At long last, everything you ever needed to know about those dapper geezers The New Vaudeville Band, and all neatly shoehorned into the tidy dimensions of a single CD. The NVB were hastily assembled in a London pub after songwriter Geoff Stephens found he needed a band to promote the runaway hit single, Winchester Cathedral (recorded with a group of session musicians, with John Carter of The Ivy League and The Flower Pot Men guesting on vocals).
Within 18 months of coming together, they had recorded two albums for Fontana; found themselves being managed by Peter Grant of Led Zeppelin fame; picked up a Grammy (seeing off competition from The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations in the process) and an Ivor Novello award for Winchester Cathedral, and headlined their own season in Vegas. This all-in-one reissue of the complete recorded works of the NVB includes the albums Winchester Cathedral (1966) and Finchley Central (1967) plus single B-sides and a selection of demos. To top it all, this comprehensive retrospective comes with great sleevenotes that fully document the absurd tale of the NVB, including their simmering rivalry with the Bonzo Dog Doo- Dah Band.
