The Scaffold: L the P

The Scaffold were a comedy/poetry/music act that formed in Liverpool in 1964. They had three top ten singles, including the song for which they’re best remembered, “Lily the Pink” (a number one hit in 1968).

John Gorman is a comedian & actor who later got roles in comedy films and was a regular on British TV. Mike McGear was born Peter Michael McCartney, and is younger brother to Paul of the Beatles; his musical direction no doubt was the primary reason the band conquered the British charts, but it also brought forward the McCartney brand of sentimentality that often made Scaffold’s work drift into schlock. Roger McGough is a poet, whose brilliant solo album Summer With Monika you need to seek out, and whose sixty-second rendition of Longfellow’s “Wreck of the Hesperus” is one of the greatest things ever to come out of the British isles.

In 1971 members of the bands Scaffold, Bonzo Dog Band, and Liverpool Scene formed an anarchic why-the-hell-not agglomeration they called GRIMMS, after the initials of the members; their three fine albums GRIMMS, Rockin' Duck, and Sleepers first turned me on to McGough and McGear and led me back to Scaffold. The Mc-pair also recorded an album together, 1968’s McGough & McGear, which enjoyed a fine 2-CD reissue this year on the UK’s Esoteric Recordings label.

Much Scaffold material is available on CD, including their first full-length Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall recorded for Parlophone in 1968. This, their second album, has never been reissued.

1, 2, 3
Oh! To Be A Child
Stop Blowing Those Charity Bubbles
I Can’t Make You Mine
Today
Jelly Covered Cloud
Lily The Pink
Fancy Goods
The Little Plastic Mac
Bucks
10.15 Thursday Morning
Father John
Tim
Birds
Poem: Russian Bear
Poem: Discretion
Poem: My Busseductress
Poem: Naughty Girl
Boxes

Album audio & artwork

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.