The Rutles were a rock band that performed visual and aural pastiches and parodies of the Beatles. This originally fictional band, created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes for a sketch in Idle's mid-1970s BBC television comedy series Rutland Weekend Television, later toured and recorded, releasing two albums that included two UK chart hits. The band toured again from 2002 until Innes' death in 2019.
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 first came to prominence in the pioneering comedy rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later became a frequent collaborator with the Monty Python troupe on their BBC television series and films, and is often called the "seventh Python" along with performer Carol Cleveland. He co-created the Rutles, a Beatles parody/pastiche project, with Python Eric Idle, and wrote the band's songs.
GRIMMS was an English pop rock, comedy, and poetry group, originally formed as a merger of The Scaffold with core members of the Bonzo Dog Band and the Liverpool Scene for two concerts in 1971 at the suggestion of John Gorman.
The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief is the fourth album by the comedy group Monty Python, released in 1973. Most of the material was newly written for the album along with a handful of sketches from the third series of Flying Circus, one from the second ("Bruces") and another from the first. The team were once again joined by Neil Innes, who provided a trio of rock music parodies for "The Background to History". The album was famously mixed and edited in a garden shed belonging to the father of producer Andre Jacquemin.
Empty Sky is the debut studio album by British singer-songwriter Elton John, released on 6 June 1969. It was not issued in the United States until January 1975, with different cover art, well after John's fame had been established internationally.
Rodney Desborough Slater is a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, playing saxophones and other musical instruments.
The Turn of a Friendly Card is the fifth studio album by the British progressive rock band The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1980 by Arista Records. The title piece, which appears on side 2 of the LP, is a 16-minute suite broken up into five tracks. The Turn of a Friendly Card spawned the hits "Games People Play" and "Time", the latter of which was Eric Woolfson's first lead vocal appearance. An edited version of the title piece combining the opening and ending parts of the suite was also released as a single along with an official video.
The Magnificent Moodies is the 1965 debut album by British rock band The Moody Blues, released on Decca Records. It is the only album by the original line-up of Denny Laine (guitar/vocals), Clint Warwick (bass/vocals), Mike Pinder (keyboards/vocals), Ray Thomas (flute/harmonica/percussion/vocals) and Graeme Edge (drums). Lead vocals were shared by Laine, Pinder and Thomas. The album is a mix of rhythm and blues covers, including "Go Now" which had been a Number 1 hit single for the band earlier that year, and original songs by Laine and Pinder which show more of a Merseybeat influence. Also included is a cover of the George and Ira Gershwin standard "It Ain't Necessarily So". The album was produced by Denny Cordell, with the exception of "Go Now" which was produced by Alex Wharton. In-between "Go Now" and The Magnificent Moodies the band had released two more singles, "I Don't Want to Go On Without You" and "From the Bottom of My Heart", neither of which were included on the album. For the American and Canadian release on London Records, with the title Go Now: The Moody Blues #1, four songs were replaced with those two preceding singles and two B-sides, with a different running order of the tracks. One of the tracks that was replaced, "Stop", was released as a single in America and Canada later that year. The American and Canadian album also titled three of the songs incorrectly.
Live Demonstration is a demo tape made by British rock band Oasis in 1993, prior to their rise to fame. The tape helped secure a recording contract with Creation Records, with most of the tracks ending up on the band's first batch of releases, including their debut album, Definitely Maybe.
Gorilla is the debut album by Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, originally released by Liberty Records, LBL 83056, in 1967. In 2007, EMI reissued the album on CD with seven bonus tracks.
The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse is the second album by the British comedy rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. In the United States, it was released as Urban Spaceman and added their U.K. hit single "I'm the Urban Spaceman" to the track listing.
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.
Cornology is a 1992 compilation box set, issued by EMI Records, of the complete recorded output of The Bonzo Dog Band, previously issued on the Parlophone, Liberty and United Artists labels.
Larry Smith, often known as "Legs" Larry Smith is an English drummer of the comedy satirical jazz group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Pour l'Amour Des Chiens is the first all new studio album by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in 35 years, and their sixth album overall. It was released on 12 December 2007, produced by Mickey Simmonds and Neil Innes, by Storming Music Company.
"I'm the Urban Spaceman" was the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's most successful single, released in 1968. It reached #5 in the UK charts. The song was written by Neil Innes—who won an Ivor Novello Award in 1968 for the song—and produced by Paul McCartney under the pseudonym "Apollo C. Vermouth". The B-side was written by Vivian Stanshall. A well-known staging of the song involves Innes performing solo while a female tap dancer performs an enthusiastic but apparently under-rehearsed routine around him. This skit originally appeared in a 1975 edition of Rutland Weekend Television, with Lyn Ashley as the dancer, and was more famously revived in the 1982 film Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl with Carol Cleveland taking over the role.
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 psychedelia with surreal humour and avant-garde art, the Bonzos came to public attention through a 1968 ITV comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set.
"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".
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.
