The year 1973 was good to Wizzard. They released a succession of great singles – Ball Park Incident, See My Baby Jive, Angel Fingers (the latter two both topped the UK charts) – and took part in an epic battle to be the Christmas number 1 with Slade.
This, their next single, should have been been out just after that battle had been lost, so that I listened to it while doing my homework by candlelight during the three-day week. But their new label, Warner Bros, didn't release it until 19 April 1974.
Despite this lack of seasonality, it reached number 6 and still sounds good today. Everyone now recognises Roy Wood as an insufficiently recognised genius.
After Rock 'N' Roll Winter it was all downhill for Wizzard. The size of the band, and Wood's perfectionism in the studio, meant they were expensive to run, and members began to drift away to other work to pay the bills. Wizzard split in 1975.
"Loony's Tune"? Wikipedia explains:
The song is dedicated to Roy Wood's girlfriend at the time Lynsey de Paul (aka Loony, from Spike Milligan's nickname for her, Looney de Small) with lyrics such as "Almost every song I dream of in the end, I could dedicate to you my lovely friend" and "But now your friendly music keeps me warm each night".
Roy Wood's love life was the subject of another memorable song: Northern Lights by Renaissance. Wikipedia quotes the singer Annie Haslam as saying:
The song is about leaving the Northern Lights of England ... and Roy Wood behind, when I was working over in the US.
Trivia corner: Wizzard's sax player Nick Pentelow is the son of the late Arthur Pentelow, who played long-running character Henry Wilks in Emmerdale Farm. I used to see both of them when I was growing up in Birmingham – Arthur moved to Brum when he joined the Birmingham Repertory Company.
ReplyDeleteNow, that's good trivia.
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