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Unfashionable records by fashionable artists

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    Unfashionable records by fashionable artists

    Listening to an interview with Charlie HIgson recently, I discovered the Loadsamoney single was produced by none other than William Orbit.

    Any more examples? I know both Elton John and David Bowie sang on knock-off Woolworths chart LPs before they were famous.

    #2
    George Martin was a producer of novelty records by the likes of the Goon show before he was asked to produce the Beatles.

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      #3
      From pretty much the same time as Loadsamoney, the Anfield Rap (Liverpool FC Cup Final cash-in before they crashed and burned against Wimbledon) was apparently co-written by Mary Byker (Ian Hoxley) of Gaye Bykers On Acid, later - and more credibly - of Apollo 440.

      Elvis Costello, of course, wrote an entire album for Wendy James. (Who somebody will now tell me was never 'unfashionable'.)

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        #4
        Are we talking novelty records here or just records that weren't appreciated? Tom Jones released a gospel record a couple of years back that wasn't what people were expecting and wasn't hugely successful.

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          #5
          Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
          Are we talking novelty records here or just records that weren't appreciated? Tom Jones released a gospel record a couple of years back that wasn't what people were expecting and wasn't hugely successful.
          More the former.

          Tom Jones' Praise & Blame sold fairly well (#2 in the UK). And it was released in 2010.

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            #6
            God, really? That long ago?

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              #7
              The Pet Shop Boys' Absolutely Fabulous single isn't a career highlight.

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                #8
                Charlie Drake's 1975 single 'You Never Know' was written and produced by Peter Gabriel (who also supplied backing vocals & flute). It's as dreadful as you would expect a Charlie Drake record to be, but you can hear little touches that are recognisably Gabriel-era Genesis. Either someone was owed a favour or the session money was decent, because Phil Collins plays drums, Robert Fripp guitar, Keith Tippett piano and Percy Jones bass.
                 

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                  #9
                  XTC's Andy Partridge is the man behind the Buster Gonad single 'Bags of Fun with Buster' that Viz released back in 1987

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                    #10
                    Of course he was a jobbing session musician at the time, but I still find it amusing that Jimmy Page played on Walk Tall by Val Doonican.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                      F Mary Byker (Ian Hoxley) of Gaye Bykers On Acid, later - and more credibly - of Apollo 440.
                      Most intrigued by this - I'd never known there was a connection between these two groups that I like (GBOA are mainly remembered for their controversial name, but Stewed to the Gills was a great album)

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                        #12
                        I think Rick Wakeman played piano on Clive Dunn's Grandad.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                          Are we talking novelty records here or just records that weren't appreciated? Tom Jones released a gospel record a couple of years back that wasn't what people were expecting and wasn't hugely successful.
                          This would have been the album that Tom Jones was promoting when my brother saw him at Haydock after a race meeting (during the summer they have regular meetings, normally on a Friday night, followed by a gig). The audience, largely made up of people who were, at most, casual Jones fans, were apparently not greatly impressed that he spent a good 30-45 minutes doing gospel stuff before moving onto stuff they recognised.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                            I think Rick Wakeman played piano on Clive Dunn's Grandad.
                            He did indeed - and it was also co-written by Kenny Pickett of highly-fashionable sixties psychedelic-pop act, The Creation.

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                              #15
                              Tim Friese-Greene, producer of the last four Talk Talk albums, was also the man behind Tight Fit's The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by gjw100 View Post
                                Charlie Drake's 1975 single 'You Never Know' was written and produced by Peter Gabriel (who also supplied backing vocals & flute). It's as dreadful as you would expect a Charlie Drake record to be, but you can hear little touches that are recognisably Gabriel-era Genesis. Either someone was owed a favour or the session money was decent, because Phil Collins plays drums, Robert Fripp guitar, Keith Tippett piano and Percy Jones bass.
                                To link this to a previous post, Drake’s more well known ‘My Boomerang Won’t Come Back’ was produced by George Martin.

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                                  #17
                                  Bowie back catalogue has loads of form for this of which Laughing Gnome came back to bite him. In actual fact a lot of it bears repeated listening & is enduring and endearing. Though not Laughing Gnome.

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                                    #18
                                    Paul McCartney is a serial offender - Mary Had A Little Lamb, etc. Alleged large weed intake may have been a factor. Perhaps 'Yellow Submarine' started it off.

                                    Beach Boys' 'Smiley Smile' album was a career killer for around 7 years until their 'Endless Summer' compilation came out and they became a Greatest Hits live act, but the single from it, 'Heroes and Villains', has a lot of fans and did OK in the UK if not the US.
                                    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 23-02-2021, 20:35.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by gjw100 View Post
                                      Charlie Drake's 1975 single 'You Never Know' was written and produced by Peter Gabriel (who also supplied backing vocals & flute). It's as dreadful as you would expect a Charlie Drake record to be, but you can hear little touches that are recognisably Gabriel-era Genesis. Either someone was owed a favour or the session money was decent, because Phil Collins plays drums, Robert Fripp guitar, Keith Tippett piano and Percy Jones bass.
                                      How come Charlie Drake was still making records in the mid-70s? He'd been a total nonentity for at least a decade.

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                                        #20
                                        Chris Spedding's your man here.

                                        … appearing and recording with Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music, Elton John, Brian Eno, Jack Bruce, Nick Mason, Art Garfunkel, Typically Tropical, Katie Melua, and Ginger Baker, amongst others. During the mid-1970s, he even took part in the Wombles' UK tour in full furry costume, whilst wielding his trademark Gibson Flying V.
                                        He also played with the Pretenders.

                                        In 1982 he played on Nina Hagen's seminal recording NunSexMonkRock, and over the next few years he continued his session work on such albums as Tom Waits' Rain Dogs,

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                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post

                                          How come Charlie Drake was still making records in the mid-70s? He'd been a total nonentity for at least a decade.
                                          Oh I dunno, he was still a regular on that bastion of popular entertainment, Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart's Junior Choice, alongside Rolf, Bernard Cribbins, Terry Scott, Alan Sherman, the mice from Amsterdam and Puff the magic fucking dragon. Possibly a whole new subject in itself but on reflection, a wormhole best avoided.

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                                            #22
                                            ^Most of those songs were at least a decade old already by then.

                                            Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                            Paul McCartney is a serial offender - Mary Had A Little Lamb, etc. Alleged large weed intake may have been a factor. Perhaps 'Yellow Submarine' started it off.
                                            Although he's since denied this, McCartney probably released Mary Had a Little Lamb as a response to the BBC refusing to play the previous 'contentious' Wings single, Give Ireland Back to the Irish. So one could see this as a deliberate act of self-sabotage. (If so, it didn't work anyway, because MHLL ended up selling far more copies.)

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                                              #23
                                              It's odd how much opprobrium making a children's record raises. The Beatles kind of got away with it, while Bowie and McCartney clearly didn't.

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                                                It's odd how much opprobrium making a children's record raises. The Beatles kind of got away with it
                                                Though we may look down on it,, the song Yellow Submarine was incredibly popular. And to be fair it wasn't a single but appeared perhaps incongrously on Revolver.

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                                                  #25
                                                  The McCartney song that I would list at the top of his Debit column is 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da'. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

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