Jeremy Taylor (born 24 November 1937 in Newbury, Berkshire) is a retired English folk singer and songwriter who has spent much of his life in South Africa, originally as a teacher of English at St. Martin's School, Rosettenville in southern Johannesburg,. Since 1994 has lived in Wales and France. After attending the University of Oxford, Taylor became a folk singer in South Africa, remembered for his single "Ag Pleez Deddy".
Taylor began performing in clubs and coffee-bars such as the Cul de Sac in Hillbrow, Johannesburg in the 1960s and succeeded with the comedic song "The Ballad of the Southern Suburbs" also known as "Ag Pleez Deddy", in 1961. The song was a surprise hit. In performance in Chicago, he explained that while teaching South African children English, he was "enchanted" by their patois and their lust for Western European luxuries like Pepsi Cola, Canada Dry, Eskimo Pie, popcorn, chewing gum and flicks like Tarzan, and other products.
Taylor mimicked their accent in the song, in which a child begs his father to take him to different places and buy these treats. It was frowned upon by parents and the government because the song mixed English and Afrikaans – a practice of which the Nationalist government disapproved, feeling all languages should be kept "pure". This was one reason Taylor was required to leave the country. This mixing of languages led to Taylor's songwriting being described as "doing for South African English what [David] Kramer was doing for Afrikaans".
However, it remained popular with children in South Africa, selling more than any Elvis Presley single in South Africa. Also in the early sixties he contributed to the successful musical revue Wait a Minim!, performing several of his own compositions. His archival material was donated to the Hidden Years Music Archive preserved by the Documentation Centre for Music, Stellenbosch University, in 2017.
After returning to Britain in 1964 to perform in Wait a Minim! in the West End, he joined the British folk music circuit and appeared on television. Later in the 1960s, he taught at Eton College while a political exile.
Taylor hosted a series of six folk-style shows entitled "Jeremy Taylor", supported by the house band Telephone Bill and the Smooth Operators, broadcast between 15 May and 19 June 1980 from the BBC's Shepherd's Bush theatre. The guests included Barbara Dickson, Alan Price, Spike Milligan, Kenny Baker, Pam Ayres, Peter Skellern and Isla St Clair.
Some of Taylor's popular songs are: "Jobsworth", "Huberta, the hippopotamus", "The Pot Song", "Mrs Harris" and "Prawns in the Game". His "Piece of Ground" was recorded in the United States by Miriam Makeba. However, his albums never reached most of the American music audience.
He was a long-term collaborator and performer with Spike Milligan, and recorded a live album with him entitled Spike Milligan and Jeremy Taylor: An Adult Entertainment. This was recorded at Cambridge University on 2 December 1973 and released as a double LP entitled Spike Milligan with Jeremy Taylor Live at Cambridge University. It was later re-issued as a two-CD set.
Jeremy and his wife settled in the Loire valley of France. He continued to tour in the U.S. and Canada, the UK and South Africa in addition to entertaining locally in France. He also lectured in schools on the subject of South Africa and in 2000-2001 was Artist in Residence at Wellington College, Crowthorne. He has also co-produced an album of songs and poems by Sidney Carter for Stainer & Bell entitled Lord Of The Dance. In 2005 he recorded an album in Chicago, Live in Chicago. (Edited from Wikipedia)