Eccentric is a word often used in descriptions of England and English people. It is probably best used when talking about The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
7th December 1969 - Back in my home town of Harrogate after 4 years in Australia, I was 19 years old when I got a ticket to the Harrogate Theatre and saw one of the strangest music shows I've ever encountered.
Giant papier-mâché heads, a policeman, an instrument made out of a trumpet mouthpiece, a plastic hose and a funnel. An enormous air filled phallic tube extending from the stage and bouncing over the first few rows .. and some of the most incredibly nonsensical lyrics put to music. It was magnificent !!
Having it's origins in the early 60's The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band for a while became known as The Bonzo Dog Dada Band. Vivian Stanshall gathered musicians of varying and sometimes dubious talent to come and go, changing the line-up and then changing the name back to The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. He got tired of trying to explain the 'Dada' part.
By around 1965 the group were semi-professional, playing working men's clubs around England, doing parodies and jazz based comedic songs. Acts like The Barron Knights and The Temperance Seven had paved the way for humour on the charts alongside 'pop' music so they were proving very popular.
The New Vaudeville Band were a fictional studio group, and when their song 'Winchester Cathedral' took off they needed real people to perform live. The Bonzos were asked to do it and they declined, but when the New Vaudeville Band did make an appearance on Top of the Pops they had copied The Bonzos style and look.
Fortunately the Bonzos had already come to the attention of other musicians, specifically Paul McCartney, who asked them to perform one of their songs in The Beatles 'Magical Mystery Tour'. They got a spot as resident band on the children's TV show 'Do Not Adjust Your Set' which also starred future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin.
Neil Innes was now a permanent member of the group and proved to be a driving force behind some of their most memorable music.
Their first album, Gorilla, was released in 1967 and included a Stanshall/Innes composition, 'Death Cab For Cutie', a parody of teenage tragedy songs done in an 'Elvis' style. Not only was that the song they performed on 'Magical Mystery Tour' but it is also immortalized by being the name adopted by an American alternative band in 1997.
Fast forward to 1968 and the release of their most successful single 'I'm The Urban Spaceman', another song penned by Neil Innes. Partly due to their previous association with the Fab Four, the song was famously produced by Paul McCartney and Gus Dudgeon. Dudgeon is the producer of most of Elton John's most successful albums. McCartney and Dudgeon were credited on '...Spaceman' under the combined pseudonym 'Apollo C. Vermouth'.
The B-side of the single was a Stanshall song 'The Canyons of Your Mind' with the video clip featuring Neil Innes playing shockingly bad guitar and Vivian Stanshall parodying a parody of a parody !!
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band went through more changes after their peak of 1968/69 and another name change, to the shorter Bonzo Dog Band.
Neil Innes continued on to more success in the 70s, teaming up with Monty Python for albums and on stage, notably in 'Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl'. He wrote some of the songs in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and does the whistling in 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'.
He appeared on the series 'Rutland Weekend Television' where in one sketch he played Ron Nasty, based on John Lennon. Eric Idle played Dirk McQuickly, parodying Paul McCartney. That was the birth of what would become The Rutles. When the telemovie 'All You Need Is Cash' was made, Idle did the screenplay and Innes did all the music. (If you find it, watch it - it is brilliant.)
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were a feature of a place and time.
It was the 60's. It was weird. We survived.
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