Occasional Albums Thing 029 - Lulu “The Most Of…”

I’ve written about Lulu in this Blog before (here in fact https://www.whiterabbitrecords.co.uk/blog/read_205038/2023-albums-thing-224-lulu-love-loves-to-love-lulu.html) and in that post I admitted that although I genuinely do like Lulu the only reason I owned that album was for her take on the song “Morning Dew”, and that if I ever came across a reasonably priced 7” of said song then I would likely let the album go. Well I did find a 7” and that album has indeed left. Which left me with something of a dilemma…because if you read that previous post you’ll see I also eulogise about the songs “To Sir With Love” and her 1967 single “The Boat That I Row” which were also on “Lulu Loves To Love Lulu” but were now no longer in my possession. And then, serendipitously, along came “The Most Of Lulu”.

It’s one of those cheap Music For Pleasure compilations (MFP was a budget re-issue label that churned out these type of albums in the late 60’s right through the 80’s) that Woolworth’s record departments were full of for 99p or thereabouts. They were usually made up of a couple of choice songs plus a bunch of filler and B-sides that the artists actual record company were never going to do anything with. In this case the decent songs include the two I was missing plus the “title” track from that now departed album “Love Loves To Love Love” with it’s Psychy fuzz-guitar intro and the country coloured ’68 singles “Me, The Peaceful Heart” and “Boy”.

It’s filled out with her 1969 Eurovision entry “Boom Bang-A-Bang” (in the voting Lulu finished tied for votes with the songs from Spain, France and The Netherlands. As there was no tiebreaker rule at the time, all four were declared joint winners) which bears an uncanny resemblance to “I saw a mouse, Where, There on the stair” if you know that. It’s cheesy bad and unbelievably it’s B-side, “March”, which is included, is even worse. There’s a bunch of (largely) forgettable late 60’s singles, “I’m A Tiger” (the verses are OK, the chorus is like a bad nursery rhyme) and it’s B-side, Nilsson’s “Without Her” here re-titled “Without Him”. Everything comes to a close on the Scott Walker-ish ballad “Dreary Days And Nights”.

Astonishingly “The Most Of Lulu” was her first album to chart in the UK, the previous six (!!!) LP’s she had released between 1965 and 1970 had all failed to dent the album listings. If you can get past the cheese (she was “guided” by her record companies toward a cabaret/all round entertainer style) Lulu has one hell of a voice and has made some great records. Check out her Bowie/Ronson produced versions of “The Man Who Sold The World” and “Watch That Man”, her original version of “Leave A Little Love” later recorded by the great Patti Austin (Lulu’s original is better), her 2019 performance of the Neil Diamond written “The Boat That I Row” on the YouTube sessions is well worth searching out and listen to “Relight My Fire” again, she sang Take That outta da house ! (although that’s probably not too difficult). With some better record company decisions and a couple of breaks (that, at the time, mooted Bowie/Ronson produced album perhaps) Lulu would be a superstar now.

The Boat That I Row - https://youtu.be/1h2x_ulr6mU?si=YO4UcUnL-LRNIj98