(Les Vandyke)
Australia
#12 Sydney #44 Melbourne #25 Brisbane
Single on HMV (Australia), September 1965.
Double-sided hit with I Just Need Your Love in Sydney & Brisbane.
Teenaged pop star Little Pattie’s real name was Patricia Amphlett (she is a cousin of Divinyls singer Chrissie Amphlett). Her career kicked off at the end of 1963 with a double-sided surf craze hit, He’s My Blonde-Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy backed with Stompin’ At Maroubra. She later moved on from the surf novelty with a number of well-chosen and well-produced songs: see, for example, Little Things Like That and Pushin’ A Good Thing Too Far.
Further reading: 1. The definitive source on Little Pattie is Graeme Browne’s booklet on her career, available through OzMusicBooks. 2. Little Pattie: Stories and Highlights at Long Way to the Top [archived]. 3. Little Pattie entry at Wikipedia. 4. Patricia Thelma ‘Little Pattie’ Amphlett, OAM at Australian War Memorial’s Who’s Who in Australian Military History. 5. Citation for OAM for services to the entertainment industry, 2003.
(Les Vandyke)
UK
Original version
Single on Columbia #7040, with Geoff Love And His Orchestra. B-side: Just One More Dance (wr. Pilgrim).
♫ Play Dave Duggan – Dance Puppet Dance.mp3
or
♫ Listen at YouTube
Details of Dave Duggan (born c.1942) are maddeningly elusive, and the large number of Dave Duggans to be discovered online is no help.
Four archival sightings
1. A columnist in a Nottingham paper (possibly syndicated) reviews Dance Puppet Dance favourably and takes two paragraphs to tell us that Dave Duggan used to do body-building (clip below).
2. Dave Duggan sang on ITV’s Bristol-produced Discs a Go-Go on 1 July 1963 (Season 4, Episode 26).
3. Alan Freeman played Dance Puppet Dance on the BBC’s Light Programme, 12 May 1963.
4. An ad for Dance Puppet Dance in Pop Weekly has a severely cropped photo of Dave (above).
Music press, 1963
Dance Puppet Dance was reviewed in Record Mirror, 18 May 1963, p.9, Pop Weekly 18 May 1963 (np), and NME 17 May 1963 (link to index only). It was mentioned in Cash Box 11 May 1963.
Dave Duggan?
I think it must have been a different musician called Dave Duggan who was active around 1957 in the Islington area of London where his Dave Duggan Skiffle Group played in pubs and in a skiffle club he ran (see here, here, here and here).
The writer
Les Vandyke was a pseudonym of singer-songwriter John Worsley (1931-2021) who recorded as Johnny Worth 1957-62, mainly for the budget covers label Embassy. He was born in London and his mother was Welsh, but he was apparently known as Yannis Skordalides to his Greek Cypriot father. He wrote many well-known songs of the 60s and 70s including significant hits for Adam Faith (What Do You Want, Poor Me) and Eden Kane (Well I Ask You, Forget Me Not). Jet Harris & Tony Meehan, formerly of The Shadows, had a UK Top 5 hit with his composition Applejack.
See also Doin’ The Mod, covered by Melbourne’s Flies, and Mr Lee Grant’s NZ hit Thanks To You, both Les Vandyke compositions.
Disambiguation?
If you were looking for Leroy Van Dyke (The Auctioneer, Walk On By), try over here.
Further reading: 1. Les Vandyke bio by Bruce Eder at AllMusic. 2. John Worsley film scores listed at IMDb.
Thanks to Gerard Peet for the discovery, and to Duane Hobden.
(Donny Becker - Janice Hubbard - Stephen Schwartz)
USA
Red herring
Same title but not the same song as ‘Dance Puppet Dance’ by Little Pattie.
On 1991 album Feel The Music, for children, on Disney label.
Pop ArchivesAustralia's premier song history site since 2004
Website by Lyn Nuttall. © Lyn Nuttall 2004-2026. Chart positions courtesy of Gavin Ryan’s Australian Chart Books and Dean Scapolo’s Complete NZ Music Charts. Special thanks to Terry Stacey for information, corrections and suggestions. Thanks also to Tony Watson, Philippe Edouard, Dave Overett.., More…
