I recently saw a picture of Richard Thompson (see enclosed) wearing a hat that wasn’t his usual wellisitaberetorisitsomethingelse? I felt this looked better on the bonce than his usual headgear.
This put me in mind of various headwear sported by our musical chums.
What have been you favourites?
The Dame’s bipperty-bopperty hat. Could anyone do better than that?
Terry Reid’s hat at Glatonbury is a wonder to behold…
I like Matt Goss’s hat in After The Screaming Stops.
Bruce and Lowell sported a po’ boy cap which looked cool.
Looks like he’s got a jellyfish balanced on his bonce.
Thelonious Monk, obviously….rocking a tea-cosy on this occasion, unless I’m mistaken….
Thelonious was seldom seen without a hat of some sort.
Well, quite….
Yeah, Monk was the master in the headwear department.
This is one of my favourites….
https://www.alamy.com/thelonious-monk-the-absolutely-essential-3-cd-collection-album-image180181660.html
Dicky Thompo is turning into Sonny Boy Williamson II…
Piano maestro Willie “The Lion” Smith was a bowler-wearer too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_xiF4UVpsU
Is it time to mention Acker Bilk?
Arthur Brown’s fiery head gear
Capricious Maddy is not even wearing a hat.
Does ‘Hats’ by The Blue Nile count?
does for me!
I am disappointed that the boy Hillage doesn’t wear a hat any more. And he isn’t bald, my thinking that hats had but one reason for musicians, namely disguise.
Donovan invented hats of course. And in his early days he was inseparable from the blue denim (I think) cap he is rocking in this clip.
When asked if he was copying Bob Dylan’s look at that time he replied that no, it was a Cornish fisherman’s cap, and he’d simply spent some time in Cornwall. Hmmmm….
He did. He was one of the folk crowd/early hippies in St. Ives c. 1963.
“I’m just mad about Saffron, She’s just mad about me” is about the saffron cakes that they got free/for pennies when they hadn’t been sold at the end of the day.
Oh, I know he hung around in Cornwall. It was his explanation about not copying Bob that I was expressing doubts about!
No contest. Mac wins.
Noddy Holder’s mirrored top hat?
Brian Eno’s beret…
We would be bananas not to mention the fabulous Carmen Miranda.
Not only a piece of headgear, it is also a healthy snack.
Noddy’s mirrored topper
Peter Gabriel has form. Try 2:43 on for size.
Kid Creole’s planter hat
Mike Nesmith’s booble hat
Chapeau!
Odyssey songwriter Jesse Rae in something comfortable in metal….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOad0FU9zF8
worn inside out?
Martin Stephenson of &the Daintees fame. I’ve seen him/them many times but I’ve never seen him without his trademark hat…
I saw him play at a pub in Chelmsford a few months ago for an audience of about 20 of us. He wasn’t wearing a hat. I know. I was surprised too.
Sinatra is pictured wearing a hat on several of his classic album covers.
This article may appeal to the jazz fans among us. although you probably know some of it.
https://www.vailjazz.org/jazz-cats-hats/
And broadening it out, there is the interesting story about how JFK was the first president to regularly wear a hat. There is a book ny Neil Steinberg “Hatless Jack” about this.
http://archive.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/01/31/presidential_trivia_adds_to_lively_hatless_jack/
I think you mean not wearing a hat KFD.
Meanwhile more jazz hats.
Anita O’Day’s is mighty fine.
Thankyou for correcting me Hubert. I got tied up in nots there for a moment.
Now here is a hatty oddity, Who would ever have thought that Randy Newman, the writer of so many thoughtful, melancholy ballds, would write a song that became the favourite of lap dancers and strippers the world over?
What baffles me is: why is the young lady wearing a hat in the first place?
I imagine it somehow being a rather stylish titfer rather like the one Anita ODay is wearing.
A) I think Randy Newman knew exactly what he was writing, and b) I assume you’ve never seen 9 1/2 weeks. I blame Kim Basinger.
Having said that, my main memory of that movie is the nakamichi tape deck…
Always immaculately turned out.
This is an informative read.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/old-hat-why-the-heady-days-are-over-495010.html
The Edge got quite a lot of reaction when he turned up at this year’s Nobel Prize Banquet and wore his hat indoors all evening.
The lass interviewing him is the rather wonderful Jessica Gedin who is the presenter for the excellent Babel TV show here.
How many types of hat have a whole song dedicated to them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06OFz2eDfq0
I fall short of the ideal of male beauty on several fronts but baldness is not one of them.
But I can kind of understand why stars like The Edge persist in their hat-wearing. I reckon if you don’t do it early and unapologetically (Willis, Statham, Guardiola) you will remain stuck in a comfort zone of Edge beanies and Paul Simon baseball caps.
Two blokes with early onset shiny dome syndrome (allegedly) were Bobby Elliott, Hollies drummer, and Dwight Yoakam. I don’t know why it was said of him particularly, since big hats are not exactly unknown in country music, but there you are…
I had always assumed Mike Scott was bald, such is his love for a titfer, but he has a lovely full head of hair.
Fear Of A Black Hat:
It’s about time Thommo ditched the beret. Unfortunately , he now looks like Freddie ‘Parrot Face’ Davies
Danny Thompson’s song pretty much summarises the history of the hat
PS this is a great album
I don’t know her name, but to me,back in 1987 the woman fronting this band was the absolute height of cool.
Elizabeth Westwood. I acquired two of those hats in yellow. Huge peaks, I looked a right plonker!
Some cats got it and some cats ain’t!
This is …sadly true.
Just putting into practice my Sunday morning record’s thread and, lo!, there is a bit of a hatfest going on on the cover of Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgQuVeMOyAk
That purple one on the head of the lad on the left never caught on, did it?
Of course as some of you know there is only one kind of hat.
3M3
Dame Edna! Now there, possums, is a serious hatfan.
https://www.npr.org/2015/03/07/391265266/after-60-years-of-fabulousness-dame-edna-embarks-on-her-farewell-tour
This stupendous 1960 chart topper is the only song I know that mentions the sartorial elegance of the municipal waste collectors: cor blimey trousers and a dustmans hat.
A little background on those trousers…
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=141&t=508842
How about this?
That is one bad look.
Great song, though.
Not great, the fringe particularly, but it was the early 70s. How many looks from that era stand the test of time?
Eyeball heads AND hats!
Fleetwood Mac – three out of five of the band donning chapeaux of differing format ….
Ankita ODay cannot have been been the only jazz chanteuse to have had a taste for trendy titfers.
I suspect Lady Day and Ella wore a hat on stage quite often.
Here is a comprehensive piece on Jazz Age hats.
https://vintagedancer.com/1920s/1920s-hats-styles/
There’s also your Devo power domes
Power domes, eh? Whatever they are, this is a magnificently peculiar song.
How wonderful it would be if this were the pride of Akron paying tribute to Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men. Unlikely. I can’t remember the garden shed funsters having any interest in whips or suchlike.
Bruce and the band have been serial hat wearers – this is notable really for Steve van Zandt’s choice of head gear
Gregory Porter’s jazz hat and the Reni hat.
Stockport has the UK’s only Hatting Museum. In Victorian times there were over one hundred hat factories in Manchester.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ0FZbEs9e
This slide show has some wonderful examples of the milliner’s art.
It made me think of TOTP which had more hats than the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
N E R D
Jay Kays hats always made the …..headlines!
I’ll get my coat.
Oddly enough looking at my hat collection this morning.
I thought we need more pith helmets in pop
Here’s Professor Elemental.
Not forgetting Mr Cole’s titfer.
Which beats my East German hat (into a cocked hat)
I used to wear a pith helmet but the last time I tried it on it seemed to loose. I`m sure someone was taking the pith out of it. Gets coat.
Poor old Jamiroquai, sadly wiv da angels now…
Oddly, no mention of Madness thus far. Here’s a fair selection of hats in one video… driving in my car.
Starts with a close up of the hat.
But alas not the Mexican hat dance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i515XXa5TSc
“It balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine”.
I maintain that Pharrell Williams, at the age of about 20, took a look around at the men in his family on Thanksgiving and said to himself….”I’m gonna get known as a guy who wears hats. ‘Cause with my genes I’m heading for cue-ball country”