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English music group

The Scaffold are a comedy, poetry and music trio from Liverpool, England, consisting of musical performer Mike McGear (real name Peter Michael McCartney, the brother of Paul McCartney), poet Roger McGough and comic entertainer John Gorman. They are perhaps best remembered for their successful singles "Thank U Very Much" (1967) and the UK number 1 "Lily the Pink" (1968). Since initially disbanding in 1977, the group have occasionally re formed for performances and projects.

In 1970 The Scaffold starred in their own popular weekly BBC children's television series, Score with the Scaffold. The opening and closing theme tune was usually a shortened variation on their earlier single "2 Day's Monday". By this point the group had also recorded enough tracks for a new studio album, but apart from a few songs that found their way onto singles that year, much of this material remained unreleased until it was included on a 1998 compilation, The Scaffold at Abbey Road 1966 1971. In early 1971 The Scaffold provided some catchy tunes for inclusion in a television publicity campaign heralding the introduction of decimal currency to the UK. In this series of informative five minute programmes, titled Decimal Five and shown on BBC1, their songs included such relevant lyrics as "Give more, get change" and "Use your old coppers in sixpenny lots". In the same year, in order to broaden their musical palate further the trio and erstwhile collaborator Andy Roberts merged into the expanded line up of Grimms with performers such as Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall and Zoot Money, alongside McGough's fellow Liverpool poets Adrian Henri and Brian Patten. Innes and Stanshall can also be heard contributing to The Scaffold's final release for Parlophone, Do The Albert, which also featured Keith Moon and Les Harvey. During the same period The Scaffold also recorded the darkly humorous theme tune to the British horror movie Burke And Hare, a version of which saw eventual release on The Scaffold at Abbey Road 1966 1971 (both versions of the song feature a prominent backing vocal from Vivian Stanshall, suggesting that the session may feature the same lineup of musicians as Do The Albert). In 1972, the group made a half hour musical movie entitled Plod based on an earlier stage production that centred around Gorman's long running "P. C. Plod" character. The film was made on location in Liverpool, and included boys from the Liverpool Institute High School, earlier attended by the McCartney brothers and Beatle George Harrison. The film was long thought lost but recently appeared on a DVD of How I Won The War featuring John Lennon. McGear also released his first solo album, Woman with some of the musical performers from Grimms, and Grimms as a unit continued with their exhaustive tours of the UK. By early 1973 The Scaffold had transferred to Island Records and released Fresh Liver, their first full album of new material since 1969, and from which no singles were released (aside from "W. P. C Hodges" which was credited to Gorman as a solo artist). The new album again featured most of the musical performers from Grimms and as such, like the earlier McGough And McGear album, it relied less heavily than usual on purely spoken word material. The trio then concentrated on their work as part of Grimms, until the end of the year when McGear left that group after frayed tempers on another demanding UK tour led to an altercation with Brian Patten. After recording his next solo album McGear and the 1974 success of the one off Scaffold single "Liverpool Lou" recorded with Paul McCartney and Wings (B side "Ten Years After on Strawberry Jam", also featured a musical backing composed by Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by Wings), McGear reunited The Scaffold to tour and record their final album, Sold Out. Following the template set by Fresh Liver of more music and less speech, Sold Out was released early in 1975 on Warner Bros. Records. After McGough and Gorman temporarily decamped to participate in the final Grimms LP Sleepers in 1976 and Gorman released his solo album, Go Man Gorman, The Scaffold moved to the Bronze Records label and continued touring and releasing singles through 1977. After that the group amicably disbanded (although there have been occasional reunions over the years, mostly for live performances).

After releasing a few more singles, McGear retired from the music business in the 1980s. Having proven himself artistically, he reverted to using his family name and has since carved out a career as a professional photographer and author. Gorman remained in the public eye through his regular appearances on such children's television programmes as Tiswas throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. He continued to perform and record, and later moved into theatrical direction and production. Meanwhile, in 1978, McGough released his spoken word solo album Summer With Monika (based upon his celebrated poetry collection of the same name). Since then he has arguably maintained the highest profile and most sustained post Scaffold career, still appearing regularly as a vocal performer on British radio and television, and continuing to be a highly regarded poet and author. A reunion occurred in 2008, to record a reworking of The Lightning Seeds' single "Three Lions", titled "3 Shirts on a Line", for Liverpool – The Number Ones Album, a compilation album commemorating Liverpool being the European Capital of Culture. McCartney and Gorman represented The Scaffold in the Number One Concert in the 10,500 seater Echo Arena, receiving a standing ovation from the capacity audience. In 2009, the classic lineup was reunited in Ronnie Scott's London Jazz Club for a BBC TV programme, and in October 2010, they reconvened for a Gala Concert in Shanghai, to celebrate the end of the Liverpool Pavilion as part of the World Expo. They shared the concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, OMD and the Liverpool Chinese Children's Pagoda Orchestra. In August 2013, McCartney and Gorman played to an international audience in the O2 as part of the Liverpool Music Festival. In October 2013 and 2014, the two played at the Heswall Arts Festival with musician and poet Keith Wilson, an occasional member of the line up since 2008. The trio put on a concert to raise funds for the Nordic Church and Cultural Centre in Liverpool in October 2018. McCartney and Gorman negotiated with promoters in Japan for appearances in Tokyo in 2015. On 9 April 2020, the original members of the Scaffold released a re worked version of "Thank U Very Much" in support of the British National Health Service staff during the COVID 19 pandemic. They recorded the new vocals on their iPhones and these were then put on the original backing track, the master of which McCartney had found in his attic.

Thank U Very Much (Bell 6018) [LP] Sept. 1968
McGough and McGear (Real Gone Music RGM 0025) [CD] Feb. 2012 [Reissue of the 1968 album]

The album, McGough and McGear, is by Roger McGough and Mike McGear. All other releases by The Scaffold. Tracks which were first released from 1973 onward show the artist as Scaffold (rather than The Scaffold). See also Mike McGear Discography. See also Grimms Discography. There were probably other albums released in Japan. The two above are included because they have not been released on CD in the UK. There has been considerable debate as to the meaning of the place, item, person or event described in the lyric of the song "Thank U Very Much" as the Aintree Iron. The songwriter himself, Mike McGear, has apparently refused to divulge its identity.