Context can make quite a difference to a song, so while this 1940 composition from father and daughter Fred and Doris Fisher brings to mind the smooth harmonies of The Ink Spots for many, it's more often considered a comic piece in the United Kingdom, despite being in no way a humorous or novelty number. The difference is down to the 1975 recording by actors Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, which spent three weeks at the top of the charts.
Davies and Estelle had worked together as a double act in the early sixties and were reunited in 1974 to appear in the television series "It Ain't Half Hot Mum," a sitcom about a Royal Artillery concert party in India and later Burma, entertaining the troops towards the end of WWII. The show has in many respects aged quite badly indeed, but was enormously popular at the time. On the back of this, with thoughts of restarting their caberet partnership, the two men presented "Whispering Grass" in character as their sitcom roles, Battery Sergeant Major Tudor Bryn Williams (Davies) and Gunner "Lofty" Harold Horace Herbert Willy Sugden (Estelle), appearing in army uniforms including Lofty's famously oversized pith helmet. Despite Davies not being unusually tall he still towered over the 4' 9" Estelle by a foot, increasing the comic appearance of the pair. (1/2)
