219 Goodbye Vince Hill - Look Around ( And You'll Find Me There )

Chart  entered :  25  September  1971

Chart  peak : 12

This  was  actually  Vince's  second  biggest  hit  behind  "Edelweiss"  ( which  reached  number  2  in  Februrary  1967 )  so  at  least  he  went  out  on  a  high. Vince  had  far  more  misses  than  hits  on  his  c.v. so  probably  had  little  sense  that  this  was  the  end.

This  single  owes  much  of  its  success  to  its  inclusion  on  the  soundtrack  to  the  blockbuster  film  Love  Story. An  instrumental  version  played  while  Ryan O' Neal  and  Ali McGraw  frolicked in  the  snow.   The  words  are  standard  chocolate  box  fare. Alyn  Ainsworth's  arrangement  moves  the  song  along  quickly  enough  for  a  seventies  audience  and   Vince  croons  the  song  warmly  enough  but  given  the  context  I  think  Bobby  Goldsboro  or  Glen  Campbell  would  have  given  it  more  emotional  heft.

The  same  problem  I  encountered  with  Frankie  Vaughan  recurs  here. Vince's  post  -fame  singles  haven't  been  compiled  comprehensively  and  his  fans  haven't  been  very  active  on  youtube . First  there  was  "Maybe  This  Time"  in  May  1972  then  in  October  his  version  of  "And  I  Love  You  So"  the  Don  McLean  song  irresistible  to  MOR  crooners. Even  compared  to  the  Perry  Como  hit  version  six  months  later  Vince's  understated  reading  is  a  bit  soporific.

There's  now  a  long  list  of  unheard  singles : "Glory Hallelujah", "Brother  Sun And  Sister Moon" , "Sad And  Lonely  Man", "Among  My  Souvenirs" , "My  World  Keeps  Getting  Smaller  Every  Day"  ( for  EMI  1973-74) ; "Bad  To  Me","Wish You Were  Here", "I  Got  Love For  Ya  Ruby", "I  Honestly  Love  You", "When I  Fall In  Love", "This  Song's  For  You" (  for  CBS  1975-77 ) and  "Miracles" ( for  Precision  1979 ).   I  have  heard  "When  You  Walk  Through  Life ( Cavatina ) "   which,  as  the  title  suggests,  puts  another  set  of  words  to  the  Deerhunter  Theme  and  is  a  great  cure  for  insomnia. This  was  apparently  the  last  release  on  the  Ember  record  label. Then  came  two  singles  in  the  early  eighties , "Thief  In  The  Night"  ( Celebrity 1981 ) and  "Pray  For  Time"  on  MMT  in  1982 , a  quasi-religious  chest  beater  with  naff  eighties  production.

Of  course  non-selling  singles  don't  pay  the  rent  and  Vince  worked  in  cabaret  and  musical  theatre  throughout  this  period. He  was  also  a  staple  of  variety  shows  on  TV. In  the  eighties  he  spent  a  lot  of  time  working  on  cruise  ships  In  1993  he   dipped  a  toe  back  in  the  singles  market  with  a  version  of  "Swing  Low  Sweet  Chariot"  which  doesn't  rise  above  the  level  of  bad  karaoke. In  recent  years  he's  put  out  the  odd  album  mixing  more  contemporary  covers  with  re-recordings  of  his  back  catalogue.  He's  still  out  on  the  road  in  his  late  seventies; a  recent  tour  was  promoted  as  the  "I'm  Still  Standing"  tour  after  a  brush  with  cancer. He  was  back  in  the  news  earlier  this  year  when  his  son  died  after walking  away,  apparently  unharmed , from  a  car  crash  on  black  ice.  His  wife  is  also  seriously  ill. Recently, he  bravely  put  his  head  over  the  parapet  to  stick  up  for  his  best  friend  Rolf  Harris.