Bowler Hat & Leather Boots
Bowler Hat & Leather Boots (El Records ACMEM 261CD)
Lovers of the strange, the offbeat and the plain daft will have a laff riot this CD compilation from El Records.
Opening with polymath George Melly enthusiastically rolling his ‘r’s around the surrealist poem, ’Sounds that saved my life’, it perhaps goes some way to preparing the listener for the high pitched, infant shrieking of Hayley Mills ‘Let’s Get Together’, her stab at pop stardom from 1961, although the jaunty 30’s pastiche of ‘Johnny Jingo’ is more tolerable.
Leslie Phillips’ ever-suggestive voice considerably helps the otherwise tepid comedy song ‘The Navy Lark’. Those with a taste for the non-PC possibilities of sultry belles with foreign accents will chuckle at Elke Sommer’s ‘Be Not Notty’, a precursor to more funny foreigners later on in this CD.
Those of us who thought that Oliver Reed’s singing career was confined to his foghorn vocal in Ken Russell’s ‘Tommy’ were surprised to hear Olly delivering some early Brit Rock and Roll in ‘The Wild One’, teen schlock in ‘Lonely For a Girl’ and even some overheated romance in ‘Ecstasy’. The music world’s loss was obviously the acting world’s gain.
Which neatly brings us to the contributions of everyone’s favourite camp Uncle, Dirk Bogarde. Those sons of fun at Decca Records came up with what was thought to be a sure fire winner; today’s hot thesp reading out the lyrics of high quality popular songs; you know, proper music, Cole Porter, Richard Rogers, none of that awful Rock and Roll stuff, supported by suitably syrupy strings. So recline in your Eames chair, put your feet up on the matching ottoman, a dry martini in your hand, and listen to these softly spoken renditions of ‘You Go To My Head’ , ‘Just one Of Those Things’ and others. Sleeve notes are particularly enlightening here; if Dirk were still alive, he’d undoubtedly block the reissue by any means necessary.
Lovers of traditional cockney music hall will get a kick out of Norman Wisdom’s lament on London’s changing skyline and social habits, ‘Yer gotta get aht’, closely followed by Anthony Newley’s ‘That Noise’, a cheery nonsense song with a hint of vulgarity that some readers might remember, slipped under the rabbit proof fence on its many wireless airings. Newley’s ground breaking TV show, ‘Gurney Slade’ is here represented by the show’s instrumental theme, with its metronomic beat and meandering flute melody, a much welcomed bargain in this very musical Pound Shop.
The many wandering, strangulated voices of Kenneth Williams considerably add to ‘Lost Art’ and ‘Peace’, however briefly, followed by the truly baffling decision to let Robert Mitchum loose on the creditable calypso, ‘What is this generation coming to?’, in the middle of an otherwise impeccable film career. (Where’s Lance Percival when you need him?)
If, like me, you had to suffer the endless sentimental doggerel of Sir John Betjeman, all for a largely worthless English Lit O’ Level, may have their mind changed by Betj reading his ‘The arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel’, together with an anecdote about one of the major characters in this melodrama.
Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren’s ‘Bangers & Mash’ and ‘Bing Bang Bong’ mark a return to the ‘foreign accents for laughs’ section, but I defy you not to enjoy them for their wit and verve. In case you’re missing the silver strings and the velvet voice, Ian Carmichael is on hand to whip up a ‘Lemon Twist’, complete with bar-side sound effects.
Think of those great duets of the past; Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes; they all pale into insignificance next to the immortal pairing of Frankie Howerd and Margaret Rutherford performing ‘All’s Going Well’, an hilarious vignette of disaster at the ancestral pile, as reported to the lady dowager by her old, wrinkled retainer.
The satirists are represented here by the cast of ‘Beyond the Fringe’ performing a couple of high camp routines whose vocal mannerisms alone would have raised hackles only a few years ago, in some uptight circles, following a pleasant enough tune, ‘Strictly for the birds’ by the Dudley Moore Trio. Peter Cook reprises his Harold MacMillan impression in ‘TVPM’, so very acutely observed, you can even hear him tearing up the letter from a pleading pensioner to the late, unlamented Prime Minister.
The pure music hall of ‘Mrs Brown You’ve Got A lovely Daughter’ is here performed not by the dreaded Manchester based combo, but by much sought-after thesp Tom Courtenay , his cockney accent pure RADA, his delivery mercifully free of the lecherous lead-out of the original.
With so many artistes stepping outside of their comfort zone on this compilation, it’s a refreshing change to find one doing what he’s best at. Step forward one of England’s stateliest homo’s, Quentin Crisp, reading a heartfelt monologue ‘Stop the music for a moment’, about the evil effects of those new-fangled coffee bars and jukeboxes, which join the long list of causes of what’s killing the art of conversation. Malcolm Arnold’s ‘St Trinians’ Theme’ will be instantly recognisable to 99.9% of listeners, even without the verse trailing in half-way, but can you remember the lyrics to this ramshackle battle hymn?
Top notch ac-tor time again, with David Niven reading a letter purportedly written by King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, and if you’re prepared to believe that, you’ll believe that a fat, syphilitic 16th Century King could sound as suave as David Niven, and that the actor could keep a straight face as he read it. The dulcet tones of George Sanders are put to good use in the steady croon of ‘Try A Little Tenderness’. The unmistakeable vulpine sneer of Vincent Price brings ‘Ozymandias’ back to life, with ‘Music, when soft voices die’ expertly stroked
and petted.
Students of the macabre haven’t been forgotten, with Anthony Perkins’ ‘Moonlight Swim’, which surely should have been on the soundtrack of ‘Twin Peaks’, and Orson Welles’ pathetic/comedic treatment of standard ‘You made me love you’. The compilation ends as it began, with surrealism, as Salvador Dali is described painting a picture, the assembled journalists and camera crews slowly being covered in paint by the unique Catalan giant of 20th Century art.
The only omission appears to be the deliciously ludicrous ‘Kinky Boots’ by Patrick MacNee and Honor Blackman, and I have a feeling you lot know why it belongs here. BUY HERE!
