Little
Darlin'
Adge Cutler & The Wurzels
CBS
8067
Release
Date: 12th May 1972
Side
1
- Little Darlin' (Maurice Williams)
Side
2
- Mother Nature Calling (Tony Baylis, Reg Quantrill)
Band
line-up: Adge
Cutler (vocals),
Reg Quantrill (banjo and guitar), Tommy Banner
(accordion and piano) and Tony Baylis
(tuba and bass).
Produced
for Santa Ponsa Productions by Roger Easterby
and Des Champ.
In
1972, Adge Cutler was approached by the Roger Easterby,
the recording manager of pop bands Vanity Fair and Chicory
Tip. Roger and record producer Des Champ had weaved
some magic with the Giorgio Moroder-penned song Son
Of My Father which had given Chicory Tip a #1 UK
hit single, and charted across Europe, and Roger convinced
Adge that he could do the same with Little Darlin'.
Somehow
a deal was struck with EMI which allowed Adge Cutler
& The Wurzels to release the single was through
rivals CBS Records. The single was the first Adge Cutler
& The Wurzels release to be simultaeously released
across Europe with releases in the UK, Germany, Holland
and France (the German and Dutch releases are shown
below). But as it was, EMI didn't have a lot to worry
about, because the single sank without a trace in all
territories.
All
in all, this is a bit of an oddity. Little Darlin'
is a very un-Wurzelish song. Apart from a Benny Hill-style
spoken bit in the middle, it doesn't sound like Adge
Cutler and The Wurzels at all. The song was originally
a hit in 1957 for the American group The Diamonds, and
this is a fairly straight apart cover of the original
- from the aforementioned spoken bit by Adge. The song
was written by Maurice Williams who originally recorded
it in USA with his group The Gladiolas - he later went
on to have a big hit Stay with The Zodiacs
in 1960.
Although
never released on an Adge Cutler and The Wurzels
album, Little Darlin' did make rather a surprising
appearance on The Wurzels' 1983 Freshly
Cut compilation album. The b-side
- the more classic Wurzelly Scrumpy & Western song
Mother Nature Calling - has never been released
on any album or compilation.
As
the picture sleeve top right shows, CBS's marketing
of the single went somewhat awry. The picture shows
no sign of Adge, Reg, Tommy or Tony - indeed it is a
five-piece that looks like a totally different band!
Little
Darlin' was re-issued
in 1974 after Adge's death on the Santa
Ponsa label, and manufactured and distributed
by Pye Records.
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