Naughty Naughty Naughty / Letters Of Love

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If Stuart Maconie had played Mouldy Old Dough on the Freakzone without anyone being aware of the record from the 70s, I think it would have pricked many people’s interest. He even repeated the confidence trick the following year with Bionic Santa, tapping into the popularity of the Six Million Dollar Man when everything seemed to be ‘bionic.

Now it would be unfair to describe Telly’s effort, Bread’s If, as one of the worst covers of all time, but it is pretty awful. A few DJs in the UK also began to play it and it was Noel Edmonds, of all people, who gave it a regular push on his radio show. What added an extra frisson of excitement to the record was that it was the theme to an ‘X’ rated film that was currently in the cinemas.Maybe, although I firmly believe Hilda’s participation added to the song’s interest and most certainly contributed to it achieving the top spot on The Hit Parade.

Mr Tambourine Man has to be heard to be believed and there is some serious acting going on in It Was A Very Good Year. For example, Dave and Ansel Collins had just made Number 1 with the first reggae song ever to do so, the brilliant Double Barrel, replacing T Rex‘s seminal Hot Love.

But a talking record only has so much mileage and his follow up to the super-successful ‘ If‘, pretty much bombed.

He then made it into West End musicals including starring roles in Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar amongst many other musical shows.The penny-whistle, the plinky-plinky piano, the growling repetitive vocals, the melody that just parks itself in your head. Their follow-up Desperate Dan still made the top 20 but it was just too similar, however, Stavely Makepeace endured and released some very interesting music over the next few years.