Friday, April 22, 2022

Georgie Fame - BBC Sessions, Volume 1 (1964-1965)

I've posted an album of Georgie Fame at the BBC in the early 1970s as part of a partnership with fellow keyboard player Alan Price. This is the start of three volumes of him performing at the BBC in the 1960s on his own.

I suppose Fame isn't that well known in the US these days. He only had one Top Ten hit there, in 1968 with "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde." But in Britain he's much better known, since he had three number one hits there with "Yeh Yeh," "Get Away," and "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde," as well a bunch of minor hits. Fame is British, and added some R&B and/or jazz sensibilities to the charts. As I write this in April 2022, he's 78 years old, but still touring and recording. If you want to know more about him, here's his Wikipedia page:

Georgie Fame - Wikipedia

All the songs on this volume have been officially released, and they all sound great. The first five songs are from a live session at the Flamingo Club in London that was broadcast on the BBC at the time. I've edited the songs some to remove a DJ talking between songs, as well as some crowd noise.

The remaining songs were all done in BBC studios without an audience. By the time of the first studio session here in late 1964, he was having his first number one hit with "Yeh Yeh" after only a couple of failed singles. From that time forward through the end of the 1960s, the BBC had him do sessions on a fairly regular basis.

A few of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. It's the usual reason for these BBC sessions: BBC DJs talking over the music. And as I usually do, I used the audio editing program X-Minus to remove that talking while keeping the underlying music.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Night Train [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
02 Bright Lights, Big City [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
03 Walking the Dog (Georgie Fame)
04 Do-Re-Mi [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
05 You're Breaking My Heart (Georgie Fame)
06 Saturday Night Fish Fry (Georgie Fame)
07 Yeh Yeh (Georgie Fame)
08 Preach and Teach (Georgie Fame)
09 Tell All the World about You (Georgie Fame)
10 Let the Sunshine In (Georgie Fame)
11 In the Meantime (Georgie Fame)
12 Point of No Return [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
13 Telegram [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
14 Get on the Right Track, Baby (Georgie Fame)
15 Like We Used to Be (Georgie Fame)
16 Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu (Georgie Fame)
17 No No [Edit] (Georgie Fame)
18 Move It On Over (Georgie Fame)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15116147/GeorgieF_1964-1965_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Fame is from 1964. He's backstage at some concert, but I don't know which one.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for this! IMHO, his early stuff is his best - he got more and more pop-schlocky as the decade progressed.

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