Well, how about rubbish then? Someone who didn't deserve even the tiniest fraction of their success? Tunes that have aged about as well as an English sitcom about a racist old grouch who lives next door to some darkies? No, those don't ring a bell either.
Oh, I know! The jury is out on Georgie Fame! Turns out, it still is.
The last time he came up, I wondered if the singer with the most made-up sounding name in showbusiness would gradually ditch jazzy lounge pop in favour of something more commercial. The opening bars of "Get Away" seem to confirm my suspicions though as the song progresses the horns and a very mid-sixties organ creep in to maybe give his jazz bona fides a boost. The result probably ought to be a hybrid but somehow ends up as competent but unremarkable British R&B.
As opposed to "Yeh, Yeh", "Get Away" was an original composition(though it was credited to one 'Clive Powell' who was not in fact a gentlemanly banker from Surrey but was Fame's real name). Yet, it sounds far less fluid than its predecessor. Fame hadn't been entirely convincing as a suave vocalist but he gave it his all on his first major hit. The same cannot be said for this one though. As Tom Ewing notes in his brief review, Fame "sounds awfully bored" — and who can blame him? I'm pretty bored listening to it.
There is still one more Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames (shouldn't leave them out!) number one to go but my impressions aren't favourable and I'm confident in saying he was already on the decline - and he hadn't really got off to the hottest start to begin with. Whether they were up to the challenge of pulling themselves up is something I can get to in the months ahead but I'm not terribly confident. Maybe "rubbish", "didn't deserve [their] success" and "aged badly" aren't quite so far off after-all.
Score: 4
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