Rummaging through early 60s music magazines, one is struck by the wealth of hit-makers and personalities who are all but forgotten today. You wouldn’t believe how big the Bachelors were, for instance, and names like Mark Wynter, Adrienne Poster, Carol Deene, Susan Maughan, Daryl Quist, Frankie Vaughan and many more.
Another was Karl Denver. Here he is in the mid 70s in a frankly mind-boggling performance. Be warned, it contains a fusion solo.
The Bachelors were clearly huge, judging by the amount of their records I see languishing in chazzas and car boots. I don’t recognise any of those other names though, ‘cept Frankie Vaughan, another boot sale botherer.
Bachelors were still large in the late sixties. They were the opening act at Batley Variety Club in 67 and laid the foundation stone earlier. I was there for the foundation stone laying.
Just watched the clip. Bloody hell.
That Karl Denver clip is bonkers. Didn’t he end up as a folk journalist with Melody Maker or something?
Are you thinking of Karl Dallas perchance? @jazzjet
Of course. Thanks @hubert rawlinson. Two folkies with the christian name Karl and surname beginning with D – what are the chances?
Karl Dallas was named after Karl Marx, because his parents were dedicated Marxists.
You probably knew that anyway, but I just thought I’d mention it.
No I didn’t. Just looked it up and his second name was Frederick after Engels (no idea why they didn’t go the full Friedrich).
Karl Denver with Happy Mondays in 1990:
Ah yes The Bachelors. Not so harmonious after all
http://www.thebachelors.co.uk/JohnStokesTheTruth.htm
Here’s another bit of (just about) pre-Beartles weirdness, the Trashmen ‘Surfing Bird’, 1963:
Those Bachelors. Creepy…
Another pre-Beatles giant, Carol Deene, with ‘Norman’. If the ‘Loudermilk’ who wrote this is John D., then one can only assume he’d had a few more whiskies and taken a long hard look at himself in the mirror between this and ‘Tobacco Road’:
John D always had his tongue firmly in his cheek – quite possibly even with Tobacco Road. Here’s another early piece of whimsy.
I’d always thought that Vic Reeves’ club singer was a generic impression. I didn’t realise how accurate it was
Adrienne Posta was better known as an actress, appearing in “To Sir, With Love,” “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Busy” AND “Up The Junction.” She was also in the first episode of “Budgie.”
Also appeared in a few sub-Confessions of … films, and Carry On Behind
Short blond hair, big eyes
Charity, the Salford Stripper!
And she played Lulu’s sister or best friend (can’t remember which) in Lulu’s early 70s TV shows.
I’m old enough to remember all of these..! I remember watching the Beatles Anthology and it reminding me of how they had to (or chose to) fit in with the show bizzy nature of entertainment at the time, and also their early repertoire included standards, don’t forget. I was listening to a great Joe Meek compilation this week – The Alchemist of Pop – and that has some truly weird stuff!
Ronnie Carroll was a big hitter in those days too. Check out the bizarre backing vocals in this – it makes the Morecambe & Wise BVs with Tom Jones (yeahyeahyeah) seem normal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk97WgwqkuM
These people could often be found in early 60s NMEs too. The moustache is certainly impressive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWfHumz9Zyc
Thanks, Colin (you bastard)! I had successfully submerged those musical memories for, what, over fifty years and here they all are right in front of me. Ah, those days of sitting through Miki & Griff (you have no idea how painful it is for me to type those names) or Carol Deene in the mostly vain hope The Beatles or Roy Orbison were on next. “And now it’s Sing Something Simple” …..
Yikes, sorry Lodey! Still, now that your brain is back in that zone, any other names from that era come to mind…?
Bryan Hyland, B Bumble and His Stingers, Joe Brown, Eden Kane….Nurse, my medication, my medication!
Lord Rockingham’s XI, featuring miss Cherry Wainer on the organ.
The Piltdown Men – Brontosaurus Stomp.
Fascinating stuff, but – to be clear – do we now have a fixed quota of threads which must feature the word “Beatles” in the title? They told me voting for Brexit would have some unforeseeable consequences, but really…
I think Susan Maughan found later fame (and probably a lot more money) in long- running coffee ads, being pestered for sex by Anthony Head. The will-they, won’t-they saga was an intriguing and very long-running tale. Very much like the real life sparks that flew oh-so-obviously between Eric Heffer and Anne Widdicombe. Get a room!
The Gold Blend bint was Sharon Maughan (also known as Mrs Shoestring)
Don’t think they were related – but I refuse to look on wikipedia to check (just in case I get lost down a wikipedia rabbit-hole emerging two weeks later having read lots, but learned nothing)
That was Sharon Maughan, not the lovely Susan of ‘Bobby’s Girl’ fame.
Music before The Beatles in the early 60s is a rich seam and much less formulaic than later. Apart from Joe Meek there were numerous novelty singles (Charlie Drake, Rolf Harris etc), things like ‘Come Outside’ by Mike Sarne and Wendy Richards, Sounds Incorporated, The Piltdown Men, The Eagles (the Bristol version) and many others. I seem to remember that when Danny Baker appeared on Desert Island Discs he chose records exclusively from this period.
I see. Apologies everyone, especially the Maughans. I wonder if Eddie Shoestring “detected” that the bloke from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was sniffing around his missus?
Matt Monro. Fabulous voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_qGt48pUrk&index=3&list=PL_mvt9aCt1g-tNsaNIaWp4NrfhAN9z1un
Of course at the time he was just too, too square for the likes of us groovy kids.
The opening of that is a complete rip-off of Sinatra’s “Swinging Down The Lane”.
But then again Matt Monro’s first recording was billed as Sinatra soundalike Fred Flange on a Peter Sellers album.
Songs For Swingin’ Sellers.
Big Beatles favourite. Parlophone. (Though not George Martin, oddly)
…Yes it is. I’m thinking of Sellers Market.
As a child, I loved this. Number one in 1962.
B. Bumble & The Stingers – Nut Rocker
i’m not sure if it was countrywide, but a fave short at the Trent End….Nottingham Forest was……
“sing something simple…..you simple (shouted)….TWAT.
‘And on lead guitar…Frank Carson!’
To be unfair to Daryl Quist, he was a footnote even then. Let’s not forget Alma Cogan (the Fabs loved her, in how many senses I couldn’t say), Jim Dale, Dave Sampson, The King Brothers, The Brook Brothers, The Allisons…I could go on, but I won’t.
But this gives me another chance to post one of my favourite pre-Fab waxings, And Now I Cry/Eugene by Jill and the Boulevards, which came out of nowhere and seemed to point to the future in a way not much else did back then. (The date’s wrong, it was 1962.)
Facsining, Mike – Jill’s voice reminds me of that rather shrill, declamatory woman in Curved Air.
Here’s another curio from that era that seemed more intriguing than most, and inspired lots of covers, ‘Sally Go Round The Rose’ by the Jaynetts (later covered by Pentangle):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZyclycB6eo
Glad you like it…what I hear in J and the Bs is an early echo of Jefferson Airplane, eg Somebody to Love.
Funnily enough, Grace Slick recorded ‘Sally Go Round The Roses’ in a pre-Jefferson band.
The Great Society?
I think their original versh of Someone to Love beats the Jeff’ one hands down. OOAA
There were the lads in Larry Parnes’ stable – Fury, Power, Wilde et al…must have been a hit or two between them.
Though whether you’d call their output “Oddities” is another matter…should we be considering the likes of Charlie Drake’s My Boomerang Won’t Come Back or Rolf Harris’s pre-Beatles catalogue instead?
I think that by ‘Oddities’ Colin means people who 95% of the Massive (including him) have never heard of.
Yep, that’s it.
Russ Conway! Craig Douglas! Anthony Newley! The Beverley Sisters! Bert Weedon! (We are normal…) Winifred Atwell! Malcolm Vaughan! David Whitfield! Jackie Dennis! SLGSITBS hitmakers The Mudlarks! Emile Ford and the Checkmates! Tommy Bruce! Michael Holliday! Lance Fortune! John Barry Seven!
Time for a little lie-down, I think.
It’s a bit steep to include the fantastic Anthony Newley amongst that bunch – OK, he sung and had a few semi-novelty hits, but he also acted (including the bonkers “Gurney Slade”), wrote Tony-winning musicals, made records with Delia Derbyshire, as a songwriter won a Grammy and co-wrote “Feeling Good”, “Goldfinger” and the Willy Wonka soundtrack, and was married to Joan Collins – we could do with a few more “oddities” like him these days…
Amen. Newley was da bomb.
Believe me, I yield to no-one etc…I was just free associating. But his early records were pretty grim…unlike his appearances in The Small World of Sammy Lee and Jazz Boat.
Here’s another oddity, Newley-related.
Again, I see it as more remarkable that these folks were thriving after Tutti Frutti, Roll Over Beethoven and That’ll Be The Day, than that they were huge before the moptops.
This feller, on the other hand, is just Nick Cave without the hair dye:
(Marty Robbins – They’re Hanging Me Tonight)
Lyn Cornell was another Brit who’s totally forgotten now. She recorded a version of ‘Sally Go Round The Roses’ (mentioned above). Here she is doing another US rip-off, Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’:
She was in the Vernons Girls, who were reputed to work at the Liverpool pools firm.
Somebody mentioned Michael Holliday earlier. Here he is from 1962. Mike died suddenly in 1963 and various other artists contributed to a ‘Tribute to Michael Holliday’ album in 1964.
Britain’s Everly Brothers (!), and perpetual middle-of-the-bill artistes on Gaumont cinema pop package tours, the Brook Brothers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7Ae5KJO-f8
I have a book somewhere about the early sixties but can’t find it at the moment. Can’t find it on the internet either.
One name I remember from it is Teddy Randazzo and the Chuckles.
I used it in a quiz once, a ‘and the ‘ quiz, as in Cliff Richard and the Shadows. Oddly enough no one got it.
He wrote ‘Goin’ Out of My Head’, a hit for Little Anthony and the Imperials. But I expect you knew that 😏
Didn’t but do now.😀
Little Antony had a band before Interstella? He must have been about 3!
The big Lewisohn book is actually a pretty good guide to this period. One of the points he makes rather forcefully is that EMI’s reluctance to sign a guitar group on the basis that they wouldn’t sell sat ill with their constant pushing of third-rate crooners and novelty acts who didn’t sell and were never going to.
One thing I learned today was that the Jill and the Boulevards (see above) demos were submitted to Columbia on exactly the same day as Love Me Do. They went for J & the Bs…
Anyone remember Louise Cordet? Sort of a prototype Lulu. Her mother was French born Greek actress, Helene Cordet, and Louise’s godfather was Prince Philip.
I feel a Spotify playlist coming on. UK pop acts between, say, 1957 and 1962.
And, bringing us neatly back to where we started, here she is being, er, wooed by Beatles and Pacemakers.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g401/mikethep/cordet_zpsy1n5hsok.jpg
This one has been in my family since before I was born and I still have it. This is a cover of a Marty Robbins original. The writers, Tepper & Bennet also wrote Travellin’ Light.
Eddie Hickey – Cap and Gown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXkkHPybZGc
I forgot that I had already started a pre-Beatles playlist. Here it is :
Any suggestions, additions etc gratefully accepted (PS Jill & The Boulevards aren’t on Spotify).
Maungy bastart writes: If you’re going to include George Formby you might as well go the whole way back and include Thomas Tallis.
Yes I know but it was released in 1960. Goes to show how bonkers the charts were then. Plus I like it. And Thomas Tallis was past his best by 1960.
I suspect he was past his best by 1660.
To be fair, George H was a fan, so it’s not entirely irrelevant.
Hang on there! Thomas T was huge in the early 60s. The Big Bopper even write a song about one of his unerring-fans: Thomas Tallis Lassie!
I’ll get my cloak.
Boom tish. Was actually Freddie Cannon though.
How about balladeer John Leyton, probably best known for Johnny Remember Me? Here he is singing Son This Is She, with some frankly histrionic backing vocals and some audience shots which appear to have been transposed from a Beatles performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skI0s8JHR3A
He later went on to become an actor and was one of the three who successfully made the Great Escape (he played Charles Bronson’s tunnel digging pal and freak out calmer downer)
What list of 60s oddities would be complete without some Aussie yodelling?
Frank Ifield – She taught me to yodel
Before Russ Conway there was Winifred Atwell.
Very talented and extremely popular and her records sold by the lorryload. It was another world. These days you’d have to pay someone to take them off your hands.
Calling @minibreakfast, @beany…
The only Winifred Atwell I own is the Pot Black music on a BBC Sporting Themes LP. It’s very, er… jolly.
I’m far too young to remember any of these although I have to admit that Hoots Mon is the record that made me the boy I am today.
This is the first record I remember owning. Adam Faith from 1960, featuring the work of John Barry. I still have it.
Someone in my circle had this ep, and with the judicious application of a little biro we changed it to Adam Shit Parade. How we laughed!
Five Finger Boogie? This is a job for me!
Surely you all remember the catchy hits of British Jamaican vocal group The Southlanders? (An abbreviations of South Londoners)
Alone
Mole in the hole
By all accounts they were a fine live band.
Helen Shapiro, young teen with a big voice. She lived on the same street as my mate in Hendon, which makes her Jewish.
And this lot were very popular pre Beatles. Our first record player was accompanied by them, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Chubby Checker, the Bachelors, and the Beatles. You’ll know the Van/Chieftains version, Colin.
I’m just back from singing at The Clancy Brothers Festival in Carrick-On-Suir and I had to tell them the words are not ‘Arm in arm and on we go’ – it’s ‘Arm in arm and row on row’!
Caused a right stushie, so it did. The Clancy Fest equivalent of Dylan’s Electric Guitar.
Actually, I don’t Dec – I’ve never heard that record. The Oblivion Express version is more my sort of thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6pM2D-yFXs
I’ve never heard that before! I would never have been able to put a name to it. And they get most of the words right.
Irish Heartbeat is Van doing some of the songs of his youth, and he’s a fine singer, best one being “She Moved Through The Fair”, which I urge you to listen to, avoid “Celtic Ray”, he even gets the Chieftains to do a snippet of “The Sash”. Like, cultural de-escalation, Irish style. Top- 5 Van album.
Here it is, Colin.
I’ve always avoided it Dec because it just seemed so ‘out of time’ in the mid 80s – I was discovering late 60s British folk-rock music at that time and a load of people who dressed in frumpy old cardigans and bad suits with sideburns from the wrong end of the 70s singing the ghastly ‘Star of the County Down’ just seemed appalling to me.
The Cooler-Than-Thou NME had this at No. 2 in their top albums of 1988, nestling comfortably between Public Enemy and REM.
Turn it up, let it play from your heaaarts lads!
I’ve always had a bit of a blind spot with the Chieftains, I’m afraid. And as for Van…
I didn’t know that. You should give him another try, I think you’d especially enjoy the spoken monologues in his songs…
Have you heard the record he made with Lonnie Donegan? 😉
Funnily enough, I was there when he recorded it (at least I think so). Wasn’t it recorded live at the Whitla Hall? Certainly, I saw them there, with Chris Barber, in 1999.
“Take me back…. take me way way back to 1999… Gay Dad on the cover of the NME… Peter Mandelson Minister Without Portfolio, Without Portfolio, Without Portfolio… Man United got the treble, got the treble, got the treble.. Millennium bug, MILLENNIUM BUG! An’ goin’ down Wetherspoons for a Castle Eden and cheesey chips, oh yeah and the voice of Bryan Adams on Cloud Number Nine in the midnight hour….”
Ah, you were at that show too, I see!
This is a really nice clip – Jet Harris (a kind of tragi-comic figure from the pre-Beatles era – won all the pop paper polls in 1963, crashed out of the fame game by the end of that year, failed comeback in 64, nothing for years after) joining his old bandmate Hank Marvin, apparently from the audience, at an instrument promoting event in 1999 and delivering a great performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMGQAQAJP5s
Here’s Tony Meehan’s last hurrah, ‘Kings Go Fifth’, B-side of his only solo single (well, with the Tony Meehan Combo) ‘Song of Mexico’, released in January 1964, with a full page NME front cover advert. It managed one week at the bottom of the NME Top 30 and one week at the bottom of the Record Retailer (Guinness Book source) Top 40. It was – Shadows aside, as a special case – probably the last hurrah for this kind of British instrumental pre-Beatles pop.
Contemporaneous live reviews of the shortlived Tony Meehan Combo (Oct 63-Jan 64) are in awe of their volume and musicianship, but really it was a contractual obligation band – pulled together in a week to fulfil a multi-act tour billing in Oct-Noc 63 after Jet Harris (with whom Tony had been working as a very successful duo for the year) had had a meltdown. Joe Moretti on lead guitar, John McLaughlin on rhythm guitar, John Paul Jones on bass, Chris Hughes on sax, Tony on drums. It was, as far as I’m aware, John McLaughlin’s first *released* recording, though he had made several recordings months before with Graham Bond and Duffy Power that had not been released by then.
This is all terribly nostalgic. It reminds me that, at school, we used to send off for guitar catalogues and drool over the photos of electric wonder within. At the time, none of us could actually play the things but they were still objects of lust to our teenage minds. Later a position occupied by Marianne Faithfull.
Ohh, a Mars bar would make a terrible mess of a sunburst Gibson.