Madfish Music unveils two exclusive new albums posthumously released from Vivian Stanshall. Despite being drastically different both albums offer a unique insight into the wit and wonder of the larger-than-life personality that was, Vivian Stanshall.
Each album will be released in the form of Digipack CD, Digital and ‘Dog Howl In Tune’ as a single black LP and ‘Rawlinson’s End’ as a Gatefold black 2 LP.
THE LONG AWAITED FINAL AND PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED ROCK ALBUM BY VIVIAN STANSHALL
During the last five years of his life, ex Bonzo Dog Band solo artist Vivian Stanshall was working on a final album of music to follow up his much-loved 1981 album Teddy Boys Don’t Knit, which featured classics such as ‘Terry Keeps His Clips On’, ‘The Cracks Are Showing’ and ‘Ginger Geezer’. Stanshall had spent his time in the 1980s working on his ‘English Comic Opera in the Grand Tradition’ Stinkfoot, which first ran at the Old Profanity Showboat in Bristol Harbour in 1985, with a later revival in London. He had also found success writing material with his friend Steve Winwood co-writing the title track to Arc of a Diver, working on Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells 2 (he had been an integral part to the original Tubular Bells as the narrator) and various advertising campaigns including Lemsip, Cadburys and most famously Ruddles Beer.
For a considerable period Vivian had wanted to record and release another rock album and had been collecting songs as far back as the 1970s. With money he earned from his advertising work he funded various recording sessions and had interest from a major record label, but sadly he tragically died in a fire before an album could be completed.
The twelve tracks on this album are taken from a selection of sixty or so finished or nearly completed recordings on the tapes left by Vivian Stanshall, as his hitherto unpublished legacy.
Andy Frizell (The Wizards of Twiddly, The Coral and Kevin Ayers) is a musician and producer who worked with Vivian briefly in 1994. Using the surviving recordings, he has pieced back together Vivian’s final album adding where required the missing instrumentation but at all times paying reverence to the original vision. The collection includes the Beefheartian monster mash blues of ‘Dog Howl in Tune’ – also the title track – as well as the wistfully melancholic ‘No Time Like The Future’ on an album that wears it’s heart fully on its sleeve. It is by far the most biographical album Vivian ever made and draws on songs from Stinkfoot and other projects. ‘Goodbye Mother’ is the poignant last song from the project Shackleton, based around the exploits of the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, which never saw the light of day whilst ‘Boy in Darkness‘ was written by Vivian for a project with Steve Winwood – Winwood’s version yet to be released.
Musicians include Jack Bruce (Cream) Ollie Halsall (Patto) Susie Honeyman (The Mekons) Neil Innes and Rodney Slater (The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band) Mike Kellie (Spooky Tooth) and others.
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Dog Howl In Tune track listing:
- Dog Howl In Tune
- Made of Stone
- I’d Rather Cut My Hands
- A Good Woman
- Goodbye Mother
- No Time Like The Future
- Strongth
- Gecko
- Landing On My Feet
- Only Being Myself
- Boy In Darkness
THE FINAL PART OF VIVIAN STANSHALL’S SURREAL COMIC MASTERPIECE
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‘Rawlinson’s End’ track listing:
- Lady Rawlinson’s Lilt / Under The Sea (Instrumental)
- Eggs Is Eggs (Nice n Tidy)
- The Pipes (Sir Henry)
- The Crackpot (instrumental)
- The Great Eating (instrumental)
- Buzzing (Hubert)
- Spreading His Light (Hubert and the Rev Slodden)
- Scrotum’s Lullaby (Scrotum)
- Under The Sea (reprise)
- Cackling Gas / Under The Sea
- Octavia
- Cul-de-Sac (Mrs E)
- The Quiet That The Spider Knows (Aunt Florrie)
- Tour De Farce (instrumental)
- Entre Act (instrumental)
- Diplodocus v Concreton
- Achmedillo (Scrotum)
- Peristaltic Waves (The Patient)
In 1978 Charisma Records released the Sir Henry at Rawlinson End album, a forty-minute introduction to the eccentric custodian of the crumbling British country estate, which incorporated characters and music from the various episodes of the Sir Henry saga, originally broadcast on the BBC’s John Peel show from October 1975 up until 1991. The BBC regular re-broadcast Sir Henry even today.
In 1980 Sir Henry was also unleashed on the public as a film, starring the great Trevor Howard and was also issued as book published by Eel Pie Publishing, owned at the time by The Who’s Pete Townshend.
The 1990s found Sir Henry used as the concept for a now legendary series of Ruddles Beer adverts that cemented Rawlinson End in the National consciousness.
Stanshall was a major Influence on the cream of the new wave of British comedy in the 1980s including Stephen Fry, Adrian Edmondson, Phill Jupitus and Paul Merton and he remains much loved nearly thirty years after his death.
In the years just before his untimely death in 1995, Vivian intended to generate a new album based around the content of three of the final episodes broadcast by John Peel on the BBC; Crackpot at the end of the Rainbow recorded in February 1988, The Eating at Rawlinson End, from August 1988 and The Thing at Rawlinson End, from April 1991. For decades it has been rumoured that a new Sir Henry album would be released and now finally Madfish / Snapper Music in collaboration with the Stanshall Family have made that rumour a reality.
Using all the remaining tapes from Vivian’s archive, Stanshall expert and performance artist Michael Livesley has managed to put back together the intended release, a process that he has described as similar to “putting back together a smashed vase”. The results are a revelation with the final album now a double LP containing some of Vivian’s finest work. Fans of Sir Henry, Old Scrotum, Mrs E and the various bizarre and evocative characters that inhabit the musty Rawlinson End will be thrilled at the imagined adventures that await them.
Vivian’s final vision has been realised – Rawlinson’s End, available on CD and 2LP
The albums were to be launched in conjunction with a memorial concert for Vivian that would have featured an array of talent eager to show their appreciation for the late Ginger Geezer including Neil Innes, “Legs” Larry Smith, Rodney Slater and Roger Spear from the Bonzos; Roger McGough, Mike McCartney, John Gorman (of the Scaffold); Ian Dury; Steve Winwood; Jack Bruce; Pete Brown; Pete Moss; Zoot Money; Andy Roberts; Mike Kellie as well as the Liverpool poets Brian Patten and Adrian Henri, who had worked with Vivian and Meggo in GRIMMS. There were other plans for an Art Exhibition and a poetry anthology. Sadly, progress with the albums and these other projects come to nothing and when Rob Dickins left Warner Music in 1998 all momentum was lost.
For the next decade or so little happened until 2014 when work commenced on tape restoration, eventually creating listenable mixes. In terms of raw material in the archive, there is plenty.
The initial aim was to create the albums planned by Vivian in his later years: the rock music album New Tricks, renamed Dog Howl in Tune to avoid confusion with a Bonzos compilation of the same name, and The Further Adventures of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End – now shortened to Rawlinson’s End to indicate the finale of the saga. There will be more…
To help realise the dream Michael Livesley, who had become well known for singing with the reformed line up of The Bonzos and for his live presentation of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, was introduced as musical director and fount of Stanshall knowledge. He suggested that the project should also involve Andy Frizell a producer and musician who had worked with many artists from Kevin Ayers to The Coral. As luck would have it, Andy had also worked with Vivian Stanshall in 1994, and it was Andy who came up with the idea of dividing the labour. He would take charge of the music album ‘Dog Howl in Tune’ whilst Mike would tackle ‘Rawlinson’s End’.
