“Too fast to type to, to catchy to concentrate on words to describe it, this slinky thing slips and slides for as long as you can stay on your feet. George McCrae is as new to us as he probably is to you, but he’s been listening to Al Green, waited until he saw Al’s eyes start to droop, and came in with this wide awake invitation to take him in your arms. The bass is steady, maraccas shuffle twice as fast, and this will leapfrog the charts before TOTP have time to take their copy out of its sleeve. Nice work by President to pick up the rights to it, from the Florida-based TK label; up till now Jay Boy has been restricted to meeting the peculiar tastes of Northern soul dancers, but the whole country will swing and sway to this one.”

Also reviewed;

The Sweet – The Six Teens
ABBA – Ring Ring
The Wombles – Banana Rock
The Jackson 5 – Dancing Machine

Yes, Hislop’s a delight. I remember the name of the late tennis player Vitas Gerulaitis once came up on HIGNFY and Merton immediately turned to Ian:

“I bet you think that’s a disease, don’t you?”

Priceless.

Hislop’s definitely one of the good guys, and his occasional shafts of insight into sport and pop help to make HIGNFY the consistent joy that it is – an absolute highlight being his Jimmy Somerville impression on “Don’t Leave Me This Way”. There’s been a timely repeat for his series “Not Forgotten” on Great War memorials this last week.

I heard, back in the day, the song was originally written as a theme song for Jimmy Tarbuck, but he rejected it. (“The whole of my life’s been a pantomime” seems more like a line from a suicide note to me)

If I’m wrong, OK. Bit of a shame though.

Nothing gives me more satisfaction than getting a spoof letter past Ian Hislop. Although Ian is my direct contemporary, as far as sport and rock/pop is concerned, he becomes intrinsically enveloped in a Fraser Crane-like cocoon of innocence and ignorance without, I hasten to add, Fraser’s insufferable pomposity: “The fact is, Doctor Crane, you SHOULD be familiar with the works of KC and The Sunshine Band…” This gap in Hislop’s education is, of course, mercilessly exploited by Paul Merton on HIGNFY but Hislop smiles and does not protest. He’s actually one of the good guys, Ian.

But not even I felt he or his sub-editors (mind you, they’re probably all about twelve) would fall for a letter I submitted to the “Eye” a couple of years or so ago from a guy from Motherwell called “George Macrae”, who was contributing to a running debate on the Scottish practice of “turd burning”, to wit, setting a piece of human excrement alight and posting this through someone’s letterbox. “Macrae”, now living in my home town, “remembered” catching two small boys back in 1974 on the verge of doing this very thing to him and punishing them by inviting them to consume the shit in question in exchange for not being severely wounded courtesy of “George’s” steelies. “You could get away with that sort of thing in 1974”, I concluded. To my delight, “Private Eye” printed this, convinced that the events had been genuine. I’ve hoodwinked Ian and one or two other editors a few times over the years but none are relevant to this loop. What flew merrily over Hislop’s head, of course, was “George Macrae” and “1974”, the giveaway link.

Meanwhile, the real George Macrae, the son of a Florida cop, secured this KC number merely because he could hit the high notes and Casey couldn’t or wouldn’t. “Rock Your Baby” was a gigantic worldwide hit and I can say nothing bad about it at all. Great arrangement, great beat and terrific stuff from Lil’ George, who still turns up over here and on the continent. He used to tour with Edwin Starr but does no longer since Edwin has alas become “friend only to the undertaker”.

Boom-boom!

It so nearly happened…

Before that she was one of the shadowy cabal of female session singers along with Sue and Sunny, Madeline Bell etc. and sang back-up on a lot of songs which Dale is apt to spin of a Sunday.

Later in the seventies she co-presented a kids’ TV pop show called Look Alive! with a chap whose actual name was Gordon Bennett.

As for her replacement, who did New Faces then That’s Life then became a national treasure, it’s a pity she’s never had a hit record (unless of course you know better, as Cyril Fletcher used to say) – “Northerners” or “The Ballad of Barry and Freda” would have sounded great in the top 40 show.