| Let's Make Up and Be Friendly | |
| Type: | Studio album |
| Artist: | Bonzo Dog Band |
| Cover: | 200px-Bonzo_Friendly_UK.jpg |
| Released: | March 1972 |
| Recorded: | November 1971 |
| Studio: | The Manor, Oxfordshire |
| Genre: | Comedy rock Psychedelic pop Avant-garde |
| Length: | 50:46 |
| Label: | United Artists Records |
| Producer: | Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall (except "Rusty (Champion Thrust)", produced by "Legs" Larry Smith & Tony Kaye) |
| Prev Title: | Keynsham |
| Prev Year: | 1969 |
| Next Title: | Pour l'Amour des Chiens |
| Next Year: | 2007 |
Let's Make Up And Be Friendly is the fifth studio album by the Bonzo Dog Band and their last album until 2007. The group had already disbanded when United Artists Records (which absorbed the Bonzos' label Liberty Records) informed band members that the group owed the label one more album. This 1972 farewell album was the result, recorded at The Manor Studio in November 1971, while the building itself was still in the process of being converted to accommodate the recording studio that was being built.
This was The Bonzo Dog Band's last album of new material featuring all the original members until their reunion in 2006, by which time founder member Vivian Stanshall was deceased. A new studio album, Pour l'Amour des Chiens was released in December 2007. The album is today controlled by the Parlophone unit of Warner Music Group.[1]
In 2007 the album was re-issued on CD by EMI with six bonus tracks, some of which were solo recordings by the members of the group.
"The Strain", Stanshall's ode to lavatorial distress, was inspired by "Constipation Blues" by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, suitably filtered through Stanshall's own unique vision. Stanshall was a committed admirer of Hawkins, and had previously paid homage in similar fashion with "11 Moustachioed Daughters" (inspired by Hawkins' original 1963 recording of "Feast Of The Mau Mau") on The Bonzos' 1968 LP The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse.
"Rawlinson End", the longest track (at 9:07) on any Bonzos album, features the first official appearance of Vivian Stanshall's character Sir Henry Rawlinson, whose exploits would later be expanded as a series of BBC Radio 1 sessions for the John Peel show as Rawlinson End; a Sir Henry at Rawlinson End LP in 1978; and in 1984 a semi-sequel, Sir Henry at N'didi’s Kraal; a film, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980), and accompanying book; and a final cameo appearance in a 1994 commercial for Ruddles Real Ale with Dawn French.
The finished album was originally issued in vinyl and in 8-track format.
There are a few differences between British and American versions:
Together with the 1974 The History of the Bonzos, the cover artwork for Friendly features an image of the eponymous "Bonzo Dog".
Personnel per liner notes.[2]