This request stemmed out of a conversation of artists who have performed under various guises and songwriter’s with versatility to write in so many different styles for different acts. The suggestion I put forward in this fascinating conversation was Bob Merrill, who wrote novelty songs like How Much Is That Doggie In the Window and also People as made famous by Barbra Streisand. Naturally, Jonathan King was mentioned who wrote and had hits in at least six different disguises and someone mentioned Albert Hammond. I then replayed the time I saw Albert live at the Stables in Milton Keynes, a lovely intimate venue where he came on, played most of his repertoire and told the story behind each one. I was in my element. I then reeled off as many Hammond-penned songs like his only UK-hit as an artist – the Free Electric Band and, arguably one of his most famous which somehow failed to register in the UK It Never Rains In Southern California. Songs he wrote for others include One Moment In Time, Don’t Turn Around, When I Need You and The Air That I Breathe as well as the novelty songs I’m A Train and Gimme Dat Ding. One of the party in our conversation said, ‘What the hell is that all about’? I said, I’ll write about it on my website, so here it is.
Albert Hammond is a prolific songwriter born, and still lives in Gibraltar, and has worked with all the big-named songwriters. A lovely man too who explained that Gimme Dat Ding was originally titled Gimme Dat Click and written for a children’s television programme called Little Big Time which ran from 1968 to 1973. Oliver In The Overworld, surely a play on Orpheus in the Underworld, was a musical sequence featured within the third series and starred Freddie and the Dreamers. Freddie Garrity was the star of the show and the whole of the third series featured a totally strange world of crazy machines and within that show, Freddie & The Dreamers sang the original version of Gimme Dat Ding in February 1970 just one month before the Pipkins covered it and had a UK number six hit with it. The precis of the show that featured the song told of a little boy looking for spare parts to repair a grandfather clock. Grandfather clocks had pendulums like a metronome which is how the song was performed. Unfortunately this metronome’s ding had been stolen by a piano named Undercog and basically the whole song is the metronome asking the piano to return its ding. The singer Roger Greenaway had a high tenor voice whilst Tony Burrows sang in a lower gravelly register which was said to represent a metronome and a piano, respectively. And they got a three-minute top 10 hit out of that.
The Pipkins were a duo comprising the songwriter Roger Greenaway, who had a couple of hits in the mid-sixties with another songwriter Roger Cook under the name David and Jonathan. Greenaway was later offered a place in the group Blue Mink but turned it down whilst suggesting Cook for the job instead which he got, and the ubiquitous singer Tony Burrows who was the anonymous session singer who sang lead vocals on hits by the Ivy League, Flowerpot Men. White Plains, Edison Lighthouse, Brotherhood of Man and First Class to name just a few. Neither Greenaway nor Burrows were interested in making live appearances as the Pipkins as both were involved with so many other projects, so for the purposes of live shows and TV appearances, the Pipkins were Davey Sands and Len Marshall.
Burrows explained in Onehitwonderthebook how he came to be involved, “Roger (Greenaway) and I were doing back-up vocals for Freddie & The Dreamers, for an album, a children’s story called Oliver In the Overworld, that Freddie (Garrity) was doing a soundtrack for which he didn’t really know how to approach. Albert Hammond asked Roger and I if we had any ideas and I just came up with these two silly verses. Eventually, the record company decided that this was probably single’s material and released it. It was a hit but Freddie was upset, it was the only song on the album that he didn’t sing himself.”
When it came to Top of the Pops, poor old Tony Burrows had a problem because he was on too many times – on the same episode. “On one particular week, as well as the Pipkins I appeared singing lead on Love Grows (where My Rosemary Goes) by Edison Lighthouse, My Baby Loves Lovin’ by White Plains and United We Stand by Brotherhood of Man,” Tony told Mojo magazine. “The producer said, ‘The word has come from above that you’re not to be used any more, people are beginning to think it’s a con.’ They banned me from Top of the Pops. I was not played by the BBC for two years. I was surprised it was a hit. It was banned in Italy, they thought it was vulgar,” he added.
Hammond continues to write and had hits in the 90s with Be Tender With Me Baby (Tina Turner), Couldn’t Say Goodbye (Tom Jones), When You Tell Me That You Love Me (Diana Ross) later re-recorded with Westlife, and his old songs keep coming around to a new audience, Don’t Turn Around (Ace of Base) and When I Need You (Will Mellor). In the mid-90s he even had his name added as a co-writer of Creep by Radiohead after a court ruled it was similar to The Air That I Breathe.
Hammond’s son, Albert Hammond Jr, followed his father into the business – he is a guitarist and a founding member of The Strokes when they formed in 1998.
When asked more recently what his memories of Gimme Dat Ding is all these years later, he said, “It was a stupid song, wasn’t it? I like it though because it reminds me of very good times living in the country, and being very enthusiastic. We’re all silly inside at times and that’s an okay place to be.”
YouTube to tie in: