For LGBTQ+ folks, and particularly for homosexual males, the summer season of 1967 provided a lot promise. The Sexual Offences Act had simply been handed, which means that homosexuality – a minimum of, gay acts in non-public between two consenting grownup males aged over 21 – was now not a legal offence, and the ambiance was full of a palpable sense of change. Individuals had been protesting for equal rights and an finish to battle. Love was within the air: the Beatles advised a world tv viewers that it was all we wanted, and we believed them.
Because the summer season of affection become autumn and winter, a wierd little report issued by a tiny, London-based impartial label appeared: the innuendo-laden Kay, Why? by the Brothers Butch, its title a riff on the main model of water-based lubricant. Only a few copies had been bought, but it surely has gone on to turn into some of the sought-after and extremely cherished examples of British camp humour.
Backed with I’m Not Going Tenting This Winter and penned by one Eileen Dover – a splendidly foolish pseudonym that will befit a drag queen – Kay, Why? was not the primary queer pop report, but it surely was one of many earliest, and most blatant, to be issued within the UK. Carried out in excessive camp type by two outré queens, the tune laments how the eponymous Kay has “made a large number” after being given “a bit squeeze … why did you slip via my fingers? Ooooh!”
Regardless of turning up on numerous collections through the years, together with the Jon Savage-compiled Queer Noises 1961-1978: From the Closet to the Charts, nobody has been in a position to uncover any of the folks concerned; because it was issued at a time when an admission of homosexuality would badly harm a profession, it’s hardly shocking that they selected to stay nameless – till now.
Kay, Why? was the one launch from Thrust Data of 494 Harrow Street, London. Now a flat above a quick meals takeaway, at the moment it was additionally the deal with of Eyemark Data, a small indie label that had beforehand issued the likes of a Sonny and Cher parody from actors Sheila Hancock and Malcolm Taylor, an album by legendary drag ball organiser Mr Jean Fredericks, and a collection of discipline recordings of practice sounds.
One other of the musicians on the books was Eric Francis, singer, guitarist and occasional fire-eater with a four-piece psychedelic rock group from Fulham, the Barrier (their data have turn into a number of the most sought-after from the British psychedelic period, with a replica of single Georgie Brown in its ultra-rare image sleeve promoting for greater than $1,500 in 2020). The band carried out the instrumental monitor for Kay, Why?, and after ending the session left for a European tour. “There was no charge concerned,” says Francis. “We simply did it as we had been all mates.”
So who wrote the songs and carried out the vocals? This was Jewish musical duo Roy Cowen and Iain Kerr, who carried out as Goldberg and Solomon, a comedy model of Gilbert and Sullivan. Born in Edinburgh, Iain Kerr was introduced up in New Zealand, the place he gave his debut efficiency, billed because the Marvel Boy Pianist, on the age of 4. In 1961 he returned to the UK along with his cabaret companion Daphne Barker, and after turning into successful on the London circuit they launched an album of risque songs, Banned!, in 1962, which was certainly banned by the BBC.
Born in Hampstead to Russian mother and father, Cowen found his knack for writing parodies of hit songs whereas serving within the military. The budding tune satirist impressed Kerr with an on-the-spot spoof of Moon River entitled Chopped Liver, and a direct, and lasting, partnership was fashioned.
The pair wrote materials for Kerr’s nightclub act in addition to for different artists; Cowen wrote lyrics for Charles Aznavour, and to accompany the straightforward listening tune A Stroll within the Black Forest, which had been a No 3 hit for Horst Jankowski in 1965. Maybe probably the most weird fee got here from tractor producer Massey Ferguson, who had them compose a full opera, staged on a seaside in Greece, in entrance of firm delegates from around the globe. In addition to working with Cowen, Kerr continued to carry out in golf equipment and resorts in London, turning into pleasant with visiting US stars together with Bob Hope and Sammy Davis Jr, and was repeatedly featured on the favored BBC radio programme Music Whereas You Work. Now 88, and nonetheless a vigorous, partaking raconteur a decade right into a combat with Parkinson’s, Kerr has by no means spoken about his involvement in Kay, Why? earlier than.
He met Eyemark’s Mark Edwards and Malcolm Taylor at a recording session, who requested if that they had another songs, after which paired them up with the Purple Barrier. “Mark and Malcolm had been anxious to take advantage of their new enterprise within the report business,” says Kerr. He and Cowen, in the meantime, “had been passionate concerning the English language and delighted within the artwork of double entendre. We had enjoyable taking part in with phrases. Roy’s pure wit might take two phrases like Kay Why, construct a tragic little story concerning the break-up of a relationship, and switch it right into a hysterically humorous tune that had audiences in stitches. In all of our parodies and unique songs we gave the viewers the selection of which solution to take it.”
Regardless of the passing of the Sexual Offences Act, life was onerous for LGBT folks, and no mainstream pop act would come out publicly till the Seventies. Arrests for importuning, or “cottaging” in public bathrooms elevated, and plain-clothes cops took to hanging round gay-friendly pubs, procuring arrests via entrapment. However such an clearly homosexual tune as Kay, Why? was not a political assertion. “I don’t suppose we ever had time to contemplate whether or not we had been courageous or subversive, we had been too busy entertaining,” says Kerr. “Our audiences had been in no way solely homosexual; wherever we went, we performed to folks of all backgrounds. Many a time we had nuns out entrance – we might see their wimples quivering in any respect the naughty bits!”
As Goldberg and Solomon, the pair recorded their first album for Eyemark in 1967, the identical yr because the Brothers Butch tracks had been laid down: The Tailors of Poznance, that includes Rag Commerce actor Miriam Karlin and subtitled the Better of Goldberg and Solomon, No Two. “There by no means was a quantity one,” Kerr laughs. In December that yr they sailed to South Africa to carry out their present An Night With Goldberg and Solomon. Kerr remembers: “Midway via the journey had been invited to drinks on the Pig and Whistle, the crew’s bar, and as we went in we had been delighted to seek out that two members of the crew had chosen to honour us by miming because the Brothers Butch. They'd gone to a number of bother to rehearse and be taught the strains. We had been each thrilled.”
Kerr was additionally concerned as co-writer and pianist in one other Eyemark launch, QPR – The Best, by Queens Park Rangers footballer Mark Lazarus: “I did it as a result of I used to be requested!” The flip facet options what might be probably the most peculiar, psychedelic soccer anthem ever recorded, Supporters – Assist Us, credited to the QPR Supporters. Hearsay had it that the Barrier, who backed Kay, Why?, created this. “I've heard it steered many instances,” says the Barrier’s Eric Francis, “however we’re not responsible.”
Francis managed to attain a No 1 hit in Japan with the band Capricorn, however other than the occasional session that will be his final shot at stardom. “By 1971 I had a small child, and I made a decision to get out,” he says. “I had been knowledgeable musician for about 10 years, however I might have been higher off financially stacking cabinets in Morrisons. I did some driving for a automotive rent firm. One in all my prospects was Greg Lake, the bass participant with Emerson, Lake and Palmer, which was a bit embarrassing as a result of he was a mate.”
Then, 5 years after Kay, Why? was launched, an advert appeared within the lately launched fortnightly newspaper Homosexual Information. “Have a Thrust for Christmas” it introduced, earlier than selling the extra seasonal I’m Not Going Tenting This Winter as the primary monitor. By that point the Homosexual Liberation Entrance had been established for 2 years, Britain’s first Delight march had taken place, and pop stars together with David Bowie had helped make androgyny huge enterprise. Maybe the world was lastly prepared for Kay, Why?, however in the long run only a few copies had been bought, and the report once more drifted into obscurity. Over the following years it started to select up notoriety amongst collectors, helped alongside by a digital reissue in 2007, with copies altering palms for tons of of instances greater than the “60p for one copy or £1 for 2” marketed in Homosexual Information. There had as soon as been plans for a second Brothers Butch single, however this didn't materialise. “Roy and I had been terribly busy on the time”, says Kerr.
Certainly they had been. Through the decade following the recording of Kay, Why?, Goldberg and Solomon launched three additional albums and toured the world, taking part in a number of return seasons in Australia and South Africa. The curtain fell on their extremely profitable act when Cowen died of a coronary heart assault, aged 54, in Sydney in June 1978. Kerr continued to work: for 25 years he was the resident pianist on the Could Truthful Resort in London’s West Finish, and in 1997, at a celebratory dinner hosted by Sir Peter Ustinov, he performed in entrance of the Queen.
Kay, Why? has additionally endured, since its look at a time when LGBTQ+ folks in Britain had been starting to seek out their voice. “We had been conscious,” says Kerr, “that we had been sticking our oars out and making just a few ripples.” These ripples would quickly turn into waves: Kay, Why? might not have modified the world, however regardless of its industrial failure, it stays an essential footnote within the historical past of British psychedelia, and within the story of LGBTQ+ pop.
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