The Mighty Lord General Sir Captain Prince Charles

‘How Many Fingers, Darlin’?’ c/w ‘She Like Me Big Bamboo’
Released 22nd January 1959. Caribou Records 100A

Hailing from Tobago, The Mighty Lord General Sir Captain Prince Charles (real name: Herbert de Lorean Basquiat), was the most famous of the many calypso singers who dominated the UK singles charts in the late 1950s. His first two singles ‘She Squeeze She Melons When I Come Home From Work’ and ‘She Grind She Hips Against Me Banana’ only made the top twenty, but it was ‘How Many Fingers’, Darlin’?’ that really put de Lorean Basquiat on the pop map.

At the time, calypso was viewed as a rather jocular, innocent musical form. A 1957 hit ‘She Wear She Dress With Nothin’ Underneath’ by King Duke Arthur and his Mighty Stalin Invaders reached number three in the charts, despite its lyrics: ‘She tell I to keep me rocket in me pocket/I wail and gnash I teeth/ For this is Saturday night, my friend/ So she wear she dress with nothin’ underneath’.

‘How Many Fingers, Darlin’?’, with a raucous backing featuring pounding steel drums and a ragged horn section, was a popular radio hit and soon reached number one in the charts, knocking ‘My Best Slippers’ by Geoffrey Nutt & The Mayfair Girls from the top spot.

Before long, de Lorean Basquiat was invited to perform in front of The Royal Family at Buckingham Palace and reportedly turned in a spectacular performance (backed by the Roaring King Nelson Girl Butterfly Dancers and The Mighty Lord General Sir Captain Prince Charles Mighty Spitfire Macbeth Orchestra and Power Melody Dance Band).

The music apparently inspired Princess Margaret to lewdly act out the lyrics of ‘She Squeeze She Melons…’ before she had to be heavily sedated and committed to a private royal asylum for three years.

Just to give an idea of what the Princess’s performance might have entailed, it’s worth quoting some of the lyrics to this classic song:

I like she saltfish in the morning
I like she saltfish in the night
I like she grind she sweet papaya
On me sugar cane hard an’ tight

I like she lick the sweet banana
I like she lick the old beef jerk
Most of all I like she squeeze she melons
When I come home from work

Still performing regularly, despite being in his late seventies, de Lorean Basquiat recently put the finishing touches to his seventy-third calypso album ‘Tribute to Mr David Niven’, which features a re-working of ‘How Many Fingers, Darlin’?’, featuring a previously omitted verse, which de Lorean Basquiat himself deemed too tasteless to be included in the original waxing. Can’t wait!

Hephzibah Goldblatt

‘Doggy Dentist’ c/w ‘Eventually There Is You’
Released 22nd April 1959. Parlophone R4021

The daughter and protégé of popular bandleader Harry Goldblatt, Hephzibah ‘The Girl with the Cough in Her Voice’ Goldblatt was only fourteen when this, her first single, hit the top ten in May 1959.

Despite her tender years, Hephzibah had a mature, deep singing voice somewhere between the normal male ranges of bass and baritone. She was inclined to cough when attempting higher notes, hence her charming soubriquet.

This cough was partly caused by smoking seventy-a-day Capstan Full Strength. The habit had been encouraged by father Harry in an attempt to compete with the influx of deep-voiced Jamaican calypso singers who monopolised the UK charts in the late nineteen fifties. Singers like The Mighty Lord General Sir Captain Prince Charles with ‘How Many Fingers, Darlin’?’.

At a time when the lyrics of popular songs were taken literally, Hephzibah’s first single caused some controversy when she sang :

‘I want to be a doggy dentist
Holding dog jaws open with my knees
I’ll drill their teeth with a doggy drill
Then find me a man that I can please – yee-hah!

“I was never really sure what that song was about", says ‘Doggy Dentist’ arranger Dennis Vaccari. “I just thought that if I stuck enough pizzicato strings on it, nobody would care. Reading those words today, they don’t really make much sense and rarely rhyme. At the time, veterinary surgeons all over the country were up in arms about the inference that a fourteen year old singer could easily do their job, but I think they missed the point. There’s something deeply disturbing going on here”.

We decided to ask composer Harry Goldblatt about his unusual lyrics but he is dead, so we can’t.

Hephzibah’s only album ‘The Girl with the Cough in Her Voice’ went gold on Christmas Day 1961 and was the first long player to spin at 113 rpm.

Sadly, Hephzibah was not around to enjoy this success; she had died of an overdose of laxatives in early 1960. Strangely, her death was kept secret by father Harry. It was only when he passed away in 1983 that his papers revealed Hephzibah’s death and the lengths he had gone to in order to avoid disappointing her fans.

This included answering the phone pretending to be her, kissing souvenir photographs while wearing her lipstick, wearing her clothes and recording many waxings under her name, doing the singing himself.

Hephzibah was secretly buried in Harry Goldblatt’s back garden by her father. Thanks to a resurgence of interest in this wonderful, jaunty single, fans have marked where she is buried with a statue of a dog having its teeth fixed – a fitting tribute to a much loved teen star.

Fez Van Hugle's Poldermen

Fez Van Hugle’s Poldermen
‘Hugle On my Bugle, Dougal’/’When The Saints Go Huglin’ In’ Released 16th June 1960 Melodisc MRS 4517
Fez Van Hugle (Trumpet, Vocals), Sid Hollister (Banjo), John ‘Skins’ Simperton (drums), Lord Harris Tweed (Trombone), Dudley Butterfield (Bass)

For a brief period Dutch trumpeter Fez Van Hugle was the King of British Dixieland jazz. Alongside fellow exponents of the trad jazz style like Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen and Laurence Llewellyn Bowen’s Trad Dads, Fez (real name Thijs) Van Hugle rose to the top thanks to his skills as a hypnotist.

“It’s quite strange but no-one from that period can remember exactly what the band sounded like live”, says Jazz historian Bill Shepherd. “It seems Thijs used the power of hypnotism to create an illusion in the mind of his audience that he was actually talented, when, in fact, he wasn’t”.

At the time, Shirley Harper was a fresh-faced fifteen year old who snuck in to see Thijs at a famous Greek Street dive, The Priest Hole: “I remember the band coming out onto the tiny stage. I’d never heard a banjo before. It was all wild and new to me. Then this strange, tall red-haired man wearing a yellow turban with a flashing light in it walked out and stared at the audience. He told us in a very strong Dutch accent to ‘Focush on de loit’. After that, my mind’s a blank...”

It seems that, while Fez Van Hugle may have mesmerised his audience into believing they were seeing a great show, the British public were less enamoured of the group’s only single ‘Hugle On My Bugle, Dougal’. It failed to chart, due in part to Hugle’s desperate attempt to mimic a Scottish accent.

When the Trad scene faded away during the rise of Merseybeat, Fez Van Hugle moved into cooler domain – trying his hand at bebop. He formed the Van Hugle Heptet. This puzzles historian Bill Shepherd: “The interesting thing about a heptet is that no-one knows what it is. I imagined it was one up or down from a sextet, but apparently not”.