You just put your lips together and . . . blow

Aug 7 2007 by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

David Morris

RECORDED whistling songs have often been filed under “novelty” in the music lovers’ canon.

Who could forget the chart topper I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman, warbled by the legendary Whistling Jack Smith? Or the Hugo Montenegro Orchestra’s haunting whistle-stop take on Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly?

But anecdotes apart, whistling is a serious business. So when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra needed a whistler for one of their latest recordings only the best would do.

Step forward David Morris, crowned as top whistler at the official World Whistling Championships held annually at North Carolina in the United States.

David was enlisted to perform The Prairie Whistler, one of a number of works on a debut album by David Jephcott.

Mr Morris, who lives with his wife Helen in the village of Dobcross in Saddleworth, Greater Manchester, travelled to Liverpool after being sent the score which he learned then performed on an empty Phil stage with only conductor Clark Rundell for company.

The result has been overdubbed on the Philharmonic’s previously recorded soundtrack for the album entitled Plain Sailing, due to be released at the beginning of next month.

“I started off whistling as an after dinner party piece and it proved to be so popular that my friends almost bullied me into making a CD which sold extremely well,” said 57-year-old David, an accomplished cornet player who has been in global demand since he won the World championships in 2003 with his rendition of Monti’s Czardas, a complex virtuoso piece usually confined to violin.

Since then, he has recorded a number of albums and appeared on TV shows such as Blue Peter and This Morning. Regular listeners to Billy Butler’s Radio Merseyside show will also be familiar with his work.

“I never seem to stop whistling I just seem to carry on doing it subconsciously – in fact the wife keeps on telling me to shut up because it gets on her nerves if I’m doing it all the time,” he added with a laugh.

David Jephcott, a former inventor, said that he had been looking for the right person to perform the piece for some time.

“There were already pieces for flute and woodwind so I wanted this to be performed by the human voice – and once I knew the melody was right and that it was possible to perform it was all about finding the right person to do it,” said 58-year-old Mr Jephcott, an entirely self-taught composer who has won particular acclaim from radio station Classic FM.

“Now that we’ve got the whistler in David, plus a fantastic orchestra and conductor in Clark I think everything is in its proper place.”

* IF YOU want to hear an excerpt from the Prairie Whistler, click here.

mikechapple@dailypost.co.uk