Mr Lee Grant: Tabatha Twitchit (1968)

 |   |  1 min read

Mr Lee Grant: Tabatha Twitchit (1968)

New Zealand's Mr Lee Grant enjoyed a short but high profile career in the late Sixties on the back of his big voice (and distinctive hairstyle which was very Mary Quant).

But Grant's voice wasn't big and rounded like his peers Tom Jones, PJ Proby, Englebert Humperdink etc, and nor did he have an emotional range like Scott Walker or Roy Orbison.

Because he came up through the television show C'Mon in '67 he was enormously popular with middle New Zealand (Stones-styled underground bands were understandably dismissive) and he delivered pretty decent covers of international hits. His huge hit Thanks To You coincided neatly with him winning the Entertainer of the Year award in late '67.

Within a year of him emerging at the start of that spectacular year for him -- he had been a teacher before television loved him -- he was heading off to London to record his second album.

lee_grantHis debut -- in a classy Op Art cover -- showed he was never really cut out to be a pop-rock singer, more an all-round family entertainer.

It included the traditonal Jewish song Hava Nagilah (he had been born Bogdan Kominowski in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland in '45, he emigrated to New Zealand with his mother in '49), a couple of Bee Gees songs and the popular song Opportunity (which had been his first hit).

His album recorded in London -- from which Tabatha Twitchit is lifted -- confirmed the lack of clear direction: he covered Maria from West Side Story (very well, but Proby had been there three years before), Stop in the Name of Love, the hoary-sounding Why or Where or When, the big Dusty Springfield ballad You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, Dion's rock'n'roll classic The Wanderer (belted out, terrific) . . .

And this very oddly enunciated version of the Dave Clark Five's modest hit Tabatha Twitchit.

Given he takes Maria, The Wanderer and other songs seriously you do have to wonder why he would open an album with something which sounds like a comedy turn.

Perhaps he'd been listening to David Bowie, then going through his Anthony Newley/Laughing Gnome/Love You Till Tuesday/musical hall phase?

It's on odd one. 

For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory use the RSS feed for daily updates, and check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

Ginsberg/McCartney/Kaye/Glass/Mansfield/Ribot: Ballad of the Skeletons (1996)

Ginsberg/McCartney/Kaye/Glass/Mansfield/Ribot: Ballad of the Skeletons (1996)

Here's an unlikely supergroup: poet Allen Ginsberg with Paul McCartney and Lenny Kaye (of the Patti Smith Group and Nuggets fame) and others. Now they may not have all been in... > Read more

The Beach Boys: Wouldn't It Be Nice (vocals only, 1966)

The Beach Boys: Wouldn't It Be Nice (vocals only, 1966)

In our recent interview with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of their classic Pet Sounds album, we noted that while accepting he was the genius in the band he... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO, A TRIBUTE ALBUM (2021): Another look in the art-rock mirror

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO, A TRIBUTE ALBUM (2021): Another look in the art-rock mirror

Has there even been an album whose cultural influence far outstripped it's commercial impact more than the debut by New York's Velvet Underground? Their 1967 The Velvet Underground & Nico... > Read more

THE BARGAIN BUY: Lana Del Rey; Born to Die, Paradise Edition

THE BARGAIN BUY: Lana Del Rey; Born to Die, Paradise Edition

 For reasons which Elsewhere could never quite understand but tried to explain here, the incredibly talented Del Rey drew derision from many quarters. That's what happens when... > Read more