| The Snowmen | |
| Genre: | Novelty/children |
| Years Active: | 1981–87 |
| Label: | Stiff Records |
| Past Members: |
|
The Snowmen was a novelty band created by Stiff Records in 1981.
In 1981, Ian Dury left Stiff for Polydor Records.[1] As a cash-in for the Christmas market, Stiff commissioned session musicians to record a version of the Hokey Cokey with a Dury-soundalike vocal from Martin Kershaw, whose credits included guitar on "Kung Fu Fighting" and "Dance Yourself Dizzy",[2] and playing banjo on 120 episodes of the Muppet Show.[3] The other musicians on the recording were Nick Portlock, Jonathan Miller, and Bob Butterworth.[4]
Stiff enigmatically refused to confirm the identity of the genuine vocalist,[5] leading to speculation that it actually was Dury.[6] For more implausible deniability, Stiff created an antonymous sub-label, called Slack, with a logo based on a pile of nutty slack, on which to release the single; Kershaw and Portlock co-wrote the b-side.[7]
The recording reached the top 20 of the UK and Irish singles charts. Stiff press officer Nigel Dick, with other staff from the Stiff offices, donned snowman costumes for a video[8] [9] (shot in Brimpton, Berkshire) and appearance on the 17 December 1981 edition of Top of the Pops.[10]
Kershaw re-emerged with a medley single in 1982,[11] this time on Kershaw's own Solid Records label.[12] The Snowmen's final single came in 1986, with a version of the nursery rhyme This Old Man, by which time Dury himself was claiming to be involved, saying he "did it as a joke".[13]
| Year | Song | UK [14] | RoI[15] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | "The Hokey Cokey" | align=center | 18 | align=center | 17 |
| 1982 | "Xmas Party" | align=center | 44 | align=center | – |
| 1986 | "Nik Nak Paddy Wak" | align=center | 80 | align=center | – |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart. | |||||