Those of a certain age who remember Saturday morning film clubs might recall the scene in Jason and the Argonauts when skeletons rise from the ground and start fighting
That same age group a decade on would have been at the birth of New Wave when a band called the Stranglers broke onto the airways with singles such as No More Heroes and Peaches
The two are combining with the lead singer of the Band Hugh Cornwell paying homage to one of his heroes,Ray Harryhausen, the master of early animation and the creator of that famous scene which sent shivers down the young audience in Odeon’s across the country
Hugh left the band in 1990 and has continued in the music industry with a successful solo career, his latest album came out earlier this month and he has penned his own homage to the master animator in the song Monster a couple of years ago
Speaking to Cornwell he told us of his lifelong love of film and his admiration for who he said held a key to a magic kingdom
“He had a rare ability to immerse himself in a world of his own making and he showed such enthusiam for it-He just wanted to create so much enjoyment for the audience-He was a complete showman”
Hugh believes his greatest work was on the film, the Mighty Jo Young, “his work on that was sensational”. He was returning to something from his childhood, being taken when just eight years old in New York to see King Kong, when it first came out in the 1930’s
The film, says Hugh had such an effect on him, he told his dad that this was what he wanted to do.The film,the Mighty Jo Young became almost a sequel to King Kong, it was the story of a gorilla brought into the modern world.
“One of the reasons I like it says Hugh is that it has gone off the radar somewhat and not many people are familiar with the film any more
Film in general has played a big part in Hugh’s life, he has done over a 100 podcasts of his Mr DeMille FM cinema podcast with no end in sight.”The cinema is like Pandoras’s box, you open it up and you constantly find stuff-I watch a movie nearly every day” describing himself as a movie geek
“I can’t wait to find the next classic that I didn’t know about before”
Hugh began his love of film at an early age, Saturday morning pictures in London’s Kentish Town with his sister
We move to talk about his music career and while his name is associated with the Stranglers, he has been away from that for over thirty years, almost double the time he was with the New Wave pioneers
His solo career is thriving still, a tour of Europe is being put together for 2025 and he is playing in Manchester later this year.
A new album has just come out, All the Fun of the Fair features live recordings of his own solo work and Stranglers Hits, featuring just bass and drums and Hugh on Guitar
The story of Hugh’s entry into music is well known-Quitting a PHD in bio chemistry in Sweden.
“I had been playing music since I was in school and was in a band with a guy you might of heard of called Richard Thompson who taught him to play bass”
Thompson left school to go into the music business and form Fairport Convention but Hugh didn;t think he himself was good enough to follow but continued to play while he studied.
When he fell out of love with the PHD, he went back to music meeting up with Jet Black,Jean-Jacques Burnell and Dave Greenfiled and the Guilford Stranglers, later to drop the town were born
Their hits, Peaches,No more Heroes, Something Better Change, were all classics, defining the New Wave or Punk of the second half of the 1970’s.”We were mopped up by the sponge of that genre, says Cornwell but many of the bands like us such as Blondie, the Jam, Elvis Costello were not punk
“Nobody was complaining, as long as we could make records and play live, why would we care”
Hugh began writing songs when he was in Sweden with the band he had there called Jonny Socks but it was omly when that band transformed into the Stranglers that he really took it seriously.Get a grip on yourself, the band’s first single was the first proper song that he wrote.
“It was almost like a wrap song because all the lyrics were spoken”
But back to the exhibition.Hugh is coming to Manchester ‘s Waterside where he will field questions in front of an audience.”I’ll answer anything within reason”
Hugh hopes that people who come to the exhibition will as he says “have the penny drop” and realise how Ray was responsible for all these memorable pieces of cinematic work
Hugh’s live double album All The Fun Of The Fair was released on October 4th, with a UK tour to follow in November 2024. For full tour dates, see Hugh’s website.
Tickets for this evening with Hugh Cornwell and the film screening on Thursday 24 October at Waterside are now on sale: watersidearts.org/hughcornwell
THE LOST WORLDS OF RAY HARRYHAUSEN: CREATURES, MARTIANS & MYTHS is a free exhibition and runs at Waterside from Sat 26 Oct ‘24 – Sat 04 Jan ‘25
