Chart entered : 29 July 1965
Chart peak : 4
Number of hits : 17
I suppose I could have made a case for excluding this guy as he only had nine hits under his own name but it's not as if there are no other sex criminals to cover.
There's very little backstory here. Kenneth King was born in London in December 1944 to an American textile magnate and English mother. He went to Charterhouse public school. While in Hawaii on his gap year ( alright for some eh ? ) he ran into The Beatles and after buttonholing ( and perhaps more ) Brian Epstein decided on a career in pop. This he pursued while still studying English Literature at Cambridge. He made some recordings for Joe Meek but they never made it onto vinyl. He used his own contacts to get a contract with Decca; I think this was his debut single but there are conflicting accounts on that.
I don't know if Jonathan did this song for Meek but the latter's influence couldn't be more obvious, from the humanised sci-fi lyrics to the dreamlike ambience of the music, exactly the sound Joe was trying for on singles with Heinz like You Were There. Jonathan's voice is endearingly gauche and his rabbit-in-the-headlights performance on Top Of The Pops still speaks something of the innocence of a time when I was probably only just lifting a spoon, whatever he got up to afterwards. The strange ending with the turbulent strings hints at darker times to come.
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