Hitler

'I Would Enter Your Mind' c/w 'I Am Aghast' c/w 'Child Slaves'

Released 22^nd March 1968.

Marmalade Records Marmalade 598902

Danny Calvert (vocals, spinet), ‘Sticks’ Foster (lead guitar, singing bowl), Kevin LeRoy (autoharp, gong, vocals), Sheila Lyndhurst (castanets, dancing, lead kazoo), Spanzy Bluteau (backing vocals, bagpipes, gong)

"I know what you’re going to ask!" laughs Kevin LeRoy, now a sixty-six year old lollipop man. "Why on earth would anyone in their right mind call their band Hitler!"

One of the later signings to Giorgio Gomelsky’s Marmalade label (other artists included The Feeling Hands and Tiffany Spellman’s Nice), Hitler were a rather folk-influenced, jazz psychedelic combo, whose dancer, Sheila Lyndhurst, gained some notoriety for her rhythmic kazoo playing and on-stage intercourse with Spanzy Bluteau.

‘I Would Enter Your Mind’, a swimmy, gong-heavy, nasal affair, was typical of the Hitler’s output and the single was unusual for having two b-sides (although ‘Child Slaves’, a castanet and gong piece, was only thirteen seconds long).

The record label felt they had a hit on their hands and it was only when radio stations started to feel uncomfortable with the band’s name that Hitler’s problems began.

"We saw it as a pure name" says LeRoy. "Also, the swastika, which we used on our uniforms and drum kit, is a symbol that goes back to Neolithic times and isn’t necessarily connected to the Nazi party, which none of us were members of. At least not in those days. We saw it as a white hot emblem of ferocious, burning purity that was unconnected to anything in the real world. Black is white and white is black. Also, no-one else had used it – it’s not as easy as you think trying to think up a group name!"

At the time of the single’s release, vocalist Danny Calvert explained Hitler’s choice of name to Trudy Bean-Cameltoe of Girl Trend magazine: "People have to look at Hitler’s other qualities – he was a vegetarian, he had a girlfriend, he had a dog and he made the trains run on time. Now I have all of those qualities and no-one calls me an insane dictator!"

Unfortunately, a national newspaper picked up on this article and ran it as a front page story with the headline ‘I LOVE HITLER, CLAIMS INSANE DICTATOR OF POP’.

It was unfortunate that the band’s first album was released the following week and had a large flaming swastika on the cover and the word ‘HITLER’ emblazoned across the centre in letters made from skulls.

Record shops refused to stock the band’s product, their contract was cancelled and several attempts were made on Calvert’s life. LeRoy, although only twenty-two, immediately became a lollipop man, a job he has held ever since. "Today when kids ask me what I did when I was young, I just shout out ‘Hitler!’ And they think I’m mad. It’s great!"

Mary Tippett

"Not In A Million Years" c/w "Beggin'"

HMV HMVPOPS 65788

"I was working as a secretary for Harold Silverman of Silvershine Music in Old Portland Street", says Mary. "He was a lovely man...always sweet to me, buying me trinkets and flowers. I was very surprised when he arranged a recording session with Meryck Kirkman. Harold was always doing things like that, coming up with little surprises".

It was 1962 and Mary Tippett was about to embark on an astronomically successful career in music. "I was just lucky, I suppose", sighs Tippett.

At that time Meryck Kirkman was the number one pop producer in London. A mentor/fashion advisor to several homeless boys from Spitalfields, Kirkman lived above a greengrocer's shop in Shoreditch. His mother was a kleptomaniac and Meryck's recording studio, which was also the kitchen, was filled with stolen shopping baskets. Meryck himself was obsessive compulsive.

Meryck's condition exhibited itself in strange ways. "He couldn't produce a record unless he had flushed the toilet, which was also the vocal booth, seventy three times exactly. After every take he had to run up and down his stairs shouting the names of Bristol City footballers".

Mary's recording sessions were carefully monitored by Silverman. "He would stand with me in the vocal booth, which was also the toilet, and you can hear the faint whisper of his asthmatic breath on 'Not In A Million Years'".

Mary not only sang well but she also proved to be very adept at writing lyrics. "I just started making up lines for Meryck's melodies. Silly little things. They just came out of nowhere, really.

Her songs, like "I Can Read You Like A Book" and "Wrapped Around My Finger", have proved to be some of the catchiest of the era and Mary looks back on her career with pride.

"I was extremely lucky. Harold was a successful businessman. Very wealthy. And he took a shine to me, I suppose. I guess I was just in the right place at the right time". Mary was certainly in the right place to take over Silverman's business in 1971.

In June of that year, Silverman received the very first stereo HiFi system in the UK. The system, constructed in Japan, subsequently exploded in Silverman's office, killing A&R guru Barry Mansfield-Park, Silverman and two female assistants, all of whom had their clothes blown away in the blast. "It broke my heart to hear the news", says Tippett with a sigh. "When I bought the equipment for Harold, I had no idea anything like that might happen".