Mike Connor & the Carrot Crunchers - Back In The Cotswolds (Bumpkin Records - Bumpkin 001, 1986)
It would be fair to say that humorous, double entendre-laced, folk-style music sung in a pronounced West Country accent is a niche business.
And while it might be a little too agricultural for mainstream tastes nowadays, for a brief golden era rustic, cider-soused, parodic pop was (relatively) big business. Adge Cutler & The Wurzels, the undisputed kings of the scene, had genuine chart hits with a run of singles including "Drink Up Thy Zider" and "Una Paloma Blanca", before making it all the way to number one in 1976 with "The Combine Harvester". The sleeve of which excellently illustrates both the genre's playful 'Southern Rebel' spirit and a flagrant disregard for health and safety. The public were hooked.
Mike Connor and his Carrot Crunchers never quite reached same heights as their better known Somerset rivals. Think of them as a scrumpy & western Herman’s Hermits to The Wurzels' bumpkin Beatles. That’s not to say they didn’t have their moments, they released a couple of excellently sleeved records through EMI and Marble Arch in the wake of The Wurzels’ rise, but the hits failed to materialise for the boys from Gloucester. Mike (or ‘Shag’ as he was known, on account of his trademark sideburns – they supposedly resembled large clumps of rough shag tobacco) and the lads had a long career in the margins packing them in in the rugby clubs and corn exchanges of the South West (which looks like it was a right laugh, judging by the photos in this Facebook group) and continued to put out albums, despite diminishing returns, through their own Bumpkin Records imprint.
Back in the Cotswolds saw the Carrot Crunchers return to their Gloucestershire roots. It’s a stripped back affair, recorded at their own studio - The Chicken Shack, an actual chicken shack - and sold direct to fans at shows. The sleeve is pretty self-explanatory, a classic "band-wearing-neckerchiefs-posing-with-a-cockerel-by-a-barrel-cropped-slightly-off-centre" set up. It does the job. For the record, the guy crouching bottom right is NOT a young Bono (or Reece Dinsdale) despite what you may have read elsewhere, and the cockerel Shag's holding looks to be Stuffin, an Old English Game fowl that worked with the band throughout the 80s.
This copy is autographed by the band – as these kind of records tend to be.
Record: 4.5/10
Sleeve: 5/10
Key Track: Fans of regional accents should get a kick out of the South Gloucs/ North Wilts burr all over "Little Blondie Called Jean" (posted below), particularly on the pronunciation of coffee. Rustic.
