The Hollies “The Air That I Breathe” and “Creep” by Radiohead are both great songs right? But have you ever considered how similar they sound? Well Albert Hammond Jr’s (off of the Strokes) father Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood have a co writing credit for “Creep” owing to the similarity between that and “The Air That I Breathe”, particularly the chord progression. How come I didn’t know that until now and now I can hear it every time I listen to either song!
I was sad to hear the news that Phil Everly has died aged 74. Along with his older brother Don as the Everly Brothers they produced some amazing songs in the rock ‘n’ roll and pre-Beatles era. The Everlys had six UK number one singles from 1958 to 1961 and only three in the US Billboard charts. However they also had four number ones on the US Country chart and three on the US R & B chart. They topped the chart in Canada and Australia.
There magnificent harmonies influenced many pop and rock artists including Billie Joe Armstrong off of Green Day and Norah Jones who recently released a cover of the Everly Brothers album ‘Songs Our Daddy Taught Us’. Other artists greatly influenced by Phil and Don include the Hollies, the Beatles who said that the vocal arrangement for “Please Please Me” was based on “Cathy’s Clown”. Simon and Garfunkel were also big fans of the Everly Brothers and on hearing of Phil’s death Paul Simon said “Phil and Don were the most beautiful sounding duo I ever heard. Both voices pristine and soulful. The Everlys were there at the crossroads of country and R&B. They witnessed and were part of the birth of rock and roll.” I don’t think many people could sum the Everlys up better than that. My thoughts go out to Phil’s family, friends and fans across the globe. RIP Phil Everly.
As strange headlines go ‘Saddam’s Buttock Fails To Sell At Auction’ is surely among the best isn’t it? But what makes it even better is that it isn’t one of those ridiculous Sunday Sport “Elvis Is Alive And Lives In A London Bus On The Moon” type headlines; it’s actually true!
The cheek of it!
A former SAS man managed to retrieve part of Saddam’s posterior for posterity. (Two words I don’t think I’ve ever used in the same sentence before!) when the infamous statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down in central Baghdad back in 2003. He put it up for sale at an auction in Derbyshire in the UK.
The cheeky new owner was hoping to raise £250k for soldiers charities. When he was given the bums rush by potential purchasers with a maximum offer of some £21k he realised that he had just been going through the motions and he was gutted. But the idea has a nice ring to it so I believe that he should push hard to do it again and not just go home and sit on his stool. It certainly doesn’t stand up to much anal isys and maybe hard to digest, but perhaps he doesn’t have fart to go before a new owner plops some money into his back pocket to clench (sic) a deal on a number 2 auction.
With all the bottom references and it being nearly Halloween, how could I resist including this?
Read the story on the BBC by clicking here. I would love to hear your thoughts on this bit of news, but in the meantime here are a few hopefully related songs;
Almost over for this year then, it’s the penultimate day of my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar, it’s December 24th, Christmas Eve. So as we are that close to the big day I have decided to take you back to the Christmas of 1974 and I hope you won’t be lonely at Christmas because todays song is from Mud and it’s “Lonely This Christmas”. It stayed at number one for 4 weeks. Like many of the big pop hits of the 70s it was written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, whose publishing company was known as Chinnichap. A bit like a pre Jedward melding of names there methinks.
“Lonely This Christmas” was the second of their UK number ones following “Tiger Feet” earlier in 1974 and a cover of Buddy Holly’s “Oh Boy” in 1975. Singer Les Gray was well-known for his Elvis soundalike vocal, in fact at the time many people believed that “Lonely This Christmas” was by Elvis himself! Sadly Les Gray died of a heart attack in 2004. Drummer Dave Mount died in December 2006.
Of the two remaining band members bass guitarist Ray Stiles joined the Hollies. However lead guitarist Rob Davis has carved out a very successful career as a songwriter. He has written dance hits for Kylie Minogue and Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis Bextor. The latter hit the number one spot with a song that Davis co wrote, it was “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)” it also, thankfully, prevented Victoria Beckham from having a solo number one. She remains the only former Spice Girl never to have a solo number one.
So here we are then ready to reveal what’s behind the cardboard door of my UK Christmas Number Ones Advent Calendar for December 8th. Where the hell does the time go? Anyway today’s choice whizzes you way back through the sands of time to the Christmas of 1968 when “Lily The Pink” was number one for the Scaffold. It held sway at the top for three weeks. There were supported by some big stars although to be fair one of them hadn’t become a star at that point. Backing vocals on the song were provided by our stars and those stars were Elton John, who was not much more than a small stone in the celebrity universe at that time and Graham Nash off of the Hollies and later Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. In fact it is thanks to Mr Nash that the line “Jennifer Eccles had terrible freckles” was added to the song. In reference to the Hollies smash “Jennifer Eccles”
The song was based on a traditional folk song “The Ballad Of Lydia Pinkham” although the band provided most of the new lyrics. The band was from Liverpool and counted Mike McGear, Paul McCartney‘s brother among their members along with Roger McGough and John Gorman. The Scaffold performed a lot of McGough’s poetry in their live shows and they also had two other top 10 UK hits with “Thank U Very Much” in 1967 and “Liverpool Lou” in 1974. The latter was recorded with Paul McCartney and Wings.
Not the Scaffold at all, just an excuse for me to show another picture of the delightful Lily Allen........ Lily In Pink!
The band broke up in the late 70s but have reformed on a few occasions, often for charity and most recently to record a special song to commemorate Liverpool’s year as UK City Of Culture in 2008. Enjoy the band performing the song below.
Two posts in a row, wow I haven’t done that in ages! Just a few more ‘onthisdays’ today (July 13th) dear readers
Another entry for that bunch of pensionable rockers the Rolling Stones on this day in 1963 they played their first ever gig outside London. They appeared as the support band to the Hollies at the Alcove Club in Middlesborough in the north east of England.
Being in the Stones was becoming a bit of a drag these days
On this day in 1965 Paul McCartney received five Ivor Novello awards at the Savoy in London, he arrived late as he had apparently forgotten about the engagement. John Lennon refused to attend, presumably in protest at something! Sticking with the Beatles on this day in 1969 the band’s single “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” was banned by more than 100 US Radio Stations because it contained what US Radio authorities saw as offensive in the line “Christ you know it ain’t easy”. Bloody hell these guys were easily offended weren’t they?
Despite being given a piggy-back from Paul John still couldn’t be bothered to turn up at the Novello Awards
July 13th 1997 saw Anthony Kiedis off of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers undergo five hours of surgery after a serious motorbike accident.I recently read Kiedis’ superb autobiography entitled ‘Scar Tissue’ it is one of the most brutally honest rock biographies I have ever read. He deals very openly with his addictions and relationships. I never knew much about him before I read the book and now I have immense respect for him. If you read no other music books, read this one! Incidentally in the book he describes how it took five doses of morphine to kill the pain from the motorbike accident, largely due to an intolerance built up from prolonged heroin use. Anyway here are the RHCP’s with “Scar Tissue” live from Slane Castle in Dublin, well not actually live this one hot minute but obviously live when it was recorded!
After his motorbike mishap Anthony took to riding bikes without engines, I wonder if he used stabiliser wheels too?
On this day in 1985 Duran Duran became the first artists to have a US number one single with a James Bond theme when they reached the top of the pile with “A View To A Kill“. Personally I thought that their performance of the song at Live Aid was abysmal, which brings us to………..
Andy Taylor and Simon LeBon argue over which one of them was the most crap at Live Aid
……… on this day in 1985 at 12.01 UK time Status Quo kicked off the Live Aid extravaganza which was largely put together by Bob Geldof and raised millions for famine relief in Africa. It was a joint event where Quo kicked off at Wembley Stadium, the US show was at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. The shows were viewed by more than 1.5 billion people in 160 countries (that is quite a bit more than view my blog each day!). For me the best performances on the day were Queen, U2 and David Bowie (well I would say Bowie wouldn’t I?) Here is Mr Bowie with “Heroes” from that very show! Incidentally Bowie gave up one of his song slots to air a hard hitting video of the famine victims in Africa which was soundtracked by the song “Drive” from the Cars. It was truly heartbreaking. What were your own favourite memories of Live Aid? Were you there?
Chas and Di realise that they are a week early for the Polo and Equestrian finals when they see the Quo on stage
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 