NEW 500 LIMITED EDITION 10" SINGLE
ON RESPECT VINYL Straight outta Fenton (Stoke
On Trent) the young Eddie Chippington began annoying audiences at hippy
festivals and pop concerts in the early '80s when opening shows for long haired
groups such as Here & Now, The Cardiacs and Dangerous Girls.
When
maturity and baldness caused the growing Potteries lad to become Ted
Chippington and a 'Top Comedian' he also moved in to riling up and calming down
excited crowds with his act at gigs by punk rocker bands The Fall, the
Nightingales, The Farm, the Higsons and many others.
During this period
Ted - "The funniest man alive" according to music weekly Sounds back in the day
- was to influence a new generation of stand up comedians (Stewart Lee, Richard
Herring, Simon Munnery, etc, etc) with his live performances of what Stewart Lee
descibes as "a mixture of surrealism and insolent provocation and uncompromising
boredom". Indeed Lee claims that Chippington was the very reason he got in to
stand up, while Herring speaks in glowing terms of Ted's "contempt for the very
idea of jokes".
Ted first came to national prominence when a gig he had
opened for The Fall in Birmingham in 1984 and his performance was released by
the Nightingales' Robert Lloyd's record label Vindaloo Records as a 7" EP.
Entitled
Non Stop Party Hits of the 50s 60s and 70s refering to
his penchant at the time for performing his own versions of classic hits the
record was played by John Peel on his Top Gear programme - a rare occurrence for
a comedian.
In 1986 he released an album on Vindalioo,
Man in a
Suitcase - a collection of live recordings plus some more songs - which
reached the Top 10 in the Independent Album Chart and his version of "She Loves
You" from the album received wider exposure following repeated plays by Steve
Wright on his Radio 1 show, which in turn led to the track being released as a
single by Warner Brothers after being picked up by Bill Drummond (KLF, etc) who
was an A&R man at Warners at the time.
The 45 narrowly failed to
make the Top 75 but "She Loves You" raised Chippington's profile considerably
and led to numerous media appearances, including a turn on the BBC's lunchtime
magazine show
Pebble Mill at One.
Chippington also fielded
interviews with many radio shows and magazines - from the
New Musical
Express to the colour supplement of
The Mail on Sunday. He also
performed at the Glastonbury and Reading festivals.
Chippington once
again came close to mainstream UK singles chart success with a recording of his
theme tune "Rockin' with Rita (Head To Toe)" which he performed with his fellow
Vindaloo artists the Nightingales and teenage girl group We've Got A Fuzzbox And
We're Gonna Use It.
Ted also toured the USA completely bamboozling
American audiences when supporting Fuzzbox and recorded a 'Live In USA' album on
the tour, which was unreleased until twenty years later
when surfacing on his
'History Of Ted Chippington CD box set
Walking Down The
Road. A further Vindaloo single followed with his reading of
Dion's "The Wanderer", another relative hit but Chippington's ruthless disregard
for the conventions of stand-up made him a perennial outcast from the 1980s
comedy scene - albeit a popular and influential performer.
In 1990,
bored by the media attention and feeling his new found popularity was the
opposite of his initial aim Ted retired from show business to pursue a career in
truck-driving California.
This new career ended ignominiously when his
lorry shed its load on the Pacific Coast Highway and for a few years worked as a
cook in various restaurants in Mexico before returning to the UK born again as
Reverend Ted Chippington, getting married and settling in Torquay.
In
2007 a definitive 4CD box set of Ted (& Eddie) Chippington's earlier work,
entitled
Walking Down The Road, was released on Robert Lloyd's new Big
Print label.
A tribute to Chippington entitled "Tedstock", featuring
Stewart Lee, Phill Jupitus, Simon Amstell, Josie Long, Richard Herring and
numerous other stand-up comedians, was held at London's Bloomsbury Theatre in
order to fund this release. This event and the box set release led to a new
flurry of media appearances for Chippington, including substantial tribute
articles in national newspapers (Independent, Guardian, etc) and television
(including a feature on BBC's
Culture Show).
Due to demand and
boredom Ted began gigging once more but found the experience tedious and has
once more gone in to a semi retirement, however he still enjoys performing with
his good mates the Nightingales and has done several tours with the group in the
last couple of years, including his first dates in Germany and Switzerland where
he completely baffled his audiences although performing his act in
German.
Ted will once again be touring the UK with the Nightingales in
May/June 2012 (dates below) and to coincide with these shows Respect Vinyl is
proud to announce the first record of new Chippington material for over twenty
five years
- Blues Fan - a 10" single of his classic live
favourite
coupled with a whole bunch of material on the 33rpm B-Side,
including music by Ted's all female American backing group TC & The Sushine
Band.
Blues Fan is probably Ted's best record release yet
and an instant Chippington 'greatest hit'.
TRACK
LISTING Side A - 45rpm
BLUES FAN
Side B -
33rpm
PHIL COLLINS IMPRESSION
MINT
SUNSHINE
BENNY HILL'S
MATE
TOUR DATES MAY
29
- Shrewsbury, The Vaults
30 - Brighton, Green Door Store
31 - LONDON
(DALSTON), POWER LUNCHES ARTS CAFE - "BLUES FAN" LAUNCH PARTY WITH SPECIAL
GUESTS
JUNE
1 - London, Nambucca
2 - Southampton, Talking
Heads
3 - Wolverhampton, Slade Rooms
4 - York, Fibbers
5 - Manchester,
Night & Day
6 - Glasgow, Nice N Sleazy
7 - Stockton On Tees - ARC Arts
Centre
8 - Birmingham (Digbeth), Wagon & Horses
9 - Bristol, The
Thunderbolt
10 - Kidderminster, Boar's Head
)
