The World's Worst Records

Back in the 60s, when TV was king, just about every primetime TV star was hauled into the recording studio to make a record. Some cut a few campy sides (pretty much the entire casts of Batman, Bonanza and Star Trek are guilty here); others made a half decent stab at pop balladry and quickly scuttled back to their respective soundstages. Others still, as we have seen with Peter Wyngarde, were offered the freedom to do pretty much whatever they wanted – with shocking results.

And it’s here that we find today’s bad record.

David McCallum, now aged 80, was one of the brightest stars of 60s TV. As Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, he co-starred in the hit series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. before going on to appear in Colditz, Kidnapped, late 70s science-fiction series Sapphire & Steel, The Invisible Man and, more recently NCIS. He’s also a classically-trained musician with an impeccable heritage: his father, David Senior, was leader of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Scottish National Orchestra, gave Jimmy Pagethe idea of playing guitar with a cello bow and played on the Beatles’ crowning achievement A Day In The Life. For a full decade he led Mantovani’s orchestra. Phew!

When David Junior was offered the chance to record an album he, very wisely, chose not to sing but to arrange and conduct light orchestral versions of au courant hits. Capitol teamed him up with producer and arranger David Axelrod, who employed his crack team of session musicians to record four albums of jazz-tinged covers, all of which are pretty decent; a cut above anything else put out by a TV star that you’re likely to hear. The first two volumes Music…a Part of Me and Music…a Bit More of Me sold reasonably well and one particular track, The Edgehas become one of the most sampled pieces in Hip-Hop, used by artists including Dr. Dre, Missin' Linx and Masta Ace.

But what Capitol didn’t have was a hit single. So, despite his best intentions, McCallum recorded four vocal cuts for potential release. Working with songwriter H B Barnum(who had written a song called The Man from U.N.C.L.E. for Capitol act the Gallants and who would go on to write Northern Soul classic What– recorded by Judy Street and, later, Soft Cell) he came up with his first 45 – which, dear readers, I present for you here today.

Communication/My Carouselmust have frightened the life out of people when it arrived. Certainly, if they were expecting more of the same light jazz that his albums had offered they were in for a big surprise. On the B-side especially McCallum sounds like a man possessed. I do love the harmonica and the bass (if you think you recognise that bass sound you’re right: that’s ace bassist Carol Kaye, famous for her sessions with Phil Spector and Brian Wilson), but the vocal performance is demented. The A-side (compiled on the must-have CD Music for Mentalists) is just rubbish: the arrangement is awesome, especially the last few seconds which sound exactly like Brigitte Bardot’s brilliant Harley Davidson, but the lyrics and vocals are ridiculous. What a great record!

Despite his worldwide fame, the single failed to resonate with the kids and was a massive flop. He followed this up with one further 45, In The Garden – Under the Tree/The House On Breckenridge Lane which again, unsurprisingly, failed to chart.

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I spent far too much time - and far to much money - over the Christmas and New Year period looking for more crap to confound you with. Whilst perusing eBay I was lucky enough to find, and purchase, a copy of a 45 I have been after for years - the very one I present for you today.

Born is Aston, Birmingham in 1947, Paul Henry went to school with Jeff Lynne, who would of course go on to form the Electric Light Orchestra with Roy Wood. He trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama and went on to spend eight years at the Birmingham Rep before, in 1975, joining the cast of TV soap Crossroads, playing the role of the simple-minded handyman Benny Hawkins until 1988.

It’s true to say that Benny wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer: under his soft wooly hat lurked a soft, wooly brain. As the Birmingham Mail once put it our Benny was ‘slightly smarter than a plank, though not quite as bright as plankton’. But the character soon became one of the most popular in Crossroads, and Henry’s turn as Hawkins provided plenty of material for TV impressionists. No wonder then that, in 1977, he was dragged into the studio by Simon May to produce this monstrosity. May had long been associated with Crossroads, penning hits for several of the show’s stars and storylines, including Born With a Smile on My Face for Stephanie de Sykes (used within a storyline on the show), More Than in Love for Paul McCartney’s cousin Kate Robbins and The Summer of My Life, a Number Seven hit for May in late 1976 and which originally appeared in Crossroads. He would later have chart success from his involvement with BBC shows Howard’s Way and EastEnders.

Benny’s Theme is a seriously peculiar record: ominous and orchestral, with Paul reciting the lyrics as if they were a Shakespearian soliloquy. The lyrics reflect Benny’s lack of luck in the love stakes, and the music at times hits a John Miles/Jeff Wayne vibe: the song was recorded in the same year as Wayne’s version of War of the Worlds but issued before that particular bombastic nightmare. The B-side, an instrumental version, is credited to Paul Henry and the Mayson Glen Orchestra; I believe that Mayson Glen is a pseudonym for Simon May himself.

The disc peaked at number 39 in the UK Hit Parade in January 1978. Crossroads co-star Kathy Staff recorded her own tribute to the wooly-hatted handyman, Benny, but that failed to chart. A second single, Waiting at the Crossroads, (issued in a black and white picture sleeve featuring Henry as the hapless Hawkins), also bombed.

Benny was a hard act to follow. “I ended up playing the sort of popular character who got trapped in the public imagination,’’ he told a reporter from the Birmingham Mail. “That’s certainly what the Benny character was.

“People ended up expecting me always to be Benny. I had to try to break away from that if I wanted a career beyond Crossroads.” Although he struggled for many years to leave behind the bumbling bumpkin he’s still acting: in 2010 he toured the UK in a play based on comedian Tony Hancock’s famous Face to Face interview.

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Today Rick Wilde is a successful songwriter, producer and musician: the son of British rock ‘n’ roll star Marty Wilde and the brother of national institution Kim. But 40 years ago, as Ricky Wilde he had a nascent pop career all of his own.

Richard James Reginald Steven Smith (to use his given name) was marketed as Britain’s answer to Donny Osmond, yet Ricky’s half-dozen singles for Jonathan King’s UK Records failed to make much impact. Shame, because his first, I Am An Astronaut (which was later covered by Snow Patrol), is a belter; recorded when Ricky was just 11 years old it’s a fun little pop record that deserved to be a hit. Unfortunately the rest of his releases were not in the same league - as you'll soon hear.

A couple of sides did minor business in Europe, but although he was groomed for stardom, featured in teen magazines and on television (in the Man Alive documentary film Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) Ricky failed to take off with the teenyboppers. Mind you, when you’re given material as paper-thin as this it’s no surprise: round and round like a spherical ball indeed!

Apparently it was while he was trying to resurrect his own career in 1980 that label bosses switched their attention to his sister, then just his backing singer. Kim – the oldest of the Wilde children - had always wanted to be a singer, and since then Ricky has been happy to take a back seat, continuing to work with Kim as well as being a successful producer in his own right. “I was never jealous of Kim taking the limelight,” he told an interviewer for the Daily Mail in 1998. “I was much happier in the background, writing and producing I can honestly say mat I have never wished, once, that it was me up there.”

Here are both sides of Ricky’s single April Love/Round and Round plus the A-side of his first release I Am An Astronaut. April Love was, of course, previously recorded by WWR favourite Pat Boone.

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No single artist has inspired as many tribute singles – literally hundreds, possibly thousands - both during his career and after his untimely demise as the late Elvis Presley. Certainly Elvis must be the second man after Jesus Christ (I’m not counting God here as he’s not, nor never has been, a human being) to have so many tonnes of vinyl wasted on rotten recordings of rotten songs by rotten singers and rotten songwriters: there’s been enough plastic dedicated to Elvis tributes to double the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

So it’s about time we dedicated a few posts to this phenomenon, don’t you agree?

John Daniel ‘J D’ Sumner (or His Friend J D Sumner as he credits himself on both sleeve and label of the tawdry little record) was an American gospel singer, songwriter, and music promoter. Born in 1924, he was a member of a number of vocal groups including the Sunny South Quartet, the Dixie Lily Harmoneers, the Sunshine Boys and the Stamps Quartet, who later became known as J D Sumner and The Stamps. The story goes that Elvis idolised Sumner's singing after seeing him perform with the Sunshine Boys, and Sumner sang at the funeral of Elvis’ mum Gladys. Presley hired Sumner and The Stamps as his back-up singers in late 1971, and the group toured and recorded with him until Presley's death in 1977 (interestingly, on back sleeve to the 45 states that The Stamps only toured with Elvis for four years). Having already done the same favour for Mama Presley, Sumner also sang at Elvis’ funeral.

Which in no way explains how he released a record as shockingly awful as Elvis Has Left the Building, his tribute to his friend and former employer. Sumner, who also provided the bass voice on Way Down, one of Elvis’ last hits, narrates the story of the King’s life and death in the most boring fashion imaginable. Written by Sumner himself (the B-Side Sweet, Sweet Spirit, was written by Doris Ackers) it’s absolutely horrible: a full five minutes of funereal music and sonorous vocals. Sumner reads his lines like a gravel-voiced hypnotherapist going through the motions for a particularly boring patient. Absolute rubbish. And this from a man who, for 18 years, For eighteen years, held the Guinness World Record for recording the lowest bass note. You’d expect something a little more engaging: mind you, in the same year as this was released Sumner and the Stamps also issued the bad-taste album Elvis' Favorite Gospel Songs (Sung at His Funeral).

Sumner, who co-founded the Gospel Music Association in 1964 and is credited with being the first artist to customise a coach for groups to travel and sleep in, continued to work right up until his death in 1998. It’s not recorded if he ever performed Elvis Has left the Building live.

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Three tracks today from an album which, before yesterday, I wasn't even aware of. But what a find!

This comes courtesy of a regular WWR contributor who usually prefers to remain anonymous: you've also got him to thank for 'discovering'Meade Skelton and Amy Beth Parravano. Well, yesterday a package arrived at my office from America containing three albums, one of which was the utterly fantastic Sounds of Freedom - Brigham Young University Singers.

The whitest of white-bread versions of the already pretty white Up With People (the touring choir founded by J. Blanton Belk in 1965 as 'a positive voice for young people'), The Sounds of Freedom were formed in 1966 when 50 of the 23,000 students at the University were chosen from the main choirs on campus to perform a selection of songs around the theme of freedom. The Sounds of Freedom toured the States, appeared on TV (including the Ed Sullivan Show) and, naturally, were persuaded to record an album - all the time touting their message of peace and sounding to all the world like the soundtrack to a future episode of South Park.

It's a wonderful record, a mish-mash of peace-protest standards, Christian hymnals and songs from film soundtracks, including Born Free and How the West was Won. The young men and women of the choir sound at once impossibly out of time and out of place: comparisons to other choirs of the day such as the Mike Curb Congregation or Mitch Miller and the Gang don't really do it justice. It's brilliantly 'straight'.

One of the many offshoots of the Brigham Young University Singers, a choir which still exists today and has, during its long career, recorded around two dozen albums, the BYU Sounds of Freedom continued to perform for at least a decade. Performing both patriotic and contemporary numbers, the BYU Sounds of Freedom projected love of their country and of life to hundreds of thousands of people around the world: summer 1974 found them performing in South Africa for some 54,000 people.

Brigham Young, for those of you who didn't know, was one of the early leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) or the Mormons. Oh, and he was famous for having 55 wives and 56 children. The greedy bugger.

So here are three tracks from the 1967 MGM album Sounds of Freedom - Brigham Young University Singers: the opening track, the ridiculously funky A New Tomorrow and, from Side Two, Mr Washington and Freedom Isn't Free. And a big thank you from me to our anonymous benefactor.

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Heavily influenced by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (and a massive influence himself on Alice Cooper), David Edward Screaming Lord Sutch began his performing career at the tail end of the 1950s. He and his group, the Savages, were known for their frantic stage show and he soon caught the eye of maverick producer Joe Meek, who brought him into his Holloway Rd studio to record a series of 45 - the best known - Jack the Ripper (1963) becoming something of an anthem for Sutch. He would re-record the song several times during his career.

Bizarrely, although Sutch had been releasing records for 10 years, Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, issued in 1970 but recorded the previous summer, was his first full-length album. Recorded in Los Angeles, Sutch was joined by some of the greats of the burgeoning heavy rock scene - including Noel Redding, Jeff Beck, John Bonham and Jimmy Page. Page and Sutch had known each other for years; both had worked for Meek and Page had played guitar on Sutch’s 1964 single She’s Fallen In Love With a Monster Man. However Sutch’s desire to cut an album that would be “modern rock ‘n’ roll with the real Zeppelin sound’, as he put it, would result in this awful cacophony.

A truly terrible record, it’s no wonder that most of the people involved tried to distance themselves from the project - in fact several have claimed that they only agreed to play on the sessions if they remained uncredited. Page said that he “just went down to have a laugh, playing some old rock 'n' roll, a bit of a send-up. The whole joke sort of reversed itself and became ugly.” Although all of Zeppelin caught a show by the savages during the two-day sessions and even jammed with Sutch and Noel Redding on stage, Page later claimed that he “just did some backing tracks to numbers like ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’… to cut a long story short, he rewrote all the tunes and he put another guitarist on over the top. He wrote me in as producer, which was very nice of him (but) I wasn’t interested in that.”

By the time Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was issued, Led Zeppelin had become international superstars - their second album going to Number One in the UK, US, Australia, Spain and Canada and hitting the Top 10 in many other countries. In the US and Japan the company attempted to cash in on Led Zep’s fame, with Page and Bonham being given more prominence than the Good Lord himself on single sleeves: the US 45 release of ‘Cause I Love You features Page alone on the cover. Buoyed by their presence, the album scraped into the Billboard Top 100 but failed to chart elsewhere. Critical reaction to Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends was entirely negative; Rolling Stone Magazine said that the musicians on the album sounded ‘like a fouled parody of themselves,’ and in a 1998 BBC poll the album was named as the worst of all time.

The following year Sutch assembled another collection of Heavy Friends, this time including Keith Moon and Ritchie Blackmore (who had also worked alongside Sutch at Holloway Road), to perform with him at the Country Club in Hampstead where he was booked for several nights. Blackmore noticed that Sutch had secreted recording equipment around the building but none of the artists who joined him on stage were aware that His Lordship was surreptitiously recording a follow-up album - The Hands of Jack the Ripper - which appeared in the shops in 1972. Says Blackmore: "Sutch phones me up and said 'Do you fance playing tomorrow night?' I agreed and I came down with Matt Fisher of Procol Harum, and we did just a night of playing. And I saw the recording equipment and thought, 'He's doing it again'."

In later years Sutch became more famous for his failed attempts to break into politics with his Monster Raving Loony party than for his music. He committed suicide in 1999 after suffering from depression for most of his life. Despite what you might read elsewhere, Sutch never was a bone fide lord: although he affected the title for his stage persona, his name always remained David Edward Sutch.

Here’s a brace of cuts from this classic of bad music - Wailing Sounds and the diabolically awful Brightest Light, both featuring Bonham and Page, with Brightest Light also featuring overdubs from Jeff Beck.

Enjoy!

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A pair of pieces of piffle for you today, from 1983 and producer Mike Hurst– former member of hit groups The Springfields and producer for Cat Stevens, P P Arnold, Showaddywaddy, Lena Zavaroni and countless others. I picked these up for 50p each in a charity shop just before Christmas – and I reckon I was robbed.

I shudder to think how this crap came together. Almost a decade before Michael Cretu would unleash his multi-platinum Enigma project on the pop music world, some other bright spark had the idea of adding drum beats to church music, only with disastrous results. The consequence of this unholy melee was two A-sides from the Altar Boys (who, on the first release at least sound to me like a lone vocalist plumbing the depths of a multi-track hell) – the almost passable Be-Bop-A-Lula and the diabolically awful You Really Got Me. For some peculiar reason the previous owner has scrawled the words 'good disco' on the label of the latter: there was clearly something wrong with him. Be-Bop-A-Lula begins with a line stolen from God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen: I assume that means that it was issued not long before Christmas.

The odd thing is that I was working as the singles buyer for HMV in Gloucester when these were released, and it was me that dealt with the rep - the lovely Maggie from IDS (Independent Distribution Services) - who would have been promoting them, yet I have no memory of them at all.

There aren’t many clues as to who – outside of Hurst that is - is involved in this rubbish. The B-sides of both singles are standard, uninspired pub-rock (Isn’t It About Time, written by Marshall, and See Me Now, written by Steve Price respectively); the only good thing to say about any of this is that in the same year the engineer of these abortions - Stewart Eales - also worked on the utterly brilliant I’m a Teapot by the Geisha Girls, one of my all-time favourite 45s.

Any further info gratefully received.

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Fans of the late, great Kenny Everett may remember today's track. Revelation appeared at number 25 in Cuddly Ken's first Bottom 30 selection, broadcast in the1977, just two years after this appalling piece of God-bothering garbage was released.

Recorded by the otherwise unknown (at least in this guise) Daniel, this impossibly awful piece of dreck comes with an impeccable heritage. It was written by Bobby Braddock, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and composer of upteen hits over his 40-plus year career, and produced by Dan Hoffman a former disc jockey and A&R man who, along with Braddock, had worked with many big-name Nashville stars including Tammy Wynette.

Revelation was originally written in 1971 and was recorded in the same year by Waylon Jennings: Waylon's 'traditional' (i.e. sung rather than narrated) version of the song appeared on his 1972 album Ladies Love Outlaws. It's been recorded by a number of different artists since then, all wisely eschewing Daniel's unique, portentous style. With his sonorous vocal performance - not a million miles away from the spoken word horrors of Eamonn Andrews or Red Sovine - he sounds like Tim Lovejoy's boring brother delivering a slice of Christian country balladry.

I'm guessing that Daniel and Dan Hoffman are one and the same person: the delivery of this track is so similar to those of other US radio DJs (Goodbye Sam by Shad O'Shea, for example). Although the majority of copies that turn up for sale are mono/stereo promos (as is my own copy), this appalling single did actually receive a limited commercial release in the States, backed with a track titled Gone Are The Days, co-written by Hoffman. Thankfully it failed to chart and Daniel does not appear to have recorded a follow up, although as Daniel D Hoffman (if Dan the writer/producer and Dan the performer are one and the same) he had previously issued a 45 - String (a Tribute) - on Cherish records in 1974...a copy of which is winging its way towards me as I type. Soon the mystery will be solved.

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Welcome, friends, to the 250th blog post from the World's Worst Records .

James Travis Reeves is rightly revered as a country music legend. A purveyor of the Nashville sound, thanks partly to his association with guitarist and producer Chet Atkins, Jim Reeves scored his debut hit in 1953 and managed more than 30 chart singles in the United States – including the standards He’ll Have to Go and Welcome to my World - before tragedy struck a little over a decade later.

His life ended ridiculously early – three weeks before his 41^st birthday in July 1964 – when the plane he was piloting (and which also carried his manager Dean Manuel) was caught in a violent thunderstorm. The single-engine plane stalled, went into a tailspin and crashed, killing both occupants.

But death was not the end of Reeves’ career: he was signed to RCA, a company who have never let the death of an act bother them. Jim left a massive backlog of unreleased music – something like 80 tracks from rough demos to finished sessions and, between 1965 and 1984, he landed even more chart smashes than he had during his life. His posthumous UK Number One Distant Drumsbecame his biggest international hit and the best selling single of his career.

Thanks to RCA - and to his widow Mary (to whom, apparently, Jim was less than faithful) - his recordings have been issued and reissued, occasionally slathered with new instrumentation and even artificially turned into duets with the equally dead Patsy Cline, who also expired in plane crash. I think it’s incredible that no-one at RCA or MCA (who owned Cline’s back catalogue) thought that issuing a fake duet of the song I Fall to Pieces was in poor taste. But before RCA paired Jim’s ghost with Patsy’s they issued a few other howlers, two of which I present for you today.

First up is Old Tige, the B-side to Jim's huge 1966 hit Distant Drums. Old Tige was one of my father’s favourite records, but it is beyond horrible; a ridiculously sentimental piece of claptrap that’s as obvious as it is distasteful. A dead dog of a song about – fittingly - a dead dog, this risible tale originally appeared on Gentleman Jim’s 1961 album Talkin’ to Your Heart. Today’s second track is the vile But You Love Me,Daddy, issued in the UK as an A-side (believe it or not) in 1969. The song had been recorded 10 years earlier but Reeves wisely declined to release it – something he couldn’t prevent once he’d snuffed it. Producer Atkins dusted off the acetate, dubbed on some basic orchestration and landed yet another hit for the Reeves estate.

Incidentally the whiny child heard on But You Love Me,Daddy– and credited on the disc as Steve Moore– is better known these days as R Stevie Moore, the incredibly prolific low-fi legend. Moore’s appearance on the 1959 recording marks his debut studio session; he had been brought in by his bass playing father BobMoore to re-record the child's vocal line, originally laid down by Dorothy Dillard. The song was written by Kathryn Twitty (occasionally credited as Pat Twitty, and no relation to the singer Conway Twitty) who also wrote Teach Me How to Pray recorded and released in 1959 by Reeves. It was later covered by wife-swapping Scots entertainers The Krankies.

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Born on May 15, 1918, Richard Edward ‘Eddy’ Arnold was one of country music’s most popular performers, with a career that spanned six decades, 147 hits on the Billboard Country Music charts and sales in excess of 85 million records. A pioneer of Nashville sound (the country-pop crossover popularised by Arnold and stable-mate Jim Reeves), he was ranked 22nd on Country Music Television's list of The 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003.

Nicknamed the Tennessee Plowboy (because he grew up on a farm and started his performing career while still working there), he was signed by Colonel Tom Parker more than a decade before the Colonel would get his claws into Elvis Presley, and cut his first disc – a schmaltzy piece of hillbilly music called Mommy Please Stay Home with Me - in 1944. That flopped, but the follow up (Each Minute Seems a Million Years) was a top five hit on the country charts and began an unprecedented run of 57 Top 10 hits. Although his appeal waned with the advent of Rock ‘n’ Roll, in the middle of the 60s he had an unexpected resurgence, with two massive hits, What's He Doing in My World? and Make the World Go Away. “I’ve never thought of myself as a country-and-western singer,” he told a reporter from The Charlotte Observer in 1968. “I’m really a pop music artist. I want my songs to be accepted by everyone.”By 1969 however the pop hits dried up, although he continued to score hits on the country charts until 1983.

In 1971 he released what was easily the most misguided song of his career, a woeful piece of right wing propaganda entitled A Part of America Died. Arnold, known for his smooth vocal style, felt that this particular portentous piece of crap needed something different and decided to recite the song’s scaremongering lyrics whilst a choir hammered home the message by mumbling a hymn in the background.

According to Michael Streissguth (in his book Eddy Arnold: Pioneer of the Nashville Sound), with A Part of America Died‘Eddy took a turn toward topical material, addressing Middle America’s growing concern with crime, an issue brought to the fore by President Richard M. Nixon’s rhetoric. A Part of America Died (was) penned by Harry Koch – a policeman – and lashed out at the overemphasis on criminals’ rights…Eddy condemns a policeman’s murder while a disembodied chorus singing the Old Rugged Cross hovers behind him. “I think it’s timely,” Eddy said.’

A stalwart Nixon supporter, Arnold was so convinced his record would sell to the moral majority that he regularly called RCA sales reps around the country to check on its progress. The lyrics to this awful dirge were even mentioned in the United States Congress when Mario Biaggi, the representative for New York’s 24^th District and a former policeman himself, rose to his feet and quoted parts of the song to the rest of the House of Representatives.

Despite that, and in spite of a Billboard review which claimed that ‘this potent message could easily prove an important pop item’ the single struggled to gain a footing in the country charts – peaking at a miserable 41 - and failed to provide him with a much-wanted crossover hit. “I’ve always picked good song,” he told Michael Streissguth. “I always picked a good lyric, and that gave me a wider audience than just the country buyers. I did that on purpose. I never was political about songwriters.” Boy, did he pick a wrong ‘un this time. Disappointed by the lack of mainstream success, he followed it up with a cover of the Jim Reeves classic Welcome to my World, which limped into the country charts at 34.

Arnold died, in a care facility near Nashville, on May 8, 2008, just two weeks before his 90^th birthday. Just three weeks later RCA issued To Life, a cut from Eddy’s final album (recorded and released in 1996). The song debuted at 49 on the Country charts, setting the record for the longest span between a first chart single and a last: 62 years and 11 months, and extending Eddy's career chart history to seven decades.

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Whenever I’ve asked you what your favourite (or, more likely, least favourite) bad record is, one title rears its ugly head again and again and again, and it is that record I bring to you today, complete with its seldom-heard B-side.

An appalling ditty with nonsense lyrics, this particular monstrosity - Little Arrows by Leapy Lee - was a huge hit: Number 2 in the UK and Australia, Number 11 in America, Top 10 in Canada and a Number One smash in several European countries. It’s still horrible though, and it’s no surprise that it regularly turns up on bad record lists. Luckily this was denied the top spot by the first two releases from the Beatles’Apple records - Hey Jude and Those Were the Days.

Little Arrows was co-written by Albert Hammond, whose song writing credits include The Air That I Breathe, Don’t Turn Around, When I Need You, One Moment in Time, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now – and Gimmie Dat Ding. Hammond – who knew Lee through their mutual friendship with Dave Davis of the Kinks – gave him the song “because,” he told DJ and writer Jon Kutner, “He said he was a singer and I couldn’t get anyone else to record it.” Lee, Hammond states, “was a jack of all trades; he’d been a comedian, an antique dealer, a fruit seller and even a bingo caller in Shepherd’s Bush!” Perhaps what is surprising is that this was not Lee’s first recording: three years earlier he released the self-penned It’s All Happening on Pye. Nor, unfortunately, would it be his last. It would, though, be his only major hit. Later covered by Little Jimmy Osmond, Leapy Lee re-recorded and re-issued the song in 2010.

Lee is a funny old character. Still performing today at the grand old age of (almost) 75 – mostly around Mallorca, where he has lived since the early 1980s – he’s perhaps better known locally as a rather reactionary columnist for the ex-pat English-language newspaper the Euro Weekly News...although I suspect the irony of his being rabidly against immigration whilst being an immigrant himself is no doubt lost on him. Born Graham Pulleybank in 1939 (he would later change his name to Lee Graham); he’s also very down on criminals – odd when you consider his own brush with the law. His chart career was nobbled shortly after his second US hit when, in July 1970, Leapy found himself in the Chequers Pub in London's West End with actor Alan Lake (who, at that time, was married to WWR alumnus Diana Dors). A fight broke out and the pub’s relief manager was stabbed - allegedly by Lee, who was sentenced to three years in prison. Lake got 18 months.

Little Arrows is bad enough, but you’ve yet to hear the dreadful B-side, Time Will Tell. Co-written and produced by Gordon Mills, the legendary manager of Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck and Gilbert O'Sullivan, it’s an absolute shocker. Mills, who also wrote or co-wrote hits for Cliff Richard, the Searchers and others, really dropped the ball with this piece of rubbish, but even if the song had been world class it would have been ruined by Lee’s ridiculous performance. I quite like the Joe Meek-esque compression, but the song itself is totally unsuited to his mediocre voice, and Lee’s constant straining to hit the right notes (and failing miserably) makes for rather uncomfortable listening. You’d have to hope that he was aiming for something comedic - but it doesn’t make me laugh.

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Released in 1972, the Richard Harris Love Album is a ridiculous time-capsule of grandiose schlock, and a thoroughly justifiable exhibit in our museum of oddities. Some people love this kind of thing: the same people who like early Al Stewart and drink Mateus Rose no doubt.

Consisting primarily of tracks from his first three (yes, I know, there were Richard Harris albums before, and after, this horror) plus both sides of his latest single – taken from the recent musical remake of Goodbye Mr Chips– The Richard Harris Love Album is basically a ‘best of’ the Irish-born actor’s early recordings although, confusingly, one or two tracks have been renamed and could easily confuse the casual buyer into thinking he or she were getting new product for their pounds.

At the tail end of the 60s Harris’s recorded work garnered much praise although in all fairness most of that praise was aimed at the song writing and arrangement prowess of his co-conspiritor Jimmy Webb rather than Harris’s own vocal dexterity: “I admire Jimmy,” says the great Burt Bacharach in Bill DeMain’s book In Their Own Words. “I thought the album he did with Richard Harris was one of the great, great albums. I think the songs are just unbelievable on it”. Yet to me he fails miserably to reach the heights of the only truly great singing actor, Peter Wyngarde. Webb, who also wrote Glen Campbell's smash hits By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Wichita Lineman and Galveston, had met Harris at an anti-war rally in Los Angeles and to this day won’t hear a word against his friend. “If he missed a note or he didn't carry it off particularly well as a singer, he had the actor's ability to step his way through the lyric and to speak some of the lines and basically to carry it off…it's a little insulting to say that he couldn't perform, or that he couldn't sing,” he told songfacts.com

Listen to One of the Nicer Things, and make up your own mind. It’s understandable that Webb would want to support his mate’s performance, especially as Harris is no longer here to answer for himself: the Oscar- and Golden Raspberry-nominated actor passed away in 2002. He’s probably best remembered these days for having played Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter movies but his filmmaking career spanned more than 40 years. Still, I’m pretty sure you’ll agree that his voice is awful: a thin, reedy wail that often misses its mark. Webb and Harris, of course, collaborated on the overblown horror that is MacArthur Park– and Webb’s own story of how that particular track was recorded makes for enlightening and entertaining reading.

“Richard and I started hanging out after rehearsals and drinking Black Velvets: 50% Guinness, 50% champagne,” he told The Guardian in 2013. “One night after a few, I said: ‘We ought to make a record.’ He'd starred in the movie Camelot and sang every song in it beautifully. A few weeks later, I received a telegram: ‘Dear Jimmy Webb. Come to London. Make this record. Love, Richard.’

“Over the course of two days we tore through 30 or 40 of my songs. I was playing the piano and singing. He was standing there in his kaftan, waving his arms and expressing excitement at some songs, not so crazy about others. The best went into his debut album, A Tramp Shining. MacArthur Park was at the bottom of my pile. By the time I played it, we had moved on to straight brandy, but Richard slapped the piano. ‘Oh Jimmy Webb. I love that! I'll make a hit out of that, I will.’

“I recorded the basic track back in Hollywood, with myself on harpsichord accompanied by session musicians the Wrecking Crew. When Richard did the vocals at a London studio, he had a pitcher of Pimm's by the microphone. We knew the session was over when the Pimm's was gone.

“We had doubts about releasing it as a single, but when radio stations began playing it I was asked to do a shorter version as a single. I refused, so eventually they put out the full seven minutes 20 seconds. George Martin once told me the Beatles let Hey Jude run to over seven minutes because of MacArthur Park.” Incidentally, Harris was not the first choice to record MacArthur Park: the song had originally been offered to The Association, who turned it down.

I’ve also included First Hymn From Grand Terrace which, on the disc’s label is listed as The First Hymn From Grand Terrace (Part 2), but was originally part of a suite of songs that appeared on the second Webb/Harris album The Yard Went on Forever entitled The Hymns From The Grand Terrace) If the arseing around with the title doesn’t annoy you, the performance will. Harris’s forced vibrato is uncomfortable to listen to, and the strain in his voice when he hits the key change hurts my ears. Coming out of a Dansette, in a bedsit full of scatter cushions and thick with marijuana smoke this probably sounded brilliant...I can see how a young lady would be wooed by Jimmy's seductive lyrics and lush arrangements, but today it’s a kitsch reminder that, back in the 60s, people would buy anything. Although Harris would release several albums of new material after he and Webb parted company, he would never again reach the heights he once did.

Enjoy!

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Hailing from the London borough of Bermondsey, the Handley Family were – for a very short period – touted as England’s answer to the Partridge Family, the Osmonds and the Jackson Five. The five siblings (three girls – Molly, Wendy and Sally - and two boys – Tommy and Billy) appeared on Hughie Green's talent show Opportunity Knocks and released at least three singles, the first of which managed to scrape into the UK Top 30 in 1973. There was at least one further sister, Julie, and Sally had previously sung with the showband Sweet Rain.

Issued on RCA imprint GL the A-Side, Wam Bamis pretty typical of its type and time, a singalong country song – written by Dave Christie (who would become the group’s producer) - that would keep a Sunday night TV audience tapping their feet for a couple of minutes between acts on any televised variety show. You can easily imagine this song being covered by Op Knocks superstar Lean Zavaroni. The B-Side, however, is another matter.

Rum, Dum and Baccy is downright awful, with ludicrous lyrics which in no way reflect the particular type of alcohol or the cigarettes mentioned in the title. Also, the kids clearly sing Rum Dum DUM Baccy all the way through the song, rather than the correct Rum, Dum AND Baccy.

Went to a dance, saw a girl named Sandy

Dancing with Brandy and sipping on shandy

The candy was handy so we gave it to Sandy

Everybody there was feeling dandy

Wo-woah! Rum, dum-dum, baccy....

Just stupid. And that’s it: that one verse repeated twice. Great bongoes though, and at least the writers Dave Reece and Steve Glen - who would go on to release the frankly ridiculous and overblown Jim Steinman rip-off Down Among the Dead Men (the Story of the Titanic) on CBS in 1980 - saved embarrassing the children by avoiding the use of the word 'randy'! The Handley kids, all too young to enjoy the delights of booze or tobacco would go on to release two further 45s on Dave Christie’s Tiffany label (Boing Boing Boing/Chuggin’ Along and Light Up the World With Sunshine/Joanna May), with the Handley sisters also being roped in to sing backing vocals on other sessions for the company: they can be heard prominently on recordings by ‘comedian’ Freddie Starr, who co-incidentally was also a former winner of Opportunity Knocks.

There were a few live appearances, including being the star attraction at the Bermondsey and Rotherthithe Carnival, where they arrived in an open-top limousine. They also appeared on several other TV shows, including kid’s teatime staples Crackerjack and Lift Off with Ayshea. Their time in the spotlight was brief; the kids grew up, left school, put their music career behind them and brought up families of their own.

Enjoy!

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Born in 1929, American songwriter and record producer Paul Vance has over 300 songwriting credits to his name: with Lee Pockriss he co-wrote Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow PolkaDot Bikini, which was a US Number One for Brian Hyland in 1960 (and a UK Number One in 1990 for Bombalurina, aka Timmy Mallet), the Perry Como standard Catch a Falling Star, a couple of Top 10 hits for Johnny Mathis and the Cuff Links hit Tracy. Vance, still alive today although he retired from the entertainment industry in the 1980s, specialised in catchy, singalong songs and made a very successful career out of the game: 20 gold records, multiple Grammy nominations and a wall full of awards. Not bad for a man who, in his own words "lacking a formal education, rose from the depths of the gutters and escaped from the inevitable consequences of growing up on the tough streets of New York".

In 1972, Vance and Pockriss penned the sickly sweet Playground In My Mind, which was recorded by Bournemouth-born Las Vegas entertainer Clint Holmes - and became a Number Two hit in the US the following year. Clint Holmes is not, as other sites might try and claim, the brother of fellow WWR miscreant Rupert Holmes: Rupert was also born in Britain, but with the given name David Goldstein. Based around a kid’s nursery rhyme, Vance's son Philip – who sadly died aged just 44 in 2009 - sang on the chorus of the song: he was just seven at the time. Playground In My Mindwould be the last success for the duo of Vance and Pockriss. Vance changed songwriting partners; life would never be the same again.

Paul Vance’s new songwriting buddy was Jack Perricone, usually credited as Perry Cone (not Perry Como!) The two of them wrote a series of singles characterised by overblown, melodramatic histrionics, including the huge hit Run Joey Run by David Geddes. Released in 1975, the song reached the Top Five on the Billboard charts that year. This time the chorus was sung by Vance’s 15 year-old daughter Paula.

Opening with a clearly underage girl pleading with her father...

Daddy, please don't, it wasn't his fault. He means so much to me!

Daddy, please don't, we're gonna get married; just you wait and see.

...Run Joey Run has got everything: teenage pregnancy, parental abuse and a violent death. It’s no wonder that this insane soap opera of a song would reach the Billboard Top Five and provide Geddes – who had recorded unsuccessfully with a number of labels and had at one point turned his back on music to study law - with his only major hit. His follow-up, produced but not written by Vance, was the peculiarly-monikered and revoltingly schmaltzy The Last Game of The Season (A Blind Man In The Bleachers), included here because it is so excruciatingly awful.

Later that same year Vance and Cone pulled out all the stops, issuing what must be one of the worst Christmas singles of all time: An OldFashioned Christmas (Daddy’s Home) by Linda Bennett. That horror has been featured on this blog before (and gets a brief mention in the book The World’s Worst Records Volume One): you can hear it here. I think we can safely assume that the Vance kids were once again roped in to flesh this particular horror out.

Then in 1976 came Without Your Love (Mr Jordan), a revolting song recorded by country singer Charlie Ross about a couple who on the surface appear to be deeply in love with each other but who in reality are both conducting illicit affairs. There was even a follow-up, Without Your Love (Mr Jordan Part Two), issued a year later which failed to chart.

Shortly after Paul Vance retired from the industry, his recent spate of three minute musical melodramas out of sync with an audience clamouring for disco and New Wave. Not that he should care: the man had amassed a catalogue of hits that would put many a more 'respected' songwriter to shame. All was quiet for a number of years, with just the sound of the royalty cheques falling through the letterbox to break the boredom when, in 2006, a widely circulated news story reported that he had died. Needless to say, Mr Vance was not happy. It transpires that an imposter had been claiming the authorship of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie and the real writer only became aware of this when one of his grandchildren read his obituary and called up in a panic. The scare inspired Paul to begin writing his autobiography, Catch a Falling Star, which is due later this year.

Hats off to you, Mr Vance: I hope you continue to enjoy a long, and well-deserved, retirement.

Enjoy!

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I originally discovered today’s selection on the wonderful blog Frances Favorite 45s which, sadly, hasn’t been updated for a while but is well worth checking out – especially if you have a taste (possibly bad taste) for obscure country 45s .

These days the owner of two gospel music radio stations in Arkansas (KMTL and KWXT), George Virgil Domerese – known professionally as Little George Domerese - has been broadcasting for more than half a century. He’s also made a name for himself by promoting country music shows on stage, including his Johnson County Jamboree which held a regular Saturday night spot at the Strand Theatre, Clarksville from 1958.

George began performing as part of a duo with mandolin player Carl Blankenship in 1956. The pair hosted a six-day a week, hour long show on KWHN until 1964 and, on his own, he fronted a country music hour on KFDF Van Buren (a station he owned for 34 years) which began around 1960.

Now 87 years young, married to Earla and with two sons James and Timothy, at some point in the mid 60s George recorded this diabolically-awful self-composed 45, issued on the tiny Power record label, of Jonesboro, Arkansas.

And what a shocker it is. On Daddy, Dear Daddy I’ll Pray For You George pretends to be a small child praying for his father, who is fighting in Vietnam. At the end of this side of this manipulative piece of trash we find George’s Mom crying after receiving a letter, as the badly-plucked notes of the Last Post ring from George’s guitar. By the time you flip the record over for A Message From Daddy in Heaven, George’sdaddy has become another casualty of the conflict. Yet even though he’s gone, he wants to reassure his scion that his prayers did not go unanswered.

Even if ‘daddy’ had gone to war at the outset of the conflict in 1956, George Domerese would have been 29 – hardly ‘just a little boy’. However both sides of the disc refer to the prohibiting of state sponsored prayers in US schools, which became law in 1963. That means that Little George had to have been at least 36 when he recorded this calculated slice of Christian propaganda. Ick.

I’m working on the assumption that he was known as ‘little’ George because he was (still is, I guess) short of stature. It is, of course, possible that he earned the nickname as a child performer, but if so why would he still be using the epithet well into his 30s? I'm not aware of any other recordings issued by George during his long career; there's nothing on iTunes, YouTube or Amazon, and a scour of the internets revealed very little information about George's career. If you know otherwise, do share.

Enjoy!

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Meet Los Punk Rockers, the Spanish act who, in 1978, covered track-by-track the entire NeverMind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols album for their one-off cash-in Los Exitos de Sex Pistols.

A swiftly-produced rip-off of the Sex Pistols’ only album proper, rumours persist that the band playing on the album is Spanish rock act Asfalto, formed in 1972 and, up until that point, best known for their cassette-only release Tribute to the Beatles, another note-for-note collection of covers. Having compared the two recordings I can report that there are similarities; I contacted the manager of Asfalto recently and asked him if nay members of the band were involved in the Los Exitos de Sex Pistols project, but he has yet to answer. If anyone knows for sure, please do get in touch.

Whoever it is, they hardly covered themselves in glory. The band sound like they’ve had less than ten minutes to learn the material and the vocalist has clearly never heard the original recording, performing a phonetic approximation of John Lydon’s agitprop lyrics in a pantomime villain voice.

The uncredited producer’s attempt to disguise the singer’s failings by slathering his vocals with reverb fails abysmally. The lyrics to Bodies, for example, bear little relation to the original

She was a nowhere, a conscious baby

She had a little bondage cash queen
She was an hour ago
She was a lot of cow
Hey! I’m gonna like them all!
Hey! I’m gonna like them all!

The chant I’m a lazy sod from Seventeen becomes I’m a lazy seven. John Lydon may once have been an angry young man (rather than the butter-peddling, tweed-wearing upstanding member of the establishment that he’s become) but at no time did he ever sing the line we’re so pretty, oh so pretty, we will cut her.Anarchy in the UK is certainly anarchic, but for all the wrong reasons. It’s an almost unrecognisable parody of itself; punk rock performed by a wedding band, with the bride’s tone-deaf grandfather on vocals. It’s bonkers and brilliant, and you have to hear it.

But buyer beware: original copies of Los Existos... are almost impossible to find these days and cost a small fortune when they do turn up for sale. Thankfully, for those of us with more shallow pockets, the album has been pirated on at least two different occasions, making it accessible even if it is via the black market. If you’re holding out for the real thing then the fakes are easy to spot: the first pirate pressings are missing the Nevada Records logo from the bottom right-hand corner of the front sleeve and the disc’s labels are printed in shades of pink. The second batch of copies feature the logo and the correct label colours (brown & orange) but are missing the address of the record company on the rear of the sleeve and use translucent rather than opaque yellow lettering on the front (as in the image above). This pressing is also on very heavy vinyl. Both copies feature the date (1978) on the top right hand corner of the rear sleeve. Originals do not.

Here's a handful of tracks from Los Exitos de Sex Pistols for you to marvel at: Anarchy in the UK, Pretty Vacant and, of course, the supremely silly Bodies.

Enjoy!

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Last summer I posted a record by one of the few stars of the 70s who had avoided having his name dragged through the mud in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal, David ‘Diddy’ Hamilton.

David has been broadcasting now for 55 years. Born in Manchester in 1938 he began his career in 1959, starting out with Forces Radio before becoming an on-screen announcer for ABC-TV. In 1962 he began his long association with BBC radio, starting out with The Beat Show for the Light Programme and moving on to present family Choice on the fledgling Radio One in 1967.

It was while he was appearing on the ABC-TV show Doddy’s Music Boxthat Liverpudlian comedian Ken Dodd gave the height-challenged Hamilton the ‘Diddy’ nickname, which has stuck ever since. Hamilton was a regular foil to Dodd on the show, which featured many of the biggest pop acts of the day plugging their latest releases. Sandie Shaw, Tom Jones, Peter and Gordon and the Scaffold were among the dozens of acts who appeared on the programme, which ran for just 18 episodes, broadcast in two series January-March 1967 and January–March 1968.

Since then he has had regular shows on national and local radio in the UK and is still a regular face on TV, with recent appearances on Pointless Celebrities, Cash in the Celebrity Attic, Sport Relief, Loose Women, the One Show and many others. He’s also one of the few presenters of vintage episodes of Top of the Pops that the BBC can still broadcast without fear of giving airtime to a sex offender.

The record I featured last June, Just Like That– is an aural abomination which may as well have been purpose-built to be a bad record, with a dreadful, out-of-tune kiddy choir, stupid lyrics and banjo and euphonium accompaniment. The B-side, Have You Heard the News, is little better, a naïve anti-nuclear song where David is once again accompanied by those pesky kids.

What I didn’t know at the time was that this wasn’t the first record that David had made. Oh no: I soon discovered that there had been an earlier audio nightmare, and it’s that disc that I present for your enjoyment today: A Special Goodnight to You and its B-side Just For the Weekend.

But enough from me; I’ll let David explain in his own words. “The record came about like this,” he told me after I contacted him recently to try and find out a little more about the disc. “I was appearing with Ken Dodd on the series Doddy`s Music Box on ABC TV. On one show I sang a few bars of a song and girls ran on and screamed and pulled at my clothing. I hasten to add that they were not fans, but extras! Some people based in Liverpool suggested I make a record which they thought might sell on the popularity of the TV series. I think the year was 1968.”

“Two songs were hastily written by Ricky Woodruff, the pianist with the ABC orchestra and Fred Lloyd who produced the record,” David adds. “A Special Goodnight To You (was) based on the phrase I used as an announcer to close down the station at night; Just for the Weekend was the time that ABC was on air in the North and Midlands. It was the first – and possibly only – release on Spectre Records.

“At their suggestion, we promoted it hard, visiting record shops and bingo halls where it sold very well. Sadly, being an independent record company, Spectre had poor distribution and this success was not repeated in other record shops around the country. Although I sold a lot of records across the counter, I didn`t receive a penny in royalties.” David recalls that the tracks were recorded at the fabled Abbey Road studios which, at the time, were home to the Beatles, Pink Floydand countless other major acts. “It just shows that not everything that came out of Abbey Road was a smash,” he laughs.

Thanks for sharing your reminiscences with us David, and thanks too for being such a good sport.

Enjoy!

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American politician Samuel James Ervin, Jr. (born September 27, 1896) served as the Democrat Senator for North Carolina from 1954 to 1974.

He was instrumental in bringing down two powerful opponents: Senator Joe McCarthy at the very beginning of his career and President Richard Nixon at the very end. In 1954 Nixon, then vice-President, appointed Ervin to a committee formed to investigate whether McCarthy should be censured by the Senate. It was Ervin's investigation of the Watergate scandal in 1972/73 that lead to the resignation of his former mentor.

However, although there is little evidence to show that the man was involved in any lynchings himself, in 1956 he helped draft The Southern Manifesto, which encouraged defiance of desegregation and was signed by most the Southern members of Congress. His apologists argue that his opposition to most civil rights legislation was based on his commitment to the preservation of the Constitution, and that he also supported civil liberties by opposing "no knock" search laws, the growing intrusions of data banks and lie-detectors (a machine he branded '20th century witchcraft'), the use of illegally-seized evidence in criminal trials, and he played a major role in the defeat of a Constitutional amendment to make prayer in public schools compulsory. So he wasn't all bad, then, or all good. Like most of us.

A native of Morganton, North Carolina, he thought of himself as a "country lawyer", and was well-known for telling humorous stories in his Southern drawl. It was this particular party piece that led Columbia Records to sign him up. His one album - Senator Sam at Home - featured Sam speaking his mind, telling a few anecdotes and occasionally bursting into song: evidence of which managed to cross the pond when CBS in the UK issued Bridge Over Troubled Water as a single in 1973. The track was later re-issued on the Rhino compilation Golden Throats 2. Senator Sam at Home was, apparently, recorded in the library of his Morganton home.

I fail to understand what was going on in the mind of the CBS executive who thought that this drivel stood a chance of being a hit in Britain. The man was famous in the States, of course he’ll sell a few copies, but here he was an unknown septuagenarian doing little more than reading a poem – badly. When performed with emotion, Paul Simon’s Bridge Over Troubled Water is a great song: recited in stumbling fashion over a hokey backing just doesn’t cut it. Scheduled for release in the UK in November 1973, all of the UK copies I have seen have been promos: it’s possible that the disc was so poorly received that stock copies were never issued here. In America the album was supported by full-page ads in the trade papers which waxed lyrically about Sam’s ‘insights into Shakespeare, the Constitution and the Bible’. William S Burroughs even wrote about the album in Esquire.

Sam Ervin retired from Congress in December 1974. he continued to practice law, and his son and two of his grandsons followed him into the legal profession. He died from emphysema on April 23, 1985, aged 88.

Here’s Senator Sam ghastly version of Bridge Over Troubled Water. I’ve also included the 45’s B-side, Zeke and the Snake.

Enjoy!

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A few weeks back I introduced you to some of the later work of composer/producer Paul Vance, the man whose career began with the huge hits Catch a Falling Starand Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and ended with the massive, but dreadful, Playground In My Mind and Without Your Love (Mr Jordan).

Without Your Love (Mr Jordan), is a revolting song recorded by singer Charlie Ross – who had previously been the bassist and singer of the moderately successful 60s group Eternity’s Children - about a couple who on the surface appear to be deeply in love with each other but who, the listener soon discovers, are both conducting illicit affairs. This horrid record reached Number 42 in the US charts (but went to Number 13 in the Country Music listings) and its success inspired Vance and his co-writer Perry Cone to pen a follow-up, Without Your Love, Mr Jordan - Part Two.

Issued a year later, as the B-side to another Vance co-write Lady Loretta, this timethe disc failed to chart. But here it is, and it’s even more ghastly than the original. I've included Lady Loretta as well: although it's rubbish it's nowhere near as godawful as the flip.

Like the original it’s a duet; again like the original the featured female singer is uncredited. We know that Vance had a habit of pulling in the various members of his family to sing on his productions, but as far as I am aware this is not one of them. Whilst in Eternity’s Children Ross was accompanied on vocals by Linda Lawley; although at this stage I cannot confirm if the singer is her or not, perhaps someone reading this will know. maybe we'll find out when Paul Vance issues his autobiography later this year.

Enjoy!

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Today’s selection comes from a batch of 45s which recently came my way via my good friend The Squire, whose wonderful podcast The Squire Presents (thesquirepresents.podbean.com), is essential listening for anyone interested in obscure, obtuse and downright bonkers music. A couple of days ago he was kind enough to send me a load of singles, several of which I will feature over the coming weeks. The first is this piece of dross, issued in 1974 by Epic Records: Tina & Mommy with No Charge, backed with The Telephone Call by Tina & Daddy.

The A-side is a cover version of the awful, maudlin piece of schlock that was originally recorded by Melba Montgomery, but is probably best known here in the UK for providing J J Barrie with a Number One in 1976. The flip is an original song, co-written by producer Billy Sherrill – who also co-wrote Tammy’s huge hit Stand By Your Man. Both songs and performances are horrible.

No Charge is a terrible song: in its original version a young boy hands his mother an itemised list of charges he claims he's owed for performing his chores and the mother responds by reminding him about all the things she's done for him that she has never asked him to pay for, and that "the cost of real love is no charge." The twist here is that the child is a girl: otherwise it’s pretty much the same sappy, stomach-churning pap. The B-side, however, is something else – an attempt at humour which is about as funny as suppurating herpes:

Tina, let me talk to your mommy

I can't right now Daddy, she's under the dryer
Well, just tell her that the flame of love's still burning
Mommy, Daddy just said he just caught on fire
Tina, just say I'll be home early
I better not Daddy, she's too upset about the fire!
No, the flames of love don't mean there's something burning
Mommy, I think Daddy just called you a liar!

Vile! Talky Tina is no singer, although Mommy and Daddy sound accomplished and rather familiar. And so they should, for Mommy is no less than First Lady of Country Tammy Wynette and Daddy is her second husband, the legendary country alcoholic George ‘No Show’ Jones, who I’ve featured on this blog before with the hideously racist The Poor Chinee.

Both sides of this 45 would appear on the couple’s 1975 album George & Tammy & Tina. The "Tina" is Tina Byrd, Tammy’s eight-year-old daughter, who George adopted along with her sisters Gwen and Jackie shortly after the birth of his and Tammy’s own daughter Tamala Georgette. Neither the single nor the accompanying album charted in the UK, although TheTelephone Call made Number 25 on the US Country charts.

George and Tammy had what can only be describes as a tempestuous relationship. He drank heavily, played with guns (shooting up their home, according to Wynette) and more than likely physically abused her (it’s been claimed that all five of Tammy’s husbands knocked her about, although Jones reputed this). She, with a history of real and imagined health issues, took so many prescription drugs – becoming addicted to pain killers - that she must have rattled worse than Elvis. That legacy lives on - the Wynette children have been involved in a long legal battle over their inheritance since Tammy passed away in 1998: first with their step-father (and Tammy's fifth husband) the singer-songwriter George Richey and, since his death in 2010 with his widow Sheila Slaughter.

Tina had had a pretty rough ride herself: born prematurely, she spent the first three months of her life in an incubator. Shortly after she left hospital for the family home Tina was diagnosed with spinal meningitis and spent 17 days in an isolation unit. She eventually spent seven weeks in the hospital before beating the disease. It’s little less than a miracle she was able to sing for us at all.

Tina, although feted by sister Georgette as ‘the one with the voice’, decided not to continue with her recording career. ‘Tina and I travelled with Mom as harmony singers,’ Georgette wrote in her bookThe Three of Us: Growing Up With Tammy & George. ‘Tina was a wonderful singer, by the way. It always surprised me that she didn't go on to have a career in music, because she certainly had the talent.’ Whilst I appreciate her loyalty to her sibling, I think that anyone who hears this particular record will have cause to disagree.

Enjoy!

Miscommunication

Old Woolhat Is Back

Balls (spherical, apparently)

Elvis Has Left the Building

Freedom Isn't Free...is it?

Heavy!

Altared States

Revealed: Daniel

The Worst of Jim Reeves

Just Like Eddy

Creepy Leapy

All You Need is Love

That's Handley

Mr Vance and Mr Jordan

Daddy...oh Brother!

Yo no soy un animal

Something for the Weekend

Troubled

Mr Jordan (Part Two)

Mommy & Daddy