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The Ultimate Melly
George Melly

Candid (CCD79843)
(Release date: January 23, 2006)

  1. Midnight Cannonball *
  2. Kitchen Man
  3. Everybody Loves My Baby
  4. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
  5. Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
  6. Mr Gallagher And Mr Shean
  7. God Bless The Child
  8. Georgia On My Mind
  9. T'Ain't No Sin
  10. Back Water Blues *
  11. Goody Goody
  12. Gone Fishin'
  13. The Big Butter And Egg Man
  14. Winin' Boy Blues
  15. Straighten Up And Fly Right
  16. Roll 'Em Pete
  17. As Times Goes By
  18. The Trudge

* - Duet with Van Morrison

From a January 26, 2006 interview with George Melly in The Times:
It’s 11am and George Melly, clad in kaftan and eye patch, is eating breakfast — a banana, a chocolate digestive and a nip of Famous Grouse. His charming but heavily moulting cat Ollie purrs on his lap. I’m at his West London home to discuss the veteran singer’s new album — The Ultimate Melly — a surprisingly joyous affair achieved despite the onset of deafness, vertigo, bad knees, impotence and numerous other maladies described in detail in last year’s bout of autobiography, Slowing Down.

He gestures me to a chair shaped like a hand and offers the bottle. But, alas, we’re off to a bad start. I compliment him on the rollicking duet with Van Morrison that opens the album, "Midnight Cannonball", and the reclusive Irishman’s contribution to "Backwater Blues", a 1927 anthem to a New Orleans flood disaster once sung by Melly’s great hero Bessie Smith.

The singer looks slightly pained. “Yes, but Van Morrison’s secretary or minder or whoever rang up to say that he would like it to be known that he is not to be used as a selling point, and that if we do, he will withdraw his consent and create chaos.”

But isn’t the album out already? Melly chews his banana thoughtfully. “Yes, but he could put an injunction on it. Stop more copies.” So, note to Mr Morrison’s lawyers: I had to drag it out of him.

It turns out that Morrison and Melly met at the Brecon Jazz Festival some years ago. “I was in the audience and he asked me up on stage. Diana ’s wife of 44 years is a rabid fan and she nearly ended up under the seat with embarrassment. But she gradually came out because it went well and the audience liked it.”

Part of the van-the-man.info unofficial website