20
Aug 07
PETERS AND LEE – “Welcome Home”
Suppose one wanted to give “Welcome Home” a low mark – what actual grounds would one have for saying it’s a bad record? It’s a catchy, memorable, uptempo song, delivered in a friendly and honest way. It’s sentimental, but a level of sentimentality is almost inevitable when you’re trying to communicate big emotions in a small song. Certainly its sense of calm and relief doesn’t transmit as phoney.
But I don’t want to listen to it again, either – I can make myself empathise with it but that doesn’t come naturally. It’s not an exciting record. It doesn’t want to be, so this is another unfair criticism, but one which gets closer to the contentedly huge gap between what “Welcome Home” offers and what I want. Pop music needs to agitate me somehow, contain questions or conflicts, provoke reactions (physical ones are fine!), build imaginative worlds – but “Welcome Home” is all resolution, a happy ending without a story to lead me to it. In the end I can’t respond to it, not because it’s bad, or poorly crafted, but because it feels too complete. Maybe later.
4
I think the Seaside Special in the drought year “featuring Tony Blackburn, David Hamilton and Peters and Lee” would have been more than enough to see me scuttling off Beachy Head had I seen it, which quite clearly I didn’t, thank God.
Does anyone have Anita Harris flashbacks, btw?
– and here are details of the 3 editions of variety shows starring Peters & Lee which don’t survive in the archives;
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MILL: Featuring Peters and Lee, The Dotrice Family, Jack Dieval (1976)
WEDNESDAY AT 8: Featuring Peters and Lee, Neville King, Lyn Paul (1976)
WEDNESDAY AT 8: Featuring Peters and Lee, Black Abbotts, The Nolan Sisters (1977)
Anita Harris? Principally I remember her at the time from a kid’s show called Anita In Jumbleland which was every bit as awful as it sounds. This was long before I saw her in Carry On Doctor.
Her 1967 weepie “Just Loving You” is apparently the biggest selling number six single ever but few remember her extremely weird, non-charting follow-up “The Playground” – surprised Saint Etienne haven’t rumbled it and put it on one of their compilations yet.
wow Billy,…..how do you know what exsists then, gee how can I get hold of any of that list….sigh! Dianne Lee gave me a wednesday at 8 from 1977 with the Nolans in it, wonder if thats a rare one, also the seaside spech of 1978 with Mike burton. But I have so little of them…do you know ANY way I can get hold of that stuff Billy???? Any way at all? Any idea’s???? Any?
The television archivists association Kaleidoscope publishes a series of useful filmographies detailing every British drama and variety television programme transmitted – The recently released Top of the Pops volume would make an ideal gift for any regular Popular correspondent! A concise version of this information can be found at http://www.lostshows.com , a site created to encourage people to look for missing programmes.
As for viewing programmes… It’s very difficult to arrange. Understandably, archivists like a better reason for a request than our really wanting to see something.
However, if a request is made to view a programme by somebody who was involved in the production, then television archives do allow viewing. So I’m sure that Dianne Lee could get to see her old appearances.
You can see Peters & Lee on the Christmas 1973 Top of the Pops on Youtube, though.
aw, fiddle…..thought it wasn’t as simle as that then. Ive also already got a copy of the you tube TOTPs welcome home, had that for years already……drat. I take it this kaleidoscope confirms that “meet peters and lee” is gone then now does it? I wish there was a way to get hold of this stuff….after all, its rather unlikley that we will ever se a DVD release of any of this stuff…Id buy it that way if that was an option.
So Marcello, do you have a list of the highest-selling singles at each chart position? (I imagine “White Lines” might feature on it somewhere. “My Way”? “A Scottish Soldier”?…)
White Lines peaked at seven but has subsequently been outsold by LeAnn Rimes’ How Do I Live?
You’d think My Way would have been the number five champ but since Bing’s White Christmas, which is the second biggest selling single ever, did peak at the same position following his death at Xmas ’77 I might have to rule that one out (since the UK chart didn’t start until 1952, i.e. a decade after White Christmas’ commercial peak, it’s difficult to assess this for definite, though).
But I would reckon that A Scottish Soldier is the best-selling number 19 single.
And is this going to be the first thread on Popular that reaches 100 comments???
Doubt it.
If only this could show that Peters & lee were not that bad as evidence. 100 COMMENTS! I mean, they were the first act ever to have a number 1 album and single at the same point in time since the Beatles! And now most of their op. knocks wins have also been wiped as well as their TV series….is there no justice in the world?
BRIAN
Didn’t Rod the Mod have both single and album at the top at the same time both here and in the US – to wit: “Maggie May/Reason to Believe” and “Every Picture tells a story”? If so, would this not have been between the Beatles and Lennie and Dianne?
Nevertheless, a raised bat for “Welcome Home”. If Brian can get a message to Dianne, I’m sure she’d be delighted.
Its well known that at least here in the UK that Peters & lee were the first act to hold the no 1 singles and albums chart at the same time since the Beatles, Dianne also told me and its been mentioned a few times on TV as well. In the US it might be different, dunno…..but its a fact they were the first UK act to do this since the Beatles anyway.
I wonder if you lot also know that peters and lee are not even the real sir names of Lennie or Dianne? BUT Lenard sargent and Dianne littlehales….hmmmmm sargent & littlehales doesn’t sound right though does it. Also their act was “lennie peters and Melody” when they first got together. Ive no idea why Melody was chosen as a name. They won 7 or 8 opp knocks and none exsist now….
I knew about Littlehales but not about Sargent. I agree they were right not to go with that billing; makes them sound like a Windsor Davies and Don Estelle kind of deal.
Do you all know Lennie has a few single flops pre-peters & lee? He had “for a lifetime”, “let the tears begin”, “stranger in paradise” and just found “here we go again” from 1970! He has an LP in 1981 called “unforgettable” but isn’t eally all that good without Dianne.
Brian/Waldo – on a quick check Peters and Lee appear to have been the 5th case of an act having the UK number 1 album and single simultaneously in the 70s. First was George Harrison (My Sweet Lord/All Things Must Pass), then Rod as Waldo mentioned earlier, and T Rex did it twice, with Telegram Sam/Electric Warrior and Metal Guru/Bolan Boogie.
In the latter case Marc nearly replaced himself at the top of the album charts, as the reissued “My People Were Fair…” from Tyrannosaurus Rex days had been at the top a fortnight before. What a major star we lost 30 years ago last Sunday.
Yes, Victor the Giraffe is still sadly missed…
yes I know they were not the only act to have consecutive no 1s in the LP and single charts at the same time, but they are the first in the UK since the Beatles to do this.
While routinely leafing through Guinness I came across the unlikely info that Lennie Peters was Charlie Watts’ uncle. Can’t quite see it myself.
yes, Ive known that info for a while and it is weird to think isn’t it!
BRIAN
Are you sure that’s not the other way round?!
Patrick Cargill was the uncle of Surrey and England paceman Robin Jackman, btw. I’m sure you were all twitching to know that…
Brian will be pleased to see that Peters & Lee’s appearance on ‘The Tommy Cooper Hour’ is now available on DVD.
what..when…were…..what do they do on this DVD in case I have it already….can you say more?????
BRIAN
The complete Thames series from 1973 to 1975. A review of it that I saw mentioned that Peters & Lee are amongst the special guest performers. I couldn’t tell you what they perform, though.
poor old peters & lee, they are often forgotton.
BRIAN
Lennie and Dianne appeared a lot on the Des Oconnor show too.
Oh how I miss the Fox
Two Popular acts for the (presumably quite reasonable) price of one:
http://www.priceandlee.org/pricelee101_027.htm
heartwarming, isn’t it?
The “A Brief History” bit on that site is worth reading – Rick Price comes across as the Adrian Mole of Pop in parts (although there’d be plenty of other contenders for that roles), but his candid honesty makes for a change.
Dianne and Rick have sent me a copy of the peters and lee story from 1975 with comedy sketches and songs and guest acts on, very ITV!
TPL gets to Peters and Lee, or possibly vice versa: http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2011/07/peters-and-lee-we-can-make-it.html
LONDON NIGHT OUT: Featuring Peters and Lee, Jerry Stevens, Tammy Jones (1980)
Does anyone know where I can get a copy of this?
As a teenager at the time I resented TOTP and the radio being colonised by music by and for old people. Now as an old person I can appreciate the sentiment more even if I still find it somewhat syrupy and unambitious. There are C&W songs like Charlie Rich’s ‘Life’s Little Ups and Downs’ that better capture the joys and struggles of domesticity
I’ll be generous and I think I can stretch to a 4/10 here.