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John D. Loudermilk

It was one year ago this week that the folk singer/songwriter John D. Loudermilk passed away. He only had one UK hit in his own right which the 1962 number 13 hit Language of Love, but he wrote stacks of songs for other artists. There have been 19 hits penned by Loudermilk for other acts, here’s the list.

Artist Title Position Year
Stonewall Jackson Waterloo 24 1959
Michael Cox Angela Jones 7 1960
Everly Brothers Ebony Eyes 1 1961
Bobby Vee More Than I Can Say/Stayin’ In 4 1961
Bob Luman The Great Snow Man 49 1961
Carol Deene Sad Movies (Make Me Cry) 44 1961
Sue Thompson Sad Movies (Make Me Cry) 46 1961
Carol Deene Norman 24 1962
Nashville Teens Tobacco Road 6 1964
Nashville Teens Google Eye 10 1964
Sue Thompson Paper Tiger 50 1965
Marianne Faithfull This Little Bird 6 1965
Nashville Teens This Little Bird 38 1965
Casinos Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye 28 1967
Sandy Posey What A Woman In Love Won’t Do 48 1967
Everly Brothers It’s My Time 39 1968
Don Fardon Indian Reservation 3 1970
999 Indian Reservation 51 1981
Tracy Ullman Sunglasses 18 1984
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First MTV Awards

The first MTV awards ceremony was held this week in 1984. The show was held at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City and hosted by Bette Midler and Dan Aykroyd. The categories and recipients are as follows:

Category Artist Title
Best Stage Performance in a Video Van Halen Jump
Video of the Year The Cars You Might Think
Best Female Video Cyndi Lauper Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Best Male Video David Bowie China Girl
Best Group Video ZZ Top Legs
Most Experimental Video Herbie Hancock Rockit
Best Overall Performance in a Video Michael Jackson Thriller
Best New Artist in a Video Eurythmics Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
Best Direction in a Video ZZ Top Sharp Dressed Man
Best Choreography in a Video Michael Jackson Thriller
Best Special Effects in a Video Herbie Hancock Rockit
Best Art Direction in a Video Herbie Hancock Rockit
Best Concept Video Herbie Hancock Rockit
Best Editing in a Video Herbie Hancock Rockit
Best Cinematography in a Video The Police Every Breath You Take
Viewer’s Choice Michael Jackson Thriller
Special Recognition Award Quincy Jones
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A – Z of how solo artists got their name

Following last week’s piece about where group got their name, let’s have an A-Z of the same, but with solo aritsts.

Nickname Real Name Reason
Abs (from 5ive) Richard Breen A play on his middle name Abidin.
Babyface Kenneth Edmonds Named by Bootsie Collins because of his youthful looks.
Coolio Artis Ivey As a kid he sang and played guitar and someone asked, “Who do you think you are, Coolio Iglesias?”
Duffy Amie Ann Duffy It’s actually her real surname
Eminem Marshall Bruce Mathers III He and a schgool friend use to rap under the names Manix and M&M the latter evolved in Eminem.
Falco Johann Hölzel As a teenager he was fascinated by a German ski jumper called Falko Weisspflog.
Goldie Clifford Joseph Price He once wore dreadlocks and was in a breakdance crew called Bboys and nicknamed Goldielocks, when he did away with the dreadlocks the second part of the name went too.
Hammer Stanley Kirk Burrell As a kid he played baseball and the captain named his Hammer because he thought he looked like Hank Aaron, another baseball player whose nickname was Hammerin’ Hank.
Ice-T Tracy Marrow Named himself as a tribute to one of his favourite rappers Iceberg Slimm.
Ja Rule Jeff Atkins Apparently standing for Jeff Atkins Represents Unconditional Love’s Existence.
Nosmo King (featured singer with the Javells) Stephen Jameson Saw a sign on the underground ‘No Smoking’ and just re-arranged the gap.
Limahl Christopher Hamill A simple anagram of his real surname.
Matt Monro Terence Perkins Took the name Matt from Matt White, the first person to review a song of his and Monro after the father of the lady who discovered him, Winifred Atwell.
Jimmy Nail James Bradford He once stepped on a plank of wood and a six inch nail went straight through his foot.
Billy Ocean Leslie Sebastian Charles Whilst living in Trinidad there was a local team called Ocean 11 and he thought Billy went well with it.
P!nk Alecia Moore Took her name from the Mr Pink character in Reservoir Dogs because her friends all thought she resembled him.
Queen Latifah Dana Owens Latifah is an Arabic word which means Delicate or Sensitive.
Johnny Rotten John Lydon He was always spitting, blowing his nose and inspecting hit bad teeth so Pistols guitarist Steve Jones said, “You look rotten, you sound rotten, your teeth are rotten and you are rotten.” It stuck.
Sisqo Mark Andrews As a kid growing up in Baltimore his friends thought his light curly hair made him look Latino.
Tinie Tempah Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu He chose the name after looking up the word Anger in the dictionary but thought temper sounded too aggressive, so added the Tinie.
Uncle Kracker Matthew Shafer He originally called himself Cracker but a band with that name objected, so Kid Rock advised him to still Uncle in front of it.
Vanilla Ice Robert Van Winkle Originally called himself MC Vanilla, but added Ice from one of his unusual dance moves.
Fetty Wap Willie Maxwell He said, Fetty is slang term for money and Wap is a tribute to the nickname of his idol Gucci Mane.
Miss X Joyce Blair Recorded one single in 1963 about the Profumo scandal and was thus banned, of course, by the BBC.  Joyce was Lionel’s younger sister.
YG Keenon Jackson YG apparently stands for Young Gangsta.
Zedd Anton Zaslavski He said, “Except for USA, everywhere else the letter Z is pronounced as Zed which is the first letter of my last name. I was too lazy to think of a name so I just took Zedd since Zed was already taken.”
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A – Z of band name origins – Part 1

Here is a list of 26 groups and the origins of their name.

All Saints Named after All Saints Road near their homes in Notting Hill, London.
Boo Radleys Chosen after the odd-named village idiot character in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.
Crystals Soon after forming they met musican Leroy Bates who suggested using his daughters name Crystal.
Danny Wilson No one in the band is called Danny Wilson, but named after the 1952 Frank Sinatra film Meet Danny Wilson.
Everything But The Girl After a bric-a-brac shop in Hull which had the sign, ‘For your bedroom needs we sell everything but the girl.’
The Farm Named after Walton Farm near where the band formed in Liverpool.
Gap Band Named after their home areas in Oklahoma; Green Wood, Archer and Pine.
Honeycombs The drummer was Ann Lantree whose nickname was Honey. She and two members of the band were originally hairdressers.
Icicle Works Named after a 1959 short story called The Day the Icicle Works Closed by Frederik Pohl.
Joy Division Named after the prostitute wing in various Nazi prisons.
Kursaal Flyers Named after the big dipper ride in Southend from where the band originated.
Lynyrd Skynyrd Named after a P.E. teacher who real name was Leonard Skinner.
Mott The Hoople Named after a comic character called Norm Mott in 1967 by the writer Willard Manus.
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin This was the title of a Goons show episode from 1959. Harry Secombe’s character was called Ned.
Orbital Named after London’s circular motorway, the M25 as the band said it was the quickest way to get to parties. I bet it isn’t now!
Prefab Sprout Named after Paddy McAloon misheard the opening line to Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood’s Jackson – ‘We got married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout’.
Quantum Jump Because the band said they wanted to jump into the future rather than make history.
Rainbow After Ritchie Blackmore visited the Rainbow Bar in Los Angeles.
Scissor Sisters Originally called Dead Lesbian but their name is derived from the lesbian sexual act tribadism.
Thin Lizzy Taken from the Beano comic after a robot cartoon called Tin Lizzie. They changed the spelling mentioning that the Irish don’t pronounce the H.
Unit 4 + 2 They started as a quartet and later added two members and thought it sounded better than Unit 6.
Visage Taken from the French word for face because they thought it sounded classy.
Wedding Present Like Visage, lead singer David Gedge said he chose the name “because I thought it sounded deep and classy like a film or a play.”
XTC A play on the word ecstasy then meaning happiness or elation. Not the drug as the term didn’t come into being until the 1980s.
Yazoo Taken from a track on Bob Dylan and the Band’s 1975 album The Basement Tapes. The track was called Yazoo Street Scandal.
Zutons Named after the guitarist Bill Harkleroad who was a member of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band. Bill’s nickname was Zoot Horn.
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Clem Cattini

Back in 2004 I had the great pleasure of interviewing session drum legend Clem Cattini at his home in north London. He is such a lovely man with no heirs or graces and a pleasure to chat to. Much of the information was for the 1000 UK Number One Book so I asked him about all the number ones he’d played on. There were some he didn’t know and a few he’d only recently realised he played on. This will sound bizarre to any younger readers who will be thinking ‘how can he not know what tracks he played on?’ The reason is, as a session drummer, back in the day, you’d get a call from a producer who wanted to use your service, so you would turn up at the studio, play the required piece of music and collect your session fee on the way out. That was it.

It was only years later that someone formed a company and painstakingly went through all the studio logs of who played what and then it was up to the musician if he/she wanted to pursue any legal issues around claiming any money they may be owed.

Clem is 80 this week and here is a list of the 42 UK number one hits he played on.

Artist Title Year it topped the chart
Shaking All Over Johnny Kidd & The Pirates 1960
Well I Ask You Eden Kane 1961
Come Outside Mike Sarne 1962
Telstar The Tornados 1962
Diane The Bachelors 1964
Make It Easy On Yourself The Walker Brothers 1965
Tears Ken Dodd 1965
The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore The Walker Brothers 1966
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me Dusty Springfield 1966
Out Of Time Chris Farlowe 1966
Green Green Grass Of Home Tom Jones 1966
Release Me Engelbert Humperdinck 1967
The Last Waltz Engelbert Humperdinck 1967
The Ballad Of Bonnie & Clyde Georgie Fame 1967
Everlasting Love The Love Affair 1968
Cinderella Rockefella Esther & Abi Ofarim 1968
I Pretend Des O’Connor 1968
Where Do You Go To My Lovely Peter Sarstedt 1969
Something In The Air Thunderclap Newman 1969
Two Little Boys Rolf Harris 1969
Love Grows Edison Lighthouse 1970
Yellow River Christie 1970
Hot Love T. Rex 1971
Grandad Clive Dunn 1971
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep Middle Of The Road 1971
Get It On T. Rex 1971
Ernie Benny Hill 1971
I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing New Seekers 1972
Telegram Sam T.Rex 1972
Son Of My Father Chicory Tip 1972
Welcome Home Peters & Lee 1973
Jealous Mind Alvin Stardust 1974
When Will I See You Again Three Degrees 1974
Whispering Grass Windsor Davies & Don Estelle 1975
Give A Little Love Bay City Rollers 1975
Barbados Typically Tropical 1975
No Charge J.J Barrie 1976
So You Win Again Hot Chocolate 1977
Angelo Brotherhood Of Man 1977
Figaro Brotherhood Of Man 1978
Save Your Love Renee & Renato 1982
(Is This The Way To) Amarillo Tony Christie feat Peter Kaye. 2005
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