— Tim De Lisle
The title of this week's SOTF isn't actually Dear Addy EP. The song "Dear Addy" seems to have received virtually all of the promotion and probably took on the name as a result. Christmas in B'Dilly Bay is the real title here. Nevertheless, I've decided to go with the latter. Not because I feel it necessary to slavishly stick to whatever Smash Hits uses but due to ...B'Dilly Bay being such a dashed concept that I created in my mind. I figured that this collection would amount to Christmas carols in the tropics: tales of locals catching fish and enjoying pineapples and guavas on a beach, wealthy holidaymakers and/or expats living large in a third world paradise, penniless children stringing beads they've found so they have a prezzie for Mama, people who look upon the rich man's whinge of "White Christmas" (particularly the obnoxious "there's never been such a day / In Beverley Hills, L.A." section) and shake their heads. Dear Addy is simply a more accurate reflection of the material herein.
Towards the end of 1981 an independent New York-based record label called ZE got their stable together to compile a seasonal collection. A Christmas Record could not have been more mundanely titled but the concept of having each act write their own festive number was unique and it stands out for that very reason. It wasn't a huge success but it did birth at least one festive classic and it's now regarded as the first alternative Christmas album.
One of ZE's flagship artists was August Darnell, late of disco sophisticates Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band and more recently heading Kid Creole & The Coconuts, an act he appeared to be moving away from. Featured prominently on the cover in charicature form in a beige pin-stripe suit, the customarily stylish "Christmas on Riverside Drive" is credited under his own name. A kind of "Fairytale of New York" for Manhattan's super rich and not toothless and destitute, it takes the Kid and his Coconutty pals out of their Caribbean comfort zone to a snow-covered Gotham of kids skating outdoors and couples dressed up for a night out. Jump ahead a year and he's (reluctantly) back using the Kid Creole moniker, riding a surprising wave of chart success throughout western Europe and trying his hand at having a Christmas hit on the UK singles chart.
Exactly how much effort he was putting into such a task is another matter. "Christmas on Riverside Drive" appears in edited form but it's been relegated to the the EP's flip side, isn't mentioned by Tim De Lisle in his review in ver Hits and feels a bit like it's here for padding and to give the package the Christmassy feel that it otherwise lacks. It sits alongside "No Fish Today" which is indeed a natural single, De Lisle argues, if of lesser quality than fellow Tropical Gangsters hits "I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby", "Stool Pigeon" and "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy". At a time when four singles off an album was still considered scraping the bottom of the barrel (mercifully, we're still a ways away from Michael and Janet Jackson's absurd every song's a single policy), inclusion on an EP was a nicely stealth means of keeping the product coming.
It's over on the A-side that we get the song that's meant to get people in the shops. "Dear Addy" first appeared on ver Coconuts' Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places LP but was since rerecorded with a spoken intro of a messenger delivering a telegram to one Addy Harne. Emotionally sung by Darnell, its mix of laid back reggae and traditional Japanese music make this an easy highlight. The cleverness and hipness of Kid Creole & The Coconuts is dispensed with in favour of a pleading style. This departure may have contributed to the single's relatively cool reception as the group's newfound popularity in Britain was bankrolled by Darnell's irony and dance-pop deconstructionism. As for Addy, it's worth noting that Kid Creole's wife at the time was Swiss transplant Coconut Adriana "Addy" Kaegi; given that the Addy in the song appears to be a platonic female friend who the singer confides in about other women, one hopes he didn't base too much of the song on his own life.
As EP's go, however, I would have to agree with De Lisle that this would have been "bonzer-value" (whatever that is). Three decent, unrelated songs tied together feels tossed off but is a tidy summation of August Darnell's talent and ease with varying vocal styles. It would have been nice to get some original material and that may go some way to explaining why it was a relative failure. Hopes of a fourth top ten hit on the bounce never materialized as Dear Addy struggled to number twenty-nine. Meanwhile, another ZE Christmas Record number — sadly not reviewed in this issue — was coming up just short of the top forty but it would eventually take on a life of its own. "Christmas on Riverside Drive" may not have been covered by the likes of The Spice Girls, Kylie Minogue, The Donnas and Martha Wainwright but that was the fate of the fantastic "Christmas Wrapping" by Waitresses. Too bad Darnell didn't flesh out the Christmas in B'Dilly Bay concept, it might have made its way on to an episode of Glee too.
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Fun Boy Three: "The More I See (The Less I Believe)"
Alas, it didn't help much, just as De Lisle said it wouldn't but then neither did potential Now That's What I Call The Troubles numbers "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by John and Yoko, "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" by Wacky Macca and "Belfast Child" by Simple Minds. De Lisle describes it as "cliche-ridden" but I think that's precisely the point. Messers Golding, Hall and Staple bottle the powerlessness that we all tend to feel about longstanding conflict hot spots into a song about being so utterly fed up with an issue that isn't our "concern". Sure, The Police did it much better with "Invisible Sun" but the Three aren't here to lecture us. What they do manage to do is provide an intense tune and a typically angry vocal from Terry Hall. And, hey, if you still aren't convinced, at least check out the superbly amateurish video with cameos from June Miles-Kingston and David Byrne as a weatherman (not a member of the terrorist group, mind you, though that might have worked well here too).
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