Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers were a British noveltypop music act from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. The face of the group was Jive Bunny, a cartoon rabbit who appeared in the videos, and also did promotional appearances for them. Doncaster DJ and producer Les Hemstock created the original "Swing the Mood" mix for the Music Factory owned Mastermix DJ service. It was then taken from there and developed as a single release by father and son team John and Andrew Pickles. The name Jive Bunny was devised by Andy Pickles. Ian Morgan a fellow DJ and co-producer also engineered and mixed some of the early releases along with Andy Pickles. Morgan was replaced in the early 1990s by DJ and producer Mark "The Hitman" Smith. Jive Bunny's three number ones during 1989 were "Swing the Mood", "That's What I Like" and "Let's Party". All three songs used sampling and synthesisers to combine pop music from the early rock 'n' roll era together into a medley.
Musical career
The act had 11 entries in the UK singles chart between July 1989 and November 1991. Each track used a sampled instrumental theme to join the old songs together, in much the same way as dance music megamixes. "Swing the Mood" began with Glenn Miller's "In the Mood", followed immediately by rhythmic re-editing of Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock", Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" and the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up, Little Susie". "Swing the Mood" was No. 1 for five weeks on the UK Singles Chart in 1989, and quickly caught on in the United States, where it reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "That's What I Like" featured the theme music from the television police dramaHawaii Five-O, with overlaid excerpts from rock hits like Chubby Checker's "The Twist" and Ernie Maresca's "Shout! Shout! ". "Let's Party" used "March of the Mods", interpolating Del Shannon's "Runaway" and The Wrens' "Come Back My Love" among others. In the UK "Let's Party" was a Christmas hit with samples of Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday", Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody" and Gary Glitter's "Another Rock 'N' Roll Christmas". Recently this has been remixed to remove the Gary Glitter track to avoid controversy over his subsequent criminal convictions and, somewhat anachronistically, replace it with Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You", should any radio stations wish to play it over the Christmas period. They did not have permission to use the original Wizzard recording so Roy Wood re-recorded the part of the track for them. With "Let's Party" getting to Number One in the UK Singles Chart a couple of weeks before the Christmas chart of 1989, the act became the third group after Gerry and the Pacemakers and Frankie Goes to Hollywood to 'top the chart' with their first three releases. However as Jive Bunny was credited on a Children In Need charity single that charted a couple of weeks before "Let's Party", it could be say that this honour only applies to the Mastermixers. As of 2020, the Official Charts Company website does not include "It Takes Two, Baby" in its list of Jive Bunny hits, even though the cartoon rabbit is clearly visible on the single cover used on the site and even though many British Hit Singles books of the early 2000s added the record to their discography. The original European medleys featured the original recordings by the original artists. Legalities prevented certain of the original recordings to be reused in America, so the American Jive Bunny releases substituted later re-recordings of the same tunes by Bill Haley, Del Shannon and others. Later reissues further replaced some of these artists, such as Bill Haley and Elvis, with impersonator-singers. The original idea for the project came from Les Hemstock on the DJ-only Mastermix DJ service. The original "Swing The Mood" mix appeared on Issue 22 of Mastermix's monthly album release. John Pickles was never in the band, but was the owner of the label and effectively the manager. Les Hemstock later became a trance DJ working with Paul Van Dyk. Andy Pickles, went on to found the hard houserecord label, Tidy Trax, with fellow DJ Amadeus Mozart. Ian Morgan became a successful club DJ and Mark Smith later worked in the music industry as a label manager and producer. The Mastermix DJ Music Service is now in its 31st year and still supplies mixes and DJ compilations on CD and digital download.
