Chart entered : 19 March 1983
Chart peak : 49
We have an interesting culture clash here as end of the pier light entertainment gets to grip with the beginnings of hip hop.
The Barron Knights had enjoyed a peculiar career since their first hit back in 1964. They had a string of similar parody hits up to 1968 then they got fed up and wanted to go back to doing straight stuff, at least in the studio. The public were having none of it. Columbia indulged them for two flop singles then they were booted off and had a long, commercially barren, spell at Penny Farthing Records. Body and soul was kept together by touring the world where their live show remained very popular.
In 1977 they finally came up with another parody medley "Live In Trouble". Epic signed them up and, nine years on from their last hit, The Barron Knights were welcomed back as if they'd never been away. Cured of any foolish notions of re-establishing themselves as a serious group, they actually had more hits in this second wave of success , including one in America with "The Topical Song" which didn't chart here.
"Buffalo Bill's Last Scratch " , which passed me by first time round, is primarily based on Malcolm McLaren's Buffalo Gals , a seminal single which introduced hip hop techniques into the mainstream. The guys themselves with engineer Pete Wandless do an amazing job in reproducing a sound that can hardly have been very familiar to them. They then underline the democratising influence of the charts by combining it with Orville's Song to tell a shaggy dog story of the outlaw pursuing the self-pitying duck. Towards the end there's a brief snatch of the similarly MOR Save Your Love for no particularly obvious reason. You'd have to be very young or very dim to find it amusing though.
They followed it up later that year with "Full Circle" which I haven't heard so I don't know if it was serious or not. Its failure was enough to convince Epic to let them go.
They popped up again in June 1984 on Towerbell with "Churchill Rap" an obvious answer record to Mel Brooks To Be Or Not To Be with breakdancing Nazis in the video. Another year passes and they're on Spartan with "Mr Bronski Meets Mr Evans" peddling a comedy scenario where Jimi Somerville ( not of course Mr Bronski ) tries to record a version of I Feel Love with an incompetent Welsh producer. It's semi-funny for one play. 1986's effort on WEA , was "R-R-Rock Me Father Christmas" , a festive offering mashing up Rock Me Amadeus, It's Orrible Being In Love ( When You're 8 1/2 ), Spirit In The Sky , Merry Christmas Everybody, and Camouflage. It's more satirical than their usual fare with pops at Joanna Lumley, Mary Whitehouse and Little And Large.
Three more years lapsed before "Wot A Mix Up" which I haven't heard but I'm guessing might be taking a pop at SAW.It seems to have been their last record.
The band have kept going on the cabaret circuit though four out of the original five members dropped out over the years. Dave Ballinger seems to have been the first to go , some time in the late nineties. He moved to the USA and became involved in producing musicals. He has since moved into real estate in Florida and The Bahamas. I'm not sure when "Barron" Tony Osmond left the group but he now lives in Ireland. Duke D'mond had to leave the band in 2005 after an incapacitating fall and died of emphysema four years later. Butch Baker retired on turning 65 in 2007 and now lives in Portugal so that has left just Pete Langford , the only one you'd ever recognise in the street , to keep the group going with three replacements.
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