Manhattan Transfer: Tuxedo Junction

I once blogged:

Turning on Radio 4 was dangerous in the 1970s. There was every chance you would encounter Instant Sunshine, the King’s Singers or James bloody Galway.

Worse, it could be Cleo Laine.

She invariably went:

Doo wop, doo be doo, diddly diddly shoo, doo wop, doop doop diddly diddly whop, woop woop shoo wop shoo wop, diddly diddly, bip bop bap, shoobly shoobly woop woo.

Another group that haunted the airwaves in those days was Manhattan Transfer, but I remember rather liking Tuxedo Junction.

Manhattan Transfer (we never called them The Manhattan Transfer back in the day) took their name from the title of a novel by John Dos Passos.

Tuxedo Junction was first recorded by Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra and then, more famously, by Glenn Miller and his.

It reached 24 in the UK singles chart in 1976, a year when novelty records flourished as the country waited impatiently for punk to happen.