Obscure Oldies

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^ Middle Of The Road's version of 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' was hardly obscure in the UK, where it got to number one in the singles chart in 1971!

But thanks for posting those other versions, of which I was unaware. The one by Mac and Katie is remarkably faithful to the Middle of the Road release. Never heard of Lally Stott, though his version was the original one.



Meanwhile, here is a release from 1972 that I think is pretty obscure, though not at all bad:

I think this 1982 release from Donald Fagen, formerly of Steely Dan, definitely qualifies as 'obscure'!

Get Down, why dontcha babe? Why not, lol?

Gilbert O'Sullivan had a whole string of hits in 1972-73, but who remembers him today? I always think his releases in this period had something in common with those of Leo Sayer a year or two later.

Looking at the audience in this YouTube clip, I'd say they must have been Germans. You'll know what I mean if you've ever watched a lot of stuff from this period.

The Middle of The Road version was a hit in UK the Mac and Katie Kissoon version was a hit in the USA. I don’t know about the UK but I never hear any version played on oldies radio stations here so even though it was a hit at the time it’s obscure now.

And who remembers his debut single?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV-wyQx8PkU

My tastes are so odd that I consider it to be one of his best recordings. He seems to have been alluding to the long-bygone era when music hall comedians from the north of England were somewhat popular. I liked his earlier image more than the later one where he seemed to be rather pandering to what the marketing people thought would sell better, but I felt he was always capable of some good songwriting here and there.

More generally, my musical tastes are strongly geared to the obscure. Even my personal collection of music that was broadcast on the John Peel radio show - himself a man who had little time for popular mainstream music - is mostly stuff that I've rarely been able to find in the reams of material that has made it into the public domain since his death. And believe me, I've tried hard to find it.

So I'm glad to say I've got quite a few cassette recordings of music that's so obscure that I seriously doubt it's in the public domain. Examples:

Clannad: A televised performance from The Embankment and one at Wythernshaw that was on the radio, both in 1978 - including an acapella version of Dheanainn Sugradh that seems to be absolutely unique. They're both pretty good concerts but for some reason they've been lost in the mist of time.

3 Mustaphas 3: "A Chilling Tale" - several versions exist out there, but I've got one I've never found anywhere else. The band, from Croydon, London, were a kind of Balkan version of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

Amazulu: "Brixton" - every bit as good as "Cairo" IMHO, but good luck finding it in the public domain. I've also got part of another track that sounds like it's very probably them but nobody seems to have heard of it except me. It contains the line "echoes in the valley when the guns go click" and a guitar solo that was clearly borrowed from "Ghost Riders In The Sky."

Marcia Strassman is best known for playing Nurse Margie Cutler on the TV series M*A*S*H and high school teacher Julie Kotter on the TV Series Welcome Back Kotter. In 1967 she had a regional hit on the West Coast on the United States with this