Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue

Subject: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 08:58 AM

Reading the Singing The Blues thread led me, by the kind of google-track one follows, to Tommy Steele on Wikipedia, and thence to his bronze statue Eleanor Rigby, a tribute to the Beatles, which stands [or, rather, sits] near the site of the Cavern Club in Liverpool.

It is a good piece of sculpture to be sure ~~ Mr Steele is a man of many talents {including marriage ~~ he and his wife, I learnt also, have been married for over 50 years}. But I couldn't see the statue as the lonely Miss Rigby of John Lennon's imagination, who "stood at the window" (when she wasn't "picking up rice in the church"), presumably looking out from within and hoping for someone to call; rather than, as the statue shows, sitting outside on a bench with a headscarf and bags and thick boots. I like it as a statue, I repeat; but it seems to me rather to illustrate Ralph McTell's Streets Of London than Lennon & McCartney's Eleanor Rigby.

What do others think?


~Michael~

It is easy to google ~~ I just entered "tommy steele's statue eleanor rigby"

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: MikeL2
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 10:24 AM

hi michael

Interesting. I like the idea of your Google Travels.

I have seen the statue en site in Liverpool several times.
I like it as a piece of art.
I have always thought the figure depicted one of " all the lonely people" that Eleanor sees from the window in the song.

But maybe you are right because it surely does not present a picture of the whistful and emotive mood engendered by the song.



Regards

MikeL2

PS I actually saw Tommy Steele more years ago than I care to remember when he sang.....Singing The Blues, I've Got a Handful of Songs to Sing You and Water Water Everywhere among many others. He had a band The Steelemen ??? but the guitar solos did not appear to me to be played by any of the musicians on the stage.

Oh happy days !!!

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 10:41 AM

My fav Tommy Steele song is 'What a Mouth'. I sing along with the chorus and it cheers me up no end. Talking of statues, I adore the Dublin Irish nickname for the statue of Anna Livia, 'The Hoor in the Sewer', or alternatively, 'The Floosie in the Jaccuzzi'.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Van
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 10:52 AM

Would she be more "whistful" if she had a hand of cards ;o)

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: fat B****rd
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 11:14 AM

In Dublin there's the 'Tart with the cart' - Molly Malone - and 'The Quare in the square' Mr. Wilde.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 18 Feb 11 - 11:31 AM

LOL! I know it's not a statue, but I adore the name for the Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool, 'Paddy's Wigwam'.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Chucklefoot
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 10:02 AM

Hi Eliza,regarding "What a mouth",a great song,Harry Champion made it famous,and Tommy Steele picked it up from an act known as " The two Bills from Bermondsey". I found their recording of it on a 78rpm record MANY years ago,and also recorded it myself (ALSO many years ago)
A lot of Harry Champion's songs are available on cd now,and there's some wonderful stuff,LOTS of words to get yer 'ead around though!!

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 10:10 AM

Thank you, Chucklefoot, I never knew about any of this! Having become interested in accents etc in Phonetics at Uni long ago, I recently learned that the Cockney speech from before the fifties is far different from that spoken today. In Tommy's songs, you can hear the pure, original accent. I imagine Harry Champion's songs have the same authentic Cockney sounds? (I realise Bermondsey is south London, but Cockney enough!) Estuary English seems to have taken over now. As I was born in Middlesex, I can more or less understand the patter!

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 11:22 AM

I last saw Tommy Steele just before Christmas, starring in Scrooge at Cardif's New Theatre. He was amazing. For a man approaching his 74th birthday he was bloody amazing!

Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 01:14 PM

Drift is a strong tradition here on Mudcat, and I often drift myself, and all this about Tommy's accent and all is fascinating [especially the comparisons with fine old Harry Champion's all those years ago] ~~

so how's about you all start a nice thread of your own about it?; and meanwhile tell me what you think of Tommy Steele as sculptor, and esp with relation to his statue of [supposedly] Eleanor Rigby ~~~


which I think I dimly recall once upon a time in the distant past having intitiated this thread about...

Luv

~M~

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 19 Feb 11 - 02:01 PM

Very sorry for the serious drift MtheGM, I shall withdraw at once. Eliza

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: wilbyhillbilly
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 03:41 AM

Well that put a stop to that, didn't it.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Van
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 04:24 AM

All pleasant conversations drift. I would tend towards the view that the statue is more of one of aall the lonely people than E Rigby herself in that it is of a person on a bench not someone watching the world from a window.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: stallion
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 04:40 AM

Oh it is one of the things i like about Mudcat threads, they are like conversations over the table in the pub, a bit of drift but then someone says whats that got do with....., bit of a quiz, the bar lawyers and know alls, the occasional spat but all banter. Maybe Mudchat ought to be renamed Max's Bar, and have quiz nights, virtual dom's and heaven forbid a live streaming folk club!

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 04:50 AM

I love to think of all those 'hidden' bits inside Eleanor that Tommy decided to include..

Eleanor's Statue

Paul & Eleanor - alone, together

I like Tommy's statue..and I have to say this thread is the first time I've ever heard about it, so thanks, Michael.   

I love Tommy Steele took and have always felt he's been so underrated for many, many years. He's a great, all-round entertainer.

I remember him saying, a century ago, when I was a teenager, that his key to happiness was to always NOT have the thing he most wanted, despite him being able to afford, at that time, to buy whatever he so desired. This always gave him something to long for, something to hope for...something to dream about...

Made me smile back then, just as it's doing today. I'd love to have seen him playing Scrooge!

Here he is in 1994, with that wonderful grin of his that makes you beam from ear to ear too.

Fascinating Rhythm

And from a little earlier...which I like much better...
'Singin' the Blues'

He's certainly a good sculptor, that's for sure.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 04:51 AM

"I love Tommy Steele took and have always felt ..."

Oops, need to take the took out.. :0)
Lordy, where DID that come from?
Aha...old age, methinks..

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 07:39 AM

When I travelled on the 65 bus, saw a statue of Charlie Chaplin in the driveway of the Mansion where he used to live in Petersham.

Candidates for future statues - Florrie Forde, outside the Bull & Bush in Hampstead. Marie Lloyd, either in Hoxton Market or Crewe Station. Morney Cash, 4th Pillar Trafalgar Square.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 07:50 AM

Are you the Chucklefoot that I saw in the club temt Cambridge about 1976 doing Jobsworth. I thought you were terrific. I saw you mentioned in the paper once, you'd been on a cruise ship and you were entertaining people at the site of some marine disaster or other.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 01:41 PM

Bugger all to do with the thread but what the heck...

When I was l last in Liverpool I noticed a statue of Billy Fury down near Albert Dock. I thought it was pretty good and showed that Liverpool was not only famous for the Beatles - Something difficult for a Mancy to accept:-) At least I know that we have generated more bands if none quite as pivotal.

:-P

DeG

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 05:40 PM

I remember Charlie Chaplin - just outside the Petersham Hole!

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 20 Feb 11 - 08:08 PM

I fondly remember a statue of Charlie Chaplin sitting on half of a bench (you could sit on the other half with him) in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, CA (near Mann's Chinese Theater) in the 1990's. When I looked for it in 2007 it was gone, as well as the historical photos elsewhere in public areas of the hotel. I have a photo of myself with Charlie.

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Chucklefoot
Date: 17 Mar 11 - 12:28 PM

To Alan Whittle,yes I'm the Chucklefoot you saw at Cambridge festival back in the 70's,thanks for the compliment,TA! The marine disaster you refer to was a cruise ship,the "Achille Lauro",I was one of the performers on board,the ship caught fire in the Indian Ocean on the way to the Seychelles,and we had to abandon ship approx 50 miles off Somalia.
After being in a liferaft for about 6 hours,we were rescued by a tanker,and taken to Mombasa,the T.V. footage shows the ship coming into Mombasa with me leading the bedraggled passengers in a heartfelt version of "Show me the way to go home!!!"

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: GUEST,Owen Bray
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 01:51 PM

The same Chucklefoot I met in the 3 Tuns folk club in Reading in the early / mid 70's and ended up playing harmonica with one night at the folk night they had at Seahawk II - Culdrose some years later... Egad!

Subject: RE: Tommy Steele's E Rigby statue
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 04:29 PM

Drifter Michael is going to love this....

The Achille Lauro must have done something bad in an earlier life. It was launched way back before WW2 under a different name and was relaunched as the Achille Lauro in the 1960s after a major refit necessitated by an onboard explosion. Then in 1985 it was hijacked by a gang demanding the release of some Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Finally in 1994, as Chucklefoot recounted, it sank in the Indian Ocean after an engine-room fire.

As this is a music-orientated forum I should add that during the 1985 hijacking a passenger was killed and this gave rise to an opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, staged in February this year at English National Opera, having been mothballed for 10 years in the face of protests against its suggesting that the hijackers had legitimate grievances.