Jasper Carrott

About

Jasper Carrott (born 14 March 1945 in Birmingham, UK) is an English comedian, musician and actor. He began his career as a folk artist, starting his own folk club in Solihull in 1969, performing songs and acting as the compère. However, as with his contemporary comedian and singer Billy Connolly, his between-song chat and audience interaction began to last longer than the folk songs and he became more well known simply as a comedian. Notwithstanding, in August 1975, Carrott had a UK Top 5 hit single with his song 'Funky Moped' (including an appearance on 'Top of the Pops'), although the single's popularity was widely attributed to its risqué B-side rather than 'Funky Moped' itself. The single had been produced by Carrott's friend Jeff Lynne (of the Electric Light Orchestra). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Carrott produced a number of albums of his anecdotal comedy routines (two of which achieved gold status for their sales), along with autobiographical books, and began to move into acting and television presenting into the 1990s and beyond. He was awarded an OBE in 2003.