“Yippee Kai Aye Motherfucker!”. I’ve been singing the refrain of Willard Morgan’s Hollywood Cowboy all night, for his Saint Hollywood is full of similarly catchy hooks and phrases that will stay with you long into the small hours.
This pastiche on fame in the US of A looks at the highlights and lowlifes of Los Angeles, through a series of mock interviews with trash TV stereotypes. This is set to a slick, New Orleans influenced blues-guitar soundtrack, and the overall affect is that of a biting, tongue-in-cheek music documentary; as clever as ‘This is Spinal Tap’, but with better songs.
The characters are all extremely familiar: The boxing champ, a Russian cab driver, the good-time hooker and the coked-up film producer are all in there somewhere, mixed in with the spot-on comedy accents, superb articulation and the never faltering musical accompaniment.
Morgan is a cool customer, at ease on stage, unflinching when he breaks a guitar string; he plays on regardless, taking a moment at the end of the song to change instrument, and then continuing as if it were part of the show. His is an extremely capable musical lampoon, with no small amount of humour, and a great line in choruses.
As an example of what you may expect to see and hear, just before he launches into his end credits of an up-tempo ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’, he portrays Jelvis, his Jewish Elvis, replete with blue suede Yarmulke and icon jumpsuit, singing songs about how difficult it is to get laid when you’re a Jewish Elvis. Willard Morgan has just left the building. Just fantastic.
4/5
Simon Ferguson
