DID BOY GEORGE LISTEN TO IMMY ONES?
Perplexed by rock queries and doubts? Let guru Dellar bring light to your darkness.
Is it true that Boy George’s Karma Chameleon was based on an old rock’n’roll hit? Will Gray, via e-mail
Fred says: In 1984, songwriters Otis Blackwell and Jimmy Jones claimed that Boy George had plagiarised Jones’s 1959 hit Handyman, arguing that line “Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon” imitated their “Come-a, come-a, come-a come-a, come-a, come-a” lyric. Virgin Music and Virgin Records argued that Blackwell and Jones had no case to fight because they had not registered the song at the time and it was out of copyright – but a US federal judge decided otherwise. Eventually, an out-of-court settlement was reached and Boy George, denying any culpability, admitted that Blackwell and Jones were paid off (with, he claimed, “10 pence and an apple”). Jimmy Jones, who died in 2012, seemingly always had problems collecting royalties – his manager Norm Riley once declared himself insane and checked into an asylum in order to avoid claims from Jones and various other clients.
WHO WAS ON FIRST (ELECTRIC) BASS?
I’ve often wondered – who was the first to play an electric bass? Kelly Burnette, via e-mail
Fred says: Leo Fender gave bandleader Lionel Hampton a Precision bass to hand to his bassist Monk Montgomery in 1953. Monk once explained to Guitar Magazine: ”Hamp handed me the Fender and told me he wanted the electric instrument sound in the band. At first I freaked out because I was in love with my upright bass. But I made up my mind to do it and did it well.” It’s generally accepted that Monk was the first musician to record with the Fender Precision, cutting four Quincy Jonesarranged tracks as a member of the Art Farmer Septet in July 1953.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THESE GREAT DANES?
Any idea what happened to Danish band The River Phoenix? They issued a superb album (Ritual, 2008) and an EP, but that appears to be it. Robert Mudge, Bonn, Germany
Fred says: The band’s lead singer/guitarist Kristian Finne Kristensen took time off from recording as Chorus Grant to say that when the band began work on a second album, “our artistic differences and aspirations started to show… There were moments that thrilled us all in the new songs but something was just off between us artistically.” He adds that the end came when “guitarist Stefan left the group to focus on the music he was making with his wife in the band Green Pitch.” As for the other members, drummer Michael also joined Green Pitch and plays with guitarist Morten in a metal band. Bassist Nikolaj, meanwhile, works as a sound engineer with hip-hop/ urban acts in Denmark as well as being part of the bands Anchorless and 11th Street Kids.
KAY IS OKAY! CONFIRMED
I couldn’t agree more about Kay Starr’s blues credentials (MOJO 295). One of my favourite items, Garbage Can Blues, stems from a Gene Norman show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, in front of a mainly black audience, where she tears it up with more innuendo than could be expected from a young white pop women. As for the Candy OST, we got to copy Jack Nitzsche’s personal stash of tapes and among them was a soundtrack for Candy. How far this got down the line I don’t know, but maybe we should do the Jack OST compilation. Roger Armstrong, Ace Records
Fred says: Garbage Can Blues is indeed a terrific performance. Re: a possible Jack Nitzsche OST collection – can I start the queue right here, right now?
WAS THERE A JAZZ HANDS SOLO BEFORE HAN?
The advent of the new Star Wars movie, Solo, jogged my memory. Wasn’t there a jazz film of that same title way back? Rubin W, via e-mail
Fred says: You’re half right. In 1955, the prolific TV and film writer Stanford Whitmore completed his one and only novel, Solo, which was duly launched at a book party attended by author Studs Terkel, pianist Dave Brubeck and others. A brilliant jazz tale involving two pianists, one of whom was a genius who merely sought to play in low dives, the book was optioned by 20th Century Fox who envisioned Cary Grant as the star. There were rumours that Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner would record a soundtrack, but film came there none. Writer Whitmore however, continued, providing episodes for Johnny Staccato, The Fugitive and many other TV series, plus writing a couple of films (the Hank Williams biopic Your Cheatin’ Heart was one) before his time came up, aged 88, in 2014.
WHY WERE THE DURANNIES BANNED?
I seem to remember that the first Duran Duran full-length video was banned. What was the reason for this? Mike Curley, via e-mail
Fred says: There was no full ban but, in 1983, a VHS tape baldly titled ‘Duran Duran’ was placed on the ‘restricted’ list by the W.H. Smith chain, which meant that it was not placed on display or sold to the young. The reason was that the 11-video set included Godley & Creme’s full-length promo for the Durannies’ 1981 single Girls On Film. Having been told to create a clip to be shown in clubs that would also get people talking, the directors’ risqué video infamously featured nudity, mud wrestling and girls kissing (a cleaned-up edit of the film was shown on TV). The subsequent video collection, which was mainly pieced together by film-maker Russell Mulcahy, still went on to win a 1984 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video.