This strange but fascinating instrumental is a real one-off. I defy anyone to tell me what genre this should be filed under in a record shop. It’s got a dramatic, atmospheric vibe, as befits its status as library music, but there’s also funk lurking in there somewhere; just don’t try dancing to it.
I put it to Mark Wood that it is a worthy challenger to his claim for Pepper Box by The Peppers as the best instrumental of all time. Even better than Popcorn by Hot Butter.
Someone somewhere (hopefully here) may remember this obscurity as the soundtrack of a TV ad for Denim men’s aftershave in the late 1970s. I’m afraid I don’t.
This number was recorded for the KPM sound library, an organisation set up to record and licence music for film, TV and radio, and released in 1975.
It was the flip side of a similarly moody number called Name Of The Game by Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett, who had made an instrumental album called Synthesizer & Percussion the previous year (reissued by Rough Trade in 2018 and now considered a cult classic).
All three, so far as I can ascertain, play on this – Richmond on bass, Hawkshaw on synth and Hammond organ, and Bennett (drummer in The Shadows) on drums. I’d love to know who plays the plangent electric guitar solo towards the end – probably the very talented and successful Richmond himself.
He was one of the founder members of Manfred Mann in 1963 (when they were called the Manne-Hugg Blues Brothers), originally playing double bass with them. Switching to bass guitar, he played on their first hit single, 5-4-3-2-1 (originally intended as the theme song for the TV show Ready, Steady, Go!) but left soon afterwards to join the John Barry Seven.
After a short stint there, Richmond embarked on a lucrative career as a session musician on TV and on record, playing on hits by numerous stars including Elton John (Your Song), Labi Siffre (It Must Be Love), Dusty Springfield, Cliff Richard and Cilla Black.
He also played the bass on Je T’Aime (Moi Non Plus) by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin and on two of the most popular TV themes of all time – Last Of The Summer Wine and Only Fools And Horses; he even appeared in one episode, The Jolly Boys Outing.
Not bad for a bloke from Blackpool who started teaching himself the ukelele when he was 14, using the First Step Tutor Book, and getting his dad to tune his instrument once a month.1971