1979 (Shirley hosts guest star Les Dawson on her TV Variety Show)
ABOUT Les Dawson:
Les Dawson (2 February 1931 -- 10 June 1993) was a popular English comedian, remembered for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife. Dawson was a heavy smoker and drinker throughout his adult life. On 10 June 1993, during a check-up at a hospital in Whalley Range, Manchester, Les Dawson died suddenly after suffering a heart attack. Many comedians and other celebrities attended a memorial service for him at Westminster Abbey on 24 February 1994. On 23 October 2008, the fifteenth anniversary of his death, a bronze statue of Dawson, by sculptor Graham Ibbeson, was unveiled by his widow Tracy and daughter Charlotte. The statue stands in the ornamental gardens next to the pier in St-Anne's-on-Sea, Lancashire, where Dawson had lived for many years. In The Comedian's Comedian, a three-hour television programme broadcast on UK's Channel 4 on 1 January 2005. Dawson featured thirty seventh in the top fifty comedians of all time, as voted for by fellow comedians and business insiders, rather than the general public.
ABOUT Yellow Bird:
Choucoune" (Haitian Creole: Choukoun) is a 19th century Haitian song composed by Michel Mauleart Monton with lyrics from a poem by Oswald Durand. It was rewritten with English lyrics in the 20th century as "Yellow Bird." The English rendering of "Choucoune": "Yellow Bird", first appeared on the album Calypso Holiday, a 1957 release by the Norman Luboff Choir, Norman Luboff having arranged the song in the calypso style which had become popular in the English speaking world in the mid-1950s. The lyrics for "Yellow Bird" by Alan and Marilyn Bergman have no connection with the narrative of the Durand poem other than that poem featuring the words "ti zwazo" (little birds) in its refrain on which account the original Haitian song is sometimes called "Ti Zwazo" or "Ti Zwezo". The song became a minor hit at #70 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the Mills Brothers in 1959; its most successful incarnation came in the summer of 1961 when the Arthur Lyman Group reached #4 with their Hawaiian flavored instrumental version which bested a rival instrumental single release by Lawrence Welk (#61).
"Yellow Bird" has also been recorded by Keely Smith, Roger Whitaker, Roger Williams, and Paul Clayton. The song continues to be popularly associated with calypso and the Caribbean and is often performed by steelpan bands but some versions, such as Chris Isaak's from Baja Sessions, evidence a Hawaiian flavor.
"Yellow Bird" was sung by Vivian Vance on a two-part Here's Lucy episode, "Lucy Goes Hawaiian," which aired February 15 and Feb. 22, 1971. Vance sang it in a high falsetto, with a calypso beat, dressed in yellow and sprouting feathers like a canary (including a long tail feather) perched on a swing decorated as a nest, that lowered her in the beginning of the song and lifted her at the end. A long spoken-word mid-section features Vance riffing on the types of male birds she'd like to hook up with. A clip of this version is on YouTube.
LYRICS:
Yellow bird, up high in banana tree.
Yellow bird, you sit all alone like me.
Did you lady friend leave the nest again?
That is very sad, makes me feel so bad.
You can fly away, in the sky away.
Your more lucky than me.
I also had a pretty girl, she's not with me today.
They're all the same those pretty girls.
Take tenderness, then they fly away.
Yellow Bird, yellow bird.
Did you lady friend leave the nest again?
That is very sad, makes me feel so bad.
You can fly away, in the sky away.
Your more lucky than me.
Wish that I were a yellow bird, I'd fly away with you.
But I am not a yellow bird, So here I sit.
Nothing I can do.
Yellow bird, yellow bird.
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ajmad94 4 days ago
I used to love watching Les, particularly when he made the show hosts corpse up with laughter.
moominpic 2 months ago