Duke D’Mond (25 February 1943 - 9 April 2009) was the lead singer of the pop parodists the Barron Knights. They scored their major successes with pastiches of popular hits on singles each of which had a particular theme such as conscription, the Olympics or Christmas.
Born as Richard Palmer in Dunstable in 1943, D’Mond left school at 16. His father, who had wanted to be a professional singer, worked for the printers Waterlows, and D’Mond also joined the firm as an apprentice. In 1961 he auditioned as the lead singer for a beat group from Leighton Buzzard and soon, as the Barron Knights, they were playing local clubs around Bedfordshire as well as experiencing the gruelling work schedules of Hamburg.
They signed with a London publicist, Les Perrin, who renamed Palmer as Duke D’Mond (Duke of the World) and the rest of the band were Barron Anthony (bass), Pete Langford (guitar), Butch Baker (guitar) and Dave Ballinger (drums). With his mysterious name and striking good looks, D’Mond was the focal point, but he was, in the jargon of the day, “already taken”. He married Pauline, his childhood sweetheart, in 1964.
The Barron Knights were at the bottom of the bill on The Beatles Christmas Show in 1963, but within a few months they were a chart attraction. They advocated the return of conscription in “Call up the Groups” so that their chart rivals would be out of the way.
They experienced what was to be a recurring problem as the music publisher Dick James would not allow a rewrite of a Lennon and McCartney song and so they reworked “Twist and Shout” instead. The single, recorded for EMI, went to No 3 and they had further Top 10 hits with “Pop Go the Workers” (1965) – this time using one of the two Beatles songs not published by James, “Love Me Do” – and “Merry Gentle Pops” (1965).
Being an all-male group, part of the fun was parodying such female singers as Marianne Faithfull and Sandie Shaw. “We were never parodying the music as we thought it was great,” said D’Mond during an interview in 1990. “I felt at the time that we were living in a wonderfully creative time for music.” D’Mond conceded that the Barron Knights format was not as original as many thought: “The Four Preps were our idols, but nobody over here knew their records like ‘The Big Draft’ and ‘More Money for You and Me’.
Other singles such as Merry Gentle Pops (1965) and Under New Management (1966) were comparably popular, while Come to the Dance (1964) and An Olympic Record (1968) crept to the edge of the top 30. Other notable efforts included a flower-power spoof Here Come the Bees (1967). Generally, deviations from the comedy formula - such as a 1965 arrangement of the cabaret standard It Was a Very Good Year and a cover five years later of Traces, a US smash by Classics IV - were commercial failures. Yet, with or without hits, the group continued to command high fees for thoroughly diverting concert appearances, including a six-month run at the London Palladium in 1965 with Ken Dodd. The group also made soundtracks for commercials, receiving an industry award for one such commission for Smarties in 1967.
They even made a return to the British charts in the late 1970s with Live in Trouble (most memorable for a take-off of Brotherhood of Man's Angelo) and then internationally with the million-selling A Taste of Aggro. Parodying groups ranging from Boney M to the Smurfs, this was their fifth and last top 10 entry. The album Night Gallery (1978), which included full-length parodies like “Awful Séance” for “Floral Dance” and “The Chapel Lead is Missing” for “The Three Bells”. In 1979 they had some unexpected success in America with a comment on the fuel shortage, “The Topical Song”, a riff on Supertramp’s “The Logical Song”. This and a subsequent string of minor chart entries, paved the way for a syndicated Channel 4 series in 1984.
David Bowie’s publisher had rejected their reworking of “Space Oddity” as a conversation between two cats (“Birth Control to Ginger Tom”), but after they met Bowie on Top of the Pops, he gave permission. They were less fortunate, however, with the new musical Evita. Although no killjoys, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice realised that they couldn’t have audiences thinking of vacuum cleaners while Elaine Page was singing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”.
D’Mond continued with the Barron Knights, always impressing audiences with the final number, “Peace in the Valley”. In 1999, they revived their parody format with “The Golden Oldie Old Folks Home” and “Hippy Hippy Shake” – now about hip replacements. After injuring his spine in a fall, D’Mond left the group in 2005, but he was still happy to sing in his local pub.
He died in Oxford 9 April 2009 after suffering a heart attack and developing pneumonia aged 66.
(Edited from The Independent & Guardian)