Channel West

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Listen to any popular British recording of the late 1950s and '60s and the chances are you will be listening to the voices of The Mike Sammes Singers. Theirs is probably one of the one of the oddest and most extraordinary stories in show business; that of singers whom everyone heard but relatively few saw, for years enjoying a perversely anonymous fame. In their heyday, Mike Sammes' playful and impressively versatile singers provided the backing for hundreds of international artists; from Pinky and Perky to the Beatles. As well as smooth vocal textures and musical punctuations for both film and television productions and countless advertising jingles. Along the way, they somehow found time to record a quantity of much admired albums of their own, either as the Michael (or Mike) Sammes Singers, or under such pseudonyms as the Knightsbridge Chorale (a monicker they adopted when collaborating with Tony Hatch for Top Rank). In short - for a time - they were everywhere. 'We recorded for Decca, HMV, Columbia, Parlophone, Philips, Fontana, Oriole, Embassy and Top Rank and there was nothing unusual in doing three sessions a day and a jingle at lunchtime,' remembered Sammes. The voices of the Mike Sammes Singers can be heard on everything from Flash Bang Wallop to Delilah and The Green Green Grass of Home. From Val Doonican's Walk Tall to Ronnie Hilton's Windmill in Old Amsterdam. From Lily the Pink to Waltzing Matilda. John Lennon had them performing vocal gymnastics on I Am the Walrus, while for the White Album George Martin deployed their luxuriant sound on Good Night, a tender lullaby John Lennon wrote for his son Julian, with a lead vocal by Ringo Starr. Later, Phil Spector would summon the Singers into Abbey Road as he looked to re-shape the Let It Be album, using them on Paul McCartney's ballad The Long and Winding Road. This two-disc anthology comprises four long out of print albums; The first two historic Mike Sammes Singers long-players, The Melody Moves (1959) and Let's Get Away from It All (1962), complimented by the Singers' exciting collaborations with the skilled arranger, conductor, composer Johnny Gregory, Channel West (TV Western Themes) and The Avengers and Other TV Themes. The collection is rounded out by an array of elusive Sammes singles and EPs, including a swinging Eton Boating Song, recorded for Tony Hatch a Top Rank as The Knightsbridge Chorale.