Born Robert Alexander Benjamin in 1946, Bobby Slamm was to become one of England's best-kept secrets during the mid-1970s/early 1980s. An entertainer through and through, he spent an estimated 350 days a year away from home between 1977-1981, performing to well over a billion people at care homes, hospices and asylums across the land. It's an astonishing fact that, despite touring almost constantly, he somehow found time to record and release four long-playing albums: "Stirling Heights" in 1979 "Slamm Dancin'" and "Hit The Roof!" in 1981 And the less successful "InstruMENTALS" in 1985. In 2007, a compilation album was released featuring tracks chosen by Robert himself, with some help from his remaining fans via a questionnaire in the back of "People's Friend" magazine (October 2004 issue). He says "a lot of the songs that people wanted to hear simply don't exist any more - or at least not in any sort of quality that I'd want to put my name to. My albums were all released on cassette and even I haven't got a proper copy of any of them any more". The master copies were all destroyed in a house fire in 1996. "I kept them in a safe in the bedroom, but I never thought to check if the fucking thing was going to be fire-proof", he said in an interview with a local paper shortly after the tragic event. With that in mind, what you are about to listen to on this Myspace page is a selection of songs which represent the life and career of Bobby Slamm, which he would like us to refer to as: "The Best Bits Out Of What's Left Over..." ------------------------- Robert Benjamin currently resides in the north of England with his partner of 14 years. He is working on new material and intends to release the resulting album - over 20 years in the making!! - in 2008. An official website is under construction. ------------------------- ***JANUARY 2008 UPDATE!*** Thanks to the November 2007 issue of Reader's Digest, there seems to have been renewed interest in my past career and over the last couple of months I have received many emails from fellow "silver surfers" who all say the same things - firstly, they thank me for giving them the opportunity to hear some of my songs once again, and secondly they all say how much they would love to hear "Anneka". So here it is, just for you - Anneka has been uploaded to my Myspace page! Also I have added a second new song, one which I had forgotten all about for many many years (until I received a nasty surprise in 2003, which we shall come to shortly...) and didn't appear on any of my original long-playing albums. I found this recording of the song just yesterday when I discovered a stack of unmarked cassettes in the garage. These cassettes contain many treats (including my first ever recording session, where I laid down two tracks entitled "Martin Needs A Haircut" and "Bananas On The Moon"), and I have chosen the one with the best back-story to present to you today... "Salsa In The Disco" was written for my friend Margit who I met in the mid 1970s when touring around Europe. She was a lovely woman, buxom and beautiful and full of life (and full of a few other things as well, but we'll save that for another time), and she did so adore dancing to Latin rhythms of an evening. I spent an extremely enjoyable two weeks in her fine company, then alas the time came for me to move on to another country to continue my hopeful (and, I now realise, misguided) path to record industry domination. Imagine my surprise when I heard a very radical re-imagining of this song being played on the radio in 2003, performed by two sisters known as "The Cheeky Girls"... It transpired that Margit had given birth to these two sisters, and had decided to gift them with a pop career in their later life - using my song as a stepping stone to success! I was livid, but without having a copy of the song to prove that I had written it there was nothing I could do except sit and watch while these two sultry (but scraggy) looking youthful princesses paraded across my television screen pouting at me as if to say "yes, we know you wrote it, but what are you going to do about it?". After a while their careers faded (as all but the most successful ones tend to do), and I heard that Margit had been declared bankrupt. This news would normally have saddened me, but to be frank I think the cheeky cow was asking for it and she deserves all she gets. Secretly I hope that she recovers from this "rough patch" and makes some money so that I can sue her to buggery now that I can prove ownership of the song, but at the same time I think she's probably fucked enough without me sticking my oar in... What do you think? ;-) BS x