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David Graham Withers ! ROD
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And David Graham McCadden too, if I remember rightly. You'll probably remember this yourself, Rod but Dave (Withers) once told me the story behind this. Dave McCadden recor
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Take into account Dave McCadden was a top wind-up merchant, among other things! ;-)
In March 1976 Dave McCadden wrote an article for ‘Hot Buttered Soul’. I replicate the pertinent parts of that article below as it raises some interesting questions.
“I’ve had a letter from a guy called James Scarborough with an explanation of the Cigarette Ashes/Trips/Jimmy Conwell saga. James was a studio session man on ‘Cigarette Ashes’ so I’ll quote him…..
“I was a friend of Len Jewell’s and he introduced as a writer to Harry Graham. I showed him a few songs and I think he only released one, that was ‘Set Me Free’ (Performers — Mirwood 5536 — released 1967) … I’d been there a few years by then. I’d been there about 5 months and Jimmy Conwell made ‘Second Hand Happiness’ (Mirwood 5530). We were stuck for a B side so we used the backing track of one of his earlier songs. We called it ‘Cigarette Ashes’ same as the vocal, but Jimmy didn’t record the vocal under his real name. He called himself David Graham, his son’s Christian names, and the A side of that was ‘Why Don’t You Say I Love You’.
‘Second Hand Happiness’ didn’t do so well so Jimmy’s next release was recorded under the name Richard Temple, a detective hero in a TV series at the time, and was called ‘That Beatin’ Rhythm’ (Mirwood 5532) and once again we used that backing track. We had a hit this time so we dropped the tune, but by 68 we had a few newcomers and we tried them out by using backing tracks to our own songs. One of these newcomers was Roy Willis and we did a few demos on him using ‘Cigarette Ashes’ and the backing track to the Olympics ‘Same Old Thing’ …….. Roy’s record using ‘Cigarette Ashes’ was a monster number called ‘And I Kept Laughing’ and it was in the can when we closed down.
I found out later that Len Jewell had used ‘Cigarette Ashes’ as the backing track for a group disc on his own label …. The group contained Jimmy Conwell, Earl Nelson, Len and two brothers Paul & Harry Colbert (The Tripps — There’s That Mountain — Soundville 101)
Jimmy is now working as a teacher in Florida and Len runs a deli with me, but he still does a bit of production”
Dave goes on to say “I recently got hold of the David Graham vocal cut and it has a spoken intro, but I’d like to get hold of Willis’ version”
So the story doesn’t quite fit to the date of release of the 45s but might from a studio recording perspective. When Dave refers to the David Graham version does he actually mean Jimmy Conwell or is it another version .. and interesting to note James gives another song ‘Why Don’t You Say I Love You’ as the flip, has this David Graham release ever been seen assuming it exists … and have the Roy Willis songs ever surfaced .. maybe a queston Mr Croasdell could answer….
Your views are welcome
Andy