284 Goodbye The Osmonds - I Can't Live A Dream

Chart   entered : 31  October  1976

Chart  peak : 37

So  far  -with  the  artificial  exception  of  The  Jackson  Five - we've been  saying  farewell  to  survivors  from  the  fifties  and  sixties Now  the  stars  of  the  early  seventies  began  to  feel  the pinch; the  giants  of  my  first  pop  years  started  to  disappear. By  1976  , in  the  wake  of  the  Rollers,  Osmondmania   seemed  a  long  time  ago  and  this  record  completely  passed  me  by  at  the  time.

You  often  hear  that   the  Osmonds  blew  it    in  1973  with  their  mad  Mormon  concept  LP  "The  Plan"  but  that's  nonsense   at  least  as  far   as  their  popularity  in  the  UK  is  concerned . It  spawned  two  big  hits  in  "Going  Home"  and  "Let  Me In" ( with  its  migraine-inducing  promo  film )  and  their  UK  tour  that  year  generated  a  level  of  fan hysteria  not  seen  since  the  Beatles. The  following  year  they  got  their  first  and  only  number  one  with  "Love Me  For  A  Reason" and  "The  Proud  One"  made  number  5  in  1975. These  were  all  good  pop  singles  that  have  never  had  due  credit.

By  1976  though,  they  were  distracted  by   Donny  and  sister  Marie  being  offered  a  TV  show  of  their  own  despite  both  being  still  in  their  teens. The  group  took  a  back  seat  and  the  other  brothers  worked  on  building  a  TV studio  in  Utah  to  give  the  family  more  control  over  the  show.

"I  Can't  Live  A  Dream"  was  the  lead  single  from  their  last   album  as  a  quintet,   "Brainstorm".  The  single  sleeve  is  misleading; neither  Marie  nor  Little  Jimmy  are  on  the  record. It's  a  cover  of  a  forlorn  but   rather  insipid  disco-lite  track  from  Frankie  Valli's  1975  LP  Closeup.  The  boys'  is  the  better  version , giving  the  song  a  shot  of  energy  with  Mike  Curb's  production  skills    Merrill's  gritty  vocals  and  the  harmonies  as  strong  as  they  ever  were. It's  just  not  that  great  a  song  and  didn't  really  merit  a  higher  chart  position. It  was  also  their  last  hit  in  the  U.S.  reaching  number  46.

The  album  didn't  make  the  charts. The  demands  of  the  show  meant  Donny  was  absent  from  the  next  one  "Steppin'  Out"  in  1979  which  was  produced  by  Maurice  Gibb.  Have   a  guess  who  it  sounds  a  bit  like ? The  first  single  was  the  title  track  which  is  like  George  Michael  ( it's  Jay )  fronting  KC  and  the  Sunshine  Band  , a  bunch  of  dance floor  slogans  over  a  credible  groove  rather  than  a  song . The  follow-up  was  the  Wayne-sung  ( not  very well  actually )  "It's  Rainin"  an   AOR  ballad  that  sounds  like  Styx. The  standout  track  though  is  "I,I,I,"  which  blends   a  Giorgio  Moroder  sequencer  pulse  with  Chic  strings  and   a  cheeky  nod  to  Staying  Alive  ( note  the  title )  to  great  effect ; you'd  never  guess  it  was  them. Unfortunately  this  valiant  attempt  to  update  their  sound  went  unnoticed; nothing  charted  anywhere.

Worse  was  to  follow . The  Donny  and Marie  Show  was  cancelled  later  that  year  and  although  ratings  had  been  slipping   it  still  came  as  a  big  shock  to   the  family. In  the  fallout  from  that  they  discovered  that  much  of  the  money  earned  had  been  embezzled  and  they  were  actually  in  debt. The  TV  studio  had  to  be  sold  to  stave  off  bankruptcy.

The  quartet  eventually  re-emerged , back  as  The  Osmond  Brothers,  in  1982 . The  Osmonds'  ferocious  family  loyalty  prevents  us   from  ever  knowing  the  full  story  but  it  seems  clear  that  there  was  some  serious  fracture  between  Donny  and  his  brothers  around  this  point  and  he's  done  his  own  thing  ever  since. We  will  of  course  come  back  to  him.

The  Osmomd  Brothers'  new  direction  was  Country  and  Western. As  we've  seen  before  the  country  audience  doesn't  mind  where  you've  come  from  as  long  as  the  music's  good  and  they  had  a  string  of  country  hits  between  1982  and  1986. In  April 1985  they  returned  to  the  UK  and  the  BBC  broadcast  one  of   their  concerts  but  they  were  widely  derided. After  that  they  became  less  interested  in  touring  as  they  were  now  all  married  and  breeding  like  rabbits. None  of  their  records  crossed  over  and  after  two  albums  they  ceased  recording  when  Alan  was  diagnosed  with  MS  in  1986.

Ironically  just  as  Donny's  career  revived  , the  rest  of  the  boys  dropped  out  of  public  view. Alan's  sons  formed  a  group  the  Osmond  Boys  and  released  a  couple  of  LPs  which  were  quickly  forgotten. Merrill  struggled  with  depression  and  you  can  now  phone  him , presumably  at  premium  rate, to  hear  a  recorded  message  on  why  he  didn't  commit  suicide  ( I  wonder  how  much  he'd  accept  to  go  through  with  it  ) . Wayne  had  to have  surgery  for  a  brain  tumour. Jay  decided  to  go  back  to  college  and  study  accountancy  and  now  largely  runs  the  family  business.

The  Osmonds  returned  to  performing  in  the  2000s  with  Jimmy , who'd  made  a  decent  career  for  himself  in  entertainment  management  replacing  Alan.  Generally  they  don't  perform  too  far  away  from  their  entertainment  complex  in  Branson, Missouri  though  the  whole  family  took  part  in  a  50th  anniversary  tour  of  Europe   in  2007-08  and  the  brothers  toured  the  UK  in  2010. In  2011  Wayne  stopped  performing  on  health  grounds  but  the  others  are  still  going, Merrill  occasionally  doing  solo  gigs,.        

283 Hello Bonnie Tyler - Lost in France

Chart  entered : 31  October  1976

Chart  peak : 9

Number  of  hits : 11

Bonnie's  got  a  very  modest  hit  total  for  someone  who's  been  around  so  long;  the  Welsh  warbler  is  much  more  appreciated  on  the  Continent  than  she  is  here.

She  was  born  Gaynor  Hopkins  in  1951  in  South  Wales; her  father  was  a  miner  of  course. She  left  school  without  qualifications  and  started  working  at  a  grocer's. She  joined  a  local  band  as  a  backing  vocalist  in  1969  then  formed  her own  band  Imagination  taking  the  stage  name  of  Shereen  Davies  and  found  work  in  the  clubs. She  got  married  in  1973. The  following  year  the  band  got  on  New  Faces  but  didn't  make  a  good  impression. In  1975  she  was  spotted  by  A & R  man  Roger  Bell  who  invited  her  to  record  some  tracks  solo  in  London. A  few  months  later came  the  offer  of  a  deal  with  RCA  and  another  change  of  name..

Her  first  single  was  written  by  her  producers  Ronnie  Scott  and  Steve  Wolfe.  and  released  in  April  1976.  "My  My  Honeycomb"  is  a  plaintive  plea  from  an  abandoned  one  night  stand  with  slightly  risque  lyrics  - "leave  my  honey  alone"  - that  marries  Abba  to  a  rock  edge  and  ends  up  sounding  like  Belinda  Carlisle  a  dozen  years  earl. Apart  from  some  very  dated  synth  sounds  it's  pretty  good, one  that  got  away.

"Lost  In  France"  was  the  follow-up  and  like  the  previous  single  recorded  before  the  throat  operation  which  turned  her  slightly   raspy  voice  into  full-on  Rod  Stewart  when  she  failed  to   rest  it  properly. It  was  quite  a  sleeper , released  six  weeks  before  it  charted  and  I  heard  the  song  being  performed  by  a  girl  at  school  in  rehearsals  for  the  Christmas  concert  before  I  heard  the  record  itself. It  was  promoted  with  an  elaborate  stunt  whereby  RCA  flew  a  party  of  journalists  to  meet  Bonnie  at  a  rented  chateau  in  France. It's  possible  that  the  stunt  informed  the  song  rather  than  vice  versa.

"Lost  In  France"  probably  isn't  anyone's  favourite  record. Pinned  to  the  And  Then  He  Kissed  Me  riff,   it  reverses  the  storyline  of  Twenty  Four  Hours  In  Tulsa  with  Bonnie  telling  her  guy  back  in  the  valleys  he's  been  gazumped  by  some  Euro-stud. Take  out  Bonnie's  voice  and  it  sounds  like  one  of  Smokie's  strum-a-longs  and  the  accordions  are  an  obvious  inclusion  that  give  it  a  distinct  whiff  of  cheese. Still  enough  people  liked  it  to  get  her  career  off  the  ground.

282 Hello Joan Armatrading - Love and Affection

Chart  entered  : 16  October  1976



Chart  peak :  10



Number  of  hits : 10



The  nearest  thing  we've  had  to  a  cult  artist  so  far,  Joan's  always  sold  more  albums  than  singles   and  without  going  back  and  doing  all  the  maths  I  would  guess  that  she  has  the  lowest  average  chart  peak  of  anyone  we've  covered  up  to  this  point.



Joan  was  born  on  the  island  of  St  Kitts  in  1950  and  came  to  Britain  when  she  was  7  settling  in  Birmingham. Her  father  was  a  musician  but  didn't  encourage  her  to  follow  in  his  footsteps. She  taught  herself  to  play  on  a  cheap  guitar  her  mother  bought  her. She  started  working  for  an  electric  tool  manufacturer  but  was  sacked  for  disrupting  tea  breaks  with  her  singing. In  1968  she  joined  a  touring  production  of  Hair  where  she  befriended  Pam  Nestor  , a  young  lyricist. The  two  began  working  together  and  produced  a  demo  tape  which  the  more  outgoing  Nestor  hawked  around  the  publishers  until  they  got  a  deal  with  Cube  records.



Joan  and  Pam  went  into  the  studio as  a  duo  but  from  the  start  Cube  saw  Joan  as  a  solo  artist.  They  agreed   not  to  title  the  first  album  "Joan  Armatrading"  but  from  the  huge  stockpile  of  songs  they  recorded,  Cube  made  sure  those  they  selected  didn't  feature  Nestor  singing  or  playing  although  she  co-wrote  eleven  of  the  14   tracks. The  album  "Whatever's  For  Us"  was  released  in  November  1972.



 Joan  is  the  first  black  artist  we  can  discuss  without  using  the  terms  "soul" "R  &  B" "doo  wop "  or  "reggae"; the  influences  here  are  Elton, Cat  Stevens  and  Carole  King. She  wasn't  quite  the  first  to  break  into  the  all-white  world  of  the  singer-songwriter  but  Woodstock's  moany  troubador  Ritchie  Havens  never  meant  anything  over  here.



Perhaps  because  of  the   politics  involved  the  debut  LP  is  very  patchy. The  songs  are  mostly  short  and  at  least  half  of  them  sound  unfinished  , cutting  off  after  two  and  a  half  minutes  without  resolution. Gus  Dudgeon's  production  doesn't  help  with  loud  drums  and  piano  chords  often  obscuring  Joan's  guitar  work. There  are  signs  of  talent  in  some  tart  lyrics  about  family  life  and  Joan's  impressive  vocal  range  is  in  evidence  throughout  but  it's  not  quite  there  yet. The  critical  response  was  very  positive  but  there  were  no  singles  released  and  it  didn't  sell.



Nestor  was  also  shut  out   of   the  promotional  gigs  arranged  by  Cube  and  that  was  the  last  straw. She  walked  out  on  the  partnership  and  by  the  end  of  the  decade  was  no  longer  involved  in  the  music  business. In  July  1973  Cube  released  a  left  over  track  she  had  co-written  as  Joan's  debut  single  "Lonely  Lady", an  impressively  fiery  rocker  reminiscent  of  Jefferson  Airplane. By  this  time  Joan  was  actively  trying  to  get  away  from  Cube,  blaming  them  for  the  break-up  of  the  partnership  with  Nestor   though  it's  hard  to  believe  she  couldn't  have  been  a  bit  more  proactive  in  standing  up  for  her  friend.



The  legals  took  some  time  to  come  through  but  eventually  Joan  was  free  to  sign  up  with  A & M. The  sessions  for  her  next  album   "Back  To  The  Night" were  difficult  ; without  Nestor  around  ( though  two  of  the  tracks  were  co-written  by  her )  Joan  was  wayward  and  temperamental  and  had  to  be  bawled  out  by  producer  Pete  Gage  to  get  the  album  completed.  Nor  was  she  happy  with  the  finished  product. Despite  these  difficulties  the  album  is  a  big  leap  forward  from  her  debut , still  a  bit  uneven  with  not  all  her  genre-hopping  ending  in  success  but  including  some  stand-out  tracks  such  as  the  jazzy  "Cool  Blue  Stole  My  Heart"   with  its  amazing  instrumental  break  and  the  jaw-dropping  piano  ballad  "Dry  Land"  ( one  of  the  Nestor  compositions ) which  aches  with  the  longing  for  home  of  an  errant  adventurer. The  album  came  out  first  but  there  were  two  singles  , the  title  track  which  has  an  FM -radio  friendly  sheen  but  no  real  hooks  and  then  "Dry  Land"  which  was  just  too  raw  and  rich  for  daytime  radio  ( Peelie   played  it  a  lot ).



Which  brings  us  to  "Love  and  Affection" . I  must  say  at  the  outset  that  I  built  up  some  resistance  to  the  song  due  to  the  fawning  over  it  by  the  Radio  One  jocks, in  particular  the  unctuous   slimeball  Peter  Powell*  who  cited  it  as  his  all  time   favourite  record. It's  an  oddly  structured  song  that  keeps  threatening  a  big  chorus  which  never  arrives. It  starts,  like  God  Only  Knows  with  an  arresting  line "I  am  not  in  love - but  I'm  open  to  persuasion "  and  then  follows   Joan's  musings  on  whether  it  would be  nice  to  have  a  lover  underscored  by  emphatic  strings  and  Clarke  Peters's  Barry  White  interjections of  "Give  me  love".  I  can  see  why  others  might  find  the  stream  of  consciousness  flow  and  the  murmured repetitions  - "really  love, really  love, love  love " etc  fresh  and  spontaneous  but  it  just  doesn't  quite  work  for  me. It  remains  her  biggest  hit 











*  A  legend  seems  to  have  grown  up  that  Powell  nobly  surrendered  his  position  at  Radio  One  which  comes  down  to  a  remark  that  he  no  longer  understood  music  when  Jack  Your  Body  by  Steve  Silk  Hurley  made  number  one.  In  fact  Powell  didn't  leave  the  station  until  eighteen  months  after  that   and  three  years  after  being  evicted   from  his  tea  time  slot ( to  make  way  for  Bruno  Brookes  who  was  actually  more  nauseating )  and  he  left  to  make  serious  money  in  talent  management  including  his  girlfriend  Anthea  Turner  ( no irony  intended ).      

281 Goodbye Acker Bilk* - Aria

( as  Acker  Bilk, His  Clarinet  and  Strings)

Chart  entered  : 21  August  1976

Chart  peak : 5

We're  now  well  into  the  long  hot  summer  of  1976,  fondly  remembered  by  anyone  over  45. In  my  case  it  marked  the  transition  from  primary  to  secondary  school ( actually  delayed  by  a  year  due  to  building  work  over-running  further  up  the  chain )  so  by  one  definition  Acker's  tootling  little  tune  soundtracked  the  passing  of  my  childhood  as  well  as  supplying  a  belated  full  stop  to  the  trad  jazz  era  in  the  charts. Acker   also   beat  Jerry  Lee  Lewis's  comeback  record  having  been  absent  for  13  years  Since  then  he  had  been  entertaining on  the  cabaret  circuit.

"Aria"  came  out  of  nowhere. The  tune  was  an  Italian  hit  for  Dario  Baldan  Bembo   in  1975. Acker   plays  it  simple  on  his  clarinet  while  an  orchestra  hums  sweetly  in  the  background  then  at  2:10  a  rhythm  section  kicks  in  to  give  it  some  more  oomph,  the  drums  getting  progressively  more  lively  until  the  fade. It  wasn't  used  as  the  theme  to  anything  , people  just  heard  it*  , liked  it  and  bought  it , simple  as  that. It's  not  the  sort  of  thing  I'd  normally  listen  to  -  now  it  unfortunately  sounds  like  something  from  the  sort  of  CD's   they  play in  craft  or  antique  shops - but  it's  very  nice  if  you're  in  the  right  mood  for  it.

Acker  tried  to  follow  up  his  renewed  success  with  the  very  similar  "Incontro"  in  October.   He  provided  the  musical  interlude  when  the  UK  hosted  the  Eurovision  Song  Contest  in  1977. His  next  few  singles  were  "Love  Theme  (From  "The  Eagle  Has  Landed")  which  wasn't  on  the  orginal  soundtrack, an  instrumental  version  of  Andy  Fairweatherlow's  "Dancing  in  the  Dark",  "Universe "  a  collaboration  with  Wimbledon  High  School  Choir, the  themes  from  Mister  Men  and  The  Incredible  Hulk ,  another  collaboration  with  the  WHSC  on  "Aranjuez  Mon  Amour" , "Verde"  "On  Sunday"  and  finally  "Find  A  Way"  in  1981.

Acker  left  the  singles  market  then  and  his  career  took  a  predictable  path  , regular  touring  often  with  his  peers  Chris  Barber  and  Kenny  Ball  as  the  3B's  and  cheap  CDs  of  pop  covers  mirroring  on  the  clarinet  what  Hank  Marvin  and  the  Shadows  were  doing  on  guitars  with  the  same  predictable  song  choices. More  credibly  he  also  appeared  on  three  Van  Morrison  albums.

In  2000  he  overcame  throat  cancer. He  later  had  to  deal  with  bladder  cancer  and  a  minor  stroke. He  died  two  months  ago  not  long  after  celebrating  his  Diamond  wedding  anniversary.







* I'm  guessing  maybe  Radio  Two  picked  up  on  it  ?

280 Hello The Real Thing - You To Me Are Everything

Chart  entered  : 5  June  1976

Chart  peak : 1

Number  of  hits  : 11

This  was  a  big  turn-up  for  me  as  I  remembered  their  second  single  from my  first  days  of  listening  to  Radio  One  and  had  long  since  assumed  that  no  one  from  that  era  would  now  break  through. It  was  certainly  well  deserved  as  this  was  their  ninth  single  on  their  third  label.

The  band  was  formed  in  1970  by four  teenage   black  kids  from  Liverpool, Dave  Smith, Ray  Lake , Kenny  Davis  and  Chris  Amoo  whose  elder  brother  Eddie  was  in  a  longstanding  Liverpool  vocal  group  The  Chants. The  latter's  claim  to  fame  was  once  having  The  Beatles  back  them  at  The  Cavern  in  November  1962  but  Eddie's  memories  of  that  night  are  a  bit  dodgy  as  he  was  only  twelve  at  the  time; I  suspect  he  may  not  have  joined  the  group  until  later. Six  different  labels  between  1963  and  1974  attempted  to  convert  The  Chants'  popularity   in  their  home  town  into  national  success  but  couldn't  do  it. Eddie  had  to  join  his  kid  brother's  band  in  1975  to  make  it  big.

As  I  said  above   their  second  single  "Plastic  Man"  is  the  only  one  of  their  pre-fame  singles  I  know  and  that's  the  way  it's  going  to  stay  for  the  time  being; by  an  odd  fluke  it's  the  only  one  on  You  Tube  or  Spotify.  I  don't  know  whether  there's  a  legal  issue  or  just  a  Kraftwerkian  desire  to  erase  that  history  but  all  their  compilations  take  "You  To  Me  Are  Everything"  as  Year  Zero. If  it's  the  latter  reason  it's  doubly  odd  because  Eddie  wrote  most  of  them  despite  not  being  in  the  band  at  the  time. For  the record  the  singles  were ; on  Bell  ( 1972 )  "Vicious  Cycle ; on  EMI  ( 1973-5 ) "Plastic  Man", " Listen  Joe  McGintoo" , "Check  It Out" , "Vicious  Cycle" ( re-recorded ), "Daddy  Dear"  ; on  Pye  ( 1975  onwards ) "Stone  Cold  Love  Affair " "Watch  Out  Carolina" . "Plastic  Man" - which  I've  just  heard  for  the  first  time  in  42  years - suggests  they  had  nothing  of  which  to  be  ashamed. I  think  it's  an  admonition  to  some  poseur  but  it's  a  fast  and  furious  collision  of  The  Temptations' *  urban  funk, the  riotous  percussion  of  Osibisa  and  the  Gibson  Brothers'  passionate   vocals. It's  chaotic  and  over-produced  but  by  some  distance  their  best  record.

Despite  some  airplay and  presumably  a  big  push  from  EMI  as  it  was  the  first  single  under  that  imprint  it  didn't  do  any  better  than  the  ones  that  followed  it,  Davis  left  at  some point  in  this  run  and  they  continued  as  a  trio. They  also  made  an  appearance  on  Opportunity  Knocks.  Once  they'd  signed  with  Pye ,  Eddie  finally  decided  to  quit  The  Chants  and  come  into  the  band. David  Essex  took  them  under  his wing  to  some  extent. They  opened  for  him  on  tour  in  1975  and  sang  on  his  single  "Rolling  Stone". He  in  turn  wrote  and  produced  "Watch  Out  Carolina".

Which  brings  us  to  the  Popular  link  Real Thing  

**  Coincidentally  the  Temptations  also  released  a  completely  different  song  with  the  same  title  at  the  same  time. It's   tuneless  and  plodding, grossly  inferior  to  the  boys' song.

279 Goodbye Marmalade - Falling Apart At The Seams

Chart  entered  : 21  February  1976

Chart  peak : 9

From  the  middle  of  1975  the  onward  march  of  disco  was  evident  in  the  way  it  was  picked  up  and  assimilated  by  white  pop  acts  of  the  day   with  The  Bee  Gees, Leo  Sayer  and  Mud  to  name  just  three  who  jumped on  the  bandwagon. Here  it  provides  a   last  comeback  hit  for  Marmalade  who'd  been  off  the  charts  since  April  1972  so  when  this  came  out  I  assumed  they  were  a  new  band  rather  than  sixties  survivors. Actually  I  wasn't  far  wrong  as  the  band  had  spent  the  past  five  years  doing  precisely  what  the  title  suggests and  this  record  was  made  by  an  almost  completely  different  line  up  to  their  first  hit.

The  disintegration  started  in  1971 when  guitarist  and  songwriter  Junior  Campbell  quit  to  study  at  the  Royal  College  of  Music. He  was  replaced  by  Hugh  Nicholson  from  The  Poets   a  Glaswegian  band  who  were  big  in  Scotland  but  never crossed  over  to  the  rest  of  the  UK . After  enjoying  another  Top  10  hit  with "Cousin  Norman", Hugh  persuaded  the  rest  of  the  band  to  sack   drummer  Alan  Whitehead  and  replace  him  with  hid  friend  from  The  Poets  Dougie  Henderson. Alan's  response  was  to  go  to  the  News  of  the  World  with  lurid  tales  of  the  band's  sexual  adventures   with  underage  fans  which  didn't  do  their  reputation  any  favours  and  according  to  Dean, broke  up  his  marriage.

After  their  last  hit  before  this  one,  "Radancer",   bassist   Pat  Fairley  quit  playing  to  run  their  music  publishing  company  then  Hugh  decided  he'd  be  better  off  forming  a  new band  which  became  Blue. He  was  replaced  after  an  interval  by  a  Welsh  guitarist  Mike  Japp.  The  band  got  a  new  deal  with  EMI  but  after  their  first  single  flopped their  other  bassist  Graham  Knight  quit  leaving  Dean  Ford  as the  last  original  member. With  little  enthusiasm  for  playing  the  nostalgia  circuit  the  band  ground  to  a  halt.

In  1975  Graham  and  Alan  got  together  as  "Vintage  Marmalade"   to  tour  the  hits  with  Sandy  Newman  ( vocals/ guitar)  and  Charlie  Smith  ( guitar ). On  realising  that  Dean  had  no  interest  in  continuing  the  name  they  dropped  the  prefix    and  signed  with  Tony  Macaulay's Target  label.

"Falling  Apart  At  The  Seams"  was  a  Macaulay  tune  which  had  originally  been  offered to  Tony  Burrows. It  was  actually  my  favourite  song  in  the  charts  at  the  time  but  I  haven't  heard  it  since  so  I  was  interested  to  see  how  well  it  held  up.  And on  its  own  terms  it  does,  a  disco-inflected  pop  tune  with  a  Day  Before  You Came  lyrical  premise ,  tight  harmonies  and  a  strong  chorus  ramped  up  further  by  Sandy's  falsetto. The  disappointment  is  that  there's  an  interesting  guitar  riff  building  in  the  intro  which  gets  cut  off   and  then  isn't  revisited.  The   record  is  a  late -blooming  flower  for  seventies  studio   pop -  although  Macaulay  had  one  monster   hit  to  come -  and  may  not  have  been  a  hit  at  all  twelve  months  later.

Marmalade  quickly  came  back  to  earth. The  identikit  follow-up  "Walkin  a  Tightrope"  ( also  penned  by  Macaulay )  flopped  despite  airplay  and  a  wild  card  appearance   on  Top  of  the  Pops. Sandy  wrote  their  next  single "What  You  Need  Is  A  Miracle"  a  soft  rock  smoocher  with  some  great   guitar  work  but  it  didn't  get  heard. Their  fourth  single  of  1976  "Hello  Baby"  is  a  feather light  pop  number  somewhere  between  The  Rubettes  and  The  Dooleys.
Macaulay  wrote  their  next  single  in  February 1977 , "The  Only  Light  On  My  Horizon  Now"  , MOR  schmaltz  which  might  have  been  aimed at  his  new  cash  cow  David  Soul . After  that  Charlie  decamped  to  Blue  and  was  replaced  by  Garth  Watt  Roy.

Marmalade  soldiered  on  with  "Mystery  Has  Gone"   in  July  1977  a  pleasant  America-style  strum  but   horribly  out  of  date  for  the  UK  market. Their  final single  for  Target  was  Roger  Cook  and  Bobby Wood's  "Talking  In  Your  Sleep"  in  January  1978  , a  good  song  but  they  had  to  do  battle  with  a  rival  version  from  Crystal  Gayle   and  they  cancelled  each  other  out. Gayle's  version  was  a  hit  later  in  the  year  after  its  US  success  and  her  more  intimate  take   nails  it   for  me.

More  line  up  changes  then  took  place  with  Watt  Roy  decamping  to  the  Q-Tips  and  Alan  going  into  mobile  discos. They  were  replaced  by  Ian  Withington  and  Stuart  Williamson  respectively. They  found  a  new  home  on  Sky  Records  and  released  "Heavens  Above"   in  November  1978  which  sounds  like  Smokie . Somehow  they  were  back  on  EMI  for  "Made  In  Germany"  in  October  1979 , reborn  as  a  New  Wave  act  with   the  synth  pulse ,  treated  vocals  and  quirky  rhythms  sounding  very  much  like  After  The  Fire.

Graham  and  Sandy  ploughed  on  through  the  eighties  and  nineties  with  a  revolving  door  of  supporting  members  releasing  product  on  ever-smaller  labels  which  makes  it  hard  to  track  them. They  released  a  single  "Heartbreaker  in 1984  which  is  the  dullest  AOR  plod  imaginable. From  1987  onwards  they  started  working  intermittently  with  Dave  Dee  and  seem  to  have  accepted  their  status  as  a  nostalgia  act. In  2011  Graham  decided  to  retire  breaking  the  last  link  with  their  sixties  hey-day  so  the  current  touring  line  up  includes  just  one  member  who  played  on  just  one  hit. Nothing  daunted  Sandy  and  the  lads  went  into  the  studio  to  record  a  CD  "Penultimate"  for  their  2013  tour  which  had  re-recorded  hits  , sixties  covers  and  half  a  dozen  new  songs  which  I  haven't  heard  but  am  told  are  in  a  country  rock  vein.

So  what  happened  to  the  others. Junior's  solo  career   got  off  to  a  good  start  with  two  Top  20  hits  "Hallelujah  Freedom"  and  "Sweet  Illusion"  in  1973  but  he  wasn't  able  to  build  on  it.
His  next  single  "Help  Your  Fellow  Man"  was  adopted  as  the  theme  tune  for  a  US  pirate  radio  station  "The  Voice  of  Peace"  which  broadcast  for  20  years. That  didn't  help  it  here  where  energetic  white  soul  wasn't  cutting  it  in  the  age  of  glam.  His  next  one  "Sweet  Lady  Love"  hedged  its   bets  with  Neil  Sedaka  piano  ballad  verses  before  the  gospel  chorus  and  "Ol'  Virginia "  sounds  like  he  was  demo-ing  for  The  Three  Degrees  ( although  John  Phillips  might  have  been  interested  in  the  provenance  of  the  melody  ).  Those  were  his  last  singles  for  Deram.

Junior  was  also  writing  and  producing  for  other  acts  , mainly  other  fading  lights  such  as  The  Tremeloes  or  Paul  Ryan  but  he  hit  lucky  with  the  Scottish  singer  Barbara  Dickson , arranging  and  producing  her  breakthrough  album  Answer  Me.  When  Dickson  was  then  offered  the  resident  musical  interlude  slot  on  The  Two  Ronnies  for  a  series  Junior  went  with  her  as  musical  director  giving  him  his  big  break  on  TV.  At  the  same  time  Elton  John  offered  him  a  deal  with  Rocket  which  resulted  in  three  singles , "Carabino  Lady" , "Here  Comes  The  Band"  and  "Baby  Hold  On". I've  only  heard  the  latter  which  is  a  soft  rock  harmony-fest  with  co-writer  Chip  Hawkes , nice  enough  but  not  very  memorable.In  1978  he  popped  up  again  on  Private  Stock  in  1978  with  two  singles  the  Elton-ish  "Highland  Girl"  and  the  opportunistic  "America"  which  again  goes  for  the  layered  harmony  sound. They  were  his  final  singles; he  recorded  some  synthy  stuff  in  the  early  eighties  which  has  been  included  on  compilation  CDs  since  but  was  never  released  at  the  time.

From  that  point  on  he  earned  his  bread  and  butter  with  TV  work  most  notably  writing  all  the  music  for  Thomas  The  Tank  Engine  between  1983  and  2003  when  he  fell  out  with  the  new  owners.  He  seems  to  have  retired  now  and  lives  in  Surrey.

Hugh's  Blue  were  signed  by  Robert  Stigwood's  RSO  label  in  1973. Their  first  single  was  "Red  Light Song "  which  is  not  as  interesting  as  the  title  suggests  but  does  have  a  certain  pull  as  a  lighters -aloft  soft  rock  anthem  and  isn't  a  million  miles  away  from  Embrace. The  follow  up  "Little  Jody"  is  rockier  , benefitting  from  the temporary  sojourn  in  the  band  of  future  Wings  guitarist  Jimmy  McCullough.  To  say  Stigwood  has  a  ruthless  reputation  he  gave  Blue  a  lot  of  rope  , letting  them  release  two  albums  and  five  singles  without  seeing  any  return. Their  latter  trio  of  singles "Lonesome", "Cookie  In  A  Jar" and  "Round  And  Round"  sound  like  Donovan, Johnny  Logan  and  early  Sweet  respectively  and  none  of  them  are  very  good.

In  1977  with  Charlie now  added  to  the  line  up  they  signed  for  Rocket  and  scored  their  sole  hit  ( under that  name -see  below  )  with   the  pleasant  but  unremarkable   "Gonna  Capture  Your  Heart"  which  reached  number  18  in  May  1977  and  may  be  the  decade's  most  forgotten  Top  20  hit. Their  tenure  at  Rocket  was  surprisingly  lengthy  too. The  lumpen  follow  up  "Another  Night  Time  Flight"  killed  their  momentum. The  appositely  titled  "Bring  Back  The  Love"  was  stronger  but  not  for  a  music  scene  that  had  been  turned  upside  down  in  a  matter  of  months. Still  they  soldiered  on  with  another  four  singles, all  produced  by  Elton  and  Clive  Franks. For  the  record  they were  "Women" , "Stranger's  Town", "Love  Sings"  and  "Danger  Sign"  all  fairly  mediocre  and  only  the  latter  with  its  power pop  guitars  acknowledging  the  change  in  the  weather.

Let  go  by  Rocket  at  the  start  of  the  eighties  they  decamped  to  Los  Angeles  and  toiled  away  on  the  club  circuit  to  little  effect. They  released  one  more  single  "Don't  Wanna  Make  You  Cry"  in  1982  which  sounds  like  an  attempt  to  jump  on  the  Beatles  20th  Anniversary  bandwagon   and  can  be  filed  alongside  The  Pinkees  and  Scarlet  Party. In  1987  they  temporarily  re-branded  themselves  as  "Radio  Heart"  to  do  a  couple  of  singles  with  Gary  Numan , "Radio  Heart "  and  "London  Times "  both  of  them  minor  hits   and  OK  if  you  like  that  bombastic  Fairlight  synth-rock  sound  that  plagued  the  later  eighties. They  repeated  the  partnership  in  1994  under  the  pseudonym  Da  Da  Dang  with  the  Celtic- industrial   mash-up  "Like  A  Refugee"  which  is  as   uncomfortable  as  you'd  expect. Numan  was  pretty  washed-up  at  this  point  and  the  record  wasn't  a  hit.  For  their  next  record  "Country  Blue" , which  is  a fair  summation  of  the  content, in  1999,  they  reverted  to  their   usual  name.

By  some  means  - I  haven't  come  across  a   reference  to  them  working  with  anyone  other than  Numan  and  they weren't  touring - they  were  able  to  challenge  the  boy  band  over  the  name  in  2003. Before  it  went  to  court  Charlie  bailed  out  perhaps  fearing  a  huge  legal  bill  coming  his  way. In fact  old  Blue  did  lose  the  case the  judge  ruling  they were  substantially  differentiated to  avoid  harmful  confusion. They  released  an  album  of Tom  Petty / REM flavoured  pop  rock  "Heaven Avenue"  the  same  year  but  have  been  quiet  since  perhaps  licking  their  wounds  and  counting  the  cost.  

Alan's  had  a  rather  colourful  career  since  he  quit  the  band.  He  started  doing  disco  roadshows  where  topless  girls  were  used  to  bring  in  the  punters; Mel  Appleby  worked  for  him  for  a  time. In  the  nineties  he  pioneered  lap  dancing  clubs  in  Britain. He  has  also  managed  nightclubs  and  artists  though  as  yet  nobody  who's  made  it  big - Shoot  the  Preacher, Fabienne  Holloway , The  Maida  Vales, Joanovarc  anyone ? In  2009  he  appeared  as  a  mature  hopeful  on  Take  Me  Out . A  few  months  back  he  published  the  book  Don't  Shoot  The  Messenger  sharing  his  shamanistic  philosophy  with  the  world.

After  leaving  the  band  in  1974  Dougie  became  a  barman  at  the  Jean  Armour  pub  in  Glasgow  and  was  last  heard  of  playing  in  a  band  called  Blues  Poets  in  2002.

On  realising  the  band's  days  were  numbered  Pat  went  to  America  - without  a  work  permit  until  the  eighties - and  ended  up  running  a  successful  bar  in  California  called  Scotland  Yard.

Dean  got  a  solo  deal  with  EMI. His  first  single  in  August  1975    "Hey  My  Love"  sounds  like  Barry  Manilow  and  is  passable  MOR  fare. I  haven't  heard  the  second  "Cry  Myself  To  Sleep". These  came  from  his  non-selling  eponymous  LP.  In  November  1977  he  had  a  last  shot  with  "The  Fever"  a  Bruce  Springsteen  song  about  teenage  sexual  frustration  done  as  a  downbeat  jazz  piano  number  a  la  Steely Dan. It's  not  bad  actually  but  not  really  hit  single  material. The  producer  on  his  first  two  singles  was  Alan  Parsons  and  he  used  Dean  as  a  vocalist  on  two  tracks  of  The  Alan  Parsons  Project's  third  album Pyramid  in  1978.

After cutting  those  tracks  Dean  followed  Pat  to  California  and  tried  to  cut  a  deal  in  Los  Angeles. After  numerous  rejections  he  turned  to  drink  and  lived  off  his  savings  until  the  mid-nineties. Cleaned  up  after  going  to  Alcoholics  Anonymous   he  worked  as  a  limo  driver  picking  up  celebrities  from  LA  airport. The  use of  "Reflections  of  My  Life"   during  the  referendum  campaign  for  the  Northern  Ireland  Peace  Agreement  in  1998  prompted him  to  start  small  scale  performing  again. In  2012  he  started  working  with  ex-Badfinger  man  Joe Tansin  and  released  the  single  "Glasgow  Road"  a  competent  but  dated  Celtic  pop  number.  Dean's  voice  is  still  in  good  shape  but  he  looks  every  one  of  his  years  in  the  video.

Not  much  has  been  heard  of  Charlie  since  quitting  Blue  though  he  attended  a  Marmalade  gig  in  Hamilton  in  2009.  



  

278 Hello Billy Ocean - Love Really Hurts Without You

Chart  entered  : 21  February  1976

Chart  peak : 2

Number  of  hits  : 19

The  third  hit  in  a  row  on  GTO   and  the  biggest  of  the  lot. Billy  was  the  last  big  star  to  emerge  before  punk  which  almost  buried  him.

He  was  born  Leslie  Charles  in  Trinidad  in  1950. His  father  was  a  calypso  musician. The  family  moved  to  Romford  in  1958  and  Leslie  started  performing  as  a  teenager. While  working  as  a  tailor's  apprentice  he  recorded  a  single  at  Pye  but  never  found  anyone  to  release  it,  He  got  a  second  shot  in  1971  when  he  signed  for  Spark  Records    and  recorded  two  singles  as  Les  Charles, "Nashville  Rain"  and  "Reach  Out  A  Hand"  neither  of  which  I've  heard.

 He  scraped  a  living  as  a  session  singer  and  in  1974 became  the  voice  of a  studio  project  by  songwriter  Ben  Findon  called  Scorched  Earth. In  March  1974  "they"  put  out  a  single  "On  The  Run"  with  Les  on  the  cover   on  the  independent   Young  Blood  International  label. Later  in  the  year  Findon  interested  Philips  in  the  project  and  they  reissued  it  with  some  "bandmates"  for  Les  on  the  cover  and  a  song  he'd  co-written  on  the  B-side. "On  The  Run"  is  a  real  hotch-potch , a  lyric  of  urban  survival  framed  by  echoes of  Hot  Chocolate, T  Rex  and  The  Rubettes   and  a  chorus  that's  melodically  similar  to  Graham  Bonnet's  much  later  "Mind  Games"  but  it's  a   good  showcase  for  his  impressive  vocal  range.

It  seems  to  have  been  around  1975  that  Les  adopted  the  Billy  Ocean  name  after  the  Ocean  estate  on  which  he'd  lived. He  was signed  by  GTO  and  released  his  first  single  as  Billy  , "Whose  Little  Girl  Are  You ?"  in  August  1975. Written  by  Billy  and  Findon  who  also  produced  it  , it's  a  fairly  blatant  attempt  to  replicate  the  retro  sound  of  the  latter day  Drifters  who  were  then  enjoying  a  second  wind  of  success  in  the  UK.

The  second  single  was  "Love  Really  Hurts  Without  You" . Again  co-written  with  Findon  it's  one  of  the  best  Motown  pastiches  ever  with  a  bass  line  that  James  Jamerson  would  be  proud  of, a  fabulous  vocal  from  Billy  and  a  top  drawer  earworm  melody  in  the  chorus. There  was  enough  modernity  in  Findon's  production  emphasising  the  strings  that  it  worked  as  a  disco  number  as  well. It  couldn't  fail  and  didn't  finishing  only  behind  another  newcomer, portly  British  disco  queen  Tina  Charles.    

277 Hello Donna Summer - Love To Love You Baby

Chart  entered : 17  January  1976

Chart  peak : 4

Number  of  hits : 38

We  now  say  hello  to  perhaps   pop's   most  under-rated  superstar   who  not  only  racked  up   an  impressive  tally  of  hits  but   with  this  one  introduced  a  whole  new  format  into  pop  music. And  yet  beyond  recalling  perhaps  half  a  dozen  hits  and  that  she  died  fairly  recently  the  average  man  in  the  street  wouldn't  be  able  to  tell  you  much  about  her.

She  was  born  Ladonna  Gaines  in  Boston  in   December  1948. Before  leaving  school  she  joined  a  local  blues  group  called  Crow  and  moved  to  New  York . They  split  up  after failing  to  get  a  deal  but  Donna  stayed  in  the  city  and  got  a  part  in  a  production  of  Hair. When  it  moved  to  Munich  she  went  with  it  and  quickly  learned  the  language. She  sang  on  the  German  soundtrack   album   and  in  1968  released  her  first  single  as  Donna  Gaines, a  German  language  version  of  "Aquarius"  ( aka  "Wasserman" ). The  intro  of  atonal  noises  brings  back  terrifying  memories  of  Scott  Walker  but  it  soon  settles  down  to  showcase  that  soaring  voice, already  fully-formed  although  she's  let  down  by  a  rather  plodding  arrangement.

It  wasn't  a  hit   but  Donna  was  making  a  name  for  herself  in  Germany.  She  made  a  brief  appearance  singing  a  song  called  "Black  Power"  in  the  German  TV  show  11 uhr  20    in  1969  and  appeared  in  a  number  of  musicals  including  The  Me  Nobody  Knows, Showboat  and  Godspell. In  the  latter  she   worked  alongside  and  befriended  Karen  Peterson  sister  of  Bee Gee  Colin  and  through  that  ended  up  in  London  with  the  other  non-Gibb  Bee  Gee  Vince  Melouney  to  make  her  first  English  language  single  in  1971.  "Sally  Go  Round  The  Roses "  is  a  cover  of  a  1963  US  hit  for  one-hit-wonder  girl  group  The  Jaynettes.  Donna  updates  it  as  an  urban  soul  number  perhaps  looking  to  get  some  blaxploitation  movie  action  but  it's  let  down  by  Melouney's  clumsy  production.

In  1972  she  released  her  third  single  in  Germany  ""If  You  Walkin  Alone"  which  she  co-wrote, a  likable  if  inexpertly  composed  pop  soul  number  which  failed  to  sell  despite  having  a  scantily-clad  Donna  on  the  sleeve. The  following   year   she  married  her  Godspell  co-star  Helmut  Sommer  and  their  daughter  Mimi  followed  shortly  afterwards. She  was  doing  modelling  and  session  work  under  the  pseudonym  "Gayn  Pierre"  and  in  1973  went  to  the  Musiclands  Studio  to  do  some  vocals  for  the  American  group  Three  Dog  Night. The  studios  were  owned  and  run  by  the  Anglo-Italian  duo  Pete  Belotte  and  Giorgio  Moroder. They  immediately  recognised  Donna's  talent  and  signed  her  up  to  a  partnership  deal  from  which  a  deal  with  the  Groovy  record  label   followed

The  first  single  the  trio  came  up  with  at  the  beginning  of  1974  was  "Denver  Dream " a  slice  of  Cher -like  pop  melodrama   sung  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  abandoned  baby  sister. It's  got  a  strong  Abba-like  tune  but  is  a  bit  chorus-heavy ;  you  end  up   wanting  to  hear  a  bit  more  of  Donna  rather  than  the  massed  backing  choir. It  was  released  in  France, Belgium  and  Holland  but  made  no  impact .  It  was  quickly  followed   by  the  even  more  melodramatic   "The  Hostage"   which  Donna  sings  as  a  wife  receiving  ransom  demands  from  the  kidnappers  of  her  husband. With  the  interruptions  for  the  phone  messages  it's  corny  as  hell  but  still  very  enjoyable  with  Donna  belting  out  the  song  over  a  proto-Hi  NRG   bass  line. It's  also  similar  in  feel  to  Thunderthighs's   classic  Central  Park  Arrest  ( which  it  pre-dates )  though  not  quite  in  that  league. It  reached  number  two  in  Holland  but  its  unhappy  ending  meant  it  got  a  frosty  reception  in  Germany  where  memories  of  their  tragically  bungled  handling  of  the  1972  Olympic  terrorist  attack  were  still  very  raw.

The  success  of  "The  Hostage"  gave  the  green  light  for  her  debut  LP  "Lady  of  the  Night "  to  be  released  there. It's  an  unashamedly  pop  album  with  the  single  undoubtedly  the  best  track  although  Donna's  conviction  does  invest  the  Eurovision  corn  of  "Domino"  and  "Sing  Along "  with  some  emotional  weight. Donna  released  the  title  track  as  a  follow  up  but  it  doesn't  work  for  me; the  lyric  about  prostitution  doesn't  suit  either  the  Shangri-las  pop  sound  or  the  early  disco  groove  that  it  switches  between  although  Donna  obviously  liked  it  as  she  continued  to  perform  it  after  breaking  big. It  reached  number  4  in  Holland  where  Donna  seems  to  have  had  a  semi-residency  on  the  comedy  show  Sjef  Van  Oekel's  Discohoek  and  number  40  in  Germany

At  the  beginning  of  1975  she  suggested  the  title  "Love  To  Love  You  Baby"  to  her  colleagues  and  they  came  back  with  a  full  song  in  a  Barry  White  slow  disco  vein. Donna  with  her  Christian  background  was  somewhat  taken  aback  by  the  erotic  nature  of  the  lyrics  but  once  persuaded  she  threw  herself  into  it  with  gusto  accompanying  each  line  with  orgasmic  moans  and  groans  outdoing  Jane  Birkin  on  Je T'Aime.... At  first  it  was  only  released  in  Holland  without  the  "Baby"  where  it  made  number  13  but  Moroder  knew  it  had  something  and  sent  a  tape  over  to  his  friend  Neil  Bogart  at  Casablanca  who  played  it  a  house  party . The  guests  demanded  repeat  plays  and  Bogart  requested  a  much  longer  version.

Once  again  Donna  was  a  bit  reluctant  to  comply  but  went  back  into  the  studio  to  record  a  17  minute  version   whilst  lying on  the  floor. When  crassly  asked  by  an  interviewer  if   she'd  touched  herself  she  replied  "Yes  well  actually  I  had  my  hand  on  my  knee". Someone  from  the  BBC  eventually  counted  up  and  claimed  there  were  23  orgasms  on  the  track  (  he  would  have  been  worn  out  if  he's  strummed  along ). Obviously  this  could  not  be  fitted  onto  a  7  inch  single  so  it  went  on  a  12  inch  single  for  those  who  didn't  want  to  fork  out  for  the  LP  where  it  took  up  the  whole  of  the  first  side. It  probably  wasn't  the  first  12  inch  single  but  it  was  the  first  worldwide  hit  to  be  available  in  the  format.  It's  not  just  Donna's  groans  that  make  the  record  though;  it's  the  spare  European   precision  of  the  backing, the  wintry  synth  chords  that  frame  the  singer's  inferno  , moving   from  the  heat  of  the  dancefloor  into  the  chill  of  the  bedroom  giving  disco  a  whole  new  avenue  to  explore. Donna   and  her  cohorts  would  themselves  move  things  along  further  with  another  groundbreaking  hit  a  couple  of  years  hence.

The  BBC  didn't  like  it  of  course  so  I  didn't  get  to  hear   at  the  time  and  couldn't  work  out  why  Tom  Browne  and  Top  of  the  Pops  were  ignoring  it.  Since  then  I  have  ahem, used  it . I'm  not  giving  details  of  time  or  place  but  what  I  can  say  is  that  while  it  worked  OK  for  me  the  Other  said  it  reminded  her  too  much  of  Burt  Reynolds  and  now-unfashionable  aftershaves  proving  that  you  can't  always  rescue  a  great  record  from  its  context.

  

276 Goodbye Walker Brothers - No Regrets

Chart  entered : 10  January  1976

Chart  peak : 7

And  so  we  move  into  1976  and  as  you  might  expect , being  on  the  cusp  of  punk  means  there  are  a  few  more  departures  to  chronicle. Whatever  was  bubbling  under  the  surface    at  the  time  the  charts  in  1976  were  pretty  grim ; take  Abba's  trinity  out  of  the  list  of  number  ones  and  you'll  see  what  I  mean.

It's  a  bona  fide   goodbye  post - none  of  these  guys  troubled  the  chart  again - but  it's  also  the  start  of  a  story  to  which  new  chapters  are  added  every  year, especially  since  the  download  era  began.  The  Walker  Brothers  are  the  first  group  to  split  up, reunite  and  find  success  again. And  of  course  this  post  will  also  be  tracing  the  most  unique  career  arc  in  pop  music.

But  let's  start  at  the  beginning. The  Brothers'  commercial  fortunes  quickly  declined  after" The  Sun  Ain't  Gonna  Shine  Anymore"  vacated  the  top  spot  and  none  of  their  last  three  singles   made  the  top  20  though  this  was  partly  due  to  work  permit  issues  forcing  them  to  leave  the  UK  for  part  of  1967 . This  was  matched  by  declining  personal  relationships  within  the  group  and  all  three  had  charted  with  solo  releases  before  the  group  officially  broke  up  after  a  tour of  Japan  early  in  1968. Gary  formed  a  new  group  Gary  Walker  and  the  Rain  which  included  future   Badfinger  guitarist  Joey  Molland  and  had  some  success  in  Japan  but  disbanded  in  1969. John  released  an  album  in  1969  and  a  string  of  singles  which  were  ignored. Scott  remained  a  star  for  the  rest  of  the  sixties  with  hit  albums  and  singles  and  in  1969 his  own  TV  show  but  a  decision  to  release  his  fourth  ( not  counting  a  compilation  of  covers  performed  on  the  show )  under  his real  name  - despite  being  titled  "Scott  4" - backfired  when  it  failed  to  chart. As  the  new  decade  dawned, and  despite  taking  British  citizenship  in  1970,  his  commercial  fortunes  fell  off  a  cliff. After  the  failure  of  his  next  LP  "Til  The  Band  Comes  In"  he  stopped  writing  and  recorded  four  middle  of  the  road  covers  albums  which  are  usually  airbrushed  out  of  his  c.v. and  pleased  no  one,  least  of  all  himself.

By  1974  with  all  three  members  at  a  low  ebb, a  reunion  seemed  the  best  option  available . They  got  a  deal  with  GTO  Records  and  released  the  album  "No  Regrets"  in  1975. Every  song  was  a  cover  and  Gary's  participation  was  limited  to  shaking  a  few  maracas. It  stays  firmly  within  the  field  of  country  and  mellow  pop  and  is  rather  bland  at  times  but  the  Scott-sung  version  of  Janis  Ian's  "Lover's  Lullaby"  and  the  achingly  sad  "Lovers"  sung  by  John  are  highlights.

The  real  gem  though  is  the  title  track. The  song  was  written  by  country/ folk  singer  Tom  Rush  who  recorded it  twice  and  it's  the  orchestrated  revision  in  1974  that  informs  the  Walker  Brothers'  version   which  is  pretty  similar  in  arrangement  though  it  has  a  beefier  guitar  solo. The  song  swings  between  aching  loneliness  at  a  lover's  departure  in  the  verses  and  defiant  stoicism   in  the  chorus  leaving  the  listener  to  choose  which  is  the  singer's  real  emotion. With  Scott's  booming  baritone  to  the  fore  there's  a  bias  towards  the  former. It  was  a  good  song  choice  enabling  the  Brothers  to  remind  listeners  of  their  past  without  sounding  too  retro. It  did  nothing  in  the  States  but  was  a  hit  in  Ireland  and  the  Low  Countries  and  helped  the  album  to  number  49  here.

Surprisingly  there  was  no  follow-up  single; perhaps  GTO  were  too  busy  handling  the  success of   the  subjects  of  the  next   two  posts. Instead  "Lines"  came  out  as  the  trailer  single  for  the  album  of  the  same  name  in  September  1976. The  song  was  written  by  Jerry  Fuller  and  is  a  slow  mournful  , beautifully  orchestrated  piano ballad,  ironically  all  about  regret,; a  man  breaks  free  of  his  commitments  but  finds  only  an  abject  emptiness  and  who  better  to  convey  that  than  Scott  Walker  ?  Alas  it  was  too  slow  and  sombre  for  the  Radio  One  playlist. The  album  was  very  patchy. Ninety-per  cent  of  it  is  covers, the  only  original  being  the  flimsy  rocker  "One  Day" written  by  John. The  best  track  is  another  melancholy  ballad  sung  by  Scott  "Inside  Of  You"  written  by  Tom  Jans  but  hearing  Scott's  voice  on  lightweight  fare  such  as  "Brand  New  Tennessee  Waltz  "  is  sad  in  a  different  way. The  follow  up  single  , a  version  of  Boz  Scaggs's  "We're  All  Alone "  is  OK  but  I  prefer  the  Rita  Coolidge  version.

The  album  didn't  sell  and  the  band  were  more  or  less  back  to  square  one.  By  the  time  of  their  next  album,  "Nite  Flights"  in  1978 ,  they  knew  that  GTO  was  almost  kaput  and  wouldn't  be  able  to  promote  it  effectively.  They  decided  to  ditch  the  covers  and  go  out  hopefully  on  a  high  with  their  own  material. There  are  four  tracks   each  for  Scott  and  John , separated  by  two  from  Gary  who'd  been  a  passenger  up  to  now. From  the  word  go  "Nite  Flights"  is  a  very  different  beast  to  its  predecessors , inspired  by  Bowie's  Heroes   which  Scott  had  brought  to  the  studio. "Shut  Out"  has  the  same  air  of  dry-throated  menace  as  Chris  Rea's  Tennis  a  couple  of  years  later  and  "Fat  Mama  Kick"   is  sparse, tuneless  and  impenetrable. "Nite  Flights"  is  more  accessible  synth  pop,  clearly  influenced  by  Heroes  and  seems  to  be  about  escaping  defectors. Then  there's  "The  Electrician",  - a  bonkers  choice  for  the  final  group  single  which  would  have  been  the  decade's  O  Superman  if  it  had  succeeded -  a  deathly  slow  dirge  about  a  South  American  torturer,  perhaps  inspired  by  Sheila  Cassidy's  ordeal  on  the  parrilla  three  years  earlier   which  Scott  moans  in  his  new  hoarse and  diseased  singing  voice  before  it  breaks  into  a  pretty  orchestral  interlude, the  dying  victim's  expectation  of  relief   or  Scott's  own  farewell  to  the  group's  signature  sound. Those  are  Scott's  four  songs  and  in  what  follows  you  get  a  sense  of  the  Apostles  after  the  Ascension ; Gary  and  John's  erstwhile  colleague  has  gone  somewhere  they  can't  possibly  follow. They  do  try  with  "Death  of  Romance"  ( Gary ) and  "Disciples  of  Death " ( John )  but  remain  earthbound . Gary's  songs  are  the  more  interesting  perhaps  because  more  open  to  Scott's  suggestions  while   John's  are  grounded  by  a  generic  mid-seventies  pop  rock  sound   and,  were  it  not  for  the  provocative  lyrics,  could  pass  for  Cliff  Richard  circa  Devil  Woman.

And  that  was  it  for  the  Walker  Brothers. CBS  bailed  out  GTO  to  Scott's  dismay  as  he'd  had  difficulty  escaping  his  previous  contract  with  them. He  also  didn't  want  to  perform  live  any  more  so  there  was  little  prospect   of  interesting  another  label .  John  took  the  decisive  step  in  breaking  up  the  group  by  returning  to  San  Diego  but  no  one  protested.

Gary  married  his  girlfriend  Barbara  and  left  the  music  business  altogether. He  became  a  self-employed  model  maker.

He  planned  to  record  as  a  duo  with  his  new  wife  Brandy  and  recorded  some  masters  with  Scott  producing. Unfortunately  labels  told  him  to  drop  her  as  lead  singer  and  she  insisted  they  have  no  more  dealings  with  the  music  business.

Scott  was  invisible  until  1981  when  ardent  fan  Julian  Cope  curating  a  new  compilation  of  his  solo  work  "Fire  Escape  To  The  Sky : The  Godlike  Genius  of  Scott  Walker  "  . which  sold  well  enough  to  interest  Virgin  in  signing  Scott . He  returned  with  the  album  "Climate  of  Hunter". Peter  Walsh , fresh  from  working  with  Simple  Minds, was  brought  in  to  produce  and  gives  it  an  unmistakably  eighties  sheen.  It's  not  avant-garde  as  such  and  is  never  unlistenable  but  it's  never  very  accessible  either. Scott's  refusal  to  write  a  chorus  and  his  dense , impenetrable  but  very  obviously  bleak  lyrics  mean  there  are  no  conventional  songs  except  for  the  funereally  slow  blues  ballad  "Blanket  Roll  Blues"  that  closes  the  album. Half  the  tracks  don't  even  have  names . "Track  Three"  was  released  as  a  single  probably  because  it  has  a  recognisable  rock  rhythm  and  a  harmony  vocal  from  a  baffled  Billy  Ocean  but  it's  really  no  more  commercial  than  its  siblings.  The  LP  reached  number  60.  To  promote  it  Scott  gave  an  interview  to  the  NME  where  he  made  his  now  famous  admission  that  he  liked  watching  people  playing  darts  in  the  pub.  Scott  started  work  on  a  follow  up  but  the  sessions  were  quickly  aborted  when  he fell  out  with  producer  Daniel  Laanois. Virgin  decided  he  wasn't  worth  the  trouble  and  dropped  him.

In  1986  John  signed  up  for  Dave  Dee's  "Monster  Rock'n' Roll  Show"  and  completed  the  tour  despite  drinking   heavily  at  the  time.  He  then  moved  to  San  Diego  and  started  building  his  own  studio  while  working  in  electrical  engineering

In  1992  a  new  compilation  of  Walkers  Brothers  and  early  Scott  solo  material " No  Regrets "  sold  well   and  reached  number  4  in  the  UK.  The  following  year  Scott  collaborated  on  a  single  "Man  From  Reno"  with  guitarist  Goran  Bregovic  for  a  French  film  Toxic  Affair .  He  wrote  the  lyrics  and  sang  it and  while  not  being  obviously  commercial  it's  not  obtuse  either. It's  his  last  single  to  date.

The  success  of  the compilation  prompted  Fontana  to  sign  him  up  for  a  new  album  and  "Tilt"  was  the  result. The  first  track  "Farmer  In  the  City"  is  actually  quite  palatable  apart  from  the  over-theatrical  vocal  but  thereafter  it's  hard  work . There  are  some  brief  melodic  passages  but  they're  never  sustained  for  a  whole  song  and  the  album  is  a  very  long  56 minutes. Nevertheless  it  charted  at  number  27  in  the  UK.

He  was  not  allowed  to  disappear  so  completely  again. In  1996  he  recorded  a  straight  and  pretty  cover  of  Dylan's  "I  Threw  It  All  Away "  for  the  soundtrack  of  a  film  called  To  Have And  To  Hold. In  1998  he  recorded  David  Arnold's  jazz  ballad  "Only  Myself  To  Blame"  for  the  soundtrack  to  The  World  Is  Not  Enough . The  following  year  he  produced  the  soundtrack  to  an  arty  French  film  about  incest  Pola  X   and  contributed  two  sombre  but  accessible  instrumental  pieces.

Also  in  1999  John  finally  completed  his  studio  to  his  satisfaction  and  put  out  a  CD  "You"  but  found  it  hard  to get  anyone  to  distribute  it  properly. That  was  no  great  loss  ; there's  a  modern  production  sheen  but  otherwise  John  sounds  like  he's  stuck  in  the  mid-seventies  churning  out  wispy-voiced  soft  rock  of  no  interest  to  anybody.

In  2000  Scott  agreed  to  be  the  celebrity  curator  of  London's  annual  Meltdown  festival  and contributed  music  to  a  dance  troupe's  performance. This  led  to  an  invitation  to  produce  the last  Pulp  album "We  Love  Life" . The  track  "Bad  Cover  Version"  actually  contains  a  slighting reference  to  Scott's  early  seventies  work  written  before  his  involvement; Jarvis  Cocker   recounts  that  he  didn't  react  if  he  noticed  at  all. In  2004  he  signed a  new  deal  with  4AD.

That  same  year  John  returned  to  the  UK  to  join  the  Silver  Sixties  Tour  then  stepped  out  on  the  nostalgia  circuit  on  his  account. The  following  year Gary  joined  him  on  stage  at  a  gig  in  Hastings  and  afterwards  made  a  low-key  return  to  performing  himself  with  a  singer  Mike  Powell  who  could  impersonate  Scott.

The  man  himself  returned  in  2006  with  "The  Drift". Looking  at  the  lyrics  in  isolation  suggests  it  might  be  more  accessible  than  its  predecessors; they're  more  direct  and  give  some  clue  as  to  what  the  song  might  be  about  ( you  don't  want  to  know )  but  musically  it's   just  out  there, the  sole  relief  the  brief  snatches of  song  from  guest  vocalist  Vanessa Contenay-Quinones  on  the  attritional  12 minutes  of  "Clara"  inspired  by  the  maltreated  corpse  of  Mussolini's  mistress.  The  track  also  features  the  infamous  raw  meat  percussion  packages. Otherwise  it's  over  an  hour  of  scrapes,   screeches  and  drones   and  the  ageing  sepulchral  howl  of  Scott  himself. Worst  of  all  is  penultimate  track  "The  Escape"  which  offers  the  vaguest  hint  of  a  melody  before  treating  you  to  a  nightmare  Donald  Duck impersonation. I  listened  to  it  - for  the  first  and  probably  last  time  - on  Spotify  and  was  hoping  the  ad  breaks  would  last  longer.  I  suppose  it  takes  some  sort  of  genius  to  produce  a  piece  of  art   so  unremittingly  horrible  and  it  certainly  got  good  reviews. It  reached  number  51 in  the  charts.

To  promote  the  album  Scott  agreed  to  take  part  in  the  documentary  film  30  Century  Man  ( though  it  came  out  the  following  year   and  was   screened  in  edited  form  on  the  BBC  seemingly  the  other  week  but  actually  nearly  8  years  ago )  in  which  the  reclusive  and  amazingly  youthful -looking   star  turned  out  to  be  a  candid  and  good-humoured  interviewee.

Also  in  2007  John  put  out  his  last  CDs  "Just  For  You"  a  colourless  AOR  collection  that  has  some  value  as  a  comedown  if  you've  just  toiled  through  "The  Drift" but  little  other  use   and  a  Christmas  collection.  Scott  put  out  an   instrumental  album  of  some  music  he'd  put  together  for  a  dance  troupe  entitled  "And  Who  Shall  Go  To  The  Ball"  put  only  in  a  limited  pressing.

In  2009  Gary  and  John  co-wrote  "The  Walker  Brothers : No  Regrets - Our  Story"  which  is  very  readable  but  not  entirely  reliable. John  mentions  meeting  Carl  Wilson  in  2005, seven  years  after  the  latter's  death. Scott  didn't  participate  but  isn't  on  record  as  criticising  it  either.

In  May  2011  John  succumbed  to  liver  cancer. Whether  it  was  that  unwelcome  reminder  of  time's  onward  march  or  his  bank  balance  that  prompted  him  to  work  faster , Scott  released  "Bisch  Bosch"  in  2012  , another  punishing  73  minutes  ( one  track  lasts  21  minutes ) although  generally  it's  more  diffuse  and  less  harrowing  than  "The  Drift". It  didn't  chart  and  there  were  signs  of  some  critical  resistance  with  The  Observer's  Kitty  Lester  restricting  it  to   two  stars . Perhaps  the  documentary's  revelation  of  his  urbane  normality  alienated  that  part  of  his  audience  that  demands  the  artist  "means  it " ( though  Scott  would  have  to  be  a  serial  killer  to  pass  that  test ).

Just  a  few  months  ago  he  released  "Soused" , a  collaboration  with  American drone  metallers  Sunn-O which  is  more  economical  at  43  minutes  long. It  might  be  shorter  but  no  easier  with  Scott  still  saturating  the  lyrics  with  scatological  references, avoiding  melody  like  the  plague   and  leading  his  new  cohorts  into  the  abyss. Sunn-O  make  the  sound  less  brittle  with  their  omnipresent  drones   but  otherwise  it  seems  more  his  album  than  theirs. It  did  have  a  week  in  the  charts  at  number  30. The  Telegraph's  Neil  McCormick  eviscerated  it  with  a  one  star  review. Perhaps  Scott  deserved  it; there's  a  fine  line  between  experimentation  and  self-indulgence  and  singing  about  spraying  shit  onto  people  in  "Fetish"  suggests  he  can't  take  his  shock  tactics  any  further. Perhaps  pop's  loosest  thread  has  finally  been  nailed  down.