South African Session Musicians, "Charisma", with, "MAMMY BLUE", on 7 single in 1971. (with lyrics)

This video was made using MAGIX Movie Edit Pro MX Plus.
Mammy Blue is a very beautiful, yet extremely sad song. It tells the story of a wayward son, who left home at the age of 21. He comes home some time later after his mother had passed away. The song is mournful and the son expresses his grief at the loss of his mother, with the sharing of his memories. The song draws the listener in and affects their mood like a classical piece of music that has been written in a minor chord. The bass guitar draws them in like a magnet and drags the song along like a horse pulling a cart. I experienced this phenomenon back when it was on the South African charts in 1971, and again while I was making this video.

As an aside, the lyrics proper in the first stanza of the song, are written like this:
I may be your forgotten son (Oh, mammy)
That wander'd off at twenty one (Oh, mammy, mammy)
It's sad to find myself at home (Oh, mammy)
And you, you′re not around
However, that is not quite how Paddy Powell sang them. Here are the lyrics in that stanza as he is singing them, and they are posted in the video as such. Perhaps Paddy just had a memory ping at the time:
I may be your forgotten son (Oh, mammy)
The one that's over twenty one (Oh, mammy, mammy)
It's sad to find myself at home (Oh, mammy)
And you, you′re not around

Charimsa was not really a band, but rather a group of session musicians under the leadership of Graeme Beggs, one of the leading producers in the country. He has been responsible for producing Clout’s Substitute, The Soweto String Quartet, Una Valli, The Dream Merchants, The Flames and Gene Rockwell to name a few. He also played with the Apaches, Dickie Loader and the Shangaans.

It is not surprising then, that he was involved in the song that spent the most number of weeks by a South African band at the top of the Springbok charts (12 weeks in total, 1 week less than the all time record by Johnny Nash’s ‘I Can See Clearly Now’).

‘Mammy Blue’ was originally a French song written by Hubert Giraud and was a minor hit in the US for the Pop Tops in 1971 (peaking at number 57) and later in 1973 The Stories took it to number 50. It has also recorded by Roger Whittaker, Dennis East, Ken Boothe and in more recent times, Steve Hofmeyr and Kurt Darren.

The song hinges around the chorus of ‘Oh mammy, oh mammy…’ and is a relaxed, almost mystic song. The chorus featuring the female vocals of Stevie van Kerken sort of swirls around in the clouds with Paddy Powell’s vocals floating over the top of them. It was a worthy number 1 and also worthy of the lengthy stay at the top.

Charisma features Paddy Powell on lead vocals and guitar, Stevie van Kerken on backing vocals, *Morris Fresco on drums, Grahame Beggs on piano and Nippy Cripwell on bass. It entered the South African Top 20 on 17 October 1971 in position #7, reached #1 the next week, remained at #1 until 7 January 1972 (12 weeks in total), and charted for 20 weeks.

*According to a conversation online between Linda Powell, Paddy's wife, and others in the thread, it was Ivan Beck who played drums for Charisma.

(Written by Phil Trim & Hubert Giraud)