Cargo Records

London Cherry

The second release on Big Bertha is a stone-cold rockabilly classic by a lost
legend of rock'n'roll. This polite ode to a swinging girl from England's capital city, and its groovy B-side House Party, were recorded at the famed Toe-Rag Studios over a summer's evening shortly before Teddy was locked up for attacking his neighbour with a sword.

Teddy Paige is a former Memphis blues guitar ace who landed a job filling in on sessions at Sun Records in the late 50s and early 60s. In 1964 Teddy's band The Jesters released Cadillac Man, the last single to come out on the original Sun Records while it was still owned by Sam Philips. Over the next few years Teddy deputised for Steve Cropper in Booker T & The MGs, hung out with James Brown's backing band, and produced the outlaw country classic Penitentiary Blues by David Allen Coe ("he had a spider tattooed on the end of his dick" is all Teddy can remember from the session). And then he disappeared, never to be seen by his Memphis friends again.

In a Sun box set released in the 80s, it was reported that Teddy had been a victim of the Jim Jones suicide cult in Guyana. In reality he left the American South for Europe in 1972 with the intention of becoming a medieval troubadour. For the next 30 years Teddy lived a life of total freedom complete with lute, tights and an authentic steak-only diet. He played in castles in Spain and slept under the stars in France. "I realised that the Normans built all those cathedrals because of their unique echo possibilities," says Teddy. "I heard the same sound in rockabilly. That's when my path became clear." Teddy came to London in the mid"90s, where the sight of this large man in a leather tabard and pointy shoes cycling down Denmark Street earned him the nickname Medieval Knievel. "My troubles started in England," says Teddy with a sigh. "Nothing but fights and arrests."

A few years later Liam Watson of Toe-Rag met Teddy and recorded London Cherry. Liam was in the process of finding a record company to release the song when he heard the news that Teddy had been arrested for almost slicing off his neighbour's arm with a three-foot sword. The neighbour had been playing techno music in a solid 14-hour stint and Teddy not unreasonably flipped. Now Teddy paints, plays his lute, and leads a life of monkish contemplation. He is very pleased that London Cherry is finally coming out.