dinner speaker (not to be confused with Paul Jennings the ex-teacher and author). Paul's impersonating career started in the sixties in the announcer’s booth at GTV9 Melbourne where he'd do impersonations of local Oz folk. The word leaked to Graham Kennedy that here was a talent that could quickly raise a laugh with his mimicry and so Paul was invited to work on Graham's "In Melbourne Tonight" show. In 1973, Paul received national recognition by doing segments on "A Current Affair" and later in the Willesee series on Channel 10.
Paul Jennings was impersonating Bob Hawke and came face to face with the original on national TV in 1975 much to the amusement of both. Paul soon after wrote “The Bob Hawke Drinking Song” with little thought of it being the A-side and it
was relegated to the flip side of his first single. The A-side was meant to be “The Hoo-Hah Song” but as usual the radio DJs preferred the B-side. In 1975, Bob Hawke was the President of the ACTU and well-known as a bit of a drinker when “The Bob Hawke Drinking Song” came out.
The interesting thing was that Paul who did a passable facsimile of Bob's gravelly voice got the major credit on the M7 record label. Poor Maree Anne Koomen who really did all the vocal work got her name in even smaller print than The Geoff Harvey Orchestra which did the
accompaniment.
This is a great example of a song which was never a #1 hit but whose title just about everybody remembers. It was only in the charts for a few weeks but got to #24 nationally and charted in most capital cities.
Here for download is a mono version of "The Bob Hawke Drinking Song":
http://rapidshare.com/files/218008302/paul_jennings_-_bob_hawke_drinking_song.mp3
Thanks Tom
ReplyDeleteAnother one of those songs that hasn't been played on radio since it left the charts back in 1975.
Cheers
Pete
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteRegarding the information above, and to clarify, the music was actually written by Marie Annn Koomens' husband John Gianatti and the lyrics were written by Harvey Bean (refer to the record as it says this clearly on there) It would be great to see the correct information written on your site and not this Hoo-Hah. Also, the The Bob Hawke Drinking song has been played occassionally on radio and has featured on the television production of True Blue about the Labour Party.
I hope this clarifies the matter of 'who' actually wrote The Bob Hawke Drinking Song'.
John Gianatti
ps. great comments and I agree with the ones about Marie Anne Koomen!
Hi Tom, I cant download this song.....can you help me please?
ReplyDelete