Vivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for acting as Master of Ceremonies on Mike Oldfield's album Tubular Bells.
Neil James Innes was an English writer, comedian and musician. He collaborated with Monty Python and played in the Rutles and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
John Walters was a British radio producer, presenter and musician. Initially a schoolteacher and a jazz enthusiast, he played trumpet in The Mighty Joe Young Jazz Men and the 1960s pop group The Alan Price Set before joining BBC Radio 1 in 1967, where he was John Peel's producer from 1969 to 1991.
Roger Ruskin Spear is a sculptor, multimedia artist and multi-instrumentalist who was a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Ruddles Brewery was a brewery in Rutland, England. The brand is now owned by Greene King who still brew beers under the Ruddles name in Suffolk, although the current recipes are not those used at the original brewery.
Thekla is a former cargo ship moored in the Mud Dock area of Bristol's Floating Harbour, England. The ship was built in Germany in 1958 and worked in the coastal trades.
Tony Stratton-Smith was an English rock music manager, and entrepreneur. He founded the London-based record label Charisma Records in 1969 and managed rock groups such as the Nice, Van der Graaf Generator and Genesis.
Let's Make Up And Be Friendly was the fifth and, until 2007, final original album by the Bonzo Dog Band. The group had already disbanded when United Artists Records informed band members that the group owed the label one more album. This 1972 farewell album was the result. In 2007 the album was re-issued on CD by EMI with six bonus tracks, some of which were solo recordings by the members of the group.
Ki Longfellow is an American novelist, playwright, theatrical producer, theater director and entrepreneur with dual citizenship in Britain. She is best known in the United States for her novel The Secret Magdalene (2005). This is the first of her works exploring the divine feminine. In England, she is likely best known as the widow of Vivian Stanshall, the late musician, lead singer of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, songwriter, author, radio broadcaster and wit.
Henry Rawlinson may refer to:
Eel Pie Publishing is a publishing house founded by musician and author Pete Townshend in 1977, and named after Eel Pie Island. It is part of the Eelpie Group of Companies including Eel Pie Recording Production Ltd which was set up in 1970 by Pete Townshend.
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End is a 1980 British film based on the eponymous character created by Vivian Stanshall. It stars Trevor Howard as Sir Henry and Stanshall himself as Henry's brother Hubert. Unusually, the film was released in sepia-toned monochrome. After a long wait, while the film obtained cult status, it was finally released on DVD in 2006. The bonuses include a commentary track with the director, Steve Roberts, as well as Sheila Reid and Jeremy Child, as well as a picture gallery, synopsis, the script of unfilmed scenes, and actor biographies.
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band was created by a group of British art-school students in the 1960s. Combining elements of music hall, trad jazz and psychedelic pop with surreal humour and avant-garde art, the Bonzos came to the public attention through a 1968 ITV comedy show, Do Not Adjust Your Set.
Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera is an English musical with book, music, and lyrics by Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall written for the Crackpot Theatre Company aboard the Old Profanity Showboat in Bristol, England. The show is based on a series of tales written by Longfellow about Stinkfoot, a New York City alley cat, a bit of a rogue and more than a bit of a rake. It had been intended for children, but when told by a New York City literary agent that "No mother in America would want her child identifying with Stinkfoot the alley cat, never mind its name," the story went into a drawer for many years. It came out with the meeting in 1977 of Vivian and Ki, at which point the story became bedtime reading for Vivian's son Rupert Stanshall, and later for his daughter with Ki, Silky Longfellow-Stanshall. In 1985 it “grew up” when Vivian and Ki decided to base a musical on its lead character, Stinkfoot. At that point, it became a melding of two very different visions and two very different musical traditions: Vivian's days as frontman for the Bonzo Dog Band and his childhood in Leigh-on-Sea with Ki's love of America’s Broadway.
"The Intro and The Outro" is a recording by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. It appears on their debut album, Gorilla (1967). It is not so much a song as a comic monologue in which the speaker introduces the musicians who ostensibly appear on the recording. The recording fades out before the emcee completes the introductions and without the "orchestra" being able to play anything more than a vamp. The piece was written by Bonzo member Vivian Stanshall, who also provides the vocal. Stanshall first introduces the seven members of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, who are credited with their actual instruments, over a vamp that resembles Duke Ellington’s "C Jam Blues".
Teddy Boys Don't Knit is the third solo album by Vivian Stanshall. As with his 1974 debut solo album Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead it consists entirely of songs, rather than the comedy-narrative-with-integral-songs of its immediate predecessor Sir Henry at Rawlinson End.
Sir Henry at N'didi's Kraal is the fourth and final solo album by Vivian Stanshall. It is a return to the largely spoken-word, solo comedy format of Stanshall's second album Sir Henry at Rawlinson End and is a sequel to the same work.
Rawlinson End was a series of thirteen 15-20 minute radio broadcasts, created and performed by Vivian Stanshall for BBC Radio 1 between 1975 and 1991. The early sessions, recorded between 1977 and 1978, formed the template for Stanshall's LP record album, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End in 1978.
Unpeeled is a 1995 compilation of sessions recorded by The Bonzo Dog Band for the John Peel show on the BBC during the late sixties.
