Smokey

I took a few shots of Smokey after breakfast this morning when he was sitting on the laptop. The curtain was pulled across to keep the light off the monitor while I did I spot of Blip commenting.

I had just begun taking some pictures of the Jacobs sheep at Fishers Brook this afternoon, intending one to be my blip, when a big thunderstorm broke out, and the ones I had got weren't up to much, so this snap of Smokey is all I've got.

When I got back, I added some extra info to some recent entries and put up links to other photos that I took at Roche Court NewArtsCentre and the Cotswold Wildlife Park.

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Cliff Richard and the Drifters - Living Doll (recorded 28 April 1959, Abbey Rd)
(from Serious Charge EP)
This week the Daily Fail has been giving away Cliff Richard's films with the "newspaper", and as I have been up to Tesco Express in Beversbrook, Calne to collect them, I have been exploring that part of the town. I was never a great Cliff fan after Move It (which was great) but I did like the Shadows from the outset and went to see The Young Ones, Summer Holiday and Wonderful Life mainly because they were in it.

Previous to that he had "straight" acting roles in Serious Charge and the rather good B-movie Expresso Bongo, also included this week. I think I'll give the next two (Two A Penny and Take Me High) a great big miss though.

This is the EP and single version of Living Doll, completely rearranged from the version as performed in the film.

Living Doll was written for the film Serious Charge. Lionel Bart had been approached by film producer Mickey Delamar to write songs for the film. The idea for the song came on a Sunday morning in October 1958 while reading a newspaper and seeing an advert for a child's doll. The doll was said to "kneel, walk, sit and sing". Bart recounted, "I was looking at the back pages and there was a small advert for a doll which could apparently do everything. I wrote the song in ten minutes." The song was written as an up-tempo light rock and roll song (rather than a ballad), and this is how Cliff Richard performs the song in the film.

Unbeknown to Richard, his contract to appear in the film required that there would be a single of one of the film's songs released. Richard recounts, "I remember passionately refusing to record  Living Doll'. There was a day of telephone calls from Norrie Paramor, with me saying I hated the song and that it wasn't right for us." Richard did not like what he called its "pseudo-rock" beat. "It did not sound like real American rock 'n' roll to us" said Richard. Paramor told Richard "Change it. Do it any way you like, but do it". While sitting around one afternoon before a show, thinking about what they could do with the song, Bruce Welch, while strumming a guitar, suggested they do it like a country song. Richard and his band agreed and duly rerecorded the song with the slower tempo.

The song was recorded in April 1959 by Cliff Richard and the Drifters and produced by Norrie Paramor. It was first released in the UK in May 1959 on the Serious Charge (EP) soundtrack before being released as a single in July 1959. It was number 1 on the UK Singles Chart for six weeks from July, selling over a million copies in the process and earning the record company's internally awarded Gold disc for the achievement. It also became the top selling single of 1959 in the UK. In the US, it was Richard's first hit single, reaching number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was a number 1 hit in several European countries, including Ireland, Norway and Sweden. The song won Bart an Ivor Novello Award for best song. The single featured Apron Strings on the b-side. It was the first number 1 in the UK Singles Chart for Cliff Richard and the Drifters; although their debut single Move It, released the previous year, is often cited as their first number 1; in fact that peaked at number 2. - Wikipedia