Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
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 appearances in the Beatles' 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour and the 1968 ITV comedy show ''Do Not Adjust Your Set.''
History
Formation and early years (1962–1966)
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band was officially formed on 25 September 1962, at 162c Rosendale Road, West Dulwich, when Vivian Stanshall and fellow art student Rodney Slater bonded over the late-night transatlantic broadcast of a boxing match between Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston, after being introduced by Slater's flatmate Tom Parkinson. At the time, Slater was already playing in a traditional jazz band at college with Parkinson on sousaphone, and Chris Jennings on trombone. Trumpeter Roger Wilkes and banjo-player Trevor Brown were the founders of this loose conglomerate at the Royal College of Art, although the lineup is thought to have been exceptionally fluid and constantly revolving, consisting of as many as forty to fifty rotating members if Stanshall's later recollections are to be believed.Stanshall became the band's next recruit after that day in 1962, when he and Slater rechristened the existing group The Bonzo Dog Dada Band. In the 2004 BBC Four documentary Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of His Mind, Slater claims that the name was inspired by playing a Dadaist word game using cut-up technique, which involves writing words or phrases on paper, tearing the paper into strips and then randomly re-assembling the strips to form new phrases. One of the phrases created was "Bonzo Dog Dada Band": Bonzo Dog after Bonzo the dog, a popular British cartoon character created by artist George Studdy in the 1920s, and Dada after the early 20th-century art movement.
In the early 1960s comedic pop records by artists such as Charlie Drake, Bernard Cribbins and Spike Milligan were popular in the UK and enjoyed chart success alongside pop music parodies by pop cabaret acts such as The Barron Knights, and this fledgling version of the Bonzos was already slowly turning its style from more orthodox music towards the comedy-tinged 1920s popular jazz-style sound of groups such as The Alberts and The Temperance Seven.
This original lineup soon imploded, however, after flatmates Stanshall, Slater and Parkinson had seriously overspent their Autumn Term's grant money on good food, clothing and musical instruments, which led to their unceremonious eviction in December by their landlord for non-payment of rent.
Stanshall and Slater then parted ways for a while but Slater in particular kept faith in the band's continued existence and dedicated himself to its eventual resurrection. Things began to come together again in 1963 when the two reunited with Wilkes, and two new faces entered the picture: on banjo, double bass and later bass guitar, Goldsmiths College lecturer Vernon Dudley Bowhay-Nowell and his lodger, songwriter/pianist and later guitarist Neil Innes. Bowhay-Nowell was already familiar with the band's earlier incarnation and happily came on board. According to Innes' website, the Bowhay-Nowell was added to Vernon Dudley's name by Stanshall, although this has proven to be untrue. Vernon's parents were Walter Nowell and Bessie Bowhay. Unwilling to lose the unusual 'Bowhay' part of the name, they gave their children Vernon Dudley and Peter the name 'Bowhay' as an addendum to the surname 'Nowell'. It seems unlikely, however, that the slightly older, slightly more conservative Vernon had used such an affectation in his everyday life before Stanshall's suggestion, which may be where the confusion arose.
Multi-instrumentalist Neil Innes, meanwhile, proved pivotal to the band's continued existence, not to mention their later success. Armed with a musical education and a philosophical bent, he marshaled the band's disparate talents into something resembling cohesion, whether they liked it or not. However, cohesion and success both still lay some way ahead. Innes has spoken often about his first meeting with Slater and Stanshall in a London pub—Stanshall walked in wearing a Victorian frock coat, checked trousers, pince-nez glasses and large rubber false ears on his head whilst carrying a euphonium under his arm.
The band meanwhile had been working with trombonist John Parry and drummer Ed Chamberlain before Slater recruited Martin Ash, a percussionist who later took the stage name of Sam Spoons. Shortly afterwards Spoons secured the band their first regular pub gig at The Kensington in Notting Hill, where they were noticed by "Big" Sid Nicholls who soon joined them as second banjo-player. Big Sid in turn introduced Roger Ruskin Spear to the band. With his interest in sculpture and the manufacture of early electronic gadgets, objets d'art, and sound-making systems, and having already recently played in a one-off impromptu scratch band with Slater and Innes, Spear also soon became a member of the Bonzos. From his own defunct band The Jungle Orchestra, Spear brought with him trumpeter Leon "Lenny" Williams to replace the departing Wilkes.
Band members continued to come and go throughout 1963 and 1964 but by 1965 the band had settled to a stable lineup of Stanshall, Slater, Innes, Bowhay-Nowell, Spoons, Spear, Nicholls, Williams, Parry and Raymond Lewitt. The line-up changed again later that year with the departure of Parry, and the final 'classic' Bonzos band member, "Legs" Larry Smith, joined to replace the outgoing Lewitt. Smith was a long-standing friend of Stanshall's, the two having been students together at Central College of Art. Stanshall had long had designs on somehow insinuating his erstwhile drinking companion—Smith was a notorious bon viveur—into the band despite his lack of any apparent musical talent, with a view to exposing the world to Larry's undoubted charisma. While Smith's musical input at this point was, by his own admission, limited, he still brought a keen sense of showmanship to the Bonzos; strongly influenced by the movie The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, Larry adopted the name 'Legs' and took up tap-dancing, a skill he developed to such an entertaining level that it earned him a solo 'tap-dance extravaganza' spot in the band's stage show.
By this point the Bonzos had turned semi-professional and were playing regular gigs at The Deuragon Arms in Homerton, East London and at The Tiger's Head in Catford, South London where their performances soon gathered an enthusiastic following. It was around this time that the band were approached by budding show business impresario Reg Tracey, who offered to manage them and introduce them to the dubious but lucrative delights of Northern England's working men's club circuit. They proved popular on the club circuit and the lifestyle and steady income generated convinced the band members to turn fully professional. As a consequence they never stopped working and the clubs introduced them to all manner of 'unusual' characters who later populated their song catalogue.
Thanks to Tracey's contacts, the band made their TV debut in February 1966, performing "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey" on the children's show Blue Peter, introduced by John Noakes. In spring, Bob Kerr replaced Leon Williams and shortly after this, Sid Nicholls left.
In April, Tracey secured them a record deal with Parlophone. Their first single, a cover of the 1920s song "My Brother Makes The Noises for the Talkies", was backed with "I'm Going To Bring A Watermelon to My Girl Tonight".
A second single, "Alley Oop" backed with "Button Up Your Overcoat" followed in October of that year. Neither single sold well, and this eventually spelled the end for their hapless manager Reg Tracey when the band came to the attention of rival manager Gerry Bron, whose contacts in the industry were more impressive and held more promise for the now driven and ambitious Stanshall, who had by this point assumed de facto leadership of the band. Tracey threatened legal action for breach of contract and the band had to be bought out of the agreement.
Move from jazz to rock (1967)
Although The Bonzos had started out playing and parodying trad jazz and 1920s-style popular music, by 1967 they were contemplating embracing a more contemporary style of rock music, in order to counter claims that they sounded too much like The Temperance Seven or the fictional, studio-concocted New Vaudeville Band. In fact although they were now exclusively managed by Gerry Bron, The Bonzos were invited to perform live as the New Vaudeville Band in order to capitalise on the fictional group's recent chart success with "Winchester Cathedral"—an offer The Bonzos immediately declined in favour of retaining their own artistic control. However, Bob Kerr happily agreed to help form a real New Vaudeville Band, allegedly taking the bulk of his former bandmates' stage act with him, a move which finally forced The Bonzos' hand over the change of direction. According to Neil Innes, The Bonzos had learned a salutary lesson about the pitfalls of show business:Our trumpeter then was Bob Kerr, great player, and a fun guy. But he was friends with Geoff Stephens, who'd made "Winchester Cathedral" with session men. And he knew Bob, so he rang Bob up saying: 'What am I going to do? "Winchester Cathedral"'s a hit, and I've got no band to promote it.' So Bob came, flushed with excitement, to the rest of us at our digs, saying, 'We can be The New Vaudeville Band!' and we said, 'Certainly not, no way!' So, Bob couldn't understand this, so we said, 'Well, go, you go and do it then, if you want to. Go, never darken our towels again!', kind of thing. But the next thing, on Top of the Pops, was the New Vaudeville Band, with the singer looking exactly like Viv, in a sort of lamé suit, all the musicians wearing the kind of suits we were wearing, with two-tone shoes. They'd even nicked the cutout comic speaking balloons, which we made out of hardboard, with a fret saw, and painted white, and then wrote, 'Wow, I'm really expressing myself!' to hold over somebody's head while they did a saxophone solo. There was the entire image, and for the next few weeks people were saying to us, 'Hey, you're like that New Vaudeville Band!' And that's when I think Legs Larry Smith said, "Well, look ...'—he'd always been arguing for doing some more modern material, so we all said, 'Right, now we start writing our own stuff.' "
The situation proved serendipitous, however, as they were able to capitalise on the burgeoning spirit of the times by combining their jazz stylings with increasingly fashionable psychedelic touches. As their popularity increased, they were asked by Paul McCartney to appear in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film at the end of 1967, performing "Death Cab For Cutie".
Around this time they were also hired as the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, an afternoon children's television comedy show notable for starring several future members of Monty Python, Denise Coffey, and David Jason in the cast. The band performed every week as well as sometimes participating in sketches.
After signing with the US-based Liberty Records label, the Bonzos released their first album, Gorilla, produced by Gerry Bron. The LP included "Jazz: Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold" which parodied their early "trad" jazz roots and featured deliberately inept jazz playing. The record label had allowed them two hours of studio time per track, so "Jazz" was completed in a single take to allow more time for the far more complex "The Intro and the Outro". In this number every member of the band was introduced and played a solo, starting with the genuine band members before including such improbable guest musicians as John Wayne on xylophone, Adolf Hitler on vibes, J. Arthur Rank on gong, Prime Minister Harold Wilson on violin, the Wild Man of Borneo, Val Doonican, Horace Batchelor, and Lord Snooty and His Pals. The music was based on an excerpt from Duke Ellington's "C Jam Blues".
The first album was recorded on a four-track tape recorder, as was typical for 1967. Due to the limited number of tracks, most of the fictional non-band "guest stars" were simply faded in and out as required.
By December 1967, bassist Vernon Dudley Bowhay-Nowell and drummer Sam Spoons had been summarily fired from the band. Vernon had spent much of the year ill and had missed numerous recording sessions as a result, while Sam Spoons' musical ability in the studio had now been judged unsatisfactory according to Stanshall's increasingly perfectionist criteria. For all that, however, it was "Legs" Larry Smith who now moved to occupy the drum stool, despite his limited playing experience. Meanwhile, session player Dave Clague, who had deputised for Vernon on various "Gorilla" recording sessions, was hired as replacement bassist.