The Magnificent Goldberg

Ah, I'd forgotten about "Fool Britannia". If I recall, that was advertised heavily in Private Eye and the cover looked like a Private Eye job. Was it a Private Eye production, I wonder? But I was thinking of Sellers' two Parlophone LPs - a 10" and a 12" The 10" included the classic "Balham, gateway to the South" and the 12" had the interview with "Twit Conway". And wasn't "The blood donor" a programme in Hancock's TV series? Which would make it late sixties, by which time quite a lot had changed on the British humour scene. MG Just checked my much - played Hancock LPs and The Blood Donor/Radio Ham soundtracks were released in 1961, not long after the TV programmes were broadcast. Probably reissued many times thereafter. And, of course, he did basically the same shows on radio before that. I've got a box set of Peter Sellers ( A Celebration Of Sellers ) which contains all his albums ( The Best Of Sellers, Songs For Swingin' Sellers, Peter and Sophia, Sellers Market plus numerous singles including the aforementioned Hard Days Night and She Loves You - Inspired By Phil McCafferty,The Irish Dentist ). Comedy gold and probably the high point of British comedy, along with The Goons and Python. Ah yes - I'd forgotten what those LP titles were. Funny, I can't find the sleeve of "Songs for swinging sellers" on the web. As I recall, it had a pic of Sellers being hung. MG

Captain Marvel Spider Man The Stinger

That's bloody terrible. Hope Charlie's cleared. I met him in Newark in '96; he was playing with Jesse Morrison and Gloria Coleman. Nice one, NJ. MG

Ah, I'd forgotten about "Fool Britannia". If I recall, that was advertised heavily in Private Eye and the cover looked like a Private Eye job. Was it a Private Eye production, I wonder? But I was thinking of Sellers' two Parlophone LPs - a 10" and a 12" The 10" included the classic "Balham, gateway to the South" and the 12" had the interview with "Twit Conway". And wasn't "The blood donor" a programme in Hancock's TV series? Which would make it late sixties, by which time quite a lot had changed on the British humour scene. MG

Not worth keeping a colony that can't grow sugar or tobacco or cotton. MG

Ivy Bensen & her Burners Ivo Robic Ivor Biggun

Rained from yesterday afternoon until seven this morning (about an hour ago). Sunny now, for a bit. MG

Una Stubbs Una Mae Carlisle Lamine Faye (Lamine means first son in Wolof)

Yes, have a good day, whenever it starts! MG

It's a pretty short LP; even when all the tracks are there, it's only half an hour long. I'm not sure, but I think some must have been pressed without "Bush girl". Don't know how this can happen, but there are complete versions out there. Maybe it was deliberate - in my view that's the best track and NOT funky like the others. MG

Lionel Hampton Victors disc 4 Helen Forrest's vocal on "I don't stand a ghost of a chance" is really getting me this morning. MG

James "Bat the Hummingbird" Robinson Martin Humm Opal Nations

Very pleasant now but my missus says it's going to rain this afternoon and tomorrow and Sunday are going to be horrendous, so I'd better go to the shops today Monday and Tuesday are going to be rainy, too. MG

Tea. MG

I was going to mention those, but I thought they'd come out on LP briefly in America. Didn't read the sleeve notes when looking through the CDs MG

Working under his actual name (Børge Rosenbaum) he originally did many of his routines (including, I believe, phonetic punctuation) in Danish. I also recall, shortly after the war (WWII, natch) that he did commercials that were shown in movie theaters--there was one for Pepsodent. We didn't have them on TV--we didn't have TV, for that matter. I think he was very funny and marveled at how well his humor aged. He aged well, too. He came to Cardiff sometime in the eighties I think and packed what was the main venue here at the time. He was an absolute scream! Mention of Hoffnung reminds me that, over here, we didn't have anything like the stand-up scene there was on record in America. Most British comedy records were musical. Hoffnung, Flanders & Swann, Paddy Roberts. Peter Sellers, who wasn't a comedian of course, was an exception, I think. He made a couple of pretty good albums of comedy sketches in the period 1958-60 (think I've got the dates right), and in 1964 or '65 came up with a once heard, never forgotten, 45 of "A hard day's night", which he recited in the style of Sir Lawrence Olivier in Richard III. It wasn't until "Beyond the fringe" that British non-musical comedy albums came to the fore - and then there were also lots of LPs made of comedy radio shows, starting with the Goons, I don't know when (the shows were mid-fifties, but I don't know when the LPs were released). Stand-up comedians in Britain were pretty crummy in the fifties, from what I recall, relying almost entirely on stock catch-phrases. The good/great ones, like Tommy Cooper, had a more visual humour which didn't go well on record. MG

Thought that was the frogs. (Apologies to all our Francophone friends ) MG

Tubby the Tuba Fatty Arbuckle George Gross

That dixieland album is, to me very interesting - so interesting I listened to it twice. It's either a flawed concept (but I don't think so) or a bad implementation, which I think is the case. It seemed to me that Jo Jones was the biggest problem with those sides - he was much too flamboyant and sometimes he seemed to be rushing the other players. Probably the musicians here will have a better way of putting this. But on the two slow numbers, "Tin roof blues" and "Black & blue", as well as "Ja-da" which is kept to a medium bounce, he's fine. "Tin roof" could have been better but Wellstood's left hand seems all wrong to me - like it needed lessons from Professor Longhair. But "Black & blue" is a most beautiful track that stopped me cold. I think it shows what the album COULD have been and that the concept itself wasn't wrong. I can see what you mean about the strings album Warm and comforting or whatever it was called. However, I like it. I can imagine that, had he recorded for RCA Victor, Gene Ammons might have done albums like this. And they'd have been fine, too. Because Jug, like Roy (and Blue Mitchell and Grant Green, both of whom did do this sort of thing) had sounds that spoke louder than the notes they played. The only material I didn't get much out of was the Roy and Diz, because on so many tracks they're both playing mutes and I haven't got used to the way they sound like that, so most of the time, I couldn't tell them apart. But no doubt I'll get this in a few months. (And by the way, what a daft thing, to say that one of them's using a Harmon mute and the other's using some other thing - as if the listener is supposed to know the difference and, if not, isn't listening right. Some things really piss me off, you know.) MG

Good spotting! Most interesting. MG

(not my taste but anyway!) MG

Wow! How nice! MG

Got this about fifteen years ago. A very interesting book. Just started re-reading it, to refresh my momory. Still v interesting. MG

Willie Banks & the Messengers Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers Haruna Ishola & his Apala Messengers

Damn...you mean they really didn't know this? I thought they were all being sarcastic! I didn't know until I read it in another thread (or a link off one) the other day. I never take much notice of what brands other people smoke. I know back in the places I went in Newark, they thought I was real strange for rolling my own and not putting anything but baccy in them MG