THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,649) Lee Lynch — “A Bad Time to Stop Loving Me”
How was this grand ballad not covered a million times? Well, maybe not as a wedding song! County Galway’s Lee Lynch does it proud, as does The Avengers‘ Linda Thorson.
Irish Show Bands.com gives us Lee Lynch’s history:
Lee [real first name Liam] Lynch was born in Ballinasloe, County Galway . . . . In an article in Spotlight on February 8th, 1969, Lee told reporter John Kercher that his first break came when he left Ireland, “I always wanted to entertain people for as long as I can remember, but the real break came in 1959 when I left Ireland for London and appeared on the Carol Levis Discoveries Show.” The appearance caused a bit of a stir for the singer and he was discovered performing at the Roebuck pub in Chiswick, London, by singing star Vince Hill, who got him signed up to The James Tate Agency. He was immediately . . . sent on tour supporting Emile Ford and The Checkmates. While in England, Lee formed his first band, The Lynchmen and they spent 2 great years as resident band in the ‘Nuffield Centre’, an entertainment venue for members of the armed forces. With their gold suits and sky blue shoes there was never a dull moment! Lee returned to Ireland and the Irish Showband scene in 1963 when he answered an ad in Melody Maker for a lead singer for the Tropical Showband who had just landed a residency at the 32 Club in Harlesden, West London. For the next 2 years they built up quite a big fan base and worked with many top names, the late, great Jim Reeves and Tom Jones [see #330, 380] amongst many others. In 1965 Lee formed The Blue Angels . . . a mixture of Irish and English musicians who just seemed to click with the dancing public of the time. It is The Blue Angels who can be heard on Lee’s first record, Lennon & McCartney’s “You Won’t See Me”, released on the Decca label. He performed his second release, “Answer Me”, live on the BBC . . . . In 1969, Lee signed for Ember Records and his first release “Stay Awhile” [to which today’s song was the B-side] began to get a lot of airplay on the continent. With this in mind, he was chosen to represent Great Britain in an International Song Contest in Knokke-Le-Zoute. He returned to the UK feeling rather dejected having been pipped by a single point by the Spanish entry, but the dejection didn’t last as 2 weeks later he received a telegram to say that “Stay Awhile;” had topped the charts in Belgium, Holland and France. He was in pretty big demand on the continent for TV work for the next couple of years and had [a number of] top ten hits . . . . The album Stay Awhile With Lee Lynch also topped the charts. Lee couldn’t refuse the offer to Replace Brendan Boyer as lead singer of The Royal Showband in the early 70’s . . . . He . . . [then] decided to return to London and reform The Blue Angels. In 1973 he had a bit of success on Columbia Records with the Les Reed song “Mama Married A Preacher” and was looking for a follow up song for his next release. He remembered a song he had started to write during the long treks across Ireland with The Royal Showband and decided to finish it there and then. Soon, his favourite recording “The Love In My Woman’s Eyes” was born. With this song he was invited to represent Ireland later that year in an International Song Contest in Sofia, Bulgaria. He regards this period as the most satisfying of his career. . . . [A] long list of artistes have recorded his work, including amongst others Daniel O’Donnell, Dickie Rock, Foster & Allen, Joe Dolan, Brendan Boyer and Margo.
Famous Shamus — The Lee Lynch Tribute Website adds that “[I]n 1980 he was voted London’s favourite Irish vocalist, appeared on another star studded bill at the Royal Albert Hall and released one of his best known singles, ‘Paddy’s On The Move Again’, followed up in 1982 by ‘Famous Shamus’.” (http://www.leelynch.co.uk/biography.php)
“Bad Time” was written by Kenny Lynch, about whom Richie Unterberger writes:
Although he had a couple of Top Ten singles in Britain in 1963, Kenny Lynch is most famous for a flop single he issued the same year. That was “Misery,” the first cover of a Beatles song to be released. . . . Lynch took the composition and gave it a much more pop-oriented arrangement than the Beatles would use when they recorded “Misery” themselves . . . . Lynch was one of the relatively few Black singers on the British pop scene in the early 1960s, and made the Top Ten a couple of times in 1963 with “You Can Never Stop Me Loving You” and a cover of the Drifters’ “Up on the Roof.” His records were an odd mixture of featherweight early-1960s teen-idol pop and American pop-soul . . . . [and he] wrote a fairly high percentage of his own material . . . . Lynch was ultimately more successful as a songwriter, often collaborating with other composers . . . . Some of his compositions were recorded by the Drifters, the Swinging Blue Jeans, and Cilla Black; a couple of his more notable efforts were the fine girl-group-styled “He’s Got Something” by Dusty Springfield and a minor hit by Billy J. Kramer [see #302] “It’s Gotta Last Forever.” In the mid-1960s, he somehow got the opportunity to write with Mort Shuman, the Brill Building songwriter who had collaborated with Doc Pomus to pen such classics as “Save the Last Dance for Me” and “Teenager in Love.” This resulted in Lynch’s most famous credit, as he co-authored “Sha La La La Lee,” the Small Faces’ [see #969, 1,024] first British Top Ten hit. Lynch also ended up writing or co-writing a couple of other songs from the Small Faces’ 1966 debut album, You’d Better Believe It (co-written with American soul writer/producer Jerry Ragavoy) and “Sorry She’s Mine,” which could have been strong enough to make it under its own steam had it been released as a single.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/kenny-lynch-mn0000085023#biography
Unterberger also tells us about Linda Thorson:
Linda Thorson is known primarily as a stage, screen, and television actress, her late-’60s stint in the TV series The Avengers being her most famous role. It’s not well known that, at the apex of her exposure on The Avengers, she also recorded some pop singles for the U.K.’s small Ember label. Produced by Kenny Lynch . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/linda-thorson-mn0000831575#biography
Here is Linda:
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