'....Many A Slip... Unusual Shadows' Titles from EMI - I

[Arpeggio]

Many Shadows aficionados know lots about Shads' titles thanks to years of dedicated research and information gathering from many, many fans & experts (Ulrich Sasu, Tony Hoffman, Dave Herbert, Jim Nugent, Malcolm Campbell, Les Woosey, myself & lots of others). There's always 'new', old information to be found. For example - lots of people now know that "T F Y Lovers" was originally called "Big Band", "A Place In The Sun" was "Lavish", "Stars Fell On Stockton" was "Gooney Slade" and so on and so forth..."Return To The Alamo" ("Treasure Island") & so on. Not forgetting the Shads messing about and hapless clerks, secretaries, stenographers etc ready to file "Albatross" as "Albert Ross", "Love DeLuxe" as "Lovely Ducks" and so on.

Just recently, I have been allowed to 'trawl' the archives (or a reproduction of them). Now....you know my sense of the ridiculous. Over the course of 50 years...there were quite a lot of typos (mostly corrected)..some of which (owing to minor slips) escaped onto commercial releases. Most common amongst them include (not surprisingly) "Quartermaster's Stores" (or variants) instead of "Quatermasster's Stores", "Scotch On The Rocks" (someone believing 'Socks' to be a typo), "Bo Didley" instead of "Bo Diddley" etc., etc.

Here is an interesting list of such items scattered over hundreds of pages, covering thousands of entries during the past 50 years or so. How easy it must have been sometimes for secretaries with no knowledge of actual titles copying up or re -typing lists (many perhaps originally hand written) - to make minor errors or 're - interpret'. I hope you find it as much fun as I did.

"Young Lover's Theme", "I Meet A Girl", "Last Train To Clarkeville", "Montezumo's Revenge". Just typos - apart from the first & none of those 'escaped'.
Incidentally - "The Lute Number" was originally "Lute Tune", "Let Me Take You There" was originally "Flowers" and (I love this one)..."Montezuma's Revenge" had the working title "The Good, The Bad And....The Bruce"!!. "Riders In The Sky" (album version) was, apparently a 'duff' version to the single mix!! Someone noted that "Everything Of Value - Rarities 2" - was, apparently - a compilation of "Dross"!!!! More to follow tomorrow.

Rob