Nigel Bruce imitation. References to Frank Sinatra, hemorrhoids, a giant rat and Scotland Yard? In under 2:18 seconds!
AND...it was produced written and performed without GoFUNDMe. Sapristi! AND...the download is just 99 cents! (You can stream it free on YouTube or Spotify, and probably iTunes and other suspects. I don't have the links for those yet.)
This new release on the SPOOKY LORRE label, will eventually be available on 45rpm blue vinyl (also puce vinyl, cerise vinyl and a picture disc). The flip side will have an exciting extra song. There will also be a picture sleeve and liner notes supplied by Roland Butter. There will also be a deluxe box set which will include unreleased Procol Harum tracks from concerts in Italy! I'm also in talks with Yoko Ono for her to produce a disco single version, with an added refrain of "War is Over If You Want It" and "You Get a Discount with Amazon Prime." All this will happen...when hell freezes over. So far, the average winter's day around here has been 35. Your best bet is to just get the download and be glad it doesn't take up a lot of space.
No expense was spared in creating the art work. Actually, no expense was involved. Public domain, you know.
I've always been a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and it's an honor to add to the legacy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work. If I made some money off it, that would be good, too. Unlikely, but good.
Back in the 80's I wrote a piece for HOME VIDEO magazine on the debut of the Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes series on VHS.
It was a pretty decent piece, for a guy still fondly remembering his college days. But yeah, only a wiseguy kid would've referred to "Rathbone the ham, and Bruce the good egg." The same kid who kept the hemorrhoid line in "Sheer Luck Sherlock Holmes."
I did visit Basil Rathbone, but he didn't say much. This was at Ferncliff, where he and his wife are filed in a mausoleum. You have to look up almost to the ceiling to even see their markers. I didn't see the graves of Marion Lorne or Moms Mabley (out in the grounds, not in one of the apartments) and somehow, missed the urn containing Judy Garland's ashes. Some say that death is permanent, but that's not always quite so. You can still go to Ferncliff Cemetery (it's in the suburb of Hartsdale) and find Basil, Marion and Moms, but...in 2017 Judy Garland's urn was packed up and moved to Hollywood Forever Cemetery, apparently on orders from her daughter, Lorna Luft.
I think the only person I ever met who actually appeared in one of the Rathbone/Bruce films was Gale Sondergaard, the notorious "Spider Woman." For some reason, she appeared at a "Sons of the Desert" (Laurel and Hardy) banquet. She gave an entertaining after-dinner speech, which I don't remember. (Likewise, the following year...or was it the previous year...they brought in Margaret Hamilton. I think the idea was to not confine the honored guests to those who worked with Stan & Ollie.)
Basil Rathbone appears in my book "Horror Stars on Radio." He wasn't prone to monster make-up like some of the others in the book, but he appeared in a variety of beloved movies in the genre, including of course, "Son of Frankenstein" and "Tales of Terror." In the latter's "M. Valdemar" segment, he attempted to hypnotize Vincent Price at the moment of death. The result was a memorable moment as Vinnie sort of thawed out and came after Basil while, in Poe's phrase, becoming "a nearly liquid mass of loathsome – of detestable putrescence.” Basil also performed a variety of Poe's poems and stories for Caedmon Records. Their publicist once gave me a little tour of the place...and the sound studio where all of their recordings were made. I saw the glass booth that housed, if briefly, not only Basil Rathbone, but Boris Karloff and Vincent Price. Oh, if those walls could only shriek.
In being a record producer, there are quite a lot of legalities and responsibilities. One of them is to register cover versions of songs and set up arduous accounting sheets to keep track of royalties and the percentage that goes to the song publisher. That's one reason why I only record original material.
Another bit of paperwork involves stating that the work IS original, listing the composer of the music and lyrics, and also designating whether anything might warrant a "parental discretion" warning. I did wonder if it was ok to have used the word "ass," and whether a line should've been eliminated to make it perfectly G-rated. But as they say..."what the fuck." It's JUST a novelty song. One can't blame me, or Dr. John H. Watson. It's all the fault of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
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