Don't know why, but "Woolly Bully" popped into my head today. For those too young to remember (most of you), this was an absolutely frightful song, performed by an equally frightful ensemble, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, who dressed up in Egyptian headdresses. It was a big hit, which only goes to show that bad taste in alleged music is not a modern phenomenon. I wish it would pop out again. One trend that thankfully has not continued is the dressing up in silly costumes. The funny thing was that such ensembles could often be quite good. Consider Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. These were R&B pioneers in the UK and their "Shakin' all over" (penned by Kidd himself) is considered a classic. The silly pirate costumes apparently came about by accident, when Kidd (real name Fred Heath) was whacked in the eye by a breaking guitar string just prior to going on stage and someone gave him an eye patch to control the watering, and the rest flowed, so to speak, from that eye patch. They had a particularly good guitarist, Mick Green, whom, I believe still plays for Sir Paul Beatle. Speaking of silly costumes and great guitars, the combination of silliest and greatest certainly belongs to the Spotnicks, a Swedish group who dressed up in metallised "spacesuits" complete with bizarre domed helmets. Why they didn't die of embarrassment I never knew. However, their lead guitarist, one Bo Winberg, was sensationally good. Listen to the amazing recording of the old country standard "Orange Blossom Special" - it was 'way beyond what most guitarists of the time (and I suspect this time also) could do. I used to slow down my 45rpm to 33rpm to hear whether he really did play all the notes I thought he did - and yes, he did. I believe the Spotnicks live on - but without the spacesuits, thank goodness!
