Mouldy? Oh No

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Mouldy? Oh No

Postby dutchman » Sun May 05, 2019 12:51 am

The Coventry Music Museum has just taken delivery of probably the most iconic piano in Coventry

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We have all heard this famous instrument and it’s unique sound, because we are now custodians of the Lieutenant Pigeon ‘Mouldy Old Dough’ piano.

This remarkable instrument was built in 1929, making it 90 years old. It was bought for Hilda Woodward, famously a member of Lieutenant Pigeon by her husband on gaining her music degree and consequentially becoming a piano teacher at her home in Kingsway.

Her son Rob Woodward, also a member of the band, is downsizing and the piano needed a place to go. So it now shares a home with another famous keyboard that was also used to make a famous Coventry number one hit, Jerry Dammers’ Ghost Town organ.

Rob said of the piano: “I will miss it, I wrote both Mouldy Old Dough and Desperate Dan on it, in fact all the Pigeon material on it. If it could talk it would have a tale to tell.”

The band hit the number one spot in the winter of 1972 for four weeks with the novelty song ‘Mouldy Old Dough’, a piano driven instrumental (apart from drummer Nigel Fletcher growling the title now and again).

A month later they hit number 17 with another instrumental Desperate Dan. Hilda passed away in 1999, though this song still remains the only chart topper to feature a mother and son.

The piano is now on permanent display at the museum, and is already attracting a lot of interest.

To watch the guys play a clip of Mouldy Old Dough on THE piano one last time go to https://vimeo.com/332966266

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dutchman
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Re: Mouldy? Oh No

Postby dutchman » Sun May 05, 2019 12:59 am

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