Early 70's Bubblegum Music: the verdict

Simon (Fisher) Turner later turned up soundtracking Derek Jarman films! This time period predates my awareness of pop music by a year or two, but even so I've heard OF about a third of these. Fumble, Grumble and The Bumbles are not to be confused. That Jon Pertwee song is great btw. Lastly, wtf is Bill Fay doing here?

I do have a great Simon Turner song on my hard-drive, lifted from a glam compilation: "(Baby) I Gotta Go."

I counted: I recognize 13 names on there.

I used to have a lot of these, but sold them on. I suspect that Vince Clarke accidentally or deliberately lifted a section of Kincade's 'Dreams Are Ten A Penny' for Erasure's 'A Little Respect'...

I know 5 of these tracks and recognise 23 names. Some unexpected names in there; Jon Pertwee (Dr Who), Vivian Stanshall (Bonzo Dog eccentric) and the one which really raised by eyebrows, Jeff Astle (West Brom striker). I assume Millie isn't the 'My Boy Lollipop' singer. Two Jonathan King productions is two too many.

On the subject of footballers: The Sad 'It Ain't Easy' was subsequently covered by Kevin Keegan, of all people - but Keegan's version omits the third verse of the the original, in which the narrator outs himself as bisexual ("I am the king of all the queens", indeed). One wonders how many of Keegan's "people" had ever heard it.

Went to check out the Bubblegum music book, latest review only gives it one star.I didn't realise they had such a passionate fan base.

It had one page for 1910 FRUITGUM COMPANY as a band. OH, they are mentioned on various pages, but as a band they have one page. It did tell me anything I did not already know, including the fact Mark Gutowski was hand picked to sing lead on SIMPLE SIMON. It more information on the Archie's, AND THEY WERE A CARTOON!

xp Jonathan King had a hand in at least 13 of these tracks, by the way....

I did wonder if he was involved in other tracks. I only recognised The Piglets and his own track of course. I'd put money on X-Certificate being one of his.

16. GAY GIRL – Jonathan King
17. DIRTY OLD MAN – Lieutenant Pigeon

X-Certificate is very JK-like, but not actually one of his. There was also another version by Katina, which I slightly prefer.

The JK-involved tracks which I recognise from memory: The Weathermen, Simon Turner, Hotlegs, St Cecilia*, The Piglets*, Tina Harvey, The Angelettes, Shag*, Bubblerock*, Ricky Wilde, Terry Dactyl, Sakkarin*. Asterisks denote pseudonyms for JK himself.

Ugh, bloody auto formatting...

Pseudonyms are: St Cecilia, Piglets, Shag, Bubblerock, Sakkarin.

I'm hypothesizing the huge disparity between British and American bubblegum hits may have something to do with the genre being something of a multimedia phenomenon, with visuals often an integral part of their appeal, in an era when it was impossible for Americans to watch British TV and vice versa and the internet/social media wasn't a thing yet.

There's a lot there that was previously called "novelty" in the UK and it is a feat if marketing to call it bubblegum now.

The Jonathan King stuff is largely terrible and has all been previously compiled repeatedly. No excuse for adding it here.

I misspelled the name of Tony Burrows twice on this thread, even though I had spelled it correctly on plenty of other threads before.