Rutland Weekend TV Saturday Night Live All You Need Is Cash The Lean Years Archaeology Bootlegs Odd Bits

The LP Booklet Pages 3 and 4

Leggy Mountbatten's Mother: Mrs. Iris Mountbatten. (from an interview with Brian Fowl of Rutland Weekend Television.)

Mrs. Mountbatten: "Leggy told me he'd been to see these young men in a dark cellar. He was always very interested in young men-- youth clubs, boy scouts , that sort of thing. But these he said were different."
Brian Fowl: "In what way?"
Well, their hair, their music, their presence.
He liked it?.
No, he hated it.
What did he like?
Well......their trousers.
What about their trousers?
Well they were very.......tight.
Tight?
Yes, you could see quite clearly. . .
Oh I see.
Everything. Outlines. The lot.
Oh. Yes thank you.
Clear as day.
Thank you very much.
Nothing left to the imagination.
Yes thank you very much indeed, Mrs. Mountbatten.
Not at all.

The Rutles returned hungry to Liverpool full of experience and pills. They persuaded the manager of the Cavern to let them play there by holding his head under water until he agreed. Very soon their music began to create no small interest. In fact, no interest at all. In October 1961 Leggy Mounthatten--a retail chemist from Bolton--entered their lives. Leggy had lost a leg in the closing overs of World War Two and had been hopping around Liverpool ever since. One day he accidentally stumbled down the steps of a dingy disco--what he saw there was to change his life: a sailor, who told him about the Rutles. It was a dank, sweaty. Basement cellar, torrid and pulsating with sound. Leggy hated it. He hated their music, he hated their hair, he hated their noise: but he loved their trousers. In his autobiography, "A Cellarful of Goys" Leggy tells of timorously approaching Ron Nasty and asking him what it would cost to sign the Rutles. "A couple of jam butties and a beer" was Nasty's reply. Next day Leggy sent them a crate of beer, two jam butties and a fifteen page contract. The Rutles, instinctively trusting this softly spoken, quietly limping man, signed immediately.

Leggy's effect on the Rutles was immediately apparent. He put them into suits, he made them turn up on time, and he took their photographs and tapes to London.

Archie Macaw was the first A/R man to take an interest: "One day this rather odd chap hopped into my office. He'd been to see virtually everyone in the business and been shown the door. He asked to see my door, but I wouldn't show it to him. Instead be showed me the tapes and photographs of the Rutles. They were pretty rough but they had something. I think it was the trousers."

Macaw offered to record the Rutles and recommended Leggy to Dick Jaws, an unemployed music publisher of no fixed ability. "I liked the trousers right away. I'd been in the garment trade myself and knew a thing or two about inseams, and these were clearly winners. The Rutles themselves had many advantages: they were young, keen and above all very cheap, so I signed them up for the rest of their natural lives. Lucky really."

Elated, Leggy put the Rutles into the studio. Their first album was made in twenty minutes. The second took even longer. Success was only a drumbeat away.


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