Everybody’s On The Short List - The Songs Of Mickey Jupp

My first introduction to Mickey Jupp was his first solo album in 1978 for Stiff Records: Juppanese, the main attraction for me being the A side as that was produced by Nick Lowe with Rockpile as the backing band, but the Gary Brooker produced B side (with Chris Spedding!) turned out to be just as good!

Next was a jump back in time with Mickey Jupp's Legend, a compilation of his earlier Legend tracks, very enjoyable work.

1979 brought us Long Distance Romancer, a rather different cup of tea as it was produced by 10CC’s Godley & Creme who played along as well.

Personally this is still one of my Jupp favorites despite the man himself considered it overproduced…

1980’s Oxford was a bit of a disappointment I thought, but 2 years later Some People Can’t Dance appeared and thoroughly enjoyable again.

Another thing I began to notice was Mr. Jupp’s songs being covered left and right, by Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Dr. Feelgood, a.m.o., Roger Chapman even named his backing band after a Jupp classic!

Over the years (in Thailand) I lost track Mr. Jupp’s activities but the 2014 Kiss Me Quick Squeeze Me Slow: The Collection was (& still is!) a great 3xCD refresher course.

However an overview of his songs covered has never been released, which made it a perfect subject for another JOKONKY compilation.

For some reason loads of Scandinavian bands revere Mickey massively and have covered his work, therefore The Refreshments had to be included.

One of Mickey’s personal highlights was a (kind of) collaboration with Leiber & Stoller on He Could Have Been An Army for Elkie Brooks!

There’s even a hit courtesy of The Judds’ Tears For You.

Other artists & bands doing their Juppanese best are Dave Edmunds, Rockpile, Dr. Feelgood, Gary Brooker, Ricky Nelson, Roger Chapman, Jesse Taylor, Chris Farlowe, Kursaal Flyers, Great White, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, Delbert McClinton, and Latimore.

Not surprising some songs (Switchboard Susan, Down At The Doctors, etc.) have more than one cover, but even tracks from the Legend period (Cheque Book & Cross Country) are tackled as well.

Also included are a few Jupp obscurities from vinyl compilations, Live In London Vol. 1 and Southend Rock, plus some classics to compare!