Georgie Fame - Bidin' My Time (1967)

Clive Powell was born in on 26th June 1943 in Leigh, Lancashire, England. He took piano lessons from the age of seven and on leaving Leigh Central County Secondary School at 15 he worked for a brief period in a cotton weaving mill, and played piano for a band called the Dominoes in the evenings. After taking part in a singing contest at the Butlins Holiday Camp in Pwllheli, North Wales, he was offered a job there by the band leader, Rory Blackwell, and at sixteen years of age he went to London and entered into a management agreement with Larry Parnes. Parnes had famously given new stage names to artists Marty Wilde and Billy Fury, and wanted to change Powell's name to George Fame, but Powell was very much against it, until Parnes threatened to drop him from his shows if he didn't change it. Over the following year Fame toured the UK playing beside Wilde, Joe Brown, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and others, and played piano for Billy Fury in his backing band, the Blue Flames. When the backing band got the sack at the end of 1961, they were re-billed as Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames and went on to enjoy great success with a repertoire largely made up of rhythm and blues numbers. 
Fame was influenced by jazz, blues, and the musicians Mose Allison and Willie Mabon, and was one of the first white musicians to be influenced by ska after hearing it in cafés in Jamaica and Ladbroke Grove in England. In 1963, the band recorded its debut album 'Rhythm and Blues At The Flamingo', which was released in place of a planned single by EMI Columbia, but it failed to chart, although the October 1964 follow-up, 'Fame At Last', did reach No. 15 in the UK Albums Chart. Fame enjoyed continued chart success, enjoying three number one hits in the UK, with his version of 'Yeh, Yeh' spending two weeks there in 1965. 'Get Away' was another number 1 hit in 1966, being originally written as a jingle for a petrol commercial, and his version of the Bobby Hebb song 'Sunny' made No. 13 in the UK charts. However,  his greatest chart success was in 1967 when 'The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde' made number 1 in the UK, and No. 7 in the US. Fame continued playing into the 1970's, having a hit with 'Rosetta' with his friend Alan Price of the Animals in 1971, and in 1974, he reunited the Blue Flames and began to sing with European orchestras and big bands, but this album concentrates on his output between 1965 and 1967, when he released a flurry of 7" singles and EP's, many of which were not taken from his then current albums. This is a fine collection of jazz-tinged r'n'b, with a mixture of carefully chosen covers and original material, and highlights a much under-rated talent in the field of jazz and r'n'b. 

Track listing

01 In The Meantime (single 1965)
02 Telegram (b-side of 'In The Meantime') 
03 I'm In Love With You (single 1964)
04 Bend A Little (b-side of 'I'm In Love With You')
05 Do-Re-Mi (b-side of 'Yeh, Yeh' 1965)
06 No No (EP 1965)
07 Blue Monday (from the 'No No' EP)
08 So Long (from the 'No No' EP)
09 Sick And Tired (from the 'No No' EP)
10 Sunny (single 1966)
11 Knock On Wood (single 1967)
12 Bidin' My Time ('Cos I Love You) (single 1967)
13 Road Runner (b-side of 'Knock On Wood')
14 Because I Love You (b-side of 'Bidin' My Time')
15 Try My World (single 1967)
16 No Thanks (b-side of 'Try My World')