Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #57 (Part 3): 11.10.1973 – A Balloon Full Of Gravy

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

Simon Price, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham watch Kenny Everett patronise a choirboy, thrill to the sight of Status Quo in their natural environment, watch Pans People caper about like five sexy Steve Austins – the half-robot, not the wrestler – and stare aghast at the voluminous head of Engelbert Humperdinck…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Heavy Pencil. An actor of my experience, you just get run dry. A podcast sitcom with Anna Crilly and Tony Gardner. I played Edmund Gelder and he played Fanny Snatch. The Observer called it a lovely thing. Wonderfully funny, pitched perfectly, produced with a light touch. I'm not having any more of this. I need you to pull me off immediately. Heavy Pencil from Great Big Owl.

The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um, chart music. which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Erm... Chart music. Chart music.

Hey up, you pop crazy youngsters and welcome to part three of episode number 57 of Chart Music. I'm your host Al Needham, here I am with my good friends Neil Kulkarni and Simon Price and we're not fannying about, we're going to rejoin the episode in progress. So anyway, if you come to sing to our cows, you see, they lay more eggs. Yeah. So you come and sing to the cows? Yes, I do. Ladies and gentlemen, here we have a fresh, vibrant young star, Michael Ward.

And look at him in all this... Ooh, he's like a fresh artist. And how do you cram all these its into when you're doing schoolwork? Well, I have to do my schoolwork at weekends for what I miss during the week. Good grief. I just go in with a cup of tea and a tape and, you know, you're going the hard way about it.

Still, you've got a lovely pair of tonsils that constantly need exercise, so you're going to give us your latest hit Still, you've got a lovely pair of tonsils that constantly need exercise, so you're going to give us your latest hit. What's it called? Let There Be Peace On Earth. Lovely. Lovely. And let it begin with me.

We cut back to the studio to find Everett next to a young lad in his best shirt who he interviews about school routines and the like. It's Michael Ward who sings his latest single, Let There Be Peace On Earth. sings his latest single, Let There Be Peace On Earth. Born in Workington in 1959, Michael Walt was a boy soprano who had played local music festivals, charity concerts and old folks homes, known nowadays as the David Van Day Circuit, until his sister recommended him for the ITV talent show Opportunity Knocks. After passing the audition earlier this year,

he became an immediate hit, becoming the reigning champion for six weeks on the bounce, one more than even the other big discovery of 1973, Peters and Lee. He was immediately signed up by Phillips Records, who would later put out Mr Most Sincerely's borderline fascist diatribe stand-up and be countered, in an attempt to replicate the success of Neil Reid, whose mother of mine got to number two for three weeks in January of 1972, which was held off number one by I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing by the New Seekers. He's already been lined up for an appearance on stars on sunday and has made the odd live gig on the club circuit when school holidays

allow and this his debut single entered the charts at number 36 at the end of september dropped one place the week after that but this week it's moved up 13 places to number 24 and here he is living the dream of every 13 year old lad opportunity knocks was fucking massive at this time i mean if you're going by audience figures this is a step down for young michael right yeah yeah yeah inevitably i never i never watched. It was something that was watched every week in our houses, and on our grandpas as well. I've seen clips. It looks nuts. It looks absolutely nuts. Oh, it is.

That Huey Green guy, right? Have you read the bit in Danny Baker's book? Yes. Where he talks about Huey Green summoning him to his house, and this would have been around the time of TFI Friday being a big deal. So Huey Green's got some idea that he wants to discuss with Danny Baker for a TV project.

And he's got this massive model railway set up in his living room. And he's the sweariest person Danny Baker's ever met. Yes. Danny Baker grew up with a docker for a dad. And Huey Green's mad idea was to hold a chat show on a nuclear submarine. Yes. Which goes back and forth between London and New York with celebrities on board. Fucking hell.

That would have been brilliant. As long as it didn't have Chris fucking Evans in it. Yeah, yeah, true enough. Opportunity Knocks was massive. And people make the obvious comparison between that and new faces and things like the x factor but the great thing about opportunity knocks was that it turned up for half an hour on monday evening and then it just fucked off for the rest of the week you didn't have to think about it again it wasn't in the papers every day yeah i mean um michael ward i suppose became

the aled jones of his day didn't he by yes winning it. As you say, a child had won it before, Neil Reid, 1971, 12 years old. But also before that, you had 1970, Bonnie Langford, and later on, Lena Zavaroni. And the British get very sentimental about child performers, don't they? I've got to say, it creeps me out personally.

It's like, I have to unfollow people on Instagram who post too many pictures of their children. I operate a sort of three strikes and you're out rule. It's just me. It's just me. There's a gene that I'm missing, obviously. But the introduction we get to this, and in fact the whole song is cut from the BBC Four repeat,

and you can see why they've tried to wipe it out of history because you've got this 13 year old child who's just won opportunity knocks and kenny everett is way too space invading and handsy with him he's all over the kid like a rash and and everything that kenny everett says is on the edge of innuendo. He's saying, a fresh, vibrant young star, look at him, he's like a fresh artist. And then he says things like, you've got a lovely pair of tonsils that constantly need exercise. It's really, really uncomfortable to watch.

And I'm not saying Kenny Everett was intending to nonce him. But what I do think is this, right? It's as if Kenny Everett's taking it as a given that people think homosexuals are predatory towards young boys so he's playing up to that with a nod and a wink hang on simon hang on so at the time kenny everett's married i know he's married but the idea that of kenny everett as a gay man isn't in the public domain in 1973. Are you sure? Because he's so count. Yeah, but... I find that unbelievable. No, no, no, no.

He was married to Billy Fury's ex-wife. Yeah, yeah. To the audience of 1973, Kenny Everett is a bonkers but straight man. And to be honest with you, I don't see any noncery in this. You know, I mean, yes, he's got his arm rounded and everything, but...

I find it really uncomfortable. The hand is clasped around his arm and yet to 21st century eyes we're always on the lookout for for this sort of thing but this would have passed by without comment in 1973 it probably would have passed by without comment but the i'm not saying the noncery but the space invasion as pricey called it um is yeah called it, it's really uncomfortable. I mean, he's really close to me. He's got his arm around me. Maybe in 1973, yeah, it wouldn't have been noticed.

Maybe I'm putting that on it in retrospect. But it reminded me of those other bullies of the airwaves, if you like, the way that Jimmy Savile used to get in kids' faces in that close way. It reminded me of that a little bit. And it actually disposed me, in a sense, towards hearing the record and trying to be positive about it. But unfortunately, we've got

a fucking thoroughly horrible record that sounds like, really, it could have been made in 1873, let alone 1973. It's a dreadful record. This conflation of the kind of dreariest music hall 1873, let alone 1973. It's a dreadful record. This conflation of the kind of dreariest music hall fucking ball

acory with this vaguely hippie sentiment about peace on earth. We don't do kid stars well in this country, I would argue. Child stardom in general is a bad choice in life, isn't it really? If you watch that Britney Spears documentary that's

it's out in america and it's coming out in this country uh soon you won't think that we the americans do child stars very well either trust me you're probably right child stardom just tends to be a bad choice going all the way back to frankie lyman it's a bad choice uh partly because it's never a choice you know he like many of these weenie boppers, tweenie boppers, they have a frightening adulthood inside them. The real kids, you know, and nothing like Michael Ward,

the way he actually deals with Kenny Everett and what Kenny's doing, he's actually quite adult and quite grown up in a sense and he gets on with his performance. Yeah, he gets very eye-rolly, doesn't he, while he's being interviewed? He does. He plays it with a straight back, yeah. He just sort of humours him and gets on with his performance. Yeah, he gets very eye-rolly, doesn't he, while he's being interviewed? He does. He plays it with a straight back, yeah. He just sort of humours him and gets on with it.

I see very little difference between Kenny Everett putting his arm around Michael Ward and Chris Tarrant a few years later on Tiswaz reaching under his desk and picking up kids by their ears. I mean, yeah, Michael Ward at this time is an actual performing artist and deserves to be treated just like everyone else, but he's still a kid,

and kids always get patronised on the telly, even today. I mean, Michael Ward's disambiguation, to give his full name, because he doesn't actually have a Wikipedia page. All the other Michael Wards do, but not this one. So, yeah, what do we know about him? As you say, he's from Workington. Workington in northern Cumbria is a tough industrial town. It's the home of Workington Man,

the hypothetical ex-Labour voter who supported Leave in 2016 but switched to Tory in 2019. One of these kind of focus group creations, Workington Man. And I can only imagine it being a full-on Billy Elliot situation growing up in a place like that and having this castrato singing voice in your teens. He must have been beaten up at school and that's why I don't have it in me to be mean about this song or this kid.

I feel weirdly protective of him, if anything. So he gets to release this single. It's recorded with the mike sam singers who are that middle of the road group who also sang on i am the walrus yeah um and it's arranged and conducted by alan ainsworth who used to conduct the orchestra at the royal command performance so you know thoroughly professional job done on it the song let there be peace on earth let it begin with me had previously been sung by Mahalia Jackson, among others. It was written by Jill Jackson Miller with her husband, Cy Miller,

to express Jill's feelings of having emerged from suicidal thoughts via God's unconditional love, blah, blah, blah. Jill Jackson Miller wasn't her real name, by the way. That was Evelyn Merchant. But she was also an actress called Harleen Wood who played bit parts notably in Three Stooges films so it's quite an interesting backstory to that song um Michael Ward has a hit with it next thing you know he's appearing with Dorothy Squires at Drury Lane Theatre the following year he releases an album, Michael Ward Sings, which is full of sort of gran and grandad favourites

like I Believe, Amazing Grace, Danny Boy, Oh For The Wings Of A Dove. And then he just sort of vanishes. And again, this is why I feel protective towards him. I hope he faded from view for happy reasons. I hope this whole thing

didn't fuck him up. And I hope he's had a happy life. I did a bit of detective work. And he became a cabaret singer under the name Michael Sazer. And he actually had another crack at the big time in 1985. He entered a BBC Scotland talent show called Stars in Your Eyes, not Stars in Their Eyes, still using the name Michael Sazer. The same year, he released a single called When the Lights Go Down,

which has a picture of him smouldering on the front, completely unrecognisable from the chubby kid Michael Ward on this top of the pops. And from then on, as far as I can gather, he's been in pantos and he's sung on cruise ships and that sort of thing. And I wonder how he looks back on the few months in 1973 and 74 when he was one of the most famous people in Britain,

certainly the most famous child in Britain. The whole thing's a little bit Little Man What Now by Morrissey, if you know that song. I hope he's perfectly well-adjusted and the whole thing didn't fuck him up um he one thing i found when i was snooping around he's built himself a website with wix or half built it there's there's some audio on there he's put up his versions of songs including ride like the wind and feeling good and and he looks very tanned and cheerful and i hope he is cheerful but the thing

with his website is the biography section is just a moving image of a turbulent sea which might speak volumes have you been i mean in your sleeping simon did you go on his facebook yeah he he is obviously well adjusted i think there's a part a photo isn't there of his recent civil partnership yeah with his partner and stuff he seems well it's kind of heartbreaking that one of his posts in 2012 not that i went that deep on the research but um one of his posts in 2012 if anyone knows how to get a copy of this episode of top of the pops please let me know i have never seen it wow um yeah and he links to the bbc link to me on top of the pops in 73 singing let there be peace on earth and he has never seen it and nobody replies to this post in 2012 he's definitely being cast in the neil reed nice young lad category um the only concession to popness is

his very shiny satiny brown trousers apart from that he looks like he's about to post for his school photo for that year to pass on to nan but a fortnight from now the bbc documentary series man alive looks into the marketing of young pop lads in an episode called twinkle twinkle little star which covered the james boys ricky wilde and in particular darren burn an 11 year old son of an emi executive who's released a cover of something's got a hold of my heart and ends with him doing a pa at the sundowner at edmonton on a saturday morning he's going to go on the video playlist but fucking hell if you haven't seen it you need to oh yes it's amazing and you know that last performance in that documentary um at that place it's really revealing because for a joyous

few minutes you actually get to see some real kids not some stage cool kids and those urchins yeah and those real kids you see in that dot you've been watching basically for an hour with this documentary kids being exploited fundamentally by their parents yeah kids who were who were harried and hassled and a frighteningly adult and totally together because they have to be because their parents are watching them all times and they're pushy as fuck the real kids towards the end and it's brilliant in it whether the the reporter kind of asked them who's they're into who they're into and it it's all like Gary Glitter, Mark Bolan. It's just wonderful.

And those kids were having fun. You know, the kids featured in the documentary, the artists, if you like, are not having any fun at all. And they've all got incredibly, incredibly pushy parents. So really, it's a documentary, not about abuse, I wouldn't say, but certainly about exploitation and horribly pushy parents. But the glimpse of the record business that it shows is gorgeous, isn't it? There's an amazing tracking shot where they go down a corridor at EMI Records,

down a row of offices, if you like, and all of them have got their doors open and every single one of them has a different PR, A&R person in it, in a sense, listening to something new or listening to a different PR, A&R person in it, in a sense, listening to something new or listening to a different type of music, taking notes. And there's the amazing moment when he has to meet

his entire promotional team in his living room. And it's all Artie Fufkins all the way. Yes, definitely. Waiting to talk about it. It's an amazing documentary.

The build-up to the show ends up being quite in bed with Chris Needham-ish because of the energy of real people, finally from outside of the music business. This crowd that they're all chasing

but they can't get because he can't perform Darren Burton. He can't move, really. It's painful the way that he's tutored. And interestingly enough, although that documentary

in itself is fascinating and a real time capsule from that era, the next video in the YouTube playlist after it was a Derek Jameson thing where he caught up with him. Yes. And in the Man Alive documentary, he presents himself as almost like an adult kid who kind of wants it all to happen to him.

Yeah, I'm completely part of this. My parents aren't pushing me. And what comes across, obviously, in the Derek Jameson interview, he was in no position to make any of these decisions. And it's all parents. It's the old cliche, in a sense, that, you know, it's parents who have failed themselves at their own kind of ideas

about becoming entertainment stars, foisting it all on their kids. And, you know know absolutely saying oh yeah they're free that they absolutely want to do it you know kids that age cannot make those kind of decisions so it's simultaneously upsetting but oh man the music industry in the 70s over a time machine so we could go back and work in that world because it just seems you know lubricated with cash everywhere in a way that it just isn't now. And the other great thing about that documentary is the same voice of reason is the music journalist. Oh, yeah, Roy Carr at the beginning, yeah. Right, at the beginning, they interview Roy Carr of the NME,

looking for all the world like a white Donny Hathaway, who just basically just lays into the whole thing, saying this is all bullshit. You know, they're only doing it because um of michael jackson and there's only one michael jackson so why fucking bother yeah i mean good on roy car he sticks up for the jackson five um sat there imperiously looking like stanley kubrick a little bit um you know he does make the point that i know the jackson five has musical talent and it's remarkable how Darren Byrne is kind of people like um you know and Jonathan King with Ricky Wilde kind of debating what his next song

should be and arguing about the fact that he can't actually sing Darren Byrne is kind of that they all think he's going to be a star and they might sink 150 grand into him as they keep putting it um because he can basically string kind of two notes together um but it's all exploitation it looks uglier the further away we get from that time of course ricky wilde went on to have a career of staring his uh little sister kim about and uh darren burn committed suicide really that i didn't know that's an extra pattern of that's really upset him because what comes across from that Derek Jameson interview is that he hasn't talked to his mum for a while about all of this.

And you can see throughout the Man Alive documentary that it's his mum pushing him. It's his mum and his dad pushing him. His nickname afterwards was Top of the Flops. Which is not the kind of mancle you want to carry around as a teenager, is it? No, there's no... No. And yeah, these kids do fail and you just wonder you know what what damage that's done and clearly it did a lot of damage to darren um yeah i mean if there's one thing that's going to get you beaten up more at school than being

a teen pop star as michael ward was is being a failed teen pop star yeah you know a bit but it's not all gloom, that documentary. I urge people to watch it fundamentally for the brief glorious moments of seeing real people, which happens towards the end of the show. Before that, you get a horrible sense of the exploitative nature of the music business, especially when it comes to kids in this particular period.

Because these kids are not normal kids. They speak like adults because they have to, because they've been tutored to they've been tutored out of speak you know a kid you know i don't know about you but say if there was a family party i wouldn't be going around glad handing everyone and saying hello and talking to them like adults i'll be looking for a place to hide to a certain extent you know yeah and let the grown-ups get on with it he's frighteningly confident with adults um but it's all masking yeah this total exploitation at the heart of it this was cut from the bbc for repeat which they seem to do from time to time just to get it in to fit a modern day schedule why do you think this was cut not some of the other things was it because of the interview or was it because it's a an

unsuitable song for top of the pops a bit of both i think a little bit of both but we've had plenty of unsuitable songs for top of the pops it's kind it's kind of that is part of top of the pops that that moment when your energy just saps and you just think why the fuck is this on top of the pops i suspect the reason it's been cut from recent repeats is definitely the interview yeah a bit unfair i think if that's the case because i mean i can imagine kenny everett being very hands-on and like that with anyone with i don't know donna or someone like that yeah but but it's a child and it just you know you just watch it and you put yourself back at that age you imagine how you would have been if an adult a big beardy adult is sort of grabbing at

you and making these weird remarks that you don't quite know what he's hinting at yeah um yeah i i can see why somebody might have thought well if we have to lose five minutes for the repeat that's the five minutes to lose so the following week let there be peace on Earth stayed at number 24, but the week after that it moved to number 15, its highest position. Michael Ward eventually had a 10-week reign as the overlord of Opportunity Knocks, and his debut LP Introducing Michael Ward got to number 26 in January of 1974. But the single from it, he failed to chart and he never bothered the top 40 again. What a grand lad. You can tell I work for the BBC. I can't have my bridge work done.

I mean, Tony Blackburn gets fresh sets of teeth every day, but me? Anyway, it's pin-back-your-luggles time for Status Quo. APPLAUSE The camera dollies back and to the side where Everett, after comparing his BBC dankle plan with Tony Blackburn's whips us straight into the next single Caroline by Status Quo We covered Quo in chart music number 44, and this, their 14th single, is a follow-up to Gerd Dunderla,

which failed to chart in the summer of 73. It's the lead-off and only single from their 6th LP, Hello, which came out a fortnight ago and is currently at number 4 in the album charts, and was written on a paper napkin by Francis Rossi and Bob Young. A harmonica player who doubled up as their road air in a hotel in Cornwall in 1971. Initially played out at gigs as a slow blues number. It was eventually sped up to double tempo in the studio. And entered the charts at number 44 at the beginning of

september then it soared 16 places to number 28 and began a slow hard pull up the chart and this week it's nipped up two places from number 11 to number nine chaps the last time we covered quo on chart music they were firmly in their mid-80s dotage so it's it's really strange to see them suddenly being incredibly relevant in their natural environment yeah i mean when this starts you can see the audience kids especially the blokes are like fucking yeah yeah you know a last something we can rock out to you know even though this is their four-team single and they've been going for a while and this is their second go-around,

they pop up as if they're the natural heirs to bands like Slade and The Sweet. It's like seeing moth-eaten lions at West Midlands Safari Park suddenly popping up on the African plains getting stuck into the gazelles. It's fucking weird. It's an eye-opener for me.

They look so baby-faced. They look weirdly baby-faced they're weirdly baby-faced francis rossi still has his hair and rick parfitt still has his septum yes i i tell you who worries me though the one who worries me is uh john coglan the drummer yeah he looks malnourished and light light starved doesn't he he's got that british dna that makes you look almost translucent unless you go out of your way to fix that and a combination of I guess his rock and roll lifestyle and living in Northern

Europe means he probably hasn't seen daylight since July he looks vitamin D deficient there's a story that when John Coghlan left the band it was during the recording sessions for their 1982 album and he just got up and kicked the drum kit over but

in all honesty looking at him here you'd back the drum kit in that fight yes maybe that's why rick parfitt fell over the kit when they did margarita time on top of the bombs giving him a bit of a head start ah yeah there's there's a story in uh record mirror from this week in 1973 about status quo having some guitars returned to them by oxford police after they'd been stolen 18 months ago and then quo giving the coppers free tickets for their gig at the oxford apollo but i'm i'm just disappointed journalistically i'm disappointed that the story doesn't say the constabulary recently managed to catch music lovers who stole quo's guitars over 18 months ago.

I mean, you can call that low-hanging fruit comedically, but there's something satisfying about the obvious joke being made. You know what I mean? You get a sense of completion and Record Mirror didn't go there. I think this is a cracking record. Yes. I mean, Quo do great intros. They always used to.

And this, for me, is them settling into, yeah, that thing they're going to now do for flipping ages until Margarita time comes along and kind of, you know, problematizes things a little bit. Their intros basically tell you pretty much everything the record's going to do. And then Quo just set it in motion. You know, they were often criticized as repetitive. I think I've mentioned before that the Rock Society at York University,

I used to go to the university bar where they used to meet every Tuesday. And I remember walking into this bar. The Rock Society was basically a society for the metalheads, basically. So it was all metal fans. And they used to meet up in this bar every Tuesday and discuss metal-related and rock-related issues. And I meet up in this bar every tuesday and discuss metal related and rock related issues um and i remember walking into this bar and i i must have walked in on the middle of a of a building argument because i walked in and all i saw i walked in this bar the first thing i saw

was this bloke basically jabbing his finger into this guy's face who was sat opposite him, slamming both bald fists on the pub table and just screaming, Quo are not fucking repetitive! And then storming out. You know, so clearly, you know, a hot potato, a debate. But that's the point of Quo, I think. They're almost, the point of Quo, like the Ramones in a sense, is it's in their repetition from this point on. But the key really with this performance, it's a great record, I think,

the key with this performance is the audience. I was watching the audience less than the band throughout because they're all finally enjoying themselves and they're all getting down in their own idiosyncratic ways and it's a joy to watch. And I particularly loved the moment when the cameraman spots a little kid in the front row, and maybe it's part of the tweenie bopper phenomenon

that he focuses in on him. But this kid is doing just a dance that anyone who was young in the 70s and was a boy, and i.e. didn't know how to dance, did. The kind of slightly fist-forward, vague shadowboxing with some vague movement down below. But yeah, it's a great performance of of a good song but the crucial thing is the audience in this section quo by

this point are a people's band aren't they as long as those people are white and male yeah but my mum loved quo because they were fast that's all that matters you know they were fast and and yeah they've settled into that they're just going to make this record now for about the next 10 years. I don't really have a problem with it. The Ramones always made the same record. Yeah, I mean, this is good timing for me because I had a quo phase recently, very belatedly, you know, after one of the main ones is dead, you know. But I grew up hearing their music more than I really needed to.

My best mate was obsessed with them. And yeah, even my mum liked them, like Neil's mum. But I never really took the plunge myself to go beyond the hits. But I had a hunch, I've had a hunch for a long time, there must be at least one early status quo album after they stopped being psychedelic, but before they went soft, which would give me the same kind of uncomplicated rock satisfaction if i had it on vinyl as say rocket to russia by ramones

who neil mentioned or yeah i think another comparison might be highway to hell acdc that really basic rock satisfaction you get and i i was sure there must be a quo album that just is that um oh the the hilarious thing by the way because i i don't know what i own and i i was sure there must be a quo album that just is that um oh the hilarious thing by the way because i i don't know what i own what i don't own so i looked through my my vinyl and uh i found out all i owned by them was on seven inch pictures of matchstick man and in the army now literally the two sort of extreme bookends of of the era that i was actually interested in, you know, lost in the middle.

So I did a bit of a shout-out online for advice on that, and the album people kept mentioning was Piledriver. Yeah. So I did a swoop on eBay for a job lot, including Piledriver, Just Supposing, and this four-disc collection called From the Makers Of, right? Supposing and this four-disc collection called From the Makers Of, right? And Piledriver and the live disc, the live disc in From the Makers Of, both gave me that simple rock satisfaction I was looking for.

There's something about them. When they lock together, that sounds like a dog crunching on a bone. It's almost a physical thing. It's a physical thing that bypasses the brain and cannot be resisted and this song caroline it's one of the biggies of course it's from hello which is the album after pile driver doesn't quite deliver the same amount of heads down no nonsense mindless boogie as down down following you down down fucking hell man yeah but Caroline, it can't be argued with. And yeah, I do love the story that you mentioned. It was written by Francis Rossi with his roadie on a hotel napkin

because it does sound like a song that was written on a hotel napkin. And I mean that in the very best way. And they weren't gigging at the time. They'd gone on holiday. They lived together with their old ladies, driving a bit of time off. But, you know, you can't have a holiday from being status quo can you going back to john coglan for a minute one thing that impressed me about him apart from looking at as if he's about to die is that he's

holding one of his sticks loosely across his palms or chopstick style over the snare like a jazz drummer and i don't think you get a metal or hard rock drummer doing that now i mean maybe neil can correct me on that but it's just it just really struck me anyway it's a thing from jazz it's your classic 60s drummer and that's what he looks like he looks like he could be in a hippie he looks like he could be in fucking greenslade or something yeah he's just knocking something out very very regular and metronomic and that's the point of this record anything else to say about this it's quo in it i think there is a sense that quo are the sort of band who would be deemed okay by the um angry mums writing letters quo okay by the angry mums writing letters to the daily mirror

because you know yeah they rock and their songs are kind of loosely about shagging as all rock and roll is but they don't look like weird space aliens they're wearing double they're in double denim or waistcoats so yeah there would be the sense that they're all right geezers or whatever do you know what i mean yeah i've got no problem with quo being that but yeah i think they would maybe pass a test that maybe wizard or sweet would fail in the eyes of yeah yeah probably and it's unfeasibly exciting caroline i mean it's not one of their greatest but it's exciting because it's coming after m ward and it's coming after elton john we've had a fuck ton of syrup before this so it's joyous when it comes through yes so the following week caroline nudged

up one place to number eight and then spent two weeks at number five its highest position by which time hello became their first of four lps to get to number one in the uk the follow-up break the rules got to number eight in may of 1974 and the follow-up to that down down gave them their one and only number one single in January of 1975. Thank you. Richard and Mel Gonna make your lives better today If you'll subscribe to our podcast You know, it's all about how to get the most out of your partner And we're partners

So we know all about it It's good Get it wherever you want to get it when you go and get it from your podcast place richard and greta from the great big owl you know you know fantastic that was street caroline at number nine see this massive thing this is bb BBC Camera 1 and it's through this obelisk that we're going to see now Pans people dancing to Detroit Spinners!

APPLAUSE When I was 17 I ran away from home and from everything We fade into a feathery backdrop Then a starburst effect containing Everett Perched upon the back of a massive camera boom The end of which is aimed squarely at Pans people as they prepare to do a bit for the next single, Ghetto Child by the Detroit Spinners.

Formed in Ferndale, Michigan in 1954, the Domingos were a vocal group who were eventually signed to Tri-Fi Records in 1961 by its owner, Harvey Fuqua, who became an occasional member of the group before becoming head of artists at Motown. Their debut single, That's What Girls Are Made For, got to number 27 in the American charts later that year, but when Motown bought out their label and the entire artist stable they were shuffled down the pack and spent much of the 60s acting as road managers chaperones and chauffeurs for the more favoured acts releasing only one single a year with intermittent success in 1969 however they were

moved on to the Motown side project label VIP and were given a single written by Stevie Wonder and Syrita, It's a Shame. Not only did it give them their first hit in America for five years, it was also their first dent in the UK charts under the name The Motown Spinners, so the pop-craze youngsters wouldn't confuse them with the Liverpudlian jumper wearers. Getting to number 20 in December of 1970. the pop craze youngsters wouldn't confuse them with the liverpudlian jumper wearers getting to

number 20 in december of 1970 in 1972 on the advice of aretha franklin they let their motown contract expire and immediately signed to atlantic who relocated them to philadelphia to work with tom bell and their first single how could i let Get Away, got to number 77 in America. But when DJ started playing the B-side, I'll Be Around, it roared back up the chart to number three, but shamefully didn't do anything here. However, the next single, Could It Be I'm Falling In Love, marked the return of the rebranded Detroit Spinners

getting to number 11 in the UK in June of this year. This is the follow-up, which entered the charts at number 38 a fortnight ago, and this week it's up four places from number 24 to number 20. And here come the people of Pan to invoke to it oh bodies entwined in autistic forms hey lads yeah we um we get the biggest whipping away of the wizard's curtain yet um in the intro to this when kenny everett goes this is camera one and he goes this is camera one and it's through this obelisk that we're going to watch

pan's people and at that moment the camera that we're actually watching him through which is obviously on a boom suddenly zooms up into the rafters looking down on the whole studio floor and i've said you see a lot of floor in this episode um i mentioned uh gee paylet uh earlier on the belgian artist who did Bowie's Diamond Dogs, and the amazing collaborative book Rock Dreams with Nick Cohn. This is the second time I've thought about him today, because one thing he did

a lot was to whip away the wizard's curtain. He painted the artwork for the opening credits of a French TV series about film called Cinéma Cinéma. It really reminds me of this Top the Pops moment because in those opening credits it's all about zooming out pulling away and showing you the cameramen and directors and stagehands behind the scenes and it's a really interesting directorial

decision in this episode of Top the Pops but before we start on the song or the routine I have a question how do you pronounce the name of the michigan city beginning with d that was the home of the motor industry detroit detroit right and how do you say the name of the band and also the emeralds from that city the detroit spinners you're saying detroit i swear most people say detroit spinners or detroit emeralds yeah isn't that strange but But they do. People do. I remember when Working My Way Back to You was number one in 1980.

It was the Detroit Spinners. But nobody says, I'm going to Detroit on holiday. No. Not that it's much of a destination. It's just a little side note there. But the thing with the Spinners is they were entering a crowded market. Yeah. There's a long tradition in Blackica of vocal groups with matching suits

and choreographed dance moves so yeah from the ink spots through the moon glows who harvey fukua was in and the miracles and the dells and the four tops the oj's the contours the temptations the detroit emeralds the dramatics the delphonics the stylistics so i probably missed a few out but the spinners emerged in the middle of all that and yeah they struggled to stand out and yeah being signed to motown kind of helped but also hindered them i mean yeah it meant they got given the odd phenomenal song like it's a shame as you mentioned but several of those other vocal groups i mentioned were also on motown and the spinners were low on the pecking order as you say and and they were given sort of like dog's body jobs.

They were even shipping clerks at times. So they were in the Motown warehouse just sending out the consignments of other people's records. That must have hurt. And it's a bit like how Martha Reeves started out as the receptionist and became a star, but in reverse. In reverse.

So they were always the opening act and never the headliner on tour. Yeah. And yeah, so Aretha persuades them to sign with Atlantic. That's the making of them. Yeah. Because, yeah, almost immediately they start having top 10 Billboard hits.

As you mentioned, I'll Be Around, which, yeah, it blew my mind that that's not a UK hit. What the fuck? I know. Could It Be A Fall In Love and this one, Ghetto Child. Ghetto Child written by Tom Bell and Linda Creed who did most of the stylistics hits. And yeah, it's about trying to get away

from the circumstances you were born into but you can never quite escape. But it interests me musically much more than lyrically because it's a prime example of a thing, right? People always praise predominantly white genres like prog rock and in more recent years math rock for having tricky time signatures right it's meant to blow our minds that songs like money by pink floyd or golden brown by the stranglers have five beats or seven beats to

the bar or whatever right people wank themselves dry about that right yeah but all the while black music was doing that effortlessly 70 soul groups like the delphonics on radio not here i come which is another tom bell production um we're doing that with such ease and ghetto child has a really inventive time signature but it's delivered so smoothly that it doesn't trip you up yeah you know what i mean yeah the chorus i mean it's not 4-4 the chorus is and it it actually makes you dance more because of the weird time signature um it makes you move your ass more yes because of the weird time signature i think it's one of their best actually i don't know where it's seen in the detroit spinners there i go you know catalog but i think it's a of their best actually i don't know where it's seen in the detroit spinners there i go you

know catalog but i think it's a fantastic single and actually you know what there's a lot of blandness in a sense about pan's people's rendition of it here but i think they do it justice you focus on the record you also focus on them a little bit they oddly give me a memory of um i mean this is proof of how little we do in lockdown all i could think of looking at pan's people was sainsbury's because they're wearing exactly the same color was Sainsbury's because they're wearing exactly the same colour as Sainsbury's uniforms. Just goes to show I'm only going to fucking supermarkets these days.

But it's, I mean, how do you dance to this in a way that renders the lyrics meaningful? You can't really. They do put a bit of it in there. And thank God they didn't. Yeah. No, my God, that would have been. It's all about disenfranchised black american kids oh my god

oh my god yeah that could have gone extremely wrong it could have gone very badly it could have in some of the movements of the dancers when they are reflecting the lyrics they're really seeing it as you know that i think there's a there's a line about people used to call me names and stuff yeah and and the dancer just puts her hands hands to her ears and things like that so they're just reflecting it a universal rather than the racial sense. But it's a pretty good routine. Yeah. And the chorus is accentuated

because then it just focuses on Pants people from the back throwing shadows on a big white screen. Oh, that looks brilliant. It looks brilliant. It is really effective. Pants people look fucking skill. It has to be said. They're wearing like flared to fuck,

skin tight, crimson-y body suits. Essentially looking like five sexy Steve Austens. Pants people have been on absolute fire this past month in Top of the Pops. They've done I Think of You by the Detroit Emeralds. Nutbush City Limits by Ike and Tina Turner. Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett. And last week they did Who's That Lady by the Isley Brothers. So they're being given good shit to emote to.

Yeah. And I say that the time signature of the song doesn't trip you up. But nevertheless, it must have been difficult to choreograph to. And now that we've seen that overhead shot of the studio and how shambolic and chaotic everything is especially with kenny everett madding about right yeah i've got increased respect for pan's people for colby and the camera crew and the director bruce milliard somehow making a classy dance routine in those circumstances with that whole fucking circus going on. By the way, I looked up Bruce Milliard on IMDb

and he directed Clunk Click, presented by Jimmy Savile, which ran for 21 episodes. When I read that, I thought I was losing my fucking mind. If it was just the public information film about seatbelts, surely that formula is going to be wearing a bit thin over 21 episodes. It was a chat show. Yeah, kids' variety show. Guests including Gary Glitter and Freddie Star.

Fuck me, what a parade of wrongness that is. That was brought up, wasn't it, when all the U-Tree stuff came up? Yeah, yeah. Also interviewed Pans people as well. And they come off as very posh young ladies. Yeah. There's a sort of stop- motion clip in the woods at night of Jimmy Savile chasing Pans people around trees,

which hasn't aged well. Jesus Christ. Fucking hell, fellas. Probably not going to be shown on BBC4 at any point ever. No. Pans people come across really well in this clip. Yes. And it's because I think Flick Colby's not over choreographed it.

Yeah. There are things that they do in tandem, but every now and then they're just allowed to get down to this amazing record that's what it feels like anyway i'm sure it is all choreographed but it don't feel like that no it feels much more natural than that it's a really really good dance routine i agree that this is pants people at their very best um yeah yeah i love the outfits those deep red velvety flared jumpsuits gold platform shoes and they're somehow shot against plain blackness so the picture is cropped just enough to hide the shambles surrounding them yeah um and yeah at one point they do that thing yeah throwing a shadow play

against the back wall which looked amazing yes and they do they also do that that trademark thing of theirs of all uniting into a single file line yes facing the camera so it looks like one dancer and then one of them peels away to do her solo bit right and i thought watching this that the time pressure they work under each week is really visible and i don't mean that in a bad way but you can see in their faces that they're concentrating on remembering their parts it's never seamless yeah there's always the sense that they've had two days to drill it into their memories but it isn't muscle memory you know it's not like the moulin rouge or the folie baguette

where they've been doing the same routine for years and it probably comes easier than walking but pants people do it week after week and And we talk about satisfaction with them. In all honesty, for me, it rarely delivers that. But this routine is genuinely sexy, I thought. But also elegant and classily choreographed, cleverly choreographed. It's not just five pieces of skirt, to use the 70s vernacular, you know, shaking their arses in thigh-high boots for three minutes. No. It's better than it needs to be.

And it's better than we deserve it to be, I think. But it isn't even the best routine to ghetto child I've seen. Oh, really? There's a televised spinners show from around this time, which you kindly sent me the link to, Al. Oh, yes, from 1976. Going round with the spinners, a soundstage concert, and during this song, Henry Fambra,

who's the one with the twirly puero mustache he mimes rolling and smoking a drug cigarette yes and one of the other ones grabs it off him and stamps it out on the ground like not so fast nicotine um and he he frisks him for all his weeds and chucks it chucks his stash on the floor as part of the dance routine it's amazing that's a fucking incredible tv show i thoroughly advise all pulp crazy youngsters to investigate it but yeah i mean we've got to bear in mind that this is a group that's been together for nearly 19 years which is you is unthinkable at the time for a rock band. But when you're black Americans, that's how it is. You're allowed to carry on and try new things.

Black don't crack, as they say. Yeah, you're right. When you look at the Wikipedia entries for any of those vocal groups that I listed, most of whom we associate with the 1970s, because that's where they were having hits over here. But you look at it, they all formed in 1954 or something. Yeah, the Times, prime example of that. I mean, what's the equivalent?

In Britain, it would be, I don't know, someone like Alvin Stardust. I suppose, yeah. You know what I mean? It'd be like a skiffle band in the 50s suddenly becoming one of the biggest glam rock bands in the country. So the following week ghetto child jumped eight places to number 12 and a fortnight later it got to number seven its highest position the follow-up the collaboration with dion warwick then came you became the one and only number one

in america but only got to number 29 over here in November of 1974. But they'd have three more top 40 hits during the tail end of the 70s, including a re-release of Could It Be I'm Falling In Love in 1977. And they'd get to number one over here when Working My Way Back To You spent two weeks there in April of 1980. The other fucking classic song of theirs, of course, is Rubber Band Man. That's fucking brilliant.

Life ain't so easy when you're a ghetto child. Life ain't so easy when you're a ghetto child. And don't forget to chat Cheese and onion. And now it's new release time. And what a new release we have for you, ladies and gentlemen. He's come all the way from his dressing room to sing this one at you. It's Love Is All by Engelbert Umperdinck. APPLAUSE Yesterday I knew the games to play

Everett noisily snogs the big illustration of the 30s flapper woman being egged on by Leeds United bobble hat man as a couple of the kids nervously look on. He then pivots to the new release section annotated by Fuzzy Guitar and an illustration of a man and woman water skiing. Presumably it's their opportunity to get in something that's either going to be massive in a few weeks' time or is something off the beaten track, possibly a bit ever. But this time, they've gone for Love Is All by Engelbert Humperdinck. Born in Siegburg, Prussia in 1854, Engelbert Humperdinck was a composer who wrote his first composition at the age of seven

and became best known for the opera Hansel and Gretel before dying at the age of 67 without ever getting into the charts or on top of the pops. In 1965, Gordon Mills, who was having massive success as the manager of Tom Jones, nicked the dead composer's name and gave it to Arnold Dorsey, who was born in Madras in 1936 and had been working as a nightclub singer in the 60s. Later that year, Humperdinck went to Spain to link up with the songwriter Bert Kampfert and was offered a selection of songs, including Strangers in the Night. When he got back to London, he recorded it with a view to putting it out as his debut single,

but was prevented from doing so because Frank Sinatra had already bagged in it. Undeterred, he bided his time and his first single, a cover of the 1949 country song Release Mare, spent five weeks at number one in March and April of 1967, spent five weeks at number one in March and April of 1967, famously keeping Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane by the Beatles off number one. The swinging 60s there. It also prevented Edelweiss by Vince Hill and This Is My Song by Harry Seacombe from getting to number one as well, but the Beatles-centric music press won't tell you that.

His next four singles all made the top three, including another number one with The Last Waltz, which spent another five weeks at number one, holding off I'll Never Fall In Love Again by Tom Jones, excerpt from a teenage opera by Keith West, and Flowers In The Rain by The Move. And by the end of the 60s, he'd notched up eight top ten hits. After ATV produced The Engelbert Humperdinck Show at the turn of the decade,

which was broadcast in America on ABC, he started to spend more time over there, particularly in Las Vegas, where he recorded a live LP with a pre-fame Three Degrees as backing singers. But he's back in the UK now, and this is the follow-up to i'm leaving you which failed to chart and because it's a new release it's not in the charts yet so yeah the new release section so sorrow by david bowie get up stand up by bob molly and the whalers higher ground by stevie wonder i love you love by Gary Glitter, Photograph by Ringo Starr, Dynamite by Mud, Daytona Dima by Suzy Cuatro, My Cuckoo Chew by Alvin Stardust. All of these technically count as new releases.

So, hand to chin, why have the BBC elected to give Englebert the rub. It seems like a scam to me to get Heritage Acts, who haven't had a hit in a while, onto the show in the knowledge that it gives the slightly older viewers something familiar to cling to. Like when they had Lulu going, everybody's got the clap. Could it have something to do with Englebert

being the star of Englebert and the Young Generation, which was broadcast on BBC One only last year with the goodies as residential special guests, and with the possibility of a new series coming up? Because as we all know, the BBC looks after its own. It does, doesn't it? Yeah, probably that. It is probably that, and in so doing, all of the energy that's come into this show via quo and the spinners evaporates almost immediately and it's so fucking annoying this dreary song i mean you know it's telling kids watching this and the kids in the audience a really important lesson i

guess that your joy must be confined it has to be rationed out and portioned out. You can't stay happy for the duration atop of the pops. Every now and then someone like this is going to come along and make it feel like an overlong school assembly. Yeah, it's a life lesson. It's Rudyard Kipling's if in television form. Yeah, it's just like an unfunny family gathering or something. And I feel similar waves of aggravation towards this

in the context of this episode, as I would later on in my life. Say when the old sailor came on in a late 70s episode, I feel the similar, exactly similar evaporation of joy. And that's exactly what's going on. Here he is with his monstrous lycanthropic Leicester noggin. Oh, yes. Yeah, I mean, you may recall in an earlier episode of Chomp, what's going on here he is with his monstrous lycanthropic lester noggin oh yes yeah i mean you you may recall in an earlier episode of chart music that taylor revealed his fascination with lie 10 to 10 is that you wouldn't fuck with on account of them being more beast than man i think

i believe tommy cannon and ted rogers were the two examples and and i contend that we have another one here he's got a fucking massive head and no amount of side burnage can hide it it's pure leicester genetics i say oh definitely definitely leicester genetics leicester man you know top of the pops is not a music show and and that's kind of what's interesting about it but i do think that you know although that's crucial to what makes it special that it is a reflection of the charts and this isn't even a reflection of the fucking charts no and it's this endless need to keep that older section of the audience happy it's one of the most persistently irritating aspects of top of the pops and this is the perfect example of it yeah i mean this wouldn't have encouraged my dad to put top of the pops on

put it that way. Yeah, it's not even doing its job. All it's doing is annoying the congregation. I mean, Engelbert's got this very expensive looking black velvet suit with fucking massive condor collars. I mean, if Engelbert Humperdinck decided to run off Beachy Head, I reckon he'd be carried at least 200 feet by the collars of his shirt. Yeah, he could be in one of those competitions they have on Worthing Pier with homemade aeroplanes. You run off the end in a flying machine. Yeah, he could just do that. Do you know, it's interesting that you listed all those songs

that were kept off the top by Engelbert back in the 60s because this just proves it's not as if this kind of music doesn't get into the charts in its own right without having to have a helping hand. There's this whole idea that the swinging 60s was the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and the Who and all that. But actually, as you've demonstrated, it was Vince Hill, Harry Seacombe, Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck getting to number one all the time so yeah putting him in top of the pops

now in 1973 when he hasn't even got to earn the hit don't just yeah exactly you're fucking engelbert humperdinck yeah um i just wanted to rewind quickly to the um to the intro bit because kenny everett was was snogging one of those bits of Art Nouveau, those painted faces on the studio scenery. And those faces, to me, they look like pastiches of Alphonse Mucha, the Czech painter whose work was often seen on advertising for soap and perfume. I'm not sure if it was... Oh, yes.

It might have been a direct lift, I don't know. But the other thing I noticed... Yeah, and he's snogging one of them and he goes ooh cheese and onion but there's this young lad behind him in a yellow tartan jacket who looks exactly like the actor Rasmus Hardiker

if you don't know who Rasmus Hardiker is he plays Tommy's pest control apprentice in Saxondale oh yes and he's Jack D's daughter's boyfriend in Lead Blue. You know that actor. Ah, right. He's the face you see when you look up the word sallow

in the encyclopedia. And it looks so much like him. You know when you see faces from the present but in the past, like you're in the hotel bar in The Shining, or that picture that's done the rounds of someone who looks exactly like Nicolas Cage from the Civil War era. It's one of those to me. Maybe it's Rasmus Hardiker's dad. Anyway, just wanted to get that in.

Simon, you said earlier on that people our age, five, six, whatever, we'd be spending a lot of time figuring the world out. And, you know, this would time figuring the world out and um you know this would have confused the fuck out of us because already there was some sense of order in your world you know at this time you go to school at that time you come back from school you know half past four this program would be on these people would be in it and you wouldn't see them at any other time and to me this would have confused the fuck out of me seeing Engelbert Humperdinck on top of the Pops. It is weird.

It'd be like seeing Basil Brush on Weekend World, seeing Engelbert Humperdinck on top of the Pops as a five-year-old. And I already knew that he didn't belong. I don't think he thinks he belongs. This would have upset me. I mean, I'm sure he was happy to go on there, but I don't think he thinks it's his world. You can see it.

He makes no concessions to top the pops world he just goes on and does his shtick that he would do if it was vegas or anywhere else and the kids in the audience make no concession to him yeah oh man alive this is the thing right first of all there's the song itself which confuses them this song love is all the first line is just the word yesterday Yesterday. Yesterday. And all the kids are surely thinking he's doing the Beatles cover. Yeah, totally. You can see the confusion in their faces when the song goes somewhere else. So it's written by Les Reed and Barry Mason.

Les Reed co-wrote It's Not Unusual for Tom Jones. Barry Mason co-wrote Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes for Edison Lighthouse. Two brilliant songs and together they wrote Delilah for Tom as well as The Last Waltz for Engelbert and I hate them for that and I'll tell you why right The Last Waltz was number one when I was born right oh mate I really resent Engelbert for that if my mum if my mum had held on a couple of weeks I could have had the Bee Gees, Massachusetts. Or, if I'd been born, to be honest, life-threateningly premature,

I could have had San Francisco Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair by Scott McKenzie. But no, I got Engelbert fucking Humperdinck. Oh, my. At least she didn't name you after him. Well, there is that. I nearly got named Jesus because my dad thought...

What? Jesus Price. My God. Jesus Price. Fucking revelation or top revelation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad thought Jesus Price would be hilarious. It would be, man.

Fuck. That was a name that would have opened doors. Yeah, well, it would have shut a few as well. But my mum stepped in. My mum vetoed it and named me after Simon D, the disc jockey. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, imagine the singing you'd get non-stop.

You'd fucking hate Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. But anyway, yeah, they're really phoning it in, I think, Reed and Mason with this song. I'm actually more interested in the B-side, Lady of the Night. I don't know if you looked into this. No. It's a more interested in the B-side, Lady of the Night. I don't know if you looked into this. No. It's a song of romance, ostensibly, but one assumes it's about a hooker,

a bit of a sort of pretty woman scenario. It doesn't explicitly say she's a prostitute, except in the title. But there's a verse that goes, Lady of the Night, I'm familiar with your way. Must you flee with the morning light? Must you sleep away the day? Lovely lady, say you'll stay and greet the dawn. So if she is a hooker, right, he's paying overnight rates. All right, Engelbert, someone's earning. You know?

I mean, the other possibility is that he doesn't know what a lady of the night is or he thinks we don't or Johnny Harris harris and paul anchor who actually wrote it but anyway he's he's he's an interesting figure 70s engelbert right in that he's good looking in precisely all the ways that mean nothing to teenage girls right he he's darkly handsome right he's he's born in madras and said to be of anglo indian descent although that's been questioned. His parents are Welsh and German, apparently. He's 37 at this point, and he gives the girls feelings they don't know what to do with.

He's an attractive older man, like one of their dad's good-looking friends. He's dishy in a way that mums understand, right? So he's got his practised cabaret singer moves, his big signet rings on his fingers, his velvet suit that you mentioned, his open neck shirt and his Cossack hairspray hairdo. He's like an English Tom Jones, but without the sex.

I mean, I say without the sex, but apparently Engelbert's wife once said that she could paper the bedroom with all the paternity lawsuits filed against him so that I guess that is another Tom Jones comparison but he's attractive in a way that's slightly off from the perspective of young girls and unfortunately he's singing straight at a crowd of young girls here. Yeah. The mismatch between what he's offering and the audience he's addressing gets too much, and some of the girls down the front start giggling at him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then start chit-chatting. Yeah, but he's unfazed. He just does his thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's here to sell the song, isn't he? To get his product over. It's fucking ballad.

He's belting it out. It's only a slight song, but he's inflating it as richly as he can without a voice of his, like a balloon full of gravy. It's a proper gravy balloon of a single. And spoiler alert, it isn't even a hit. But what he's done,

he's reminded a primetime audience that he exists. And that's the main thing. It might shift a few LPs rather than singles. It's certainly not gig tickets because he had no intention of even playing that's the main thing. It might shift a few LPs rather than singles. It's certainly not gig tickets, because he had no intention of even playing live in the UK soon. So it can't have been that. At this point, in 73 and 74, Engelbert's mostly doing residencies

at the Warwick Musical Theatre, Rhode Island, which was a massive green and yellow striped circus tent. Right. And the Riviera in Las Vegas, which was a proper old Rat Pack casino that Dean Martin had a stake in it and Do they have any chips with their stake? Sorry that was you

Oh wee, fuck's sake and it's the casino that you see in the film Casino and it's in Ocean's Eleven and it's in Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice and it's in Diamonds of Forever, that was his world and that's the thing he's seen engelbert is a bit of a joke figure yeah here so certainly to the girls down

the front in that audience he is but not in america um no he's got he's got a fucking star on the hollywood walk of fame and he he made enough money in the 70s to buy jane mansfield's old mansion in la the pink palace right and we think he's just that cheesy bloke from Leicester with a funny stage name. Yeah, Shakin' Jones. It begs the question, why he fucking needed to do this at all? There's just a whole heap of cognitive dissonance and category errors going on here.

He doesn't really understand who he's singing to. No. And they don't understand him. And yet we all at home have to endure this shit. Because it is a pretty fucking awful song isn't it i'm not wrong there it's it's it's not a great one um there's some interesting textures in it but he sounded very familiar to me i think it floated around this song it had a shelf life a bit longer than its chart position suggests put it right right yeah yeah yeah but i think he does

notice that the kids are not paying attention and are in fact giggling at him a little bit I've detected a few expressions on his face where he looks well pissed off yeah I think he does

manage to cloak it he does go for it with gusto but it's it's a total mismatch well he's got to what else can he do yeah

it's a total mismatch and does not belong on top of the pots not at this point anyway you know it's actually been going pretty well the energy's up let'satch and does not belong on top of the pots not at this point anyway you know it's actually been going pretty well the energy's up

let's keep it there not fucking destroy it in this four odd minutes of the hump so the following week love is all enter the charts at number 47

then drop to number 49 then rallied to number 44 then dropped out the follow up free as the, the theme from Papillon, failed to chart, beginning a chart drought which lasted 15 years, which was broken by his cover of Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You, which got to number 93 in March of 1988. Yes, the Glenn Medeiros song fucking helped.

Oh my God. Yeah. of 1988 yes the glenn madero song oh my god yeah And on that jarring note, we're going to step away from this episode of Top of the Pops for a wee while, and we'll come back tomorrow with the denouement of Chart Music episode 57. Just before I go, a little reminder, the video playlist. Everything we talk about, everything the guest mentioned, we've whacked it on a video playlist on YouTube. And you can reach it at bit.ly slash cm57vids.

bit.ly slash cm57vids. My name's Al Needham. they've been simon price and neil culcone see you tomorrow stay pop crazed sharp music great bigwl.com It's an S-Pod thing. The podcast revisiting S Club 7's insane TV show. Yeah, I can't imagine anyone's binge-watched this. Anyone who's not on drugs. Thank you for bringing this into my life. It was honestly truly appalling. Guests helped me analyse the show in more detail than anyone ever asked for.

It feels weird to me to say the phrase sex object in a show that was aimed at six-year-olds. Do you think one of the problems with this show is that seven is too much? It's an S-Pod thing from Great Big Owl. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.