Artist: Val Rosing
Author: Noel Gay
Label: Regal Zonophone
Year: 1937
In British film Feather Your Nest, fifteen minutes before George Formby's version. Val was the man who sang Teddy Bear's Picnic. The same year Gay's biggest hit The Lambeth Walk caused a sensation in his West End musical Me And My Gal. When re-staged on Broadway in 1986, four Noel Gay songs were added including this one, causing puzzlement any time this so-called Herman's Hermits tune was recognized.
Covers:
George Formby [in same film; Formby plays the clumsy studio guy who dropped the original Val Rosing recording, forcing him to cut his own version; all four Beatles were Formby fans; the banjo outro of Free As A Bird (see there) sounds a lot like the one in Leaning On A Lamp Post]
Herman's Hermits [top 10 US; following Formby's example]
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)