Category: Beatles

Carry on, Hawtrey

The Beatles’ album Let it Be starts with John Lennon introducing I Dig a Pony with, “I dig a pygmy, by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids…”

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Sep/CharlesHawtrey.mp3|titles=Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids]

I assume “deaf aids” is wordplay on “hearing aids,” but have you ever wondered about the Charles Hawtrey reference? Hawtrey was an English comic actor, and in this video clip, from the movie Carry on, Constable, he’s the cross-dressing cop wearing glasses. At the end of the clip you’ll see Robin Ray, who played the TV studio floor manager in A Hard Day’s Night.

Hawtrey makes the BBC’s Paul O’Grady seem butch! Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams were regulars in the “Carry On” series of low-brow British comedy films. I’d known about the series for a long time, but I had never seen any of the installments until last night, when Turner Classic Movies showed four of them (Carry on, Teacher is particularly good fun). Williams was also gay, as if you couldn’t tell, but he had a more studied style of acting that bore a striking similarity to Jeremy Brett.

Five years

I haven’t written anything for a week, which is a rather sorry lead-in to today, being five years since I started this weblog. Five years was the time between the Beatles coming to America and the Let It Be rooftop concert. This past week I’ve been reading and running and thinking and ripping CD’s in WMA lossless format, to be played on the super-sounding Logitech Touch. This screenshot is from the free Windows application that works with the free Logitech music server software.

Here’s a photo Rolling Stone magazine posted that really knocks me out, man.

There’s George Harrison, in his Beatle suit, September 1963 (possibly early October), at the height of Beatlemania in England, but he was in New York, unknown and anonymous! I wonder if anybody who saw George that day at the Empire State Building recognized him 4-5 months later when the Beatles arrived in New York?

Rutles redux

I’m working on some too-ambitious posts that are getting away from me, so I’m letting them sit in the drafts bin for a while. In the meantime I’m just going to enjoy some books, music, and movies.

I’m listening to Neil Innes’ Rutles follow-up, called Archaeology, and it’s really good. Innes displays an uncanny ability to be insightful and funny at the same time, while turning a catchy tune that turns Rock and Roll musical conventions on their side. He could be called a completely unique talent if not for Ray Davies. Give a listen to Hey Mister!

Innes does an inspired twist on McCartney’s When I’m Sixty Four, called Back in ’64. This is the closing of the second Rutles mockumentary, Can’t Buy Me Lunch.

http://youtu.be/LZiWqI3lZqE?t=2m30s