Goodtime George
One of the Greatest Living Englishmen is sadly living no more: George Melly died last week. Jazz singer, author, critic, art expert and, above all, larger than life character of the sort they just don't make any more. I only saw him live the once at one of his traditional Ronnie Scott's Xmas shows and he was wonderful.
"Old Codger" is a bawdy number he recorded with The Stranglers that came on a free EP included with their 1978 "Black and White" album. It may seem an odd pairing but George was a punk long before there was such a thing as "punk" — and he was a smutty old bugger too.
Download: Old Codger - George Melly & The Stranglers (mp3)
Read: "Owning Up" (book)
Read (if you can find a copy): "Revolt Into Style" (book)
6 Comments:
Great story in the paper this weekend about GM's last days.
His wife put a sign for visitors on his bedroom door saying 'Please don't ask George how he is - he will say "I am F**cking dying, what do you think?" (!)
Thanks for this Lee, I haven't heard this for almost 30 years when a mate of mine at school with really bad acne got Black And White with this in white vinyl. George Melly was a sharp film critic too, I remember. Truly a great loss.
Sad to hear he has gone. I have several of his albums on vinyl and I fondly remember his column in Punch.
Truly one of a kind. His voice was an aquired taste but his books are very funny, especially his 3 autobiographys. Thanks for the Old Codger- I'd never heard it before!
I had this EP, with Walk on By on tother side. My mum was a George Melly fan, I read her books and I became a lifelong fan too, I met him a couple of times and he was a great writer and her performances were once legendary. Another interesting legend bites the dust, I miss him along with Ian Dury and Vivian Stanshall and Phil Collins.
Oh, he's not dead?
His performances were legendary too, but my mum did do some great high kicks in the kitchen in the 70's.
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