'Hobberdy Dick'. How I became famous around the world and never even knew.

Ever heard of 'Hobberdy Dick'? Sadly, not many people in the UK have. And as it's a rather dangerous title to Google, let me tell you all about it...

In 1955, when I was still in nappies, Katherine Briggs wrote a children's book called Hobberdy Dick. It was set in a country house, during the English Civil War. In this house, as in all houses, lived a house elf called Hobberdy Dick. The book is all about his adventures and his battles with the wicked witch - Mother Dark. It's a good read, actually.

I'd never heard of it until 1994, when a company called Kino Productions approached me and asked me to write a demo for the title song for a cartoon series based on the book. I asked for £200, (you could get payed for demos in those days - a different world.) and they agreed. There was even a contract, of sorts, but heaven knows where that is.

They gave me an outline of the story and charactors and left me to it. I came up with a short folk rock song (think Fairport Convention) and knocked out a quick backing track. Then, because it was only a demo, I recorded myself singing the song and all the harmonies. You may be aware that I don't have the best voice in the world and some of the harmonies were distinctively dodgy, but it got the idea across well enough.

I then copied it onto an audio cassette (1994, remember) and delivered it to them.
"Very nice", they said. "Just what we're looking for."
"Thank you," I said, "That'll be 200 quid."

It took months to get that money. I won't list the endless letters & phone calls, but in the end my wife Sara - who's good at that sort of thing - doorstepped their office in Soho and I got a cheque.

After that, I registered the song with the Performing Rights Society (PRS) and forgot about it. They never got back in touch.

Then, a couple of years ago, the song popped into my head. So, on a whim and rather bravely, I Googled it. Most of the results were about the book, but then I saw a listing in Chinese. And underneath the Chinese writing was written, in English...
'Hobberdy Dick is fairy born, he keeps us safe and sound.
He's never been seen by a human being,
But you always know when he's been 'round.'

"Bugger me", I thought, "I wrote that!" So I started to search in earnest.

It turns out that those lovely folk at Kino Productions had made a 26 part cartoon series. They used my original demo, with the dodgy harmonies and a nasty 'wow' from the audio cassette. They even put my name in the credits!  What they didn't do is register me on the contracts with the networks that I was the composer. Now composer's get paid everytime their music is played on TV or radio and this means that I missed out on thousands and thousands of pounds of revenue over the years. Let alone the fact they should have paid me much more than £200 for the rights to use it at all.

The show never aired in the UK. If it had, I'd probably been aware of it. But it went out everywhere else. Everywhere. China, Japan, Russia, Germany, Greece, USA, Canada, South America, Iceland.
I could go on. It was repeated several times but never made it to video or DVD.

So, I phoned up the PRS and went in to meet them. They said they could do nothing. It was more than 8 years ago and didn't get shown in the UK. Frankly, I wasn't impressed but could do nothing.
I looked up Kino Productions and discovered they'd just gone out of business. I'd missed them by less than a month!

So, there it is. No way of getting paid for a worldwide 26 part series with 4 minutes of my music per episode. No way of getting back the 20 years when that could have been on my CV and showreel.

But - and it is a big but - my silly, out of tune, song was (and still is) loved by a generation of children. There are dozens of blogs & websites praising the series and especially the music. They quote (always wrongly) the lyrics. Everyone moans about the fact that you can't buy the series. You can't even get it illegally. It's gone. There used to be a really bad copy of the title sequence on YouTube. That's been taken down. Who by?

I tell you what. If you can think of a way to get my money, I'll give you 20%. But I bet you can't...

Here's the original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfVcQvpU4ok

And here's what some South American dudes did with it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIt4_To5Xq0
Great Animation, I think.

And here, finally, is what it should have sounded like:
https://soundcloud.com/rodanderson/hobberdy-dick-theme-song

'VOCAL BOOTH TO GO' with Rod Anderson.

Please check out my video below.
This is for authors wanting audio books, voiceovers or people thinking about recording podcasts or meditations professionally. Have you ever thought about having recording your voice with an experienced sound engineer, but been put off by the cost?

I have recorded politicians, pop stars and people like you for most of  my working life. I know how to gently coach you, to get the best out of your voice and script. At the moment, I’m trying out a portable voice booth to go with my studio. It's made by the very clever guys at http://www.vocalboothtogo.co.uk
Check them out. Whilst I’m in this trial period, I can offer some pretty cheap rates, so now’s the time to get in touch! The trial rate is £30ph, this will be increasing when things are bedded in.

email me at rodanderson@blueyonder.co.uk or leave a message here.

Children's Favourites

Recently, Radio 2's Friday Night is Music Night was dedicated to spooky music. Rather oddly, in the interval, they featured two songs which I remember from my childhood: Sparky's Magic Piano & Tubby the Tuba. Neither of which are particularly spooky but I do remember them well. And then, along with all the other sad deaths recently, I heard that Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart has died. He was, of course, the presenter of 'Junior Choice'. which, although starting in 1968, was the follow up to 'Children's Favorites'.
Children's Favorites, which started in 1954 was introduced by Uncle Mac who's real name was Derek McCulloch 
Some of the first music I can remember was on this programme. And some of it was brilliant...
Anyone remember these? Click the title to listen.

The Happy Wanderer.

Now this is odd. Although I know the English words to the song, this is the version I remember. And, recorded in 1954, it does sound like the Hitler Youth!

 

Sparky's Magic Piano

This was released in 1948. And yet it seems to have a fully-formed vocoder sound which I didn't hear again until Wendy (Walter) Carlos's sound track to A Clockwork Orange. Vocoder's also feature on ELO's Mr Blue Sky. Aparently, the original machine that produced the noise was called a Sonovox 
Amazingly ahead of it's time.

 

The Laughing Policeman

Recorded in 1926 by Charles Penrose and possibly written by his wife. You cannot listen to this and not laugh. Or scream and run into the street!

 

The Teddy Bear's Picnic

Written in 1907, but apparently, this 1932 Henry Hall recording was of especially good quality with a large tonal range. It was used for more than 30 years by BBC audio engineers (up until the early 1960s) to test and calibrate the frequency response of audio equipment.

The 3 Billygoats Gruff

This used to scare the life out of me. Especially the Troll bit! I still find it a bit uncomfortable to listen to...

The Railroad Runs Through The Middle of the House

Finally, this classic. Utterly stupid but I loved the sound FX and, of course the ending!

Those are some of my favorites. Please share yours...