Bill Oddie, Mike Gibbs,
The Goodies and Me
by Robin Kidson
Bill Oddie (1941-2026)
Bill Oddie died in July at the age of 85. The master of many trades - comedian, writer, naturalist and broadcaster - he was also a great lover of jazz. In the 1960s, when his career was starting to take off, he began a friendship with Mike Gibbs, the composer and jazz musician.
Born in Rhodesia, Mike Gibbs studied at the Berklee College of Music in America. Moving to the UK in 1964, he became a jobbing musician, mainly playing trombone. He also arranged and composed, often for bands which he led.
In the late 1960s, Oxbridge comedians, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor came up with an idea for a new comedy show for the BBC to be called The Goodies. Drawing on their friendship, Oddie asked Mike Gibbs if he would be the show’s musical director. The Goodies eventually ran from 1970 to 1980 and was hugely popular. Gibbs’s association with it lasted from 1970 to 1974. In collaboration with Oddie, he wrote the show’s theme tune. He also wrote and performed much of the incidental music using a 5-piece band which usually included Chris Spedding on guitar and Dave MacRae on keyboards. After 1974, MacRae took over as musical director.
Here is a selection of The Goodies music from both the Gibbs and MacRae eras. Some of the early pieces clearly display the characteristic jazz-rock Mike Gibbs touch:
Mike Gibbs’s jazz career moved up several gears when, in 1970, he released his first album, Michael Gibbs. This contained eight of his own compositions played by a large orchestra which included the main British jazz luminaries of the era: John Surman, Alan Skidmore, Kenny Wheeler, Barbara Thompson, Chris Spedding… the list goes on. Ex-Cream member, Jack Bruce, was on bass guitar.
The music was a particularly imaginative brand of jazz rock and the album received much critical acclaim at the time. Perhaps it’s best known track is Family Joy, Oh Boy! where the exuberance of Mike Gibbs’s music is on full display. Listen here:
(I seem to remember that another of its tracks, And On The Third Day, became the theme tune of a BBC Radio jazz programme but I can’t be sure of this – perhaps older readers may have better recall than me…)
In January 1970, around the time the album was released, Mike Gibbs and his Orchestra appeared in a concert at the London School of Economics. The promoters were the School’s very active Jazz Society (known as JazzSoc) together with an organisation called the London Jazz Centre Society (LJCS). The LJCS mainly existed to campaign and raise funds for a National Jazz Centre in Covent Garden and often collaborated with JazzSoc in putting on fund-raising concerts at the LSE.
At the time, I was a first year LSE student and very much involved with JazzSoc so I was present at the Mike Gibbs concert. His Orchestra included many of the musicians who had played on the album, including Jack Bruce. Most of the JazzSoc concerts were held in the LSE’s Old Theatre, an ideal venue for jazz, and were usually open to the general public.
The concert had created quite a buzz and the Old Theatre was full. Many students attended most of whom I suspect weren’t really jazz fans at all but were attracted by the presence of Jack Bruce. He was still a big name then, even though he’d largely renounced pure rock and had gone back to his first love, jazz. He stayed largely in the background at the concert but his bass guitar was to the fore helping to provide the vital pulse of Mike Gibbs’s music.
The audience also included people I recognised – jazz critics, for example, together with various pop and rock musicians with an interest in jazz. It also included Mike Gibbs’s old friend, Bill Oddie.
The concert was one of the best I’ve ever attended with the musicians on fire playing Mike Gibbs’s quite complex but infectiously rhythmic music.
During the interval, Bill Oddie sought out a JazzSoc committee member. He’d heard that the Society put on regular lunchtime record recitals and asked if he could come along one day and play some of the records in his collection. We jumped at the chance and at the end of the concert, made some final arrangements with him.
So that’s how, on St. Patrick’s Day 1970, the guest at one of LSE JazzSoc’s regular lunchtime record recitals was Bill Oddie. He came alone with an armful of vinyl LPs from his record collection. The recital – open only to students – had an unusually large audience. I don’t think The Goodies had started then but, even so, Bill Oddie was a well-known figure from the many other TV shows on which he appeared.
He spoke authoritatively without notes and played tracks from his LPs. I remember his tastes were eclectic but interesting and his love and knowledge of jazz shone through. He didn’t crack many jokes and none of the zaniness for which he was becoming known was on display. There was an appealing nervousness about his delivery but he held one’s attention effortlessly. The hour allotted flew by and he received the warmest of receptions.
Afterwards, he joined some members of JazzSoc’s committee for a drink at a local pub. He had an Irish whisky as it was St. Patrick’s Day. He was very good company, a good listener, as interested in us as we were of him. He stayed with us for some time before leaving with the LPs tucked under his arm.
Bill Oddie, of course, went on to have a successful and varied career, becoming a household name in the process. Mike Gibbs has also had a glittering and multi-faceted career as composer, arranger, producer and band leader. Now 88, he has worked with a wide range of musicians from Gary Burton and Pat Metheny to Joni Mitchell and Whitney Houston. His compositions have been recorded by the likes of Gary Burton, Stan Getz and Stephane Grappelli amongst others. In 2017, he was awarded an honorary degree in music by Berklee.
Finally, back to Bill Oddie who, in his later years, developed a reputation for being difficult. But back in 1970 when I met him, he was amiable and natural, making one feel completely relaxed in his company. So, no big star tantrums, no airs and graces, just another jazz fan talking about the music he loved. And that’s how I for one want to remember him. RIP Bill Oddie.
© Sandy Brown Jazz 2026.9