The Scaffold
The Scaffold are a comedy, poetry and music trio from Liverpool, England, consisting of musical performer Mike McGear (real name Peter Michael McCartney, the brother of Paul McCartney), poet Roger McGough and comic entertainer John Gorman. They are perhaps best remembered for their successful singles "Thank U Very Much" (1967) and the UK number 1 "Lily the Pink" (1968). Since initially disbanding in 1977, the group have occasionally re-formed for performances and projects.
The Scaffold
Career[edit]
Overview[edit]
The members of the Scaffold were originally part of a performing revue group known as The Liverpool One Fat Lady All Electric Show. ("One Fat Lady" is the bingo term for 8 and the performers mostly lived in the Liverpool 8 district.) McGough's fellow Liverpool poet Adrian Henri was also a founding member of this early configuration.
Working almost exclusively as a trio under the name The Scaffold from 1964, Gorman, McGear and McGough performed a mixture of comic songs, comedy sketches and the poetry of McGough (as evidenced on their 1968 live album), and they released a number of singles and albums on Parlophone and EMI between 1966 and 1971, with several more on Island, Warner Bros. and Bronze thereafter.
Their best known recording is "Lily the Pink" which topped the UK charts in 1968. The group also composed and sang the theme tune to the popular BBC TV comedy The Liver Birds, which aired from 1969–1978.
Although each of them was a talented composer and distinctive vocal performer, only McGear could even loosely be described as a professional musician and their more musical endeavours were usually augmented with contributions by session musicians. Elton John, Jack Bruce and Graham Nash were among the session musicians who performed on The Scaffold's early records.[1] Tim Rice, who was at that time an assistant to their producer Norrie Paramor, also contributed backing vocals to some of their material. Additionally, although not officially credited as a permanent member of the group during its heyday, guitarist Andy Roberts was a frequent musical collaborator from as far back as 1962, acting as musical director and arranger in a live setting throughout their career and playing on a large number of their releases.
The Scaffold achieved Top 10 success in the UK with:[2]