Another example of how, once you notice something, suddenly it is everywhere.
Or, in this case, he.
I speak of Frederick Hibbert, of Monkey Man fame. I wrote about him recently, claiming that I had only recently come to hear of him.
Then I noticed a name check for him in a recent Times interview with one of our pensioner rock gods – identified as a great voice, still going strong.
I found lots of his tracks on Last FM, & so finally, he has become for me an instantly recognisable voice.
Then I noticed that he would be appearing as an interviewee on Johnnie Walker’s Sounds of the 70s on Radio 2 last Sunday afternoon. It was an oddly uncertain encounter, sounding as if most had ended on the cutting room floor. Walker struggled to understand his accent & intonation, & I guess most of the audience would too; he was also uncomfortable about Hibbert's implied criticism of Chris Blackwell for not doing much for him, in contrast to all the money & promotion put behind Bob Marley.
I was also surprised to hear that Monkey Man was a world-wide hit in 1970 or ’71; I wasn’t living in England then, but I was travelling to many countries & I never heard it being played on local radio stations - I had spent all these years believing that hardly anybody I knew in England had ever heard the song.
