Band: Herman’s Hermits
Title: Demo
Year: 1993
Label:
Genre: Pop

This was a wee session with two of the original members and their sound man. Sorry, no Peter Noon. They were working on some new songs, one of which, “The Blue Bird Café,” about the famous place in New Orleans, has been stuck in my head for over ten years now. It was really good. I don’t think it ever saw the light of day, but we had a nice time working on it.

I remember they rented an upright piano for the session for the bar hall kind of vibe, but couldn’t get the tuning quite right. Too in tune, sounded not honky tonk enough, but too far out was bad, too.

I asked them where the name came from. They told me that when the band first got together in the 60’s, they’d rehearse, then go to the pub for some beers. On one such visit, this new animated TV show called “Bullwinkle” was on the tele over the bar and it was showing the “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” segment. Apparently, one member of the band was a dead ringer for “Sherman” on the tele. This guy was also a bit of an introvert.

The guitar player yelled across the noisy bar to the bartender, “Who’s that on the tele?”

The guy looked up and said, “Ay, that’s Sherman.”

The guitar player, who could not hear too well over the din of the room, replied, “Herman?” So because of the loss of data, the guy was dubbed “Herman the Bloody Hermit.” That later evolved to the band being named “Herman and the Bloody Hermit’s,” which later got pared down to “Herman’s Hermits.”