Georgie Fame: "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde"

March 23, 1968 (2 weeks)

"As I mentioned above, Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames will be appearing again in this space before long so we'll see if (a) he managed to get the hang of this jazz-pop stuff, (b) he somehow or other got worse at it or (c) he gave up and decided just to be another British invasion beat act. I'm not going to spoil the surprise so I'll be on a Fame embargo for a little while which won't be hard since I barely knew who he was until just recently".

Such were my closing thoughts in my first review of a number one smash by the former Clive Powell. We are now at his third and final RPM chart topper so I think the points above can now be answered.

(a) He got the hang of that jazz-pop lark - at least for a little while.

(b) If he didn't quite get worse at it, he sure as hell didn't improve beyond some early promise.

(c) He didn't resort to jumping on the British Invasion bandwagon just as it was grinding to a halt. Unfortunately, he moved in the direction of novelty Dixieland Americana instead.

Sixties' solo artists tended to be at a disadvantage when it came to their career paths. The majority were reliant on outside compositions which put them in the position of someone else calling the shots. (The one real exception in "British" pop was the American-born Scott Walker who became an accomplished songwriter,.even if his creative emergence seemed to coincide with faltering commercial prospects) Fame had been locked in with backing group The Blue Flames but their role began to take a backseat as the decade started to wind down. Though previous number ones "Yeh Yeh" and "Get Away" were flawed, they had a stylish, Continental appeal that fitted in with Sean Connery-era James Bond films and the novels of John le Carré. As for Stateside gangster films? Yeah, not quite so seamless.

I can sort of get what Fame was trying for on "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" but I still can't help but wish that an old legend like Jack Teagarden had been recruited instead. (Yeah fine, the trombonist/singer from Paul Whiteman's orchestra and Louis Armstrong's group had been dead for four years by this point but it's still nice to dream) The panache of "Yeh Yeh" is nowhere to be found. While many British singers sound right at home pretending to be American, Fame sounds painfully out of his element. Songwriters Mitch Murray and Peter Callandar had been so inspired by the film Bonnie and Clyde that they promptly wrote this tribute which, appropriately enough, sounds hastily assembled. The lyrics are not quite accurate while the arrangement leans too far towards old time jazz-pop cliches. And despite being just over three minutes in length, it still wears out its welcome at around the halfway mark.

An odd quirk involving Georgie Fame was that his chart success was largely sink or swim. His trio of RPM chart toppers represents seventy-five percent of his total chart activity in Canada while in his native Britain, he had several Top 40 entries but only three of which managed to place in the top quarter — and they all happened to go to number one. (They were the same three singles that went all the way to the top in Canada) Nevertheless, it's an achievement to have multiple number ones, something he should be proud of to this day. Yet, by the time he was reduced to recording this dismal number it should have been clear that his run was just about done — and not a moment too soon.

Score: 2