Songs of Cricket

Songs of Cricket t The Barmy Army Richard Stilgoe [3.21] y That’s Not Cricket – from At Home Abroad † Howard Dietz / Arthur Schwartz [2.26] u Cricket Tea Towel: The Ins and Outs of Cricket Anon. / The London Quartet [2.19] i Andy Flower Duet † Richard Stilgoe / Léo Delibes [2.04] 1 Cricket Theme Medley Various, arr. Alexander L’Estrange [5.24] o Jerusalem † Richard Stilgoe / C. Hubert Parry [1.18] 2 The Cricketers of Hambledon † Bruce Blunt / Peter Warlock [2.42] p When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease Roy Harper [7.00] 3 School Songs Medley (five school songs) † Various [5.48] a ‘Stop it, Aggers!’ Rory Bremner [2.02] 4 The Summer Game Tim Rice / Andrew Lloyd Webber [3.39] – from Cricket (Hearts and Wickets) Total timings: [69.00] 5 Lillian Thomson Richard Stilgoe [2.04] 6 Radnage Cricket Song (Bucks. folk song) Traditional, collected by Horace Harman [2.00] All titles arranged by The London Quartet unless otherwise indicated. 7 Four Jolly Bowlers † The Yetties [2.24] 8 The Rules of Cricket – A Psalm Chant The London Quartet / W.H. Havergal [2.34] 9 You’ve Got to be a Cricket Hero † Al Sherman / Buddy Fields / [2.39] (to Get Along with the Beautiful Girls) Al Lewis and Fred Tupper / Cliff Nichols THE LONDON QUARTET with 0 Jiggery Pokery † Neil Hannon / Thomas Walsh [3.13] Chris Hatt piano – tracks marked † Gary Lovenest – cowbell (track 1) q Village Rondo † Matthew Holst, arr. Chris Hatt [3.41] Alexander L’Estrange – piano and vocal The Cricket Choir – The London Quartet, David percussion (track 1), stick bass (track 13) Rayvern Allen, Richard Stilgoe and Robin Tyson (track 19) w Eton and Winchester † R.T. Warner / F.S. Kelly [4.10] Richard Stilgoe – tracks 5, 15 and 19 Tim Rice – track 4 e I Made a Hundred in the Backyard at Mum’s Greg Champion [2.29] Eliza Lumley – tracks 9, 10, 16 and 18 r Australian Cricket Medley † Various [5.42] www.signumrecords.com www.thelondonquartet.com www.songsofcricket.com THE LONDON QUARTET Richard Bryan (Counter-tenor) Steven Brooks (Tenor) Mark Fleming (Tenor) Michael Steffan (Baritone) With Chris Hatt (piano) And Alexander L’Estrange (piano) Guest Artists: Richard Stilgoe, Eliza Lumley, Rory Bremner and Tim Rice The London Quartet is one of Britain’s longest polyphony, jazz and contemporary music. established vocal ensembles. Since they became Although essentially an a cappella group they widely known in the early nineteen-eighties they have appeared with a range of leading artists and have mastered a wide array of musical styles ensembles, from big band to symphony orchestra. which they have taken to a worldwide audience, always remaining true to their core vocal texture “Mark, Mike, Richard and Steven have few which is unmistakably rooted in the great English opportunities to play cricket, but take every choral tradition. The London Quartet’s origins at opportunity to sing about it, which they do Cambridge University, where they were founded wonderfully well. They are now synonymous as Cantabile, lay in revue as well as in music, and with the game’s music.” — David Rayvern Allen their flair for the stage continues to keep them in demand in theatres and cabaret as well as in concert halls and at festivals; indeed, they featured for over a year in London’s West End. They have appeared in an enormous variety of venues, singing programmes encompassing early - 4 - - 5 - SONGS OF CRICKET figures immortalised by innkeeper’s son, John Harrow, Banstead, Sedburgh and Eton to the fore, song, except perhaps for ‘hop, hop, hop’ which Nyren, in ‘The Cricketers of My Time’, form part of don’t you know! refers to underarm bowling. Radnage is a 1 Cricket Theme Medley: Composer and pianist its historical tapestry. Eton and Oxford-educated remote village in the Chiltern Hills, not far from Alexander L’Estrange’s stunning Cricket Theme song-writer Peter Warlock, pseudonym for Philip 4 The Summer Game – from Cricket (Hearts and the Oxfordshire border and the song, later Medley incorporates five numbers, four of which Heseltine, and poet, journalist and wine merchant Wickets): An extract from Tim Rice and Andrew arranged by Madeleine Campbell, is one of the are indelibly associated with cricket’s media Bruce Blunt, leaders of the bohemian Eynsford Lloyd Webber’s largely unknown mini-musical. earliest recorded. coverage. The Channel 9 cricket signature tune set, collaborated on the ballad which was written Commissioned by H.R.H. Prince Edward for Her based on Brian Bennett’s theme from ‘Bluey’, a at the instigation of ‘The London Mercury’ as a Majesty The Queen’s 60th Birthday, the world 7 Four Jolly Bowlers: During the 1970s and detective show in Australia, is followed by BBC protest against the encroachment of football into première took place on 18th June, 1986 at early 1980s an annual series of verse and music Test Match Special’s equivalent, Soul Limbo, the the cricket season. On New Year’s Day, 1929, a Windsor Castle in a private performance for the programmes especially designed to fill the invention of one of the first racially integrated match between the Hampshire Eskimos and the Royal Family. The cast included Ian Charleson, intervals of Test Matches was heard on BBC Memphis rock groups, Booker T. and the M.G.’s. Broadhalfpenny Brigands was arranged on the Sarah Payne, Alvin Stardust, Ian Savident, Radio 3. All the programmes were presented by Next comes the official song of the 2011 World elevated and windy Down. Later in the day, the local George Harris and Prince Edward himself … and John Arlott, with readings from Robin Holmes Cup, De Ghuma Ke! (‘Strike it Hard!’), composed hunt cavorted across the pitch and dropped into nonpareil Tim Rice notwithstanding himself, and Valentine Dyall and all the music was by Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and the famous Bat and Ball Inn only to find the also said a few words…he thinks ..? provided by the Yetties. The Yetties – Bonny Loy Mendonsa with lyrics by Manoj Yadav, and cricketers had drunk it dry. Full of bibulous gusto Sartin, Mac McCulloch and Pete Shutler, three then the reggae-styled Dreadlock Holiday, 10cc’s and enjoyable bombast, the song was originally 5 Lillian Thomson: In the Ashes series of sons of Yetminster in Dorset – were natural last hit from Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman, scored for brass band and heard in that form at 1974/75, the pair of fearsome Australian fast exponents of the folk tradition and where the sub-title ‘I don’t like cricket’ is a the end of the game. Warlock, who had a bowlers, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson blasted complemented perfectly John’s lyrics which misleading preface to a love of the game. Mambo predilection for riding naked on his motorbike, asunder England’s batting. Some consolation reflected his insight into the mindset of cricketers No.5, a jive dance song by Pérez Prado and was apparently not present – it was too cold. was forthcoming in this highly original and lauded and local. As producer of the programmes popularised by Lou Bega, which is Channel 4’s amusing take on the mayhem by Richard Stilgoe, and on behalf of the BBC, I commissioned a cricket theme, leads into a reprise of the opening 3 Schools Song Medley: For some there will who performs it here … number of songs, including this one. Eventually, to bring the medley to a close. be memories of mucky white flannels and sweaty they formed the basis of an LP and cassette jock-straps on the playing fields of some of 6 The Radnage Cricket Song: From Horace recording which was issued by Charisma Records 2 The Cricketers of Hambledon celebrates England’s prestigious academic institutions. Harman’s book ‘Buckinghamshire Dialect’ in 1984. one of cricket’s nursery slopes. Although the Much moral fibre, unashamed allegiance and produced in 1929, in which one learns that ‘cays game was played earlier in other places, it is exaltation in evidence as provided by a plethora in the cayus’ meant ‘cows in the cowhouse’. 8 The Rules of Cricket – A Psalm Chant: Hambledon in Hampshire where the legendary of music masters and associates: Uppingham, No such interpretation is needed in the cricket With the unwitting assistance of that notable - 6 - - 7 - 19th-century hymn-writer, The Rev. William Henry the 3rd June, 1993, Shane Warne bowled his first Havergal, one-time Hon. Canon of Worcester ball in a Test match against England. Facing the Cathedral, who was born at the time MCC first ball was Mike Gatting, renowned for his ability asserted their authority as custodians of the against spin. Steven Lynch picked up the story in laws of the game, The London Quartet supply a ‘Cricinfo Magazine’: ‘as the ball looped down, it helpful 21st-century addenda for the benefit of seemed to be headed harmlessly down the leg side. confused converts in unlikely territories. The ball drifted even further down the leg side and then it hit the turf. It fizzed back across Gatting – no 9 You’ve Got to be a Cricket Hero (to mean feat – and clipped the top of the off stump Get Along with the Beautiful Girls): Cambridge … truly the Ball of the Century.’ theology and philosophy graduate, Eliza Lumley, who memorably gave Radiohead the cocktail q The Village Rondo for the Pianoforte: jazz treatment, gives a delightfully cool rendition Arranged and played by West End MD/pianist of a foxtrot song that was originally written Chris Hatt, this sparkling Rondo was composed about American football. The work of Al by Matthias Holst between 1812 and 1815 and Sherman, Buddy Fields and Al Lewis proved sold for the princely sum of 2s 6d.

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