Vivian Stanshall
Vivian Stanshall | |
---|---|
Formerly of | Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, GRIMMS |
Spouse(s) |
Vivian Stanshall (born Victor Anthony Stanshall; 21 March 1943 – 5 March 1995)
Early life and education
Stanshall was born on 21 March 1943 at the Radcliffe Maternity Home
When the war ended his father returned, but the young Victor found him difficult and comparatively stern after having been alone with his mother.[9] His father made him speak with a "plummy" accent for which he later became known.[10] The family moved to the father's hometown of Walthamstow, Essex, where Stanshall's younger brother Mark was born in 1949.[11] With six years between them, the brothers were never close.[12]
Stanshall studied at Walthamstow College of Art, where he met fellow students Ian Dury and Peter Greenaway.[13]
When he was 10, the Stanshall family moved to the Essex coastal town of Leigh-on-Sea. He attended Southend High School for Boys until 1959. As a young man, Stanshall (known as Vic) earned money doing various odd jobs at the Kursaal fun fair in nearby Southend-on-Sea. These included working as a bingo caller and spending the winter painting the fairground attractions. To set aside enough money to get through art school (his father having refused to fund this), Stanshall spent a year in the Merchant Navy. He said he was a very bad waiter, but became a great teller of tall tales.[12]
Stanshall enrolled at the
Bonzo years
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were named after a word game that Stanshall played with co-founder Slater, in which they cut up sentences and juxtaposed fragments to form new ones. 'Bonzo Dog/Dada' was one result which they liked. The band initially performed under this name, but grew tired of explaining what Dada meant; hence they changed it to the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, 'doo-dah' being a quaint expression that both Slater's mother and Stanshall himself used to describe everyday objects. Later this name was shortened to The Bonzo Dog Band, or just The Bonzos.
Much of the band's original repertoire was based on comedic re-workings of songs from the 1920s and 1930s, found on
For a while the band operated semi-professionally, playing local pubs and the college circuit. After acquiring a manager, they went full-time and were booked on the working men's club circuit, mainly in the north of England. The band dominated their lives, as they frequently travelled to low-paying gigs in an old van crammed with any number of musical instruments, an assortment of props, and prop robots. In 1967, they appeared in the Beatles' television film Magical Mystery Tour, in which they played Stanshall's "Death Cab for Cutie" during the strip club scene. The appearance led to a spot as the house band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a weekly children's television revue series that was also notable for early appearances by half of what became the Monty Python team.[17]
According to their manager/agent Gerry Bron, after a perhaps ill-advised agreement that the band should be left to their own artistic devices, Stanshall was allowed several weeks in a hired rehearsal space to write songs for the new Bonzo Dog Band album. When Bron arrived at the location to check the progress of these endeavours, he found that Stanshall had not written anything at all and had instead built a variety of hutches for his pet rabbits.[16] Bron mentioned in a television documentary that this occurred in May 1968 in a hall in Acton, west London;[5] the actual location is Askew Road Church Hall, at the start of Bassein Park Road in Shepherd's Bush.[citation needed] The date would suggest that these were rehearsals for the album The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse. During recordings for the album proper at Morgan Studios, Stanshall, wearing just a rabbit's head and underpants, interviewed members of the public in Willesden High Road. On the album track "We Are Normal", one interviewee can be heard to remark, 'He's got a head on him like a rabbit.'[18]
Later in 1968, the Bonzos scored a surprise top-ten hit with "
After the Bonzos
Stanshall formed a number of short-lived groups during 1970 alone, including biG GRunt (formed while the Bonzos were still on their farewell tour, and including fellow Bonzos Roger Ruskin Spear and
However, he soon recovered sufficiently to record and release, on the
In early 1971, Stanshall reunited again with Innes, Cowan and White as 'Freaks' to tour new material. In order to promote ticket sales, they were more often than not billed as 'Bonzo Dog Freaks'. With Keith Moon guesting on drums, Freaks quickly recorded a BBC radio session for John Peel that featured solo numbers by Stanshall and Innes alongside tracks from
Throughout this period, still suffering badly with anxiety and now drinking heavily to self-medicate, Stanshall nonetheless continued to write, record and tour with Freaks and Grimms (and briefly as guest touring frontman for The Temperance Seven in 1972). He was also a regular guest, broadcaster and presenter on numerous series on BBC radio.
Despite his ongoing personal difficulties, Stanshall's humorous exploits continued unabated. His adventures with long-time drinking buddy Keith Moon (who would become Stanshall's regular partner in crime for much of the 1970s after producing and appearing on Stanshall's single "Suspicion") were legendary. In one quite possibly apocryphal example, Stanshall visited a tailor's shop where he admired a pair of trousers on display. Moon then arrived, posing as another customer, and admired the same trousers, demanding to buy them. When Stanshall protested, the two men fought and split the trousers in two, so that they ended up with one leg each; the tailor, understandably, became furious. Then, a one-legged actor – hired by Stanshall and Moon – arrived, saw the split trousers, and proclaimed: "Ah! Just what I was looking for! I'll buy them!"[20]
Thanks to his association with John Peel, in 1971 Stanshall was asked to fill in for the disc jockey while he was on a month's holiday. The resulting short series, titled Vivian Stanshall's Radio Flashes, was recorded under the supervision of Peel's regular producer John Walters and broadcast on BBC Radio One on Saturday afternoons during August 1971. The series of four two-hour programmes were a mix of music and specially written and recorded comedic sketches. Of the original four episodes, only episodes 2, 3 and 4 remain in the BBC archives; these were re-broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in 2014 and again in 2016.[21] All four episodes and a Christmas 1971 compilation special have also circulated among collectors as low-quality, edited off-air recordings since the 1970s. Contributors to the sketches in Radio Flashes included Moon, Traffic's Jim Capaldi and actress Chris Bowler. The sketches included a four-part serial adventure titled "Breath From The Pit", featuring the surreal exploits of a Dick Barton or Bulldog Drummond-style gentleman adventurer, Colonel Knutt (played by Stanshall) and his working-class sidekick, the 'likeable cheeky cockney, Lemmy'. This character was a thinly-veiled parody of the character of the same name from Charles Chilton's Journey into Space, with Moon playing the role of Lemmy.
Rawlinson End
Stanshall had developed what many consider to be his seminal work,
In 1978, Stanshall released an album, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, that reworked some material from the Peel sessions. This in turn was adapted into a film version in 1980, which was produced in a sepia-tinted black-and-white. It starred Trevor Howard as Sir Henry, and Stanshall as Hubert.[22] Some of the film's music was provided in collaboration with Stanshall's friend Steve Winwood. A book of the same title – by Stanshall, illustrated with stills from the film – was published by Eel Pie Publishing in 1980. Nominally a film novelisation, it was distilled from the various versions and included considerable material that did not make it to the film. A projected second book, The Eating at Rawlinson End, was never completed.
A second Rawlinson album,
However, the noticeably superior BBC radio broadcasts continued sporadically until late 1991. In the same year, a temporarily rejuvenated Stanshall embarked upon a nationwide concert tour, titled 'Rawlinson Dog Ends', with support from former Bonzos and centred around a performance of new Rawlinson End material.
'Sir Henry' was last seen in a television commercial for Ruddles Real Ale (c. 1994), where he was portrayed by a cross-dressing Dawn French, presiding over a family banquet at a long table; shortly afterwards, Stanshall himself reprised the role of Hubert, reciting a poem loosely based on Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat".[24]
During this same period, Stanshall embarked upon the recording of a proposed new Rawlinson End album, but this activity was curtailed in its early stages by its creator's untimely death in March 1995. After this, BBC Radio 4 retrieved some of the original Peel show recordings from the vaults for late-night repeat during Christmas 1996.
1970s
Stanshall regularly performed live with
In 1973, Stanshall recorded tracks for the soundtrack album of the movie
In early 1974, Stanshall wrote, arranged, and quickly recorded his first solo album, Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead. A rather more serious work than many would have expected, its darkly comic lyrics detailed Stanshall's alcoholism and troubled emotional state, laced with surreal poetic imagery and literary reference. Other lyrics included implicit references to other musicians and the music business, and a rather more explicit satire of the author's relationship with his own penis. Musically, while certain tracks display Stanshall's usual keen sense of rock and roll parody, most of the album has a 'tribal' or 'fusion' flavour. Prominently featuring the Nigerian musician Gasper Lawal and with many tracks infused with richly textured African percussion and chorus vocal stylings, the album (and its contemporary single "Lakonga") can justifiably lay claim to being an early, unheralded example of a crossover between world music and rock music. Stanshall's long-standing friends and colleagues Innes, White, Traffic's Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Ric Grech and Rebop Kwaku Baah, Doris Troy and Madeline Bell also made notable guest appearances. Deleted after its first pressing and out of print for many years, the album was finally re-released on CD in 2012.
The BBC documentary One Man's Week, broadcast on 9 April 1975, documented a week in Stanshall's life and included footage of him at The Manor recording studio during the sessions for Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead, where he played with White, Lawal, Mongezi Feza, and Derek (or Deryk) Quinn.
In 1975, Stanshall provided the narration for Peter and the Wolf, produced by Robin Lumley and Jack Lancaster and featuring, among others, Gary Moore, Manfred Mann, Phil Collins, Bill Bruford, Stéphane Grappelli, Alvin Lee, Cozy Powell, Brian Eno and Jon Hiseman.[25] 1976 saw the release of his single "The Young Ones", where the old Cliff Richard standard was delivered in the style of Boris Karloff.
In 1977, Stanshall and his companion,
1980s
Following 'Sir Henry', Stanshall wrote the songs for his third album
In 1982, Stanshall provided a spoken word segment on "Lovely Money", a single by The Damned.
After The Searchlight eventually sank, the Stanshalls lived and worked on
In December 1985, The Old Profanity Showboat produced the debut of their work Stinkfoot, A Comic Opera. Stanshall wrote 27 original songs for the opera, sharing book and
Having returned to London alone in 1986 while his wife recovered from an illness, Stanshall saw Stinkfoot briefly, but unsuccessfully, revived at the Bloomsbury Theatre. After this, he returned to the stage again, touring in a solo show, 'Rawlinson Dog-Ends', initially with support from musicians including Jack Bruce. When Bruce quit, over a lack of adequate rehearsals, Moss stepped in to provide bass.[26]
Marriage and family
In 1968, Stanshall married fellow art student Monica Peiser, and their son Rupert was born that year. They divorced in 1975.
On 9 September 1980, Stanshall married Pamela 'Ki' Longfellow, an American writer who had a daughter from an earlier relationship. The Stanshalls had a daughter, Silky, born on 16 August 1979, before they married; she was named after Silky Sullivan, a racehorse that was a childhood favourite of her mother. Stanshall celebrated Silky's birth in "The Tube", and his marriage to Ki in "Bewilderbeeste", both songs being included on his album Teddy Boys Don't Knit. He later gave his wife the name of 'Ki' from a dream. Even though their comic opera Stinkfoot was a success in late 1985, Stanshall returned alone to London after the turn of the year, while Longfellow recuperated from an illness brought on by overwork and stress. The Stanshalls lived apart until his sudden death in March 1995.[27]
Years later, Longfellow wrote The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall: A Fairytale of Grimm Art, detailing Stanshall's life and work from 1977 to 1995.[28]
Memoirs
In 1991, Stanshall made a 15-minute autobiographical piece called Vivian Stanshall: The Early Years, a.k.a. Crank, for
A programme for BBC Radio 4, Vivian Stanshall: Essex Teenager to Renaissance Man (1994) included an interview with his mother. She insisted his father had loved him. Stanshall said on the same programme that his father had never shown it, not even on his deathbed.
Death
Stanshall was found dead on the morning of 6 March 1995, after an electrical fire had broken out as he slept in his top-floor flat in Muswell Hill, north London.[29] His private funeral service was held at the Golders Green Crematorium, north London. A few days later his memorial service was held at St Patrick's Church, Soho Square.
A memorial plaque was unveiled in the Poets' Corner at Golders Green Crematorium on 13 December 2015, opposite that of his friend Keith Moon, by his widow Ki and his daughter Silky. Others attending included actor Tony Slattery, singer Linda Thompson[citation needed] and actress Cherri Gilham. The cost of the plaque was met by many of his fans and friends via online crowdfunding.[30]
Legacy and honours
Writing in The Independent after Stanshall's death, Chris Welch wrote: "Seen by some as a wild eccentric, and a powerful personality who could be both charming and intimidating, Stanshall was perhaps too large a figure even for the music business to handle. ... He needed a producer to channel his energies, but always wanted to remain his own boss, having suffered too many perceived indignities in his early experience of the music business."[5] He was described by Neil Innes as "a national treasure".[16]
In 2001, Welch and Lucian Randall wrote a biography titled Ginger Geezer: The Life of Vivian Stanshall. In the same year, Jeremy Pascall and Stephen Fry produced a documentary about Stanshall for BBC Radio 4. Fry knew Stanshall quite well and, along with his personal thoughts, introduced a series of reminiscences. The show featured many clips from Stanshall's work. The recording includes one of Stanshall's last poems, titled "With My Mouth Turned Down for the Night".
In 2003, Sea Urchin Editions published the script of the Stanshalls' Stinkfoot: An English Comic Opera, with an introduction by his widow, Ki.[31]
On 22 December 2009, BBC Radio 4's series Great Lives featured a programme on Stanshall, who had been nominated by Neil Innes, with Ki Longfellow as expert witness, hosted by Matthew Parris.[32]
In June 2010, the 1978 album Sir Henry at Rawlinson End was re-imagined by Michael Livesley as a one-man show, in which he starred as the narrator and all the characters, backed by a six-piece band replicating the instrumentation of the original. The production won rave reviews, then premiered in London on 14 October 2011. It also drew praise from Innes and
On 11 October 2011, the Blackpool Comedy Carpet, a large public artwork by Gordon Young, was unveiled in Blackpool on the town's seaside promenade. It is made of 300 slabs of granite that cover about 2200 square meters. Featuring catchphrases, jokes and names, it commemorates more than 1000 selected "influential" comics, most of whom have played Blackpool in the last hundred years. The project was commissioned by the Blackpool Council as part of its redevelopment plan, and it is one of the largest pieces of public art in the United Kingdom.[33] Stanshall is represented in the work by two quotes and his name.
In 2012, Poppydisc Records reissued both a vinyl and CD version of Stanshall's Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead, remastered with new liner notes from his widow and daughter.[34]
On 26 January 2018, Longfellow's biography/memoir/free-form art book detailing Stanshall's life was published. Filled with Stanshall's paintings, sketches, notes, letters, and private photographs,[28] The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, a Fairytale of Grimm Art (illustrated by the young illustrator and animator Ben Wickey) contains not only Longfellow's impressions of the life and work of her husband of 18 years, but also the remembrances of many of his closest friends, as well as Vivian's private journals.[35]
In July 2023 Madfish Music released two posthumously completed albums by Stanshall: Dog Howl in Tune, a rock album originally intended as a follow-up to Teddy Boys Don't Knit; and Rawlinson's End, using the remaining tapes from Vivian's archive. In the case of Rawlinson's End, some of the narration and music was recorded by Stanshall, while the rest incorporates material from the existing BBC John Peel sessions, including some that was previously unbroadcast.[36] The first was re-constructed and produced by Andy Frizell, the second by Michael Livesley.[37]
Solo discography
Singles
- "Labio Dental Fricative" b/w "Paper Round" – Vivian Stanshall and the Sean Head Showband (Liberty: LBF 15309, 1970)
- "Suspicion" – Vivian Stanshall & Gargantuan Chums b/w "Blind Date" – Vivian Stanshall & biG GRunt (Fly Records: BUG4, 1970)
- "Lakonga" b/w "Baba Tunde" (Warner Bros. Records: K 16424, 1974)
- "The Young Ones" b/w "Are You Having Any Fun?"/"The Question" (Harvest Records: HAR 5114, 1976)
- "Terry Keeps His Clips On" b/w "King Cripple" (Charisma Records; CB 373, 1980)
- "Calypso To Colapso" b/w "Smoke Signals at Night" (Charisma Records; CB 382, 1981)
- "Blind Date", "11 Moustachioed Daughters" b/w "The Strain", "Cyborg Signal" (Mega Dodo; MEP4, 2016 – a vinyl release of biG GRunt's 1970 BBC session)
Albums
- Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead (1974)
- Sir Henry at Rawlinson End(1978)
- Teddy Boys Don't Knit (1981)
- Sir Henry at N'didi’s Kraal(1984)
- Dog Howl in Tune (2023, posthumous)
- Rawlinson's End (2023, posthumous)
Other appearances
- That'll Be The Day (1973, soundtrack: two tracks)
- Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield, as Master of Ceremony. (1973)
- "Dream Gerrard" from Traffic's 1974 album When the Eagle Flies, Stanshall lyrics, Steve Winwood music.
- The Roughler Presents The Warwick Sessions Volume 1 (1987, compilation: one track "Holiday Home")
- "The Last Temptation of Elvis" (1989, compilation: one track, "(There's) No Room To Rhumba in a Sports Car")
- The Famous Charisma Box (1993, compilation: nine tracks)
- The Charisma Poser (1993, compilation: one track "Eulogy")
Further reading
- Randall, L and Welch, C. (2001), Ginger Geezer – The Life of Vivian Stanshall, ISBN 1841156787
- Longfellow, Ki (2018), The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, a Fairytale of Grimm Art, ISBN 978-0975925584
References
Notes
- ^ Stanshall later said: "So I went through this horrible period when I went out speaking in an East London accent otherwise I was gonna' get hit, and when I got home it was "Hello Mama" and "Hello Papa". To some extent I forgive him that. What I don't forgive him is his intolerance. At the time the BBC had a commonality of speech, you didn't hear accents or dialects. Although he's been dead for two years I'm still terrified of him now... "[8]
Citations
- ^ "Vivian Stanshall". Discogs. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- ^ "Vivian Stanshall – New Songs, Playlists & Latest News". BBC. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- ^ "Vivian Stanshall". BFI. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014.
- ^ "Tribute to Vivian Stanshall on MemorialMatters.com". Memorialmatters.com. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- ^ a b c "OBITUARY: Vivian Stanshall". The Independent. 7 March 1995. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
- ^ The London Gazette, issue 39906, 7 July 1953, p. 3753
- ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b "Vivian Stanshall – The Early Years". Iankitching.me.uk. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- ^ Vivian Stanshall, the early years, aka Crank, 1991 BBC Two, 1991
- ISBN 9781908538604.
- ISBN 9781908538604.
- ^ a b Vivian Stanshall: Essex Teenager to Renaissance Man (1994), BBC Radio 4
- ^ "Dury, Ian Robins (1942–2000)". ODNB. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
- ^ Stephen Fry's BBC Radio 4 tribute.
- ^ "Interview with Ki Longfellow-Stanshall", The Bristolian, May 1988
- ^ a b c Originals – Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of His Mind, BBC/October Films, BBC4, 2004
- ^ "Do Not Adjust Your Set No. 2". BFI. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014.
- ^ "Vivian Stanshall – English as Tuppence". Radio Clash Music Podcast & Blog. 26 March 2014. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- ^ "Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967–69)". BFI Screenonline.
- ^ William Donaldson, Brewer's Rogues, Villains & Eccentrics, 2002.
- ^ "Vivian Stanshall's Radio Flashes". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
- ^ "Sir Henry at Rawlinson End". BFI. Archived from the original on 20 July 2012.
- ^ "Mustard comedy mag: Vivian Stanshall". Mustardweb.org. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- S2CID 191509863. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
- ^ "Various – Peter and the Wolf". Discogs. 15 August 1975. Retrieved 10 July 2016.
- ^ "Vivian's Live performances". Vivarchive.org.uk. Archived from the original on 8 August 2015.
- ^ "Radio 4 Great Lives 22 Dec 2009". Retrieved 18 May 2022.
- ^ a b "theillustratedvivianstanshall". Retrieved 11 February 2018.
- ISBN 978-0-00-738724-3.
- ^ Burke, Dave (16 December 2015). "Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band singer remembered in Golders Green". Hamhigh.co.uk. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
- ISBN 9789075342130. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
- ^ "Great Lives – Series 20 – Vivian Stanshall". BBC. Retrieved 26 May 2022.
- ^ Gordon Young and Blackpool Council, "The Comedy Carpet", Design Boom, 11 October 2011
- ^ "Vivian Stanshall – Men Opening Umbrellas – Rock Club UK". Therockclubuk.com. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
- ^ "The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall". Theillustratedvivianstanshall.com. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
- ^ "Vivian Stanshall". Madfishmusic.com.
- ^ Andrew Male. "'On best behaviour, he was a joy': the lost archive of English pop eccentric Vivian Stanshall", The Guardian, 12 July 2023
Bibliography
- Sir Henry at Rawlinson End: And Other Spots. London: Eel Pie, 1980. ISBN 0-906008-21-2
- Stinkfoot: An English Comic Opera. Rotterdam: Sea Urchin, 2003. ISBN 90-75342-13-6, a celebration of Vivian and Ki's comic opera (publisher's page)
External links
- BBC audio interviews
- The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band Equestrian Statue (1967) on British Pathé
- Vivian Stanshall: One Man's Week (1975) on YouTubeShort BBC documentary
- John Peel's discussion of Vivian Stanshall
- Junglebunny on YouTube