Celebrity Jukebox #121: Pluto, Marlena & Mary

Another three names from my record collection heading for that great concert in the sky, starting with the wonderfully monikered Pluto Shervington, real name Leighton. Best known for his unappetising recipe for Ram Goat Liver and its follow-up, a Top Ten hit in 1976 called Ram in which a Rastafarian doing his weekly shop tries to buy cheap pork (forbidden by his religion) in order to have enough money left over to spend on weed. They don't write 'em like that anymore...

From the same era, we also say goodbye to soul / blues / jazz singer Marlena Shaw, a lady who expertly balanced a feminist stance (see her album Who Is This Bitch, Anyway?) with provocative covers like the one above. That aside, it's the music she'll be remembered for, including the theme tune to the controversial movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar, the wonderful Yu-Ma / Go Away Little Boy and a classy version of Ashford & Simpson's California Soul...

And finally, it's with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to the lead singer of the Shangri-Las, Mary Weiss. Although she mostly gave up music in the late 60s to become an interior designer, she made a triumphant return 40 years later with an acclaimed solo record...

Mary Weiss - Stop And Think It Over

However, her greatest contribution to popular culture came with the Shangri-Las, a band who took teenage melodrama to another level, providing a key influence to the next generation of stars and songwriters, including the Ramones, Blondie, the Jesus & Mary Chain and Jim Steinman.

When I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love, L-U-V

That's Mary with the opening line to a classic Shangri-Las song from 1965...

The Shangri-Las - Give Him A Great Big Kiss

It's also the opening line to this, from 1973...

The New York Dolls - Looking For A Kiss

And this, from 1990...

Soho - Nuthin' On My Mind

And this, from 1991...

The Nation Of Ulysses - Today I Met The Girl I'm Going To Marry

Here are a couple of nice lyrical tributes...

Voices from nowhere and voices from the larger town

Filled our head full of dreams and turned our world upside down

And there was Frankie Lymon, Bobby Fuller, Mitch Ryder

(They were rocking)

Jackie Wilson, Shangri-las, Young Rascals

(They were rocking)

John Mellencamp - ROCK In The USA

And there's only one thing I like more than a stereotypically subservient female automaton

And that's a stereotypically subservient female automaton that's unbelievably crap at its job

Cause when you're asked to play Girl Band

(I love Girl Band)

You play The Shangri-Las

(I also like The Shangri-Las)

The Cool Geenhouse - Alexa!

And here's Mary herself will a little teenage dating advice.

Back to the Shangri-Las though, and while Leader Of The Pack is their most famous song, for me they never bettered the overblown adolescent angst of this Shadow Morton masterpiece based on Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. A pop song so utterly unique that it will... never... happen... again.

TV On The Radio #19: Jim'll Fix It

Back when I worked in radio, and before the death and subsequent revelations about Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE KCSG, a colleague of mine who'd worked alongside him told us a number of disturbing stories about the famous TV and radio presenter. The one that sticks in my head was that if you did anything to upset Jimmy, you'd come in to work the following day to discover that someone had defecated in your desk drawer. There were all the other, even more disturbing, rumours too... but at the time, I took them with a grain of salt. Because how could someone in such a public role get away with that stuff without being exposed? That's the question we're still asking today, and though documentaries like A British Horror Story and the new Steve Coogan dramatisation, The Reckoning, attempt to answer that question... I'm not sure it'll ever be answered to our satisfaction. 

I wondered how Jimmy had been represented in popular song prior to the scandal? Did anyone suspect? Well, these comedians had clearly heard the rumours. You might say it's no joking matter, but I'm betting each of them actually wanted his crimes to be exposed and were pushing it as far as they dared on television at the time. And of course, John Lydon was banned from speaking out...

Songwriters probably had to be more careful. Though you can read between the lines on this song by The Toy Dolls...

Jimmy lives his life for charity

Jimmy's got no wife just an O.B.E

Everybody depends on Jimmy

Jimmy's getting a little cheesed off

Jimmy says that they've all enough

If they want Jim - it's tough!

The Toy Dolls - When You're Jimmy Savile

It's clear Mark E. Smith didn't have much time for the man either... but then again, did Mark E. like anyone?

Two hours!

With four left wing kids

I spent time in Nazi Fortress

Much discussion in room C-H-1-O-C-H-11

And Good King Harry was there

Fucking Jimmy Savile

The Fall - Fortress

Meanwhile, were Bentley Rhythm Ace dropping a hint in 2000?

Bentley Rhythm Ace - Jim'll Twist It

Irish band Bell X1 released the following track in 2011, shortly before Jimmy's death and state funeral. I wonder if they still sing it as written?

I'll never have a salad at McDonald's

Or heed the call to monetise the arts

All those letters to Jim'll Fix It lay somewhere in a basket

And the other guy got to play with Adam And The Ants

Bell X1 - 4 Minute Mile

There's not much evidence in the songs recorded before his death, to be honest. Afterwards though, the floodgates were opened... 

Avalanche Party create "feral garage-punk from the wild North Yorkshire Moors, hopped up on adrenalin and amphetamines". And I'm pretty sure the song below is about Jimmy, not just because it mentions his old TV show...

A cool morning

Day breaking

Put a shirt on

This machine

He is fit

He is lithe

He’s the driver

Of your dreams

He’s a man

A man of means

He’s won trophies

He’s won teams

He’s a cancer

You’re just a pill

Completely powerless

Against his will

It used to happen all the time

All the time it used to happen

Only 16

Only 15

Only 14

Only 13

Avalanche Party - Playing Field Blues

Another interesting discovery today: The Cool Greenhouse. who describe themselves as "music to lose scratch-cards to". Clearly Sir Jim haunts their dreams...

And sometimes when you close your eyes

There’s grinning Jimmy Saviles painted on your inner eyelids

Other times it’s Yoko Onos on treadmills

Stretching out into infinity

The Cool Greenhouse - The Sticks

Both of the above acts channel the ghost of Jimmy into dark musical nightmares. The same can't be said for Mick Trouble, who crafts a lovely jangly pop song named after Jimmy's old TV show. Not quite sure why, this only came out last year, so surely he's heard?

Mick Trouble - Jim'll Fix It

And then we get to the Reid brothers, speaking for all of us...

I can't believe that I couldn't see

How  many dodgy men were on the TV

While  I was growing to a man

They took advantage of the fans

Now,  when they re-run Top Of The Pops

Some of the hosts have got the chop

I'm sleeping soundly in my bed

'Cos Jimmy Savile's still dead

The Proclaimers - Then Again

The most damning reaction to the whole Savilegate affair came from The Indelicates though, in my album of the year from 2017, Juniverbrecher. I reviewed it as the time thus: 

The death of Little England through Brexit, parochialism and Saville. This staggering musical banishing spell urges hope.

It all begins in The Plaza Ballroom, Manchester, Christmas Eve, 1956...

These

These are the hours

They're the hours we'll remember

And so we will lie

When they ask what we knew

Of the crimes committed

While we were dancing

And then it erupts and corrupts Top of the Pops...

The full album is available here, and highly recommended. At least one good thing came out of this whole sorry business.