Don Partridge, "One Man Band" - Breakfast On Pluto (1969)

"Breakfest on Pluto" was a hit song in the U.K. for the King of the Buskers (street musicians), Don Partridge. (picture by Harry Metcalfe, 1966).



I first heard this wonderful song on the soundtrack to the award-winning 2005 Irish movie of the same name, directed by Neil Jordan, who also directed the well-received film "The Crying Game" (1993) and also did a fine adaptation of Graham Greene's 1940's wartime love triangle novel, "The End of the Affair" (1997).


Here's some background on Partridge, who sadly died last year, from the indispensible Internet source "Wikipedia":


"Donald Eric Partridge (27 October 1941 – 21 September 2010)[2][3] was an English singer and songwriter, known as the "king of the buskers".[4] He performed from the early 1960s as a busker and one-man band, and achieved unexpected commercial success in the UK in the late 1960s with the songs "Rosie" and "Blue Eyes".

"Don Partridge was born in Bournemouth, England. By his own account, he left home at age 15 and became a burglar, before working at some 45 different jobs.[5] By the early 1960s, inspired by American singer Jesse Fuller,[6] he travelled around Europe as a solo entertainer on street corners, initially simply singing songs with a guitar. However, he found that he gained more attention by performing as a one-man band, playing guitar, kazoo or harmonica, bass drum and cymbal at the same time.[5][6]

"Playing by that time mainly in London, Partridge performed traditional English and American folk songs as well as his own compositions. In 1964, he and his friend, guitarist Alan Young, were described in the Evening Standard as the first young street musicians to be seen in London since the second world war. "


My thanks to Multiply friend Aaran Ardvark for giving me background on this artist, whose work I only barely stratched the surface of prior to his own blog on Mr. Partridge.