Edwin: I first got into music in a big way during the British Invasion. I dug the Beatles, Stones, Dave Clark 5, Herman’s Hermits, Chad & Jeremy, Hollies, Kinks, etc. I got as much product that a teen with an allowance could. Through the years I filled in the gaps in my collection, getting original albums instead of settling for “greatest hits” collections, following up with the later careers of my teen faves and even picking up the discs that were generally known as duds (as completists are wont to do). I’ve also expanded my artists base for that magic (for me) era. There is very little reason why your average music lover would know who the Applejacks, Escorts or Fourmost were. However, as is the case with any genre (if you are obsessed anyway!), there are always lesser known talents and odd obscure rarities to dig up and experience. An interesting wrinkle for music of the mid 50’s to mid 60’s in England was a string of young singers with names dreamed up by Larry Parnes, an agent and star maker. There were Tommy Steele, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, Duffy Power, Dickie Pride, Johnny Gentle, Joe Brown, Vince Eager and others. I picked up “best of” collections from time to time by these generally interchangeable pretty boys and was usually entertained on some nostalgic level, but ultimately underwhelmed. As far as I knew, Georgie Fame was probably just another bland bit of fluff to listen to a few times and then shelve. Boy was I mistaken!!

Julia: Around 10 years ago, Edwin gave me a list of CDs for me to pick possible Christmas presents from. One of the ones I selected was 20 Beat Classics from the musician Georgie Fame. Neither Edwin or I had ever heard any of his music that we knew of, so we were both pleasantly surprised by what we heard, and it quickly ended up on heavy rotation in our house. My first impression was that he seemed more like a Las Vegas lounge-type singer/keyboardist. I hadn’t heard enough of Mose Allison at that time to realize how heavily he had been influenced by that jazz master. 

Edwin: When Julia got me “20 Beat Classics” for Christmas one year, I was totally flabbergasted! For some of the lightweight Parnes blessed crooners, “20 beat classics” would be made up of every single they ever recorded as well as some demos and other dreck to bring the count up. For Georgie, though, this was just a smattering of material, taken from his earlier albums, from a career that has survived from 1963 until today! Julia was, and is, every bit as excited about this jazzy, soulful, funky singer/songwriter/musician as I am. In retrospect, there is no way I had lived to whatever ripe old age I was at that time without hearing the hit, “Yeh, Yeh,” I just didn’t know who sang it until then. The album also included a song called, “Getaway.” These two songs, along with, “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde,” from 1967 were the only top ten singles Georgie released, but most of his material is just as enjoyable.  Some of our favorites include, “Do Re Mi,” “Sweet Thing,” “Point of No Return,” “In the Meantime” and “Moody’s Mood for Love,” but this is a class act selection all the way through.

The second album we picked up is called, “Mod Classics: 1964-1966.” Most of Georgie Fame’s material is made up of covers that are given his suave rhythm and blues treatment and I was beginning to think he might do nothing but covers. In amongst names like Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke, Rufus Thomas, Willie Nelson and Mose Allison, however, there were a couple songs attributed to Clive Powell. This is the first album for which I did my due diligence to get a handle on where the songs came from and who played on the various tracks. It turns out Georgie was born Clive Powell. Aha! A little cross referencing of “20 Beat Classics” and I became aware that Georgie had written the hit, “Getaway.” “Mod Classics” contains many stellar moments including, “Funny How Time Slips Away,” “Parchman Farm,” “Soul Stomp” and “Monkeying Around.” As an example of how smitten we both were with his music, Julia and I adopted a female cat shortly after discovering Georgie and Julia had no problem with my suggestion of “Clive” for a name. We had a nice overview of early Fame material at this point, but needed more!

One of my fave resources is AllMusic Guide. It’s not always comprehensive, but they do a decent job with artist discographies. I mostly like the fact that they feature a lot of album cover art and reviews by staff and/or users. I was fascinated to learn Georgie has put out at least 36 albums. I’m a sucker for reasonably priced twofers so I ordered a couple. The four album reviews that follow are from two of these two LP sets.

“The Two Sides of Fame” is from 1967 and is one side of live material and one side of studio tracks that showcase the Fame everyone had come to love. Songs like “Greenback Dollar Bill, “ “Bluesology,” and “Keep Your Big Mouth Shut,” from the live side and “You’re Driving Me Crazy,” “El Pussycat,” and “It Could Happen to You” are all fine examples of the poppy, jazzy rhythm and blues sound Georgie had perfected to this point. I heartily endorse this album.

By 1968, though, Georgie had been wrangled into doing full fledged pop material and someone came up with the comically titled, “The Third Face of Fame.” I had heard “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde” countless times through the years, but if I’d ever heard the name Georgie Fame attached to it before Julia and I “discovered” him, it didn’t register. That pop nugget is followed by a very faithful reading of the Beatles, “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Thankfully, some of the record is made up of songs such as Mose Allison’s, “Ask Me Nice.” Mose was a gigantic influence on Georgie from the beginning and any fan of Mose that doesn’t know Georgie should get on the stick, and vice versa. Some of the material, such as “Bullets Laverne” and “Side by Side” are show tunes that mirror the vibe of  “Bonnie and Clyde.” To fully cement the new directions theme, the album closes with a fairly straightforward take on Donovan’s, “Mellow Yellow.” That’s right, Slick!

“Seventh Son” is a great album from 1969. It contains two songs Georgie wrote and two he cowrote. These are my favorite tracks on this album. His “Ho Ho Ho” is a delightful song about his antics with Santa’s main squeeze and his “Fully Booked” is a tongue in cheek ditty about being in high demand by a very large number of pretty young things. “Blossom” is a song he cowrote with long time collaborator J. Alexander Ryan. Blossom Dearie cowrote “Sweet Georgie Fame,” with Sandra Black Harris in 1966. “Blossom” is the answer song and it’s groovy, baby! The rest of the album is good, but not quite as memorable.

“Going Home,” an offering from 1971, is where Georgie jumped the shark skin suit. He’d return to form later in his career. My fave on this lackluster platter is the title track, which references a number of American cities the songwriter name checked while headed for more familiar territory. There are no Fame originals here. Being from 1971, when mellow pop stylists and syrupy, solipsistic singer/songwriters ruled the music world, it would appear Georgie left the comfort of his jazzy rhythm and blues roots to give B.J. Thomas a run for his money. I’ve since learned he was being molded by business forces he often had little or no control over. This is not a good album for the uninitiated to pick up to get an idea of what Georgie Fame is all about.

I decided to be a little more discerning going forward. I bought two more albums on CD before the floodgates opened. “In Hoagland” is a labor of love Georgie put together with Annie Ross of Lambert, Ross and Hendricks fame in 1981, a few months before Hoagy passed away. It features a bunch of Hoagy Carmichael songs as well as the last recordings of Hoagy, himself! The legend sings an abbreviated version of “Rockin’ Chair,” accompanied by just his piano and is featured on a spoken word piece, “Hoagy’s Help.” Georgie’s wailing take on “Drip Drop” is worth the price of admission alone, but there are plenty of other highlights, including the aforementioned “Hoagy’s Help,” that features Hoagy explaining, with some fine solo crooning and piano flourishes, some of the magic he brought to his music. The closer, “Hoagland,” is a piece Georgie wrote as a tribute to his idol. It was a trip hearing Georgie tell the story of meeting up with Hoagy Carmichael in Palm Springs for this venture when we saw him in England.

1990’s “Cool Cat Blues” had uniformly good reviewer ratings and is a joy from start to finish. Georgie has a cowriter credit on four of the thirteen tracks, a very good sign. Van Morrison, Box Scaggs and Jon Hendricks (also of Lambert, Ross and Hendricks renown) each take a turn sharing lead vocal duties with Georgie on “Moondance,” “It Should Have Been Me” and “Little Pony,” respectively. The title track pretty much spells out the general vibe that permeates the tunes; these are some cool cats strutting their stuff on laid-back and tastefully swinging blues workouts. There are some familiar songs from the ‘60s such as “Yeah Yeah” and “I Love the Life I Live,” given a fresh spin, and covers by some of Georgie’s faves, Mose Allison, Hoagy Carmichael and Willy Dixon. It’s not as frenetic as the material he cut as a hungry, precocious teen, but it sounds wonderful to these adult ears. 

Julia: At some point, we had some conversations about musical bucket lists, the performers that we most wanted to see live (while they were still performing). We had always loved going to music events like the Rockaround in Vegas, and Norton Records anniversary shows in Brooklyn. We did venture up a few hours north to see Johnny Rivers in Visalia, and to Scottsdale, AZ to see Danny O’Keefe. Our primary international artists (that never seemed to come to the US) that we really, REALLY wanted to see were The Spotnicks (from Finland), and Georgie Fame. The Spotnicks retired in 2014 or 15, so that took them off the list. One day at work in December of 2016, I got an e-mail from ENTS that there was a new Georgie show announced in March in Christchurch, UK. We had just been feeling rather bummed that we didn’t go to his weeklong residency at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s in London that October, and so I looked up the venue and tickets just out of curiosity. It was in a 30’s era art deco theater, and tickets were only around $25. AND if I bought them right then, we could have 2nd row seats!! I quickly texted Edwin & convinced him that if we decided we just couldn’t swing it, we’d only be out $50, and it just might force us to go.

Edwin: Julia and I are not religious, but we both love Christmas. The tree, the ornaments, the music… and the gifts! What a wonderful excuse to buy each other extravagant treasures we would normally think stretch the budget just a tad too far. I believe Julia ordered “The Whole World’s Shaking” once we were completely under Georgie’s spell. It is subtitled, “Complete Recordings 1963-1966,” and it’s the mother load of our fave era. It contains his first four albums, “Rhythm and Blues at the Flamingo,” “Fame at Last,” “Sweet Things” and “Sound Venture,” on four discs, each of which is crammed with singles tracks and other odds and ends that didn’t make it onto the albums. There are more bonus tracks than original tracks! There is a fifth disc of demos, rarities and outtakes. This is for serious obsessives, but it is grand and glorious throughout!! 

My sweetie ordered “Survival - A Career Anthology 1963-2015” a few Christmases later.  This one is broken up into eras, some overlapping, that take up six discs: “Get on the Right Track, Baby (1963-1966),” “Try My World (1967-1971),” “Move it on Up (1972-1976),” “Live at the Lyceum and the Pye Period (1974 & 1979),” “That’s the Way it Goes (1991-2000)” and “Rhythm King (1993-2015).”  This is a very illuminating collection in its own right. While it covers the ‘70s, a period in which the majority of the material Georgie released was subpar, it only features the inspirational stuff he was able to sneak in amongst otherwise drab fluff as well as some recordings that languished for many moons. There is a strong focus on material written by Powell/Fame, which, again, was often the cream of the crop. A big selling point is the fact that six tracks on Disc 2 and all 22 tracks on Disc 3 are previously unreleased. Both box sets come with a booklet and each is chock full of photos, liner notes and reminiscences from Georgie.  What a couple swell treats to find under the tree!

Julia: As always, December was a busy month, so I think we didn’t get to the planning stage until January. Tickets on Virgin Atlantic turned out to be pretty inexpensive at that time of year, so with our friend, Rita, who had hopped on board, we mapped out a mini UK tour around the south, that wrapped up with Georgie’s concert just before we headed back to London to fly out.

Edwin: Seeing Georgie Fame live was as exceptional an experience as we hoped it would be. The fact that his sons, Tristan Powell and James Powell, played guitar and drums with him the entire set was an added bonus. All three were amazing musicians. Georgie has always been humble and has always given credit to the songwriters and/or musicians who have written and/or initially performed the songs he uses in his sets. His introductions were so fluid and entertaining, though, we never sensed a lull between songs. They played a nice long set, left the stage and then came out for a nice long encore. The crowd was excited to be there and appreciative. When I was picking up a CD at the merch table, someone heard my accent and approached me afterwards. He was from San Francisco, but was living in England. We got together with him and his party for a pint at a nearby pub after the show. Good times! 

Julia: It was amazing to get to hang out after the show with the expat teacher and his wife, along with another couple that were their friends. The husband of that couple had run sound for Georgie at a festival in the 60’s, and had followed his career ever since. Sitting in a pub, he regaled us with stories, as the rowdy St. Patrick’s Day crowd provided at festive backdrop. It was a heady ending to an amazing trip.

Edwin: The last CD I’d like to say a few words about is the one I picked up when we saw him in England. The band is listed as Georgie Fame and the Last Blue Flames and is called, “Swan Songs.” It was released in 2013 and I have not found anything released since, but he is still a going concern so who knows… The band includes his sons, Tristan and James Powell and a handful of other crackerjacks. Madeline Bell sings harmony on two tracks. The song-craft is superb. Of the twelve songs, Georgie wrote ten and cowrote one of the other two. “The Ship” by M. O’Neill is used as the closer. Fitting when you consider he started his career doing other people’s music, has honed his songwriting chops over the previous seventy years and has apparently decided he has done enough. His voice is strong, everybody’s playing is extraordinary, there is plenty of variety and the quality is as high as anything his name has ever been attached to. Thank you for so much wonderful music, Georgie Fame!

Edwin Letcher & Julia Devine

October 12, 2020