This was a borderline inclusion. Stormy Weather, one of the great standards, has been running around my head as an unconscious musical memory for most of my life, probably because it featured in a TV commercial when I was a kid, I expect but whatever form it’s had, it’s generally been sung better in my head than Phil Phillips manages on this recording. It all sounds so white bread bland, it could be me singing it. There’s definite elements of Don ‘No Soul’ Simmons about the vocal here. But some songs are genuinely indestructible and if ever there was a case of content rescuing form then this is Exhibit A.
Stormy Weather also serves as a potential example of a track for the Alternative John Peel Obituary Jukebox. When he played the record on this show, Peel admitted that the song was a big favourite of his. So much so that he could regularly be found whistling it to himself, when I should have been whistling something hipper. Again, had Teenage Kicks not come into his life, it’s entirely possible that Phil Phillips may have been piped over Radio 1 as a tribute to Peel when news came through of his death.
Video courtesy of DangerousDaveRR
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