Mary Hopkin Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)/ Fields Of St. Etienne (Apple, Apple 28, 1970 )
Mary Hopkin Think About Your Children/ Heritage (Apple, Apple 30, 1972 )
Mary Hopkin Let My Name Be Sorrow/ Kew Gardens (Apple, Apple 34, 1971)
Mary Hopkin Water Paper and Clay/ Jefferson (Apple, Apple 39, 1971)
Mary Hopkin Goodbye; Those Were The Days/ Water, Paper and Clay; Knock Knock Who's there (Apple, APEP 3001, 1972)
These Mary Hopkin A sides from the early seventies continued the pattern from my last posting - songs produced by Paul McCartney (Que Sera Sera); Mickie Most (Think About Your Children); and the rest by Tony Visconti (who she'd married in 1971).
The pattern of nice pleasant, non-threatening sounds continued too.
The EP, called Mary, collects four A sides together and is therefore rather special.
Only Water Paper and Clay appeared on a parent album (Earth Song/ Ocean Song in this case) at the time, although these A sides have been compiled since.
Hidden gems: Heritage, Kew Gardens, and Fields Of St Etienne all appeared on an Apple compilation called Those Were The Days but Jefferson appears to have only appeared as a B side. It's rather wonderful too. In fact it (along with Goodbye) would be my favourite songs by her. I love the little ar-har moment (the second video is the studio recording).
Mary Hopkin Those Were The Days/ Turn Turn Turn (Parlophone, NZP 3295, 1968)
Mary Hopkin Those Were The Days/ Turn Turn Turn (Apple, Apple 2, 1968)
Mary Hopkin Goodbye/ Sparrow (Apple, Apple 10, 1969)
Mary Hopkin Temma Harbour/ Lontano Dagli Occhi (Apple, Apple 22, 1970)
Mary Hopkin Knock Knock Who's There/ I'm Going To Fall In Love Again (3 copies - NZ/ Australia/ South Africa Apple, Apple 26 NZ; Apple 9105; AP 26, 1970)
I'm sure by now regular readers will have realised my obsession with Apple Records. I'm a Beatles fan/ obsessive and that means by extension that I'm an Apple Records completist as well.
Most Apple product had a Beatle connection of some sort - whether it had a Beatle producing, writing or playing on the song.
Paul McCartney did all three for Mary Hopkin.
Mary was a Paul McCartney 'discovery' in that Twiggy recommended her to Paul after Mary had won Opportunity Knocks (the Britain's Got Talent of the sixties). He then took it upon himself to produce her (Those Were The Days and Goodbye), give her a hit song (Goodbye), and perform on individual tracks (he plays guitar and keyboards on Goodbye).
Helps that she has a great voice too so songs like Those Were The Days, Goodbye and Temma Harbour have a lovely freshness to them, even now. It's no hardship collecting Mary's Apple product!
Knock Knock is one of those songs that appears to have been foist upon her. Mickie Most is the producer and he's a pop man through and through. The song was an entry in the Eurovision song competition which pretty much guarantees blow back.
It wasn't until the great Toni Visconti arrived in the producer's chair that a sympathetic ear gave Mary the chance to really shine (see my next post).
Hidden gems: The B sides largely provide a folksy side to Mary - with songs by Pete Seeger, and Gallagher/Lyle. I'm Going...Again is a Mickie Most production, though, that doesn't do Mary's remarkable talent justice. Her version of Turn Turn Turn is a little twee. To me her voice at that time was too young to get the gravitas required to properly sell this song. I can imagine Joan Baez singing this with a heavier feel. Sparrow doesn't do much for me and Lontano is sung in Italian and I have no idea what type of genre it is. Again - it doesn't float my boat much but as I said - I'm a completist!
Herman's Hermits Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter/ Wonderful World (Columbia, DNZ 10409, 1965)
Hermit's hermits are the Rodney Dangerfield of the rock'n'roll world - they get no respect!
Blame it on this song, Dandy, and, like Mrs. Brown, another music hall veteran - I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am.
They became forever associated with novelty numbers but I'm here to tell you that you should not ignore the class of There's a Kind of Hush or other songs in their catalogue like No Milk Today.
But I digress. Mrs. Brown is undeniably catchy and instantly returns me to simpler times. I certainly remember this being a staple of NZ radio in the 1960's. I guess they were considered heaven sent by radio programmers - safe and solid entertainment, at polar opposites to those dangerous Rolling Stones etc.
Thing is - I lapped this up in 1965. Those broad English accents! To me, at that stage of my listening experience (I was still buzzed by watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show remember) England may as well have been Mars to us NZers in the mid sixties and so anything coming from there was instantly linked (in my brain at least) to The Beatles and was, therefore, the business!
Hidden gem: The B side is a beat version of the Sam Cooke song - supposedly done by HH as a tribute to Mr Soul himself.
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