To celebrate my birthday last week, I was invited to see Herman’s Hermits Starring Peter Noone at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. I was there to support my friend and rock music veteran, Rick Bagby, and the band, Glad All Over, A Tribute to The Dave Clark Five. They delivered an energetic, lively, youthful performance of DC5 classics like “Glad All Over,” “Anyway You Want It,” and “Catch Us If You Can.” The set was so good, it was hard to imagine who could top it.  

Enter Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone. The band looked like a transport from a time machine from the early 1970s, complete with mullet hairdos and the appropriate stylish clothes and gear. As they warmed the audience up and powered up with the opening chords of the King-Coffin classic, “I’m Into Something Good,” Peter Noone danced his way out of the same time tunnel where the band emerged from looking like he’d not aged much beyond the 60 years since he’d first entered the international spotlight with hits like “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” “Must to Avoid,” and “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat.” His sense of humor, comic timing, and the clear joy of being there was a highlight of the evening. He brought a naturally endearing charm that transmitted a comic and cosmic charisma. There was also a sense of the influence of his connection to his homeland’s original vaudevillian heritage that played well throughout the show. At one moment he could be the rock veteran-teen-idol and the next a bumbling, fumbling clown always willing to laugh at himself.  

But it was his soulful vocal embrace of classic hit songs, his graceful presence to each lyric, and the nuance of the melody that made tunes like “Listen People” and “The End of the World,” send audible chills through the multi-generational audience. Most veteran performers, after so many repeated performances, tend to phone in their most familiar songs. But not Peter Noone. He connected each song to the moment of delivery and allowed it to move through him and to the attentive listener. He could have been 15, 50, or his current age of 76, it didn’t matter because the moment was about these songs as though they had been written and recorded yesterday.  

He concluded the evening with three of his most famous songs, “Mrs Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” “Henry the 8th” and “There’s a Kind of Hush,” followed by a more than generous encore of photos and autographs. All in all, it was a wildly entertaining evening.  

But, something unique happened when Peter and the band revved up into “I’m Henry the 8th, I Am.” Suddenly, the legendary Coach House was transformed into a vintage British Music Hall at the turn of the 20th century with its bawdiness and beer-soaked cheerfulness. It was the resurrection of an antique folk tradition from England. And it made me wonder……..where did this song come from?

It wasn’t hard to find. A quick Google revealed these facts: The song was originally recorded in 1911 by a British Hall comedian named Harry Champion. What is so striking about this recording is that it includes full verses and chorus. The most famous and bestselling version is by Herman’s Hermits. It was one of the shortest hit songs ever recorded at around two minutes. It simply repeated the chorus a few times. It included a great Chuck Berry-influenced lead guitar part by the Hermit’s talented lead guitar player, Derek Leckenby, who passed away in 1994.  

 The song was written by Fred Murray and R. P. Weston in 1910. It was a favorite in those times when vaudeville was the main source of entertainment in the halls of London and 78 records were just being owned by everyday people. The character in the song is triumphant and proud. It identifies himself as a king going to his coronation to marry this bride, even though the listener may wonder what fate befell the former seven Henrys. It’s reminiscent of Lerner and Lowes’s My Fair Lady song, “Get Me to the Church on Time.”  

Over 50 years later, at the dawn of the British Invasion, in 1962, the UK popular Joe Brown recorded the rockabilly version of the song minus the verses. This version became a favorite of Beatles lead guitarist, George Harrison. He used to play it during rehearsals and soundchecks, but it was never recorded by The Beatles.  

So, when Herman’s Hermits recorded the song that replicated Brown’s arrangement, their version became the fastest-selling single of the era, even though it was not released in England. However, in 1965 it unseated The Rolling Stones’s #1 song, “Satisfaction,” and became the shortest song to make it to that chart position on the U.S. Billboard. The Hermits even appeared performing the song on the Ed Sullivan Show to screaming teens.  

So, on that Coach House night with Herman’s Hermits starring Peter Noone, conjured up a British Hall from 1911 and the great Herman milked it for everything the chorus of the song could muster including call and response, spelling out H-E-N-R-Y… or was it E-N-E-R-Y? It didn’t matter. It was a testament to the durability of folk music and the infectious nature of a chorus that has lingered around for over a hundred years. As Peter Noone would probably agree……That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll! But, as Harry Champion would agree, it’s also Folk Music!