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Cliff Richard
Harry Roger Webb was born on 14th
October 1940
and began his career in 1957 when joining a skiffle group
which he left after a few months. Cliff Richard then
joined Terry Smart and Ken Payne to form the Drifters.
They played at various clubs including the famous
2I's Coffee bar in Old Compton Street, W1. There they
met and teamed-up with guitarist and songwriter Ian
Samwell, after which came their big break at a talent show
in Shepherds Bush, West London. Cliff fought off attempts
to force him to abandon his backing group and to go solo.
They recorded Breathless and Lawdy Miss Clawdy and
were signed by EMI under the production of Norrie
Paramor. The next recording was Schoolboy Crush with
Move It as a B side. Move It was then made the A side
and it achieved number two in the charts. Cliff was
offered a song on Jack Good’s Oh Boy tv programme
and soon after Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch joined the
line up and became The Shadows, whom Good promoted
vigorously. Cliff became the darling of the young girls
– his sexy hip swinging even attracted the wrath of
the press. In 1959 he starred in two films, Expresso
Bongo as the curiously named Bongo Herbert
and Serious Charge. He released two singles, Living
Doll and Travellin' Light. From 1960 to 1962 he made
Please Don't Tease, Nine Times Out Of Ten, Theme
For A Dream and The Young Ones, also starring in
the film of the same name. Right through until '65 he
carried on producing hits such as On The Beach, Bachelor
Boy, and Summer Holiday. The movies The Young Ones
and Summer Holiday, whilst not classics, are great fun
and seem to capture a naiveté and innocence which was
soon to be lost in British culture, music and films. In
1966 he turned to Christianity but decided to use his faith
to convey a positive musical message and still made chart-
toppers such as In The Country and The Day I Met
Marie, followed by the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest,
the inappropriately titled Congratulations, where he
came second.
Cliff continued with hits over the next three decades,
sometimes waning slightly in popularity but always
retaining a hard core of fans and seeming able to pick-up
on musical trends and certainly retaining the respect and
love of the British public. Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha
was not about a sex change, but about a tom-boy turned
young beauty. Power To All Our Friends, Miss You Nights,
Devil Woman, We Don't Talk Anymore, Carrie and (the
very topical at the time) Wired For Sound. He also
sang with Olivia Newton-John, Phil Everly and Sarah
Brightman. He has released gospel songs too and appeared
on gospel tours. He was romantically-linked with Olivia
Newton John and tennis star Sue Barker over the years
although always maintaining they were just friends.
He famously kept the Wimbledon crowd entertained with
a free impromptu performance during a typically wet day
when play was abandoned. He parodied his success with
Livin’ Doll in collaboration with the mad comic foursome
The Young Ones and appeared in a stage musical entitled
Time, written by Dave Clark. Known simply as Cliff,
he was Knighted by The Queen in recent years.
His musical career now spans six decades, although
strangely his huge success and popularity around
the world never made an impression in the US.
The Rockin' Berries
Birmingham band The Rockin' Berries had hits with I Didn’t
Mean To Hurt You, He's In Town and Poor Man's Son.
Thereafter, the band went along a similar route to The
Barron Knights and into comic parodies and renditions
of other groups' hits.
The Rockin' Berries
The Rolling Stones
The original line-up of the group,
seen below, were
residents at the Crawdaddy club and had the patronage
of the influential R & B musician Alexis Korner. They
graduated to London's Marquee club where they were
spotted by Andrew Loog Oldham, who became their
manager. He urged them to look smart on their first
TV appearance, performing Chuck Berry's Come On.
However, this look was soon abandoned. The Stones had
a reputation as dirty and naughty boys when compared
to The Beatles but, in truth, there was nothing, apart
from the Epstein-inspired superficial smartness of
The Beatles, to separate them. Their first hit was,
ironically, a Lennon & McCartney song - I Wanna Be
Your Man. The Stones cultivated a bad-tempered
image, with their hair deliberately longer than the, by
now acceptable, mop-tops. The hits continued with a
cover of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away and their status
was by now clear as figures such as Phil Spector and
Gene Pitney were attending their recording sessions.
It's All Over Now was the next single & The Stones
played Blackpool, causing a riot where fifty people
were hurt. Nervous Ed Sullivan, US tv host, banned all
rock groups ( although this ban only lasted for a short
time as he succumbed to 'market pressures'). Little
Red Rooster was their next offering - there then
followed some examples of the fine song writing of
Jagger & Richard - The Last Time, (I Can't Get No)
Satisfaction & Get Off Of My Cloud. The Stones
continued their bad boy behaviour by being arrested
urinating at a petrol station. Further chart success came
with Mother's Little Helper &, Lady Jane. The strength
of the writing now showed with other artists having hits
with Jagger & Richard compositions - Marianne Faithfull
with As Tears Go By, Chris Farlowe with Out Of Time and
Gene Pitney with That Girl Belongs To Yesterday. More
hits for the group continued with 19th Nervous Breakdown,
Paint It Black, Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing
In The Shadow?, Let's Spend The Night Together &
Ruby Tuesday. Members of the band were arrested for
drugs possession and, the editor of The Times, no less,
came to their rescue. The Stones received lenient
rather than custodial sentences due to public pressure
and released the insipid We Love You as a thank you
to the fans. Jumping Jack Flash was their next
classic single. At this time, Brian Jones was
deteriorating due to drug abuse and was often
unfit for concerts. The members persuaded him
to leave the band - within a few weeks he was
found drowned, under the influence of drugs,
in his pool. A free concert already planned for
Hyde Park became his memorial service for the
faithful. After this episode, Jagger appeared in
two movies, Ned Kelly and Performance where he
did a respectable job. A fatal stabbing and other
violence only a few yards from the group at the
Altamont festival in California, and the controversy
and blame that surrounded this, did nothing for
the groups' reputation. In answer to The Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band came
The Stones' Their Satanic Majesty's Request.
The Stones created their own label and further
successes followed into the 70s with the single
Brown Sugar and the albums Sticky Fingers and
Exile On Main Street. Into the 80s there followed
the singles Angie, Start Me Up and It's Only Rock
And Roll and the album Tattoo You. Bill Wyman has
now retired ( to indulge his metal-detecting hobby),
but amazingly and impressively the rest of the
group are still touring and recording. This was
despite disputes with the revenue which stopped
them from coming home in '98. They performed
in the UK, however, in 1999.
The Stones are a British institution and one of a
handful of legendary rock 'n roll acts of all time.
*See
Andrew Loog
Oldham
interview in our Star
Interviews section*
The Rolling Stones. Bill
Wyman, Brian Jones,
Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richard
Crispian St. Peters
Robin Peter Smith was born in
Swanley, Kent on
5th April 1943. He was 'discovered' by manager
Dave Nicolson and had two false-start singles,
At This Moment and No, No, No as the now renamed
Crispian St. Peters. He was one of the most underrated
of all British pop stars of the sixties - though many
would say this was his own fault! Best known for
his two biggest hits You Were On My Mind
and The Pied Piper, he nonetheless wrote over
three hundred songs and recorded around two
hundred of them. He had huge chart successes around
the world in places as far apart as the US and Canada
to Australia and the far east. Poor management,
misguided outrageous statements concerning other
stars of the time - largely in the search for publicity
- and chronic health problems curtailed what could,
and should, have been one of the true British
superstars. During his meteoric but brief rise
to fame he claimed that he had written numerous
better songs than The Beatles. This good-looking guy
also claimed to be better looking than Elvis and
more exciting than Tom Jones which outraged fans
and the press alike. This was fifteen years before
punk when such boasts and jibes would have been
almost mandatory. He retreated to the country and
retro circuit. He has lived in poverty and pain for
over thirty years, far too high a price to pay for
a few controversial comments and a total waste of
a great talent. He still occasionally
sings for charity.
Crispian St. Peters
The Searchers
They were
the main Liverpudlian group from outside
of Epstein's stable. Named after the cowboy
film, they achieved a string of hits with
writers like Sonny Bono, Jackie De Shannon and
Tony Hatch, including Sweets For My Sweet, Needles
And Pins, Don't Throw Your Love Away, Sugar And Spice,
& When You Walk In The Room. They joined the cabaret
and sixties night circuit from the 70s onwards.
The Searchers
The Shadows
The Shadows - the very name conjures
up memories,
sights and sounds for a generation in a way that
few groups can. They were the ultimate British
instrumental group, starting life in the 50s as The
Five Chesternuts and then, as backing to Cliff
Richard, as The Drifters. Changing their name to avoid
confusion with the US outfit of the same name, Hank
Marvin, Bruce Welch, Jet Harris and Tony Meehan
created a sound and a style that dominated the charts
for several years, was responsible for British
teenagers starting their own copy-cat bands (and
thus establishing many great musical careers) & are
universally loved and respected to this day. Their
catalogue of hits is impressive - Apache, FBI, The
Frightened City, The Savage, Guitar Tango, Atlantis,
Kon Tiki, Wonderful Land, Dance On, Foot Tapper.
They even managed to push Sir Cliff off the number
one spot! Jet Harris and Tony Meehan split from
the other two and for a time the two bands were
competitors for chart success with the breakaway
team doing 'very well, thank you'. With the advent
of the Beat boom and the changing face of the scene,
The Shadows' form of instrumental became less
relevant and they struggled for a time. But with
the abilities of the band it didn't take long for them
to re-group as Marvin, Welch & Farrar and get
renewed success. As the 60s departed and their old
audiences matured, so too did The Shadows and they
continued to do stylish covers of themes from films
& shows (Deer Hunter, Don't Cry For Me Argentina)
as well as appearing on Cliff's tv show and producing.
These days, as with Sir Cliff, their contributions to
British pop and their influence on a generation is
fully recognised and they are seen as elder statesmen
of our music scene.
The Shadows
Helen Shapiro
With a deep
mature voice, record company executives
could not believe this singer was only 14 years old.
Don't Treat Me Like A Child seemed an appropriate
first title in the charts. You Don't Know, Walkin' Back
To Happiness, Tell Me What He Said,
Goody, Goody
and Little Miss Lonely followed. She starred in a
London Palladium season, topped the bill ahead of
The Beatles on a tour and was voted top UK female
singer. Two pop movies, It's Trad Dad
and
Play It Cool and then musicals and cabaret
continued Helen's career.
Helen Shapiro
Sandie Shaw
Adam Faith noticed Sandie and
pointed her in the
direction of Eve Taylor, his manager. Chris Andrews was
recruited to provide the songs and Sandie did the rest.
With her classic sixties model looks, barefoot gimmick,
and singing voice suited to Andrews' material, she had a
string of hits, starting with an excellent and definitive
version of Bacharach and David's brilliant
Always Something There To Remind Me.
Andrews provided many more hit-making titles
(Long Live Love, Girl Don't Come...)
In 1967 Sandie was entered as Britain's Eurovision entry
with Puppet On A String, a song which, to this day, she
despises from the first oom-pah. Re-emerging in the 80s
having been 'adopted' by Morrisey and The Smiths,
Sandie has worked and recorded into the 90s as well as
writing an entertaining book, The World At My Feet.
Sandie Shaw
The Small Faces
Steve Marriot and Ronnie Lane
writing all of the
songs, this mod band were thus named due to their
shortness and the fact that they were mods - aka
'faces'. They came from east London and were innovative
in their songs using phased drums on Itchycoo Park
and Church Bells and Cockney chat on Lazy Sunday.
Tin Soldier was a classic R&B number followed by
All Or Nothing and Sha, La, La, La, Lee. As was almost
a necessary event for the cool bands of the day,
they were thrown off of a plane in Australia for
rowdy behaviour. Comedy performer and nonsense
-speaker Stanley Unwin appeared on the revolutionary
album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. Come the 70s, the
diminished Faces became Rod Stewart's backing band.
The Small Faces. Ian McLagan,
Steve Marriot,
Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones
Soft Machine
This
experimental band toured with Jimi Hendrix and
were influential on many of the progressive bands of the
late 60s with their fusion of jazz/rock and unusual
sounds. Albums of note were Soft Machine, Soft Machine
Volume II and the imaginatively titled Third Album.
Soft Machine
Dusty Springfield
Britain's finest white soul singer
had a turbulent
career. She started as a backing singer for The
Lana Sisters and then sang with brother Tom in the
trio The Springfields as a folk/pop act. She took the
brave decision to go it alone at the start of the beat
boom and had her reward with I Only Want To Be
With You. Her panda eyes and beehive hairstyle were
her trademarks, if not a few years out-of-date at
the time. Along with Sandie, Lulu and Cilla she carried
the international torch for British female talent very
effectively and was a strong supporter and promoter
of the Motown sound in its very early days in England.
She was also unceremoniously thrown out of South
Africa for her refusal to play to segregated audiences.
Hits came from Carole King, Burt Bacharach and Randy
Newman including You Don't Have To Say You Love Me,
Wishin' and Hopin', In The Middle Of Nowhere,
24 Hours To Tulsa, I Just Don't Know What To Do
With Myself, Losing You and Goin' Back. When she was on
the wane she took the remarkable step of going to Memphis
and was embraced there as a soul sister and produced
her best work, the album Dusty In Memphis, from which
the hit Son Of A Preacher Man came. She had her ups and
plenty of downs in the last two decades but, after a return
to live in England, she was championed by The Pet Shop Boys,
became a gay icon & had some more chart success. Sadly,
breast cancer finally claimed another talented & much
loved
victim in 1999.
Dusty Springfield
Cat Stevens
Steven Demitri Georgiou was born in
London on 21st
July 1947. He had hits with I Love My Dog, Matthew And
Son and I'm Gonna Get Me A Gun as well as writing Here Comes
My Baby for The Tremeloes and The First Cut Is The Deepest
for P.P. Arnold. He is probably best known, however, for
his 70s compositions Lady D’Arbanville, Morning Has
Broken, Moon Shadow, Wild World and Can’t Keep It In and
his classic albums Teaser And The Firecat, Catch Bull
At Four and Tea For The Tillerman. He changed his name
to Yusuf Islam and converted to the Islamic faith, giving
up the trappings of showbiz. His music has been used on
countless movie soundtracks.
Cat Stevens
The Swinging Blue Jeans
Out of Liverpool’s late 50s
skiffle movement formed
The Bluegenes, pure rock ‘n’ roll devotees. They emulated
The Beatles by going to Hamburg. They renamed and
signed to HMV. Hippy Hippy Shake and Good Golly
Miss Molly were excellent rocking numbers while You’re
No Good showed the Blue Jeans in more pensive mood.
The Blue Jeans suffered like other 'Merseybeat'
contemporaries from fashion changes and despite trying
new line-ups and new material the band merely served
as a springboard to other bands such as Terry Sylvester’s
migration to The Hollies. The band reformed in more
recent years to take advantage of the sixties revivals
and a band of the same name can be seen
performing to this day.
The Swinging Blue Jeans
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