mum packed little Gerry off to get himself a "Saturday job"...he came back with a smile on his face because he'd wandered into a record shop which evidently had a bit of card in the window with "Saturday boy wanted" on it!(Shangri-la for him).The young man behind the counter "took him on" instantly and on his frist Saturday showed him the ropes and looked after the new recruit..as they did in the those days...his name was David Bowie..they discovered they lived around the corner from each other and used to listen to music and "jam" together...Gerry had this really really useless,ready for firewood,guitar that a neighbour gave him.Gerry's mum recalled how she'd run around to David's mum when either his tea was ready,or to find out where they'd got to.
You'd love Gerry.......he's a real relic of the 60's.....

[anna]

Hi all,
Oh goodness me,I have my mums collection of 78's...both 7 & 12 inch...hope that's right...anyway,small and big records,the small one's are in an original music cardboard box.
She was a Jazz and Blues fan,I know Ella Fitzgerald is in there.
It's such a shame that they have just sat in a cupboard since she died,I just couldn't throw them away when I cleared the house out.
I have been looking for a way to get them back into circulation,as mum would have loved them to have been passed on to other fans of the music she loved.
When we were at the Jazz Cafe I said to Gerry I'd ask people who were coming in after we were finished if any of them would like them, but I have compiled a list,and didn't have it on me.
Will list them a bit later on,as the list is in my bedroom.
I have some Music Hall ones and a couple of Coronation ones of Queen Mary(I think,without looking)which I want to keep.

[Robert]

Hi Anna

I think you mean ten inch and twelve inch. Old 78 records are lovely things. The problem is finding something to play them on.

Robert

[anna]

Hi Robert,
Thanks for the reply,trust me to get it wrong!
Yes they are a lovely reminder of times gone by...

[George Hutchinson]

Well, I have no trouble selling 78s; I'm one of the biggest sellers of that format on eBay in the UK. I have a modern professional studio deck that only plays 78s myself - the needles alone cost £100+.

Anna - You've got Ella Fitzgerald in a cardboard box?

What's this about Queen Mary's Coronation? Do you mean the one in the 16th Century? The only disc I know with Queen Mary is the George V Empire Day Speech 78 from 1932 (I think). Purple label, HMV, with small cartouches of the King and Queen at the top. Is that the one you have? Last time I had a copy of that one I sold it for over £50 and it cost me a fiver. I'd be interested to know what Music Hall ones you have (I have NEVER found a copy of ONLY A VIOLET - hope springs eternal). Music Hall, of course, gave us the first recorded mentions of JTR from both Bransby Williams' THE CARETAKER (Columbia, 1912) and shortly afterwards one I discovered a couple of years back, COHEN IS ARRESTED FOR EXCEEDING THE SPEED LIMIT by Michael Hayman (Regal, 1915).

BTW, being pedantic - the guy in the record shop was probably called David Jones at the time. He only became David Bowie in 1967 when he found out that Davy Jones was in The Monkees. I've seen him being interviewed on TV in 1964 as David Jones but by the time he was recording his fine early stuff on the Deram label, it was David Bowie.

And all this before I was born. Ha ha.

PHILIP

[Limehouse]

My brother and sister were twleve and eight years older than me respectively. Most of my cousins were in that age bracket also. Therefore, I grew up listening to stacks of 60s music. When I hit my teens in the 1970s I still preferred 60s music. Once day I heard 'Starman' on a friend's radio and became hooked on Bowie. I am still hooked. Through the different phases of his music, you can hear so many influences, and yet he made it seem so original. It is impossible for me to pick a favourite track and everytime I listen to his music, I pick up something new.

[jimarilyn]

Anna - You've got Ella Fitzgerald in a cardboard box?

Ella, what a voice !! Arguably the finest female singer of the 20th Century. Her version of "I love Paris" is sublime

[jimarilyn]

Recently came across an excellent song (featured on the the end credits of a movie I was watching) by a guy I'd never heard of before, Peter Wolf. The title of the song is "Nothing but the wheel". Brilliant, he sounds uncannily like a young Bob Dylan (a certain Michael Jagger joins in on vocals in the second part of the song). Check it out if you like good music.

[jimarilyn]

Another sublime piece of music is Max Bruch's "Violin Concerto No.1", powerful, beautiful, poignant.