Clinton Ford; Popular singer of the 1950s and 60s whose repertoire ranged from music hall to country and western
Hyfler/Rosner
Popular singer of the 1950s and 60s whose repertoire ranged
from music hall to country and western
Dave Laing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/22/clinton-ford-obituary
Clinton Ford at the time of a guest appearance in the
television show All That Jazz, 1962 Photograph: ITV / Rex
Features
Clinton Ford, who has died aged 77, was a versatile singer
of music hall, vaudeville, country and western, traditional
jazz and pop songs. His warm baritone was a mainstay of BBC
radio and television light entertainment shows in the 1960s,
on which he often reprised his signature song, the George
Formby comedy number Fanlight Fanny.
Ford was born Ian Harrison into a working-class musical
family that had moved from Liverpool to Salford at the turn
of the 20th century. His mother had been a pianist for
silent films and his father's family was filled with singers
and musicians. He later said that it was from his father
that he learned some of the music-hall songs that became a
staple of his repertoire in the 1960s.
Called up for national service in 1951, he was posted to
Vienna, where he organised shows in which he accompanied
himself on guitar. It was here that he first heard the
country and western music that was to become his favourite
genre. Ford was also introduced to the Blue Danube Network,
the radio station for American forces in Austria, which
broadcast programmes of country music and jazz.
After leaving the forces, he returned to Lancashire and
entered show business as a redcoat at Butlins in Pwllheli,
north Wales, a job which gave him scope to sing country
songs and current pop hits to the campers. At this time, he
was featured as a singer in a Butlins television commercial.
During the off-season, he changed his stage name to Clinton
Ford and led the Backwoods Skiffle Group, which toured
briefly as part of a variety show.
In 1958 Ford visited the newly opened Cavern club in
Liverpool, which featured the trad jazz music of the
Merseysippi Jazz Band. Ford soon became a regular vocalist
with the group, developing a repertoire of jazz-age numbers
and British music-hall songs that would eventually rival
that of the Liverpudlian performer and raconteur George
Melly.
Soon afterwards, Ford made his first records for Oriole, a
small London-based company. Oriole had tasted success with
another Redcoat from the north-west, Russ Hamilton, whose
pop ballad We Will Make Love was a minor hit in 1957. Oriole
initially paired Ford with the Hallelujah Skiffle Group, an
ensemble of session musicians. Their records were
unsuccessful, but in 1959 he recorded the doleful country
monologue Old Shep, which entered the Top 30 for one week.
One apocryphal story had it that the Queen asked her
attendants to turn off Housewives' Choice when Ford's record
was playing as one of her corgis had recently died.
Ford's broadcasting career began in 1958 with an appearance
in a talent show on the Light Programme - the precursor to
Radio 2 - soon followed by regular slots on Guitar Club and
Saturday Club, the rock'n'roll and pop show hosted by Brian
Matthew, who became one of Ford's closest friends and
strongest advocates at the BBC. When Matthew became compere
of Easy Beat ("your Sunday best"), Ford was featured each
week singing an old music-hall or vaudeville song. So
popular was he with BBC producers that in one week in 1963
he appeared in six different shows including Worker's
Playtime and Clinton's Cakewalk.
Ford's first television appearance was on a Ken Dodd Show
broadcast from Blackpool in 1960. He later appeared in Stars
and Garters, The Billy Cotton Band Show and The Good Old
Days, the programme dedicated to recreating the atmosphere
of Edwardian music hall.
He recorded prolifically in the 1960s for Oriole, EMI's
Columbia label and the Piccadilly label, owned by Pye
Records. Ford's most successful recording was Fanlight
Fanny, on which he was accompanied by a band led by the
veteran jazz trombonist George Chisholm. It peaked at No 22
in the charts in 1962.
At Piccadilly he recorded a version of Ray Davies's Dandy
and had a minor hit with Run to the Door in 1967. He
recorded more than a dozen albums, ranging over his varied
repertoire and including several collections of country and
western songs. Ford also wrote and recorded a number of
songs in a more contemporary pop ballad vein including some
with the comedian and radio personality Charlie Chester.
During the early 1960s, he had toured with Kenny Ball's
Jazzmen but found himself competing with the bandleader for
the main vocalist position. Thereafter, Ford restricted his
live performances to summer shows, pantomimes and guest
appearances at jazz festivals and concerts.
In 1980, he moved to the Isle of Man with his wife Maggie, a
former dancer with George Formby's show. He later made
occasional forays to the British mainland, notably to sing
in Liverpool with the Merseysippi band. He ceased performing
only when he became seriously ill in 2007.
Ford is survived by Maggie and four children, Georgina,
Susannah, Becky and Ian.
. Clinton Ford (Ian George Stopford Harrison), singer, born
4 November 1931; died 21 October 2009