bob williamson songs

Subject: RE: bob williamson songs
From: Mick O'Farrell
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 03:17 PM

Hi

Thanks to everybody who posted info about Bob, much appreciated.

Mick

Subject: RE: bob williamson songs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:08 PM

The kids programmes was on one I've got somewhere - it was the one on Joe Stead's Folk and Country label with Brownsville Banned and Bernard Wrigley on the front with Bob. Bob was on the back with a vent puppet and next to the opportunity knocks auditions.

Subject: RE: bob williamson songs
From: PennyBlack
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 12:56 PM

Bob Williamson - posted September 2002

COMEDIAN Bob Williamson has been enjoying an unexpected moment in the spotlight thanks to Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights TV show.

The lanky Bolton entertainer (he's 6ft 4in and nine-and-a-half stone) has been featured twice in the latest series as a hapless "turn" who fails to impress wheelchair-bound Brian Potter (Peter Kay) and club colleagues.

But, although Bob is grateful for the exposure, he has no plans to revive a career which brought him widespread recognition in the 1970s and 80s.

"I am the only stand-up comic who can't," he said.

Bob was part of the 1970s folk/comedy boom which included Jasper Carrott, Mike Harding, Billy Connolly and Bernard Wrigley.

The former postman made records, appeared on television and radio, made lots of showbusiness friends and developed a stage act which he performed in clubs and concert halls throughout the country and abroad.

But in the early 1990s he suffered a nervous breakdown, brought on by stage fright, and eight years ago he slipped on the stairs at his Tonge Fold home, causing serious damage to his back. These days he needs constant pain killers and lives on invalidity benefit. He accepts his current situation with brave humour. On the variety of medicines he now has to take, he quipped: "When they bury me they will need a child-proof lid on the coffin."

Bob, who is now 54, is seen in separate editions of Phoenix Nights with a singing plastic polar bear and a toy monkey which sings "Hey Macarena" while he points and sways nearby.

It turns out that the monkey used to belong to Bob's mother, Dorothy, and it now lives with Bob along with various other items.

Peter Kay rang him up one day because he knew Bob collected "silly things".

When Bob told him about the singing monkey, he was asked to take it along to filming one Sunday morning at St Gregory's social club in Farnworth.

He did not really expect to be filmed, but suddenly found himself doing the 30-second sequences without a rehearsal.

As the cameraman urged him to keep going lower, he felt the pain in his back. He says he was like "an ironing board" for three days afterwards.

"I ended up like Richard the Third. It was doing my back no good at all," he said, not long after confusing a young waitress by asking for "corporation pop".

Bob appreciated the reminder of past glory days with "a great bunch of lads" and, like most people, is greatly impressed by Peter Kay's talent.

But he knows he could not cope physically with all the standing around he would have to do if his career was to be revived.

So he enjoys being recognised again, but that's as far as it goes.

"This is the last time the monkey and I will be seen in public," he joked as he posed for a photograph.

Subject: RE: bob williamson songs
From: PennyBlack
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 12:51 PM

BREWER'S DROOP.
(Bernard Wrigley.)


Now here is a song, that's directed,
At all of you fellers that drink.
You might think it's all right to get drunk every night
But this story will make you all think.
        
'Cause I've lifted so many beer glasses,
That my back is beginning to stoop.
But what's ten times worse I've fell prey to the curse,
The disease known as 'Dread Brewer's Droop'.

It's the droop, the droop, the dread brewer's droop,
That's the cause of such dissatisfaction,
It turns young men old, makes their sex lives grow cold,
'Cause they can't put their thoughts into action.

I've supped beer 'till it's come out me earholes,
And now my one awful regret is,
That once it stood hard, like a Grenadier Guard,
But now it's just like a wet lettuce.
        
Well I've done many things to arouse it,
To get it to lift up it's head.
But it hangs like an old strangled ferret,
That some bugger nailed to a shed.
        
Well I've sprayed it with starch and with lacquer,
I've cursed, even sworn and blasphemed.
Last week, in a tantrum, I sung T'National Anthem,
But it wouldn't stand up for 'The Queen.'
        
In desperation I tried levitation,
To see if the bugger would rise.
'Though I set it on fire, it won't go no higher,
It just brings the tears to my eyes.
        
Last night, when I took off my trousers,
And as I slid into my bed.
I could see the wife wearing black armbands,
As a sign of respect for the dead.

So you've heard my sad tail, now it's over,
How my love life's been blighted by booze.
'Cause once it was proud it reached up to my cap,
But now it just points at my shoes.

Subject: RE: bob williamson songs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:45 AM

why not contact Bob himself - Bernard Wrigley will have his number and will know how accessible he wants to be.

Subject: bob williamson songs
From: Mick O'Farrell
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:21 AM

I'm trying to find Bob Williamson's version of 'The Brewer's Droop', 'Side by Side (Parody)' and a song which iI think is called 'The Kid's Programmes'
I don't think he made many records, but does anybody know which ones there on.

Cheers, Mick