Hot Chocolate (band)

In February 2005 they began a new UK tour. Some other well-known tracks included:. In 2003, Brown received the MBE and in 2004, the Ivor Novello Award for his outstanding contribution to British music. Billy Barty even appeared in a video by "Weird Al" Yankovic. Brown did not have so much solo success but did have another big record: "It Started With A Kiss". There is a clear line of influence from the Marx Brothers to Spike Jones and to Stan Freberg, The Goons, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and to "Weird Al" Yankovic. They had hits like "You Sexy Thing" and "Everyone's A Winner". His real name was not Harry Joseph Chick Daugherty.

It was in the disco era of the mid-1970s onwards that Hot Chocolate became such a big success that they are identified with funky disco. He was not born on 14th May 1916, nor did he die on March 29th 1966. "Emmaline", a successful single, introduced their later distinctive sound. Many compilations from the seventies and eighties contained spurious dates of birth and death for Spike in the liner notes. Unfortunately they have been widely reproduced on the web and in books. But they did not have a very high profile as an act. Two members of Spike Jones's band appear in the film - Billy Barty (1924 - 2000) and Paul "Mousie" Garner (1909 - 2004), playing themselves. Then, with the help of Mickie Most, began releasing hits such as "Love Is Life" in 1970. It contains the last appearance of George Burns.

The group began with a reggae record, a version of "Give Peace A Chance". "Radioland Murders" was poorly reviewed and compared unfavorable with Woody Allen's "Radio Days". Hot Chocolate was a British band of the 1960s and 1970s formed by Errol Brown (a Briton born in Jamaica). Set in 1939, it contains fictionalized versions of Spike Jones and Frank Sinatra. In 1994 Mel Smith directed a film based on a script by George Lucas. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Spike Jones died in Beverly Hills on 1st May 1965. Also in 1956, Jones released his first LP, Dinner Music For People Who Aren't Very Hungry. By 1959 his act seemed old-fashioned and work dried up. "The Perry Como Show" had him as a guest in 1956, and Jack Benny in the same year. Once his fame grew he repaid his debt to Spike by inviting him onto his show in 1958.

He was glad to have work as a comedy actor. The war years were lean times for Frank Sinatra. Songs from the soundies were released on a compilation called Not Your Standard Spike Jones Collection. In 1990 BBC2 screened six compilation shows from these broadcasts.

The band got their own variety shows on NBC then CBS from 1954 to 1961. One of their instruments was a "latrinophone", a toilet seat with strings. In them we see Jones dressed in a suit with an enormous check pattern, leaping around playing cowbells, a suite of klaxons, foghorns, then xylophone then shooting a pistol into the air. These so-called soundies were put onto juke boxes.

A series of short musical films were made by the band. Dora Bryan had a hit in 1963 with a variation called "All I want For Christmas is a Beatle". It was a number one hit. In 1948 Spike recorded "(All I want for Christmas is) my two Front Teeth".

It used drinking glasses as musical instruments. Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, provided the hiccups on "Clink Clink Another Drink". A collection of 12 of these homicides was released in 1971 as "Spike Jones is Murdering The Classics". In live shows Spike would acknowledge the applause with complete solemnity, saying "Thank you music lovers".

It was played at a jaunty pace on inappropriate instruments. Rossini's "William Tell Overture" was rendered on kitchen implements. One of his earliest recordings was an adaption of Liszt's "Liebestraum". He appeared in a dozen films in the late forties and fifties, always playing himself. The band grew from 7 to 16 players.

Through the late 40s and early 50's the band toured the USA and Canada under the name "The Musical Depreciation Revue". Sinatra appeared in October 1948, Lassie in May 1949. Spike's parody of Vaughn Monroe's "Ghost Riders In the Sky" was quickly withdrawn and is a prized rarity. In more than 60 shows his guests included Groucho Marx, Hank Williams, Frankie Laine and Burl Ives.

In 1945 he got his own show. His signature tune, Cocktails for Two, was recorded in about 1943. Spike had seven top ten hits from 1942 to 1949, even though no new recordings were made for a year during a strike by the American Federation of Musicians. It is said that even Hitler heard it.

It reached number 2. It contained the song "Der Fuehrer's Face" which was released as a single. In 1942 Walt Disney made a propaganda cartoon called "Donald Duck in Nutzi Land". They recorded five records for Victor's label "Bluebird" before receiving their big break.

They became his backing band The City Slickers.Jones's wife was the singer Helen Grayco, who performed on some of his radio shows. By 1941 the band included violinist Carl Grayson. Other band members were George Rock (voice and trumpet), Doodles Weaver (voice) and Red Ingle (voice). He joined up with vocalist Del Porter and performed in Los Angeles, gaining a cult following. In 1940, he had an uncredited part in the film Give Us Wings, and in 1942 as a hillbilly in Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy.

In the 1930's he joined the Victor Young Band and thereby got many offers to appear to radio shows including the Al Jolson Lifebuoy Show, Burns and Allen (with George Burns) and Bing Crosby's Kraft Music Hall. He frequently played in theater pit orchestras. A chef in a railroad restaurant taught him how to use adapted pots and pans, forks, knives and spoons as musical instruments. As a teenager he played in bands that he formed himself.

At the age of eleven he got his first set of drums. His father was a Southern Pacific railroad agent. He got his nickname by being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. He was born in Long Beach, California. Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 - May 1, 1965) was a popular musician and comedian.

. "You Always Hurt the One You Love". "The Sheik of Araby". "The Blue Danube".

"That Old Black Magic". "I Went to your Wedding". "Cocktails for Two".