19April
One from the department of Missing Things By A Week, then. The King's Singers is a male vocal group, originally founded at King's College Cambridge in 1965. Their repetoire tended to be contemporary popular music performed in six-part male vocals, but also included some more traditional choral works.
The group has become one of the most enduring popular music franchises, and many of its performers have constructed decent careers afterwards. Nigel Short, for instance, set up the performance choir Tenebrae; Alastair Thompson moved into academia; and Brian Kay was the darling of Radio 3 until he was axed as part of the network's disastrous Siberian Winter atrophication of 2007.
For our sample track, it's back to 1975, and one of the relatively few singles the group ever released. It's also available on their 1980 album This is The King's Singers
, and 2005's Colouring Book
. The version of Life on Mars
here was arranged and conducted by Chris Walker, produced by Bob Barratt, and written by David Jones.
