Graham Fellows
| Graham Fellows | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
21 May 1959 Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England |
| Medium | Stand-up, radio, television |
| Genres | Observational comedy |
Graham David Fellows (born 22 May 1959 in Sheffield, England) is an English comedy actor and musician, best known for creating the characters of John Shuttleworth and Jilted John.
Fellows was a drama student at Manchester Polytechnic when he first came to prominence in August 1978 as the eponymous singer of the novelty record "Jilted John", a first-person narrative of an embittered teenager whose girlfriend Julie had left him for another man named Gordon, "just 'cause he's better lookin' than me/just 'cause he's cool and trendy".
Fellows later said: "I'd written a couple of songs and I wanted to record them. So I went into a local record shop and asked if they knew any indie or punk labels. They said there were two, Stiff in London and Rabid just down the road. So I phoned Rabid up, and they told me to send in a demo. We did the demos with the late Colin Goddard - of Walter & the Softies - on guitar, and the drummer and bass player of the Smirks. I took it along to Rabid, who loved it... so we rerecorded it a few days later, at Pennine Studios, with John Scott playing guitar & bass and Martin Zero (aka Martin Hannett) producing...".
"Jilted John" was first played on national radio by BBC Radio One's John Peel who commented that if the single was promoted by a major record label he could see it becoming a huge hit. This proved to be the case when it was picked up by EMI International. The song was introduced by David Jensen on Top of the Pops as "one of the most bizarre singles of the decade", and reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart.
Two follow-up singles were released the same year under the guise of "Gordon the Moron". A pseudo concept-album also produced by Hannett followed, entitled True Love Stories, charting John's love-life – and two further singles, neither of which were hits. No other recordings followed these, making Jilted John a one-hit wonder. However, a cash-in single by Julie and Gordon sold moderately well, as did lapel badges bearing the legends "Gordon is a moron" and "Gordon is not a moron".
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