Handbags and gladrags mike dabo biography

I had a jingle agent called Sue Manning who used to ring me quite regularly and tell me that Cadburys or The English Tourist Board or Dulux Paint would be looking for something. So we would all have a meeting ad I would come up with whatever it was that I thought they wanted. Invariably I would ask them to give me a day or two in order to come up with something.

Mike then proceeded to perform an impromptu version of his jingle for the Cadburys chocolate bar, a Finger Of Fudge. I sent that over to the guys at Cadburys a couple of days later and they told me that it was exactly what they were looking for but informed me that it had to be sung by a young boy as they had already done some filming in a school playground of the kids playing conkers.

So we auditioned a few boys from the Corona Stage Academy and we finished it by using one voice. It was just a session that came and went one morning and that was it. Over the years, some 13 years later, it was still being played. I think that it was used on the television from untilsomething like that. It was certainly on the air for well over 10 years.

Everyone naturally assumed that I had made a fortune from it but in reality you get paid virtually nothing, a half-penny per performance. I always say that I will start the song and let the audience finish it and everybody just sings along with it. I contacted Cadburys some years later asking them if they would like to revive it, but they showed absolutely no interest at all.

However, I love jingle writing but unfortunately I never got asked to do it again. In my hay day when I would do them it was fun because you had an out-let for the music. I am writing music all of the time and it comes very naturally to me; in fact I heard the other day that SPAR UK had used Handbags and Gladrags for one of their campaigns.

There were no vocals, just the instrumental piece that I played you earlier.

Handbags and gladrags mike dabo biography

I found that with Handbags and Gladrags on The Office; when it happened the BBC never even contacted me or my publishers about using the song. At the end of the day one is grateful for any exposure that a song gets because it brings in a little bit of extra money which is always welcome, especially when you have got young twins and you are trying to educate them laughter.

When something happens like it did with The Office you must find that quite offensive? So I rang my publishers who knew nothing about it. I just said that no, actually I wrote it and that I wanted to know how they had used it without my permission. I then called my publishers again and asked them how the BBC could be using my song without my permission.

Surely I as the composer should have been consulted and I could have told them how to play the piano part properly. But still such is life Kevin. No Kevin, that is not a problem at all. You have to know your chord sequences, for example I have to know that I am playing a G Minor and a B 7 th and that stuff but I can rudimentary read music.

However the disadvantage comes when you want to, for example, make an arrangement for a string player. Then you have to get a copyist in to work alongside side you, as I did with the Rod Stewart arrangement for Handbags and Gladrags. But it has served me pretty well. For me this was extra special as it was my first No 1. I had a vasectomy reversed which brought my new wife and me twins.

The hit that has brought him the greatest financial gain was Build Me Up Buttercup which The Foundations had a big hit with — the song is still used on adverts today. I knew it was a special song, not a commercial one though. The song seems to hit an emotion with people. The Manfreds are playing at the following venues in Yorkshire:.

Graham was born and raised in Keighley, West Yorkshire. He has attended hundreds of shows all over the north and considers himself lucky to have Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Stockton and Hull on his doorstep. He also presented a number of programmes on BBC Radio 2 in and The original members of Manfred Mann, minus keyboard player Mann, reformed in to celebrate guitarist Tom McGuinness 's 50th birthday, and to promote a Manfred Mann compilation released around the same time.

D'abo has been married three times. His first marriage was to model Maggie London in They had two children: Ben d'Abo born and Olivia d'Abo born His second wife was Karen and they had one son, Bruno d'Abo. He is a first cousin of actress Maryam d'Abo. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools.

Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item. English singer and songwriter. This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. D'abo has been married three times. His first marriage was to model Maggie London in His second wife was Karen and they had one son, Bruno d'Abo.

To install click the Add extension button. That's it. Try it — you can delete it anytime. Live Statistics. What we do. Every page goes through several hundred of perfecting techniques; in live mode. Quite the same Wikipedia. Just better. English singer and songwriter.