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Singer and entertainer Kenny Lynch has died at the age of 81 - a career which spanned several decades.
Lynch's first taste of fame was as a singer in the early 1960s, covering his own hits and other peoples as well - he was the first artiste to do a cover version of a Beatles song in the 1960s. Just like various entertainers such as Ken Dodd, Des O'Connor and Cilla Black, he made the transition from music into general entertainment, and obviously, comparisons could be made with those people as well. "Up On the roof" with the lyrics of: "when this old world starts getting me down..." was probably one of his trademarks - and indeed, in around 1993 I got a audiotape version of that song just after hearing it on a TV commercial at that time.
In 1984 Lynch was a co-presenter in the little-remembered Yorkshire TV show Just Amazing! along with Barry Sheene and Suzanne Danielle, a show which was about Evel-Kinevel and Tip Tipping-alike stunts, not too far removed from Guinness World Records-type shows. He was also involved in various sports - Henry Cooper used to say that Lynch used to go to the gym where Cooper was practicing to watch him train for a future bout, practising with a leather punchbag, and Jimmy Tarbuck was great mates with Lynch on the amateur golf course as well.
Kenny Lynch also had a couple of forays in children's television as well - around the same time as Just Amazing! he remained at Yorkshire Television to make a few guest appearances on Mooncat & Co, the replacement for Get Up & Go! where during some weeks he replaced Beryl Reid's role as guest co-presenter, sharing duties with other comedy actresses such as Patsy Rowlands and Pam Ayres.
Meanwhile for Granada, Lynch made guest appearances on the Monday Children's ITV series Tickle of the Tum along with Ralph McTell - being a Stepney boy himself, Lynch would have known the Streets of London himself like the back of his hand as a result of growing up in the capital as a child. One of his highlights on the show was when he played a milkman, entering the Tickle Post Office to the strains of McTell playing "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" on a guitar - it was thanks to Lynch mistakenly transposing "milkman" and instead saying: "I like being a postman" as he walked through the door, which had awarded him 15 seconds of fame on It'll be Alright On The Night 6 in 1990, and also the Utterly Worst... compilation four years later where Cooper paid tribute to him.
Being someone who enjoyed golf as a hobby, Lynch played with the amateurs and professionals - as well as the aforementioned Tarbuck, he was great buddies with Bruce Forsyth as well. In fact, when Forsyth revived his popular game show Play Your Cards Right in the mid 1990s, Lynch made a guest appearance on the show during the contestant interview part, although it never seems to get shown on the game show channel Challenge these days.
I will try not to repeat myself and say that he is another person from my childhood who has gone.
Lynch's first taste of fame was as a singer in the early 1960s, covering his own hits and other peoples as well - he was the first artiste to do a cover version of a Beatles song in the 1960s. Just like various entertainers such as Ken Dodd, Des O'Connor and Cilla Black, he made the transition from music into general entertainment, and obviously, comparisons could be made with those people as well. "Up On the roof" with the lyrics of: "when this old world starts getting me down..." was probably one of his trademarks - and indeed, in around 1993 I got a audiotape version of that song just after hearing it on a TV commercial at that time.
In 1984 Lynch was a co-presenter in the little-remembered Yorkshire TV show Just Amazing! along with Barry Sheene and Suzanne Danielle, a show which was about Evel-Kinevel and Tip Tipping-alike stunts, not too far removed from Guinness World Records-type shows. He was also involved in various sports - Henry Cooper used to say that Lynch used to go to the gym where Cooper was practicing to watch him train for a future bout, practising with a leather punchbag, and Jimmy Tarbuck was great mates with Lynch on the amateur golf course as well.
Kenny Lynch also had a couple of forays in children's television as well - around the same time as Just Amazing! he remained at Yorkshire Television to make a few guest appearances on Mooncat & Co, the replacement for Get Up & Go! where during some weeks he replaced Beryl Reid's role as guest co-presenter, sharing duties with other comedy actresses such as Patsy Rowlands and Pam Ayres.
Meanwhile for Granada, Lynch made guest appearances on the Monday Children's ITV series Tickle of the Tum along with Ralph McTell - being a Stepney boy himself, Lynch would have known the Streets of London himself like the back of his hand as a result of growing up in the capital as a child. One of his highlights on the show was when he played a milkman, entering the Tickle Post Office to the strains of McTell playing "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" on a guitar - it was thanks to Lynch mistakenly transposing "milkman" and instead saying: "I like being a postman" as he walked through the door, which had awarded him 15 seconds of fame on It'll be Alright On The Night 6 in 1990, and also the Utterly Worst... compilation four years later where Cooper paid tribute to him.
Being someone who enjoyed golf as a hobby, Lynch played with the amateurs and professionals - as well as the aforementioned Tarbuck, he was great buddies with Bruce Forsyth as well. In fact, when Forsyth revived his popular game show Play Your Cards Right in the mid 1990s, Lynch made a guest appearance on the show during the contestant interview part, although it never seems to get shown on the game show channel Challenge these days.
I will try not to repeat myself and say that he is another person from my childhood who has gone.
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