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Unfortunately, when I listen to it, all I can hear is The Inbeetweenies, by the Goodies!

It turns out there is another version of 'It's Too Late', this one from 1986 by Marti Jones, who I had never heard of but has a pleasant voice. Musically this sounds more like the Shadows might have interpreted it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk4HZTiqlEc

This thread is from June 2012. Some of the links are to videos no longer available, though...

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7622&hilit=stranger+french

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J8RKQ3ArGw

Bill

Not so much a cover version, more one that appeared just before that by the Drifters, by Lucille Mapp an actress/singer from Trinidad popular in the 50s...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbRj3oxhj4o

Bill

Another two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTFwqCByB4Y and

https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=QAGnnPQfMCs

Ian Hunt and Mick Ronson

Black Sabbath


Cees

I KNEW I'd heard a vocal version of Zambesi, complete with the line "...bringing home a lion from the zoo...".

[You'll need a Spotify account]

https://open.spotify.com/track/7zm1eoBu6iKEcvxBphGGqe?si=df8e6c76021c42bc

Tony Mansell dubbed from the 1956 Parlophone 78rpm. Produced by George Martin, I wonder?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkLKH52ncnw

Bill

GoldenStreet wrote:Tony Mansell dubbed from the 1956 Parlophone 78rpm. Produced by George Martin, I wonder?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkLKH52ncnw

Bill

The same recording is on Spotify within an album called Britxotica! - London's Rarest Primitive Pop and Savage Jazz.

It sounds cleaner and brighter on Spotify - as though taken from the EMI master tape rather than a disc dub.

The lyric line seems to vary between while I was bringing home a lion from the zoo and bringing home a lion for the zoo.

Only the second variation makes sense.

As soon as I heard The Shadows' version in '64 or '65, I knew I'd heard the tune on the radio years before. I'd had the same reaction on hearing The Bandit.

Zambesi was a no.2 hit in Britain in 1956 on the Capitol record label - for Lou Busch (aka Joe 'Fingers' Carr) and his Orchestra. I remember hearing it on Jimmy Savile's Old Record Club (I hope I'm allowed to mention that name) on Radio 1 around 1978 when he played the hits of 1956 every four weeks on Sunday at 1pm, and seeking out the 78 in a junk shop (on my bike, aged 14)! In those days there would be half a dozen or so cover versions of hit records; other versions included Eddie Calvert (The Man With the Golden Trumpet!) on the Columbia label and vocal versions by Tony Mansell (on Parlophone) and The Stargazers (on Decca). I'm not sure who recorded it originally, though. A great piece of music!