'Everybody Knows Millican & Nesbitt'? Do
they? The back cover note goes even further - 'Of course everybody
knows Millican and Nesbitt, or at least they should do by now'. Well I'm
sorry but I don't. I've never heard of them. I know that's no barometer of
anything really, but equally that's a bold statement to be making too, and even
if it did make some kind of sense back in 1974, it rings with an Ozymandian
level of hubris now.
A quick bit of online research reveals that
Alan Millican and Tom Nesbitt were two miners from the North of England
who won Opportunity Knocks in 1973 and, very aptly, had two minor UK chart hits
thereafter. Which, I suppose, kind of makes them the X Factor winners of their
day. How modern audiences would take to two middle aged blokes crooning out easy
listening standards I can only guess. I suppose Robson and Jerome provide a
comparison of sorts, but their fame was initially as actors in a popular TV show
and the singing came later, trading (as it did) on sentimental nostalgia and
their appeal to female record buyers (ahem); not wishing to be unkind, but
neither Robson nor Jerome looked or dressed like a cross between a nightclub
bouncer and a hit man for the Kray twins.
That's who they are (or were) anyway,
how do they sound? Well 'Everybody Knows Millican & Nesbitt' is made up of
a curious mix of some well known standards ('My Way', 'Ramblin' Rose', 'I'll Be
With You In Apple Blossom Time') and some far lesser, far more obscure songs
(just about all of the rest of them really) with one original written by the
pair ('A Kind Of Heartache'). Truth be told though, it doesn't matter all that
much what tune they're tackling - 'Everybody Knows Millican & Nesbitt'
plods on song after song in the same key, same almost 3/4
waltz time signature with same overcooked, country-ish arrangements that the
pair creak and groan over the top of in the same bass-ish/tenor-ish harmonies;
Christ this is stodgy stuff, the suet pudding of easy listening served up cold
sixteen times in a row. I can almost feel my arteries hardening as I listen.
There's not a lot of variation in any of this;
neither Millican or Nesbitt ever break cover from what's obviously a comfort
zone style. It may have won them the prize, but over two sides and sixteen songs
there's precious little light or shade and no sense of any individuality in
their interpretations, not helped by the sheer anonymity of their singing
voices. Fair enough, they can carry a tune without dropping it, but it's all
very supper club, all very chicken in the basket and all very, very 1970's.
Millican and Nesbitt would probably have been the 'go to' act for a promoter
wanting to add a touch of class to an evening of strippers, racist stand up
comics and covers bands down the workingman's club on the weekend, and if that
makes me sound like a bit of a snob then fine, I'm happy to own it. It's no less
true because of it though and I'm also happy to say I found 'Everybody Knows
Millican & Nesbitt' pretty murderous to sit through and, having done so,
never intend going anywhere near it again.
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