Christmas 2007
A merry
Christmas and a joyous festive season to
you all. I hope you all have a wonderful
time. Don't forget, if there's anyone
you've yet to find a stocking filler
for, there's still a few "When
Showbusiness is No Business" books left
on our shelf. In addition to this all
the CD catalogue is still available.
What could be a better present for
someone who has yet to discover the
'Pigeon/Makepeace' sound?
Many thanks
to all of you who spotted that the album
"Mouldy Old Music" made it into the
Guardian's list of '1,000 albums to hear
before you die'. In case you haven't
seen the comments, log on to
http://music.guardian.co.uk/1000albums/story/0..2213499.00.html
. Does anyone know what, "Psychedelic in
a rather brown way" is supposed to mean
though??
Regular
correspondent Dave Ashby of Bury St
Edmunds has unearthed a gem. A copy of
"The World of Lieutenant Pigeon" has
turned up after all these years. He's
managed to purchase said rare item and
has been good enough to scan and send us
pictures of the sleeve. The boys say
they only received a test pressing of
the album off Decca back in the mid
1970s, and were not even aware that
front and back sleeve designs had been
completed. They were given the catalogue
number SKA 5226 at the time but then the
record was deleted, before even the
release date. Dave's copy of the back
sleeve clearly shows the catalogue
number SPA 414. This confirms that the
number the boys were given by Decca all
those years ago was false. Has anyone
else got a copy of this very rare LP?
The emergence of this copy is akin to
someone finding a 1933 penny as far as
we're concerned!
Finally,
congratulations to all the many people
who emailed us with the answer to the
teaser in my last Newsletter. Yes, of
course it was Gilbert O'Sullivan who
knocked Lt Pigeon off the top spot all
those years ago with his song "Clair".
Here's a much harder one this time.
Which Stavely Makepeace track was
released as the B side of two different
singles?
All the best
Bill B.
November 2007
Another
milestone was passed in October. It’s now 35
years since those heady days when the boys
spent 4 weeks at the top of the music charts
with “Mouldy Old Dough”. Speaking to Rob the
other day he said it certainly didn’t seem
that long! Something else I learned that
day. Apparently it was always customary in
those days, (perhaps it still is now?), to
send a congratulatory telegram to the artist
or band who replaced you at No.1. Certainly
the boys did receive theirs off a gracious
David Cassidy who’s record, “How Can I be
Sure” was toppled by Lieutenant Pigeon. Four
weeks later it was Rob, Nigel, Steve and
Hilda’s turn to do the honours. Hands up all
of you who remember who knocked Lt Pigeon
off the top spot, and what was the record?
Back to the
reality of today. So far reaction to the new
Stavely Makepeace single has been excellent.
Many local radio stations up and down the
country are playing it and sales & downloads
via the web site have exceeded all
expectations. If there is a down side it’s
that BBC Radio 2 have failed as yet to pick
up on it. (So what’s new!) Lots of staunch
fans have commented on Lauren Woodward’s
fine duet with her dad Rob. If you haven’t
heard it yet, click on the downloads button,
you’ll see what you’ve been missing!
Another piece of
‘archive enigma’. A number of you have asked
for a full list of all the Woodward/Fletcher
titles which have been recorded and released
by other bands and artistes. This list might
be somewhat difficult to comprise. A band
from South Africa released a version of
“Give me that Pistol” and there was also
that magnificent cover of “Coconut Shuffle”
by Dennis Matumbi’s outfit. Then there was
Slow Dog and Red Fox who both did versions
of “Walking Through the Blue Grass”, but
there must have been others that Rob and
Nigel have either forgotten about or have
yet to learn about. For example, Nigel tells
me that the Worzells asked for clearance
many years ago to put words to “Mouldy Old
Dough”. Permission was granted but then
nothing more was heard. In my next
Newsletter I will try to throw a little more
light on these little mysteries.
All for now.
Cheers BB.
PS...LATE NEWS. In time for Christmas
the BBC have published a book called "Top of
the Pops" by Ian Gittins. It's full of
colour pictures, memories and anecdotes from
the heydays of the programme. There's even a
bit about Lieutenant Pigeon/Stavely
Makepeace! It's published by 'BBC Books'.
Details can also be found by visiting
www.rbooks.co.uk
September 2007
Thirty six
years ago this month Rob and Nigel tried
an experiment. Together with bass
guitarist Steve Johnson, they called on
Rob's mum Hilda to join them in a
novelty offshoot group from their main 5
piece band Stavely Makepeace. This they
would call Lieutenant Pigeon. We all
know what happened next!
This month
sees the release, (both on CD and as a
download), of a new Stavely Makepeace
track. This time it features Rob playing
with his daughter Lauren. Could
this be an omen?
The boys
have got a little political with their
lyric writing this time. "We want a
house" is all about the difficulties
young couples experience when trying to
get on to the exclusive 'housing
ladder'.
Also
released are two more new titles, "It's
a nanny state" and "Buy one get one
free". they can be downloaded
individually or bought as one CD single.
Check out our "Music Download" page
Also new for the autumn is the
"Lieutenant Pigeon" group on
Facebook. Long time friend of the
group Simon Shaw has launched this
on the internet 'social networking'
site to open up LIEUTENANT PIGEON to
an even bigger audience. Early days
yet but already lots of people have
shown an interest. See "Links" or cl
ick
here
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5740247620
to access this site.
More soon.
Bill.
Summer 2007
(If you can call
it that!)
Well, half way
through another year! Is it my imagination
or are the years speeding up? Anyway, as
you'll see, a few more tracks have recently
been added to our Downloads page. These are
some of the earlier Stavely Makepeace
recordings. "The Charity Show" harks back to
the very early days and was one of the
recordings the boys did at the Pyramid
Recording Studios in Fulham way back in the
late 1960s. Apologies for the rather 'demo'
quality of the performance but these were
the days of 'one take' backing tracks and
very few over dubs. Pyramid boss Graeme
Goodall engineered this session himself.
He'd just had his first No.1 at the time
with Desmond Dekker's "Israelites"
Great news about
the film Hot Fuzz. It broke all British box
office records in its first few weeks of
release. An awful lot of people will be
familiar with the Stavely Makepeace track
"Slippery Rock" now, though we doubt it will
cause a rush on old vinyl copies of the
single! Having said that, the track is
featured on the film's sound track CD issued
by Island Records so a lot more people will
discover the band. Let's hope they
become curious about the boy's music and buy
the Stavely CD album.
A big welcome to
all our overseas 'surfers'. We can tell by
the amount of emails and downloads coming in
from different parts of the world that
Lieutenant Pigeon and Stavely Makepeace
music has become truly international. I
promise I will badger them until every
recording they ever did is found and
given to me to issue in one form or another.
More soon. Bill
B.
