Peter Cook & Dudley Moore: Magnolia Opus 1

From kings of 1960s swinging London comedy to moulding hucksters... Ad man to Magnolia Mouldings: You've been in the business thirty years. You consider yourself number one in the field of picture framing. So release a record! A number one! Get it? But at least one side has to have some sounds on it! So get someone to be on it and do something! Magnolia Mouldings to Ad man: Hm - you know the son of the cousin of my charwoman's poltergeist's pet vole knows Dudley Moore! Ad man: Perfect! Peter Cook and Dudley Moore extolling the virtues of the Magnolia Group and all their various locations! And they could unironically address our controversial move to Stoke Newington, reading from some prepared copy we'll give them! Magnolia Mouldings man: And there's a bit of the hallway just between reception and the loading docks where there are acoustic ceiling tiles! We can record them there performing to a small group of gathered employees!

And so beget this 1977 record, with an unmodulated groove on the B-side and Cook and Moore extolling Magnolia on the A. The session was carefully engineered to the point where you almost can't hear trucks going by, and there almost isn't 50hz and 150hz hum from the AC, and you almost can't hear a plane go over at one point. So anyway, it's a promotional record. It's a thing. But why. Why why why. Also, Dudley Moore performs his always-brilliant Bogey-meets-Beethoven mashup "And the Same to You".

Magnolia Opus One
And the Same to You

Record audio & art

DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.