Whistling Jack Smith

Once upon a time in 1967, British Decca/Deram producer Noel Walker made a two-and-a-half-minute record featuring his own whistling backed by a veritable team of whistlers, electric organ, guitar, bass guitar, and trap drums. As fodder for this pixelated experiment he chose "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman" (initially entitled "Too Much Birdseed"), a cheerful but dangerously infectious air composed by ex-Kestrels Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook. For a pseudonym, Walker devised the name Whistling Jack Smith, a play on the name of vaudeville's famous Whispering Jack Smith. Released i...