George Melly discusses being a jazz entertainer.

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George Melly discusses his career path.

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George Melly discusses pop music.

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Q: “When you decided that you would like to – or did you ever decide, in fact – that you would like to be a performer / entertainer / singer, or did you fall into it?”

A: “I thought it was something I'd like to do in the evening to start with. I tend to have drifted into everything I've done in my life, but in retrospect, drifted rather purposefully. I was once described as a concrete jellyfish which sounds like a heavy rock group of the early 70s, don't you think, the Concrete Jellyfish? But it's probably I could … I never plan anything, but I seem to do it and in retrospect, it seems to me that I started just because I wanted to do something to contribute to this very exciting jazz revival or so it seemed at the time in the late 40's in Britain. And I knew I had no musical abilities. You know, I've struggled through a few piano pieces with an unfortunate lady called Ms. Nangle when I was six and she gave up in despair. So I knew I had no musical abilities and I thought, well, anybody could sing, so I sang. I was, in fact, wrong judging by my early recordings, anybody can't sing. I proved that pretty conclusively on those early records. I tended to sing on one note and that flat, but I supposed if you go on doing anything long enough you improve somewhat and my voice, I think, has got better. Another interesting thing about it for me anyway is that everything had to be moved down a key about five years ago. It's got much deeper. I suppose it will rise again to a sort of quavering falsetto as I reach old age, but at the moment, it's much, much deeper than it was on the early records, even those I recorded in the early 70s.”