Roy Clark - Please Mr. Mayor

 

WHO: Roy Clark

WHAT: Please Mr. Mayor (Puddin’)

WHEN: 1959

LABEL: His Masters Voice - 45 POP 581

When we got our radiogram it had been sitting in storage for about forty years, and it showed. It was absolutely filthy (you could have grown tatties on it), but when it was opened up there was a record still on the deck. It was “Please Mr. Mayor” by Roy Clark. Before I started cleaning it or got a new needle for it I plugged it in and switched it on fully expecting it to blow up in my face. It didn’t though and the only record I had to hand was “Please Mr. Mayor”, so I put the needle on it and it worked! Bloody hell! Here was a bit of technology that came off the ark and hadn’t been switched on in 40 years and it worked, it sounded terrible mind you, but it worked! Once I’d given it a clean, changed the plug and fuse, given it another clean, oiled the selector arm thingy (I’m no expert), given it a clean, put a new needle on it and given it a clean (did I mention it was filthy?), I gave “Please Mr. Mayor” another spin.

THE A SIDE

I’m glad I did. It starts straight away, no messing, right into it. In fact it sounds like the band had already started playing before the sound technician pressed play and record (that’s how it works, right?). It’s a good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll tune, with a great Berry-esque guitar solo about half way through. The lyrics are worthy of a mention, as its basically Clark begging the Mayor not to ban rock ’n’ roll in his town, as mayors were wont to do in the fifties apparently. Imagine that! If the local council just said, “right that’s it, you can’t listen to prog-rock any more, it’s the work of the devil”. When I listen to this I feel my hair working itself into a quiff and imagine I could attempt a jive, probably followed soon after by a nice sit down. It was written by Augustus Stephenson and first recorded by Roy Clark for American label Debbie in 1958, and (I presume) released in the UK on the His Masters Voice label the year after.

THE B SIDE

I don’t know what they were smoking when they recorded this one, because compared to the A side, “Puddin’” is a bit odd. It’s a bit of a mash up of styles, a bit of rock ‘n’ roll, a bit of Country a bit do-wop and a bit of hardcore thrash metal (just kidding). It has a weird echo effect on the chorus (which is Clark singing Puddin’ in different pitches).  Augustus Stephenson and Otis Blackwell wrote this. I think. To be honest it’s quite difficult to find reliable information on the Internet about anything, let alone who wrote a song 53 years ago (but did you know the CIA and Al Qaeda faked the moon landings because of JFK, who knew!).

THE VINYL

“What? You’re going to put that where? On a record player? It’ll never play”.

Well, Imaginary voice in my head, it does play and plays fine. Granted it’s a bit muffled and there’s probably more hiss than music but it does play. Really its not that bad, but I know a few vinyl junkies that wouldn’t have this anywhere near their precision audio equipment.

MY VERDICT

When you have a 1950’s radiogram, I think you need some 1950s music to play on it, and you could do a lot worse than some classic rock n roll from Roy Clark. Even if it is Clark begging a civic official not to ban his record. He should have to declare his self-interest.