Showing posts with label 60s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 60s. Show all posts

Sunday, 2 August 2026

Chairs!

It's been a hectic weekend, dear reader!

My sister Hils' 60th birthday party last night was a fantabulosa, excessive occasion, as one would expect. Today, in full recovery mode, I didn't even get up until 3pm!

By that time, Madam Arcati, his sister Carol and niece Jen were already ensconced in Wetherspoons for lunch, so, after doing some emergency watering of some of the more desperate, drooping plants in the garden, what else could I do but join them..?

After all that, all I can do, really, is hand over to a word from our sponsor:

Nothing exceeds like excess, they say...

Music: Henrik Nielsen - Skylight Room]

Sunday, 19 October 2025

Dress-up dolls

It's been a miserable, dank, rainy Sunday here at Dolores Delargo Towers, and I haven't even felt the need to get dressed, let alone venture out of the house or garden.

What we need in such circumstances is a good wallow into the glamorous lives of impossibly gorgeous people in exotic situations, courtesy of the ever-wonderful Soft Tempo Lounge...

Ah, that's better...

[Music: Luiz Bonfá - Window Girl]

Sunday, 22 June 2025

Yeah, Baby, Yeah!

The sweltering heat (it hit 33C/91.4F yesterday!) appears to be subsiding, and the breeze is much fresher today. Thankfully.

Even so, I'm still having a lazy old time - although the garden will need another watering later...

Time, methinks for another wallow in the lives of glamorous people in exotic locations again - although this time it's Carnaby Street, which was only "exotic" for a brief time 60 years ago - courtesy of the simply faboo Soft Tempo Lounge:

Groovy!

[Music: Chico Rey - Stiletto]

Saturday, 14 December 2024

She dreams of salad, and bad wigs...

...and goes around stroking her kitchen.

If I had dreams of horrible decor like this, I'd seriously question whether my drink had been spiked!

It's another glorious creation from the world of Soft Tempo Lounge:

Wow.

[Music: Henry Mancini - Dreamy (from The Return Of The Pink Panther); original film: Out of this World (1964)]

Monday, 9 September 2024

A little crazy motion

Where did that weekend go??!

Hey ho, here we go again - and, as it's the lovely Miss Dee Dee Sharp's birthday today (79), it's up to her (and Chubby) to provide the wake-up call on this Tacky Music Monday!

I'm knackered now, just watching it!

Have a good week, dear reader.

Wednesday, 10 April 2024

A-no place to roam


[No. Not that one...]

Sad news of the departure last weekend of the improbably-nicknamed Clarence "Frogman"* Henry to the Doo-Wop-a-Go-Go Rooms in Fabulon...

Who? I hear you ask. His moment in the spotlight was mainly in the 1950s and early 60s - and indeed his fame was such that he was the opening act for the Beatles during their tour of the US and Canada in 1964. This is probably his most popular and enduring hit:

However, during my research into the man, I stumbled across this simply marvellous interpretation of his earlier, self-penned number!

[Oh, how we loved that woman..!}

RIP, Clarence Henry II (19th March 1937 – 7th April 2024)

[*He apparently got the nickname "Frogman" because the way he used to perform was likened to "croaking", and he incorporated it into the lyrics of Ain't Got No Home]

Tuesday, 23 January 2024

Dropping like flies, part 2...


A young Laurie Johnson and Petula Clark, 1955 by Harry Hammond

Laurie's music touched the lives of millions around the world. Throughout his illustrious career, he composed numerous iconic scores, themes and soundtracks that graced our lives across film, TV, theatre and radio. [His family's statement to the BBC yesterday].

Indeed he did. Among the many, many all-too-familiar theme tunes for which we have to thank the man are these:

And finally, a little something I stumbled across courtesy of the Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show on BBC Radio 6 Music, that seems most appropriate to feature here:

[NB "AC Soul Symphony" is the latest nom-de-plume of the artist formerly known as Joey Negro, DJ Dave Lee]

So many childhood memories. Sigh.

RIP, Laurie Johnson (7th February 1927 – 16th January 2024).

Dropping like flies...

RIP, Marlena Shaw (22nd September 1942 – 19th January 2024):

[Read my tribute to the great lady on her 80th, and for the original version of this song.]

RIP, Pluto Shervington (13th August 1950 – 19th January 2024):

[Quite likely the first song that explicitly references marijuana to appear on Top of the Pops, or indeed on British telly as a whole!]

RIP, Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las (28th December 1948 – 19th January 2024):

[See also here]

The dancefloor in Fabulon is filling up.

Sunday, 15 October 2023

Another icon turns 60

From The Guardian:

When Ringo Starr popped into a shop in Birkenhead in 1963, little did he know that his visit would help change the future of what was to become a celebrated British brand.

The Beatles’ drummer had stopped off to buy a lava lamp, the brightly coloured interior piece that has hypnotised millions over the years with its slow-moving exchange of liquid and warmed wax inside a glass cylinder. After the Birkenhead shop announced its celebrity visit, sales of the lamp rocketed.

Then came lava lamp appearances on episodes of Doctor Who in the Patrick Troughton era and in the 1965 film Dr Who and the Daleks starring Peter Cushing. It also featured in the 1960s/70s TV hit The Prisoner, and soon its role as a cultural mainstay was established.

Now the brand is turning 60, and, against all the challenges of a changing audience, economic downturns, the rise of online shopping and Brexit, sales are still going strong.

To celebrate, Mathmos, the company behind the lamp, is launching a series of new designs throughout this month in collaboration with artists and designers and well-known names including the pop group Duran Duran and the celebrity photographer Rankin...

...“The lava lamp is such a simple idea but that is quite magical,”says Rankin. “And when you’re a photographer, the idea of light being magical is such an exciting thing. Just to be a small part of something that is ingrained in the fabric of British society and culture feels quite special.”

By way of a celebration - a song dedicated to those psychedelic bubbles...

When I watch my lava lamp
I don’t want to feel a fucking thing
No!

Indeed.


Footnote:
Remarkably, lava lamps play an important part in the encryption of the internet!

Thursday, 12 October 2023

You better work

Hoorah! Following the unceremonious (forced) closure of one of my favourite YouTube sites run by Soft Tempo Lounge last month, the geniuses behind the scenes have been working hard to revive this wonderland of kitsch and lounge music with a brand new site! I am so relieved to find that, bit-by-bit, many of the videos that I have regularly featured on this very blog are being resurrected (so I can repair all the blanks that appear where the videos should have been over years of posts).

To that end, let's delve into the secret world of the 60s supermodel film shoot, shall we..?

Faboo!

[Music: Piero Umiliani - L'ultimo Wisky; Original film: La donna nel mondo (1963)]

Sunday, 16 April 2023

It is nothing to do with the wine

And so, on the last day of freedom before the work week begins again, we continue the slog to get the garden in some sort of order.

My back is aching already from yesterday after washing pots, window boxes and planters [and there's still dozens yet to do]. and taking every leaf off the poor old Cordyline that had its crown killed by frost [in readiness to decapitate it, seal the wound and hope for new growth], and those off the ferns, and re-potting a few plants that were groaning out of their pots, and sweeping up the detritus of dead snails and muck, and severing sycamore seedlings [which are everywhere!], and, and, and...

A gardener's job is never ending.

Time for some appropriate "Sunday Music", methinks.

Sharing the day (as she does) with Dame Joan Bakewell (who is 90!), Charlie Chaplin, Peter Ustinov, Spike Milligan, Henry Mancini, Gerry Rafferty, Ellen Barkin, Bobby Vinton, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Guy Burgess, Kingsley Amis, Vince Hill, Robert Stigwood, John Harvey-Jones, Claire Foy and - erm - "Little" Jimmy Osmond (who's 60), it would have been our late, great Patron Saint Dusty Springfield's birthday today!

And here she is, with my most favourite song of hers:

Dusty Springfield OBE (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, 16th April 1939 – 2nd March 1999)

Tuesday, 14 March 2023

Sixties? Or Nineties?

Among a raft of birthdays today, including Albert Einstein, Mrs Beeton, Eleanor Bron, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, Les Brown, Casey Jones, lesbian bookseller and patron of James Joyce Sylvia Beach, Diane Arbus, Johann Strauss Sr., Bill Owen, Jona Lewie, Rita Tushingham, Les Baxter, Billy Crystal, Jasper Carrott, Prince Albert of Monaco, and - erm - Rick Dees of Disco Duck fame, we have not one, but two milestones to celebrate today, dear reader...

...and both with a link to Swinging 60s London [so here's a little something I made earlier (slightly tweaked)]:

Maurice Micklewhite - aka Sir Michael Caine - is a stalwart of British cinema, and he blows out 90 candles on his cake today! He rose to fame as the super-cool "Harry Palmer" [a working-class equivalent of James Bond] in The Ipcress File, as the eponymous "Jack-the-Lad" Alfie, and (of course) as Cockney wide-boy "Charlie Croker" in that archetypal British 60s classic The Italian Job...

...the latter blockbuster [always on telly here, particularly over the Xmas-New Year break] featured a score written by another towering figure with whom Sir Michael shares not merely a birthday, but a birth-date - Mr Quincy Jones, composer, producer, orchestrator and a man who has worked with just about everybody (from the Dorsey brothers to Michael Jackson; from Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald to Patti Austin and Chaka Khan)...

...then in the 1990s, a "tribute" to the Swinging 60s became a massive cinematic success, and Quincy's addictive Soul Bossa Nova was resurrected for the occasion:


[...and Sir Michael appeared in the second sequel...]

Yeah, Baby, Yeah!

Sir Michael Caine, CBE (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Jr., 14th March 1933)

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born 14th March 1933)


FOOTNOTE:

A tribute:

Friday, 30 December 2022

Disappointment haunted all of my dreams

As we count down to waving goodbye (at last) to another bizarrely depressing year - despite the waning of the dreaded 'Rona, we had instead that bastard Putin's invasion of Ukraine, three Prime Ministers, a global financial crisis and the death of our Monarch to deal with - it's time for the last of our traditional end-of-the-week-jollies!

We do, of course, have a proper party to look forward to tomorrow for New Year's Eve - but on a day when it's not only the birthdays of Rudyard Kipling, Tracey Ullman, Patti Smith, Tiger Woods, Russ Tamblyn, Sister Bliss, Bo Diddley, Jeff Lynne, Sir Carol Reed, Del Shannon, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Gordon Banks, Skeeter Davis, Jay Kay of Jamiroquai, Ellie Goulding, and - erm - "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss, but also those of not one, but two dearly departed Monkees (Davy Jones and Mike Nesmith), it would be churlish not to feature a number by said band...

I defy anyone not to tap their feet to that - and Thank Disco Made-for-television-boy-bands It's Friday!

Have a great and grand New Year's weekend, dear reader!

Thursday, 24 November 2022

It's over so let it go...

On this date sixty years ago, the legendary satirical TV show That Was the Week That Was first hit our screens.

From Nostalgia Central:

It was deliberately made by the Current Affairs department and not by Light Entertainment, in case the latter played it too safe. Producer Ned Sherrin intended that it should “discuss anything that people might talk about on a Saturday night”.

They certainly talked about TW3, as it rapidly drew an audience of 10 million, way above the expected figure.

The show was fronted by the hitherto unknown David Frost, a minister's son, with resident accomplices William Rushton (famed for his impersonation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan), Bernard Levin (famed for his acidic interview style), Lance Percival, Roy Kinnear, Kenneth Cope, John Bird, John Wells, Eleanor Bron, Al Mancini, David Kernan and Roy Hudd [and Millicent Martin!]...

...Much of the show was written by journalists rather than by scriptwriters, and among regular contributors were Dennis Potter and Kenneth Tynan.

The show covered such previously taboo comic subjects as racism, royalty and religion. Politicians of the day were also fiercely lampooned.

The series provoked an enormous public outcry, but those who made the programme would have been disappointed if it hadn’t!

Let's have a few clips, by way of a celebration of this landmark programme for the BBC:

Love it.

Happy birthday, TW3!

More That Was the Week That Was at the marvellous Shapers of the 80s site

Tuesday, 11 October 2022

Callin' out around the world - are you ready for a brand new beat?

Sad to hear that another legend, and "cool dude" judging by that photo, departed for Fabulon last week - Ivy Jo Hunter.

Who??!! I hear you ask...

Mr Hunter (aka George) was one of the earliest in-house writers for Motown Records in the 1960s, and here are just a few of his creations:

RIP, Mr Ivy Jo Hunter (28th August 1940 – 6th October 2022)

With him and Lamont Dozier arriving in Fabulon within months of each other, there'll no doubt one helluva party going down!

Sunday, 2 October 2022

The grooviest party

Our gang had a faboo day yesterday at a matinee Music Hall show courtesy of the marvellous Players Theatre Company at that quirkiest of "hidden gems" in the heart of Soho, the Phoenix Arts Club [more of that later, no doubt], followed by drinkies for The History Boy's birthday - so (inevitably) today has been a much more laid-back affair altogether.

I think we deserve another "Ab Fab flashback", courtesy of the remarkable and ever-reliable Soft Tempo Lounge...

Groovy!

[Music: Ole Jennsen & His Music (aka Roger Webb) - Buttoned Up; Film: Maroc 7 (1967)]

Monday, 26 September 2022

Eye to eye, they solemnly convene to make the scene


Current mood: "Nurse Ratched". RIP, Louise Fletcher.

Yes. It's that time again...

Having woken with a jolt, I see it evidently pissed-down overnight - so all that watering I did yesterday was a little bit futile...

The weekend has yet again flown by, and now it's time to get the galoshes on and head back to the grind. To lift our spirits a little on this Tacky Music Monday, how about a little something from one of the all-time great crooners, who departed for Fabulon @adecadeago today?

Mr Andy Williams (for it was he) was always associated with the "slightly cheesy" end of the spectrum, alongside the likes of Perry Como and Val Doonican, but with the production on this number - ostensibly an ode to "red-blooded heterosexual" desires - he proved to knowingly or unknowingly embrace camp as well..

Have a good week, dear reader.

Wednesday, 7 September 2022

Our Man in...

By way of a diversion from the endless streams of drivel about Mrs Truss and her inept and generally awful appointees to Cabinet, let's have a little retro delve into the wonderfully exotic world of 60s spy movies, courtesy of the ever-marvellous Soft Tempo Lounge, shall we?

How thrilling. How stylish!

[Music: Frank Mantis Group - Wild Spirits; Original film: No Tears for a Killer (1966)]

Monday, 6 June 2022

Jerking furiously

AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHH!

After a totally relaxing, hedonistic, suntanned, lazy and thoroughly enjoyable two-week break - it's time to get up and be back in the "real world" of work again...

It's just as well that on this Tacky Music Monday, I have Pan's People (and a couple of random safety gays) lined up to keep me sane!

The Capitals - Cool Jerk

Well, almost.

Have a good week, dear reader.

I won't!!

Thursday, 19 May 2022

I wonder if he's lookin' at the same moon I'm lookin' at, every night I'm lookin' at the moon!

Sharing a birthday with the divine Grace Jones and the much-missed "national treasure" Victoria Wood, as well as the usual bizarre assortment of "names" such as Nellie Melba, Malcolm X, Nancy Astor, Pete Townshend, Kemal Atatürk, Martyn Ware, Trevor Peacock, Nora Ephron, Ho Chi Minh, Edward de Bono, Nancy Kwan, Joey Ramone, Sandy Wilson, Robert Kilroy-Silk, Sam Smith, James Fox, and - erm - Pol Pot...

..."the girl with the giggle in her voice", the lovely Alma Cogan would have been 90 today!

As I wrote when I featured the lovely lady over at the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp five years ago:

Known for her fabulous gowns as much as her cheery songs - never appearing in the same dress twice - Alma Cogan was also renowned for her lavish parties, guests at which included some of the greatest "names" of her day including Princess Margaret, Noël Coward, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Michael Caine, Roger Moore, Frankie Vaughan, Bruce Forsyth and many more. She became one of the first UK record artists to appear frequently on television - that fledgling post-War novelty - and, despite being deemed "uncool" by the time the 60s arrived, nevertheless she allegedly had a passionate affair with John Lennon, and was a close friend of all the Beatles.

Her premature death from cancer aged just 34 shocked the nation, and to this day she is revered for the joy she brought to this country in the midst of the "austerity years" and beyond.

And, for your delectation, here's some examples of that "joy":

...and our "house fave" here at Dolores Delargo Towers:

Long gone, but never forgotten!

Alma Angela Cohen Cogan (19th May 1932 – 26th October 1966)