The Scaffold

The Scaffold
Origin Liverpool, England
Genres Music hall, comedy rock
Years active 1964–1977
Labels Parlophone
Island
Warner Bros.
Bronze
Associated acts Grimms
Liverpool poets
Wings
Past members Mike McGear
Roger McGough
John Gorman

The Scaffold were a comedy, poetry and music trio from Liverpool, England, consisting of Mike McGear (real name Peter Michael McCartney, the brother of Paul McCartney), Roger McGough and John Gorman.

Career

The Scaffold performed a mixture of comic songs, comedy sketches, and the poetry of McGough, as evidenced on their 1968 live album, and released a number of singles and albums on Parlophone and EMI between 1966 and 1971, with several more on Island, Warner Bros. and Bronze thereafter.

The group also wrote and sang the theme tune to the BBC comedy 'The Liver Birds', which aired from 1969–1978.

The Scaffold achieved Top 10 success in the UK with:[1]

In addition to the hit singles, The Scaffold's output included four albums: The Scaffold on Parlophone in 1968, L. the P. on Parlophone in 1969, Fresh Liver on Island in 1973, and Sold Out on Warner Brothers in 1975. As a rule their early albums contained a higher ratio of live material and were less musically-driven than their singles, often focusing on McGough's poetry and Gorman and McGear's extended comic vignettes. The Scaffold's first greatest hits album, entitled Singles A's & B's, was released on See for Miles Records in 1982. This was followed by a second greatest hits collection, the first on Compact Disc, The Scaffold: The Songs, in 1992. Three additional compilations of the band's Parlophone tracks have since been released (two of which also include the Warner Bros. “Liverpool Lou” track).

Elton John, Jack Bruce and Graham Nash were among the session musicians who performed on The Scaffold's early records, since none of the trio was a musician.[4] Tim Rice, who was at that time an assistant to their producer Norrie Paramor, also contributed backing vocals to some of their material. Additionally, although not officially credited as a permanent member of the group, guitarist Andy Roberts was a frequent musical collaborator, acting as musical director and arranger in a live setting throughout their career and playing on a large number of their releases.

The three members also recorded and toured extensively outside the confines of the original group: In 1968 McGough and McGear recorded an album without Gorman (the prosaically-titled McGough and McGear) that featured rock-driven musical backing from Jimi Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell among others, and in 1971 the trio joined forces with former members of The Bonzo Dog Band and The Liverpool Scene to form the loose coalition of performers known as Grimms (an outfit that would go on to regularly tour the country and release three albums of its own during the early 1970s). McGear also found time to record two solo albums in 1972 and 1974.

In 1970 The Scaffold starred in their own popular weekly BBC children's television series, Score with the Scaffold. The opening and closing theme tune was usually a shortened variation on their earlier single '2 Days Monday'. The group had also recorded enough tracks for a new album, but apart from a few songs that found their way onto singles that year, much of this material remained unreleased until it was included on a 1998 compilation, The Scaffold at Abbey Road 1966-1971.

In early 1971 The Scaffold provided some catchy tunes for inclusion in a television publicity campaign heralding the introduction of decimal currency to the UK. In this series of five-minute programmes, titled Decimal Five and shown on BBC1, they sang such inspired lyrics as "Give more, get change" and "Use your old coppers in sixpenny lots". In order to broaden their musical palate further the trio and Andy Roberts then merged into the expanded line-up of Grimms with performers such as Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall and Zoot Money, alongside McGough's fellow Liverpool poets Adrian Henri and Brian Patten. Innes and Stanshall can also be heard contributing to the group's Do The Albert single.

In 1972, they made a half hour musical movie called Plod based on an earlier stage production. The film was made on location in Liverpool, and included boys from the Liverpool Institute High School, earlier attended by the McCartney brothers and Beatle George Harrison. McGear also recorded his first solo album, 'Woman' with some of the musical performers from Grimms, and Grimms as a whole continued their exhaustive tours of the UK.

By early 1973 The Scaffold had transferred to Island Records and released Fresh Liver, their first full album of new material since 1969, from which no singles were released. This album again featured most of the musical performers from Grimms and as such, like the earlier McGough And McGear album, it relied less heavily than usual on purely spoken-word material. The trio then concentrated on their work as part of Grimms, until the end of the year when McGear left that group after frayed tempers on another demanding UK tour led to an altercation with Brian Patten.

After recording his next solo album McGear and the 1974 success of the one-off Scaffold single "Liverpool Lou" recorded with Paul McCartney and Wings (B-side "Ten Years After on Strawberry Jam", also featured a musical backing composed by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by Wings), McGear reunited The Scaffold to tour and record their final album, Sold Out. Following the template set by Fresh Liver of more music and less speech, Sold Out was released early in 1975 on Warner Bros. Records to disappointingly little fanfare. After McGough and Gorman temporarily decamped to participate in the final Grimms LP Sleepers in 1976 and Gorman released his solo album, Go Man Gorman, The Scaffold moved to the Bronze Records label and continued touring and releasing singles through 1977. After that the group amicably disbanded (although there have been occasional reunions over the years, mostly for live performances).

After releasing a few more singles, McGear retired from the music business in the 1980s. Having proved himself artistically he reverted to using his family name and has since carved out a career as a professional photographer and author. Gorman remained in the public eye through his regular appearances on such children's television programmes as Tiswas throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. He continued to perform and record and later moved into theatrical direction and production. McGough meanwhile released his spoken-word solo album Summer With Monika (based upon his celebrated poetry collection of the same name) in 1978. Since then he has arguably maintained the highest-profile and most sustained post-Scaffold career, still appearing regularly as a vocal performer on British radio and television, and he continues to be a highly-regarded poet and author.

A reunion occurred to record a new track for a special album commemorating Liverpool's 2008 "European Capital of Culture" event, where Michael McCartney and John Gorman represented The Scaffold in the Number One Concert in the 10,500-seater Echo Arena and received a standing ovation from the capacity audience. In 2009, the classic lineup was reunited in Ronnie Scott's London Jazz Club for a BBC TV programme, and in October 2010, they reconvened for a Gala Concert in Shanghai, to celebrate the end of the Liverpool Pavilion as part of the World Expo. They shared the concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, OMD and the Liverpool Chinese Children's Pagoda Orchestra.

In August 2013, McGear and Gorman played to an international audience in the O2 as part of the Liverpool Music Festival. In October 2013 and 2014, the two played at the Heswall Festival.

McGear and Gorman negotiated with promoters in Japan for appearances in Tokyo in 2015.

Discography

Singles

UK Releases

US Releases

Canadian Releases

Albums

UK releases

US releases

Japanese releases

Discography notes

See also

References

  1. ↑ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 483. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  2. ↑ "What and where is the "Aintree Iron" mentioned in the song Lily The Pink by The Scaffold?". Notes & Queries. guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-05-11.
  3. ↑ Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. pp. 247–248. ISBN 0-214-20512-6.
  4. ↑ In his 1981 book "Thank U Very Much – Mike McCartney's Family Album", Mike McGear describes a later meeting with Elton John during which John reminded him he used to sing background vocals for the group when he was still using his real name, Reg Dwight.
  5. ↑ What and where is the "Aintree Iron" mentioned in the song Lily The Pink by The Scaffold? at guardian.co.uk
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