Naughty Naughty Naughty / Letters Of Love

Product Information

To be fair, most of their songs were written by ace tunesmith Tom Springfield, brother of the amazing Dusty and ex-member of The Springfields. of Alaska’s releases this record also did not chart but it’s an interesting reminder of one of the ubiquitous personalities of the 70s.

Everyone of a certain age remembers Just Good Friends although, like me, they may not have watched it.

She had this very affected vocal style and I think she really fancied herself, thought she was a cut above every other singer in the charts and the media feted her because she seemed so NICE and NORMAL. Firstly, its melody was gossamer-thin to the point of being undetectable, secondly it sounded exactly like his previous other hits and, most heinously, it perpetuated a number of myths.

Co-written with Jim Dale (of Carry-On fame) it lost out to the legendary John Barrie and Don Black‘s easy listening classic ‘ Born Free‘, a song that became Matt Monro‘s theme tune (more on Matt later). And then there was the guy (in fact, his name was Athol Guy– silly name) on double bass who wore those big 60s glasses and sung backing vocals.

This lugubrious equine annual bunfight even bumped Monty Python’s Flying Circus from the schedules and became a running gag for years on the programme. As well as being the leader of the Top Of The Pops Orchestra for 15 years, he helped launch the career of Cilla Black (well, nobody’s perfect) and was musical director for a number of Dusty Springfield shows in the 60s (much more like it). To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

On listening to this awful version it seems inexplicable that such a terrible vocal and utterly bland production could be a hit, a No. You picked up the phone, dialled a particular number and a female voice would say, ‘ This is the Dial-A-Disc Service. In his defence, this record was probably the aesthetic nadir of a long, particularly prolific and successful career and he is still performing. Now he may have been the most irritating of all because when they, mercifully, decided to split up in 1968 he clearly believed the world wouldn’t be able to survive without The Seekers.The guys in my year at school who knew about ‘serious’ music, the ones who walked around the playground with a copy of Rory Gallagher’s ‘ Blueprint‘ or ELP’s ‘ Brain Salad Surgery’ under their arm, would have taken the piss relentlessly out of me if they’d known I’d purchased it, but I loved it. Had that version not been around maybe Waldo De Los Rios might have made it to Numero Uno and he might not have committed suicide in 1977, poor soul.