Movies - Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

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The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (more often the Bonzo Dog Band) were the brainchild of a British art-school set of the 1960s. Part jazz band, part psychedelic rockers, the Bonzos came to the attention of a broader British public through a children's television programme, Do Not Adjust Your Set.

The band's foundation

Unusually for a band, the actual date of conception for the Bonzos is known to us: September 25th, 1962. It was on that day that Vivian Stanshall (tuba, but later lead vocals along with other wind instruments) and fellow art student Rodney Slater (saxophone) bonded over a transatlantic broadcast of a boxing match between Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston.

Rodney Slater had previously been playing in a trad jazz band at college with Chris Jennings (trombone) and Tom Parkinson (sousaphone). Eventually they recruited Roger Wilkes trumpet and Trevor Brown banjo from the Royal College of Art as they slowly turned their style from more orthodox music towards the sound of the Alberts and the Temperance Seven. Vivian was their next recruit and on that fateful day in 1962, he and Rodney christened the band, The Bonzo Dog Dada Band. Bonzo the dog after a popular British character created by artist George Studdy in the 1920s and Dada after the early 20th Century art movement.

Not long after Vivian, Rodney and Tom were evicted from their shared flat, the band added two more faces to the line-up, Goldsmiths College lecturer Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell and his lodger, songwriter/pianist, Neil Innes.

The band had been working with drummer Tom Hedges before Rodney found Martin Ash, who later took the stage name of Sam Spoons and shortly afterwards got them their first pub gig, where they were noticed by Roger Ruskin Spear.

Ruskin Spear, who was the son of the British artist Ruskin Spear claimed, "I couldn't believe anyone was that bad." He eventually changed his mind and, with his interest in the manufacture of early electronic gadgets/objets d'art and sound-making systems soon became an integral part of the band.

The line-up changed once again with the departure of Roger Wilkes, whose girlfriend demanded his resignation, and John Parry, the trombonist. The two were replaced by, respectively, Bob Kerr and "Big" Sid Nichols. The final 'classic' band member, "Legs" Larry Smith (their number one fan) joined in 1963, as a tuba player and tap-dancer (but later as a drummer), on Vivian's invitation.

The band's fortunes began to increase when their manager, Reg Tracey secured them a deal with Parlophone Records in April 1966. Their first single, a cover of the 1920s 'classic', My Brother Makes The Noises For The Talkies was backed with I'm Going To Bring A Watermelon To My Girl Tonight which was rather too risque for radio.

A second single, Alley Oop, backed with Button Up Your Overcoat followed in October of that year.

A move from jazz to rock

Although the Bonzos had started out playing jazz, they decided to embrace rock in order to counter claims that they were beginning to sound like the Temperance Seven. (In fact a former member, Bob Kerr, went on to create his own band Bob Kerr's Whoopee Band which combined the lunacy of the early Bonzo sound with music having a great deal in common with the Temperance Seven).

As the band's fame increased, they appeared as the resident band on Do Not Adjust Your Set, a children's show notable for having several future members of Monty Python's Flying Circus and David Jason in the cast.

Their first album Gorilla included Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold which savagely parodied their early 'trad' jazz roots and featured some of the most deliberately inept jazz playing ever recorded. The Intro and the Outro in which every member of the band introduced and played a solo, started with genuine band members: :Hi there, nice to be with you, happy you could stick around. :Like to introduce "Legs" Larry Smith, drums :And Sam Spoons, rhythm pole :And Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, bass guitar :And Neil Innes, piano. :Come in Rodney Slater on the saxophone :With Roger Ruskin Spear on tenor sax. :Hi, Vivian Stanshall, trumpet.

before including such improbable members as: :Big hello to big John Wayne, xylophone :Looking very relaxed Adolf Hitler on vibes :Eric Clapton on ukulele ', :Yeah! Digging General de Gaulle on accordion. :Really wild, General! Thank you, sir. :Roy Rogers
on Trigger '. :We welcome Val Doonican as himself. .

Much later, Stanshall was to provide an introduction on Mike Oldfield's first instrumental album, Tubular Bells, which echoed the style of The Intro, but without the blatant absurdities.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band ]

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