Festive offering from Thrapston ukulele mates spreading seasonal smiles with Santa's Song

A pair of friends who started playing ukuleles for fun turned their passion for songwriting into a jingle-making business and have released their first Christmas single.

Thrapston's Andrew Meadowsmith and Craig Wilcox started their band A Major Oddity at their weekly beer and chat sessions after picking up their instruments.

The pair wanted to support the town with their ‘Save our Library’ to highlight the issue with the Thrapston facility and have now branched out to writing seasonal songs.

Craig, 48, a manager, said: "I wrote the song last year and we thought we have have the whole year to record it and do the video - but we ran out of time because of the pandemic.

"We are really proud of the Christmas song and hope that everyone enjoys listening to it. We are so proud we have now launched it on iTunes and Spotify and other platforms so its available for everyone to listen to."

The men's families have recruited their wives and children to act as backing singers.

Andrew's wife Annette and daughters ten-year-old Belle and Poppy, 13, joined Craig's wife Amanda and eleven-year-old daughter Emily in the Santa chorus but Craig's son Connor, 15, declined the offer.

The pair's musical influences range from Belle and Sebastian, to Britpop, to old-school mod bands such as The Who and The Small Faces.

Andrew, who is a design teacher at Huxlow Science College and Craig who manges the nut room for Morrisons' factory in Thrapston, have penned other ditties including Lower Your Fences - about chatting to your neighbours - The Cloud Song and Halloween Spooky Special. Many of their tunes reflect the time of year including Valentine's Day and birthdays.

Lead vocalist Craig said: "It's the first full length song we've done and we're really proud of it. It's more like Slade or Wizzard than Michael Bublé, although I wish I had his voice.

"We like to do a bit of banter. I like the comedy aspect of it. Andrew is getting really good at doing videos and we put out all our songs on YouTube."

The band began after the two dads met dropping off their children for a club.

Craig said: "We would get together every Thursday for a beer and a chat and then we decided to learn the ukulele .

"Andrew plays the trumpet and I play the bass. We wrote a song to campaign to save the library. After writing this we decided to start a Youtube channel where we have been writing original songs and making silly videos ever since and have now uploaded 52 original songs and videos."

The duo's live gigging has been put on hold due to Covid restrictions.

He said "Since Covid it has been really difficult to record. I've got a small recording studio so we send tracks to each other and put them together.

"Our mission is to make the world a better place through music and see the lighter side of life.

"Ever since we can remember, we've made music, some good, some bad, some well just ok, but always we've enjoyed what we did and have had a great time doing it."

The pair's songwrting talents have been turned to making jingles after composing one for Thrapston toy shop Jolly’s.

Visit their YouTube channel by clicking here or click here to go to their website.