In 1967, Iain Kerr and his songwriting partner Roy Cowen wrote and recorded (as the Brothers Butch, and accompanied by the psych-rock band the Purple Barrier) the innuendo-laden pop song Kay, Why? The song is now recognised as a camp classic, but it was for their unique take on light operetta that Iain, who has died aged 89, and Roy would achieve international fame.
As Goldberg and Solomon, the duo released their first album in 1968: the Tailors of Poznance, based very loosely on the Pirates of Penzance, featured the actor Miriam Karlin, whom Iain had coached for her role in the film Fiddler on the Roof. Over the following decade, Goldberg and Solomon recorded three further albums, including Gilbert and Sullivan Go Kosher, and toured the world, performing in front of more than a million people in more than 200 venues.
Iain was born in Edinburgh, where his parents were in service, as a chauffeur and a maid, but, for the sake of his father’s health, which had suffered during first world war service, the family moved to New Zealand when Iain was three. His mother noticed his astonishing piano skills and he made his debut, as the Wonder Boy Pianist, on local radio at the age of four.
In his teens and 20s, he worked in local opera and cabaret in New Zealand, often appeared on radio and, in the late 1950s, moved to Australia, where he worked on radio and television and became the accompanist for the cabaret singer Daphne Barker.
In 1961 the duo travelled to the UK to perform and were an instant hit on the London cabaret circuit, releasing an album of risqué songs, Banned! (1962). Iain was regularly featured on Music While You Work on the BBC Light Programme (the forerunner to BBC Radio 1 and 2) in the 60s.
While performing at a London club – “The kind where you pay five shillings for a glass of water and extra for the glass,” Iain recalled – he met Roy, who had trained to be a rabbi but had discovered a knack for writing song parodies. An immediate, and lasting, partnership was formed. They were planning an American tour when Roy died of a heart attack, in 1978, aged just 54.
Iain returned to work in London: for many years he was the resident pianist at the May Fair hotel, playing for celebrities including Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr, Sir Peter Ustinov and Queen Elizabeth II. He became close friends with the musician and educator Ann Rachlin, playing for her Fun With Music sessions where children, including Princes William and Harry, were introduced to classical music.
I met Iain when I was researching LGBTQ music from the 1960s and we struck up a friendship. He told me that he and Roy “were passionate about the English language and delighted in the art of double entendre. In all of our parodies and original songs we gave the audience the choice of which way to take it.”
His playing career came to an end after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s around a dozen years ago. He moved in with Ann, whose loving care and friendship slowed his deterioration. Ann’s own death, in November 2023, presaged Iain’s swift decline.
