fredag 10 augusti 2018

WHISTLING JACK SMITH/I WAS KAISER BILL'S BATMAN DE 16006 (-67) US MONO

Not sure how to put this. Title song a one hit wonder written by British artist/songwriter duo Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway - for more on them check post on their "David and Jonathan" album https:// monolover.blogspot.com/2017/10/david-and-jonathan-scx-6031-66-uk.html. Recorded as a single for Deram by Mike Sammers Singers and assorted studio musicians, whistling done by MSS trumpeter John O'Neill. When it surprisingly became a world wide hit, reaching #5 in UK, #20 on Billboard and top ten on many other lists, an actor - Billy Moeller, for the purpose using the name Coby Wells - was hired to personify Whistling Jack Smith and mime the whistling before the public. So the recording was an effort by a then anonymous studio group and pseudo-performed before audiences by a man who didn't had anything to do with it in the first place...and what you get is the exact same short riff repeated all through the song to a somewhat shifting background. That said - it is disturbingly catchy. I hated it back then, but today, with most of my old defense mechanisms gone, I can't get it out of my head...and believe me I've tried. I wont waste any words on the rest of the LP - one hit and eleven fillers may be accurate - but as it carries that hit and is a rather late US mono it may find a place on my shelf after all. LP originally also issued in Canada (same number) and Germany (SML 1009). UK release as "Around The World With Whistling Jack Smith" (DML/SML 1009) and Japanese with the same name (DL3) came with different sleeve design. Don't know of any CD issues. (YZÄ*) (ÖXCÅ*)

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