DAYS OF PEARLY SPENCER by David McWilliams - extensive slideshow

I first heard this on the radio in the sixties here in Australia, and I even remember seeing a clip of it on tv in an English rock show called Now Time. I loved the lyrics and the effect on the vocals during the chorus. When I got the song on a compilation CD, I revisited it again and appreciated it more. Like someone else online, I thought this was about a mythical criminal type called Pearly Spencer. However apparently it was written about a homeless person.

David McWilliams was born in the Cregagh area of Belfast and moved to Ballymena at the age of three. He began playing guitar and writing songs in his early teens. He recorded a demo of some of his own songs, which was heard by music industry entrepreneur Phil Solomon, who had previously managed The Bachelors and Van Morrison's band Them and also had close business ties with Ronan O'Rahilly's pirate radio station Radio Caroline. Solomon won McWilliams a contract with CBS Records, which released his first unsuccessful single "God and My Country" in 1966, before signing McWilliams to his own new Major Minor label. McWilliams' first album, David McWilliams Singing Songs by David McWilliams, was produced and arranged by Mike Leander, and reached # 38 on the UK album chart.

He quickly recorded a second album, David McWilliams, which reached # 23 in the album chart and featured the single "Days of Pearly Spencer". This was a song about a homeless man McWilliams had encountered in Ballymena, and featured a sweeping orchestral arrangement by Leander and a chorus sung as if through a megaphone. Massive exposure on Radio Caroline and through advertisements in the UK music press in the summer of 1967 helped generate interest and sales in continental Europe, and the record topped the charts in numerous countries including France and the Netherlands, selling a million copies worldwide. However, although it became well known in the UK, "Days of Pearly Spencer" failed to make the charts there, perhaps because the BBC refused to play it owing to Solomon's links with pirate radio, and through mismanagement McWilliams never profited from the song's success.

McWiliams became popular in Germany and Italy, as well as in France and Holland, and re-recorded some songs in Italian. Reportedly, David Bowie once named McWilliams as his favourite songwriter. An album, Days Of Pearly Spencer, comprising tracks from his three albums, was issued by Kapp Records in the USA in 1968. He moved to London, and released further albums and singles on the Parlophone and Dawn labels in the 1970s, but these were unsuccessful.

McWilliams moved back to Northern Ireland in 1978. He performed infrequently after that, mostly in local bars, although he also headlined a concert in aid of striking miners in 1984 and occasionally appeared at the Ballycastle Northern Lights Festival. McWilliams died of a heart attack at his home in Ballycastle, County Antrim in 2002, at the age of 56. He was married twice and had eight children. (Info was summarised from Wiki).

I thought I would have a go at making one of my slideshow videos for the song. As ever, comments are invted.

Видео DAYS OF PEARLY SPENCER by David McWilliams - extensive slideshow канала wilson mcphert