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Them
A popular Belfast band, fronted by Van Morrison,
they had hits with Baby Please Don't Go and
Here Comes The Night. The band had staffing
difficulties as their label's
decision to use
session musicians on recordings (although Morrison
was still employed) upset the band regulars.
Two disillusioned members became a milkman & a postman!
More popular with the die-hard fans
was the lesser-known
Gloria, which has become an anthem for Them fans.
Them
The Tornados (aka The
Tornadoes)
An instrumental band produced by innovative
Joe Meek, they started their recording career from
his makeshift studios in London's Holloway.
Geoff Goddard and Meek composed the tunes and
Alan Caddy, Clem Cattini, George Bellamy, Roger Lavern
and Heinz Burt performed the quirky and futuristic-
sounding numbers. Telstar was their first big hit,
a number one in the UK and the US, with sound effects
pioneered by Meek involving, amongst other things,
him standing in a bath to get the right levels of sound.
Unwisely, they never consolidated their chart success
in the States and cancelled tours diminished their
popularity at a time when the first rumblings of the
British invasion were brewing over the Atlantic. They
had more UK chart success with the space-age
Globetrotter, Robot and The Ice Cream Man.
Good-looking Scandinavian front man Burt quit the
band and the writing was then on the wall and
further offerings such as Early Bird and Stingray
just served to regurgitate the same old sounds at
a time when bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling
Stones were breaking new ground. With other band
members quitting, the demise of his flag-ship band
caused genius Meek to drift further into depression
until his sad and tragic suicide in 1967.
Meek, and his bands such as The Tornadoes and
The Honeycombs left a huge catalogue of hits
as well as an incredible record of low-budget but
high-standard technical innovation and wizardry
which had a huge influence on the later sounds of
the sixties. His influence was 'instrumental' in forcing
other big studios to raise their games and improve
their equipment and techniques.
The Tornados
Traffic
Out of The Spencer Davis Group came
Traffic, led by
Steve Winwood. The originators of the 'lets hang out in a
country cottage and see what sort of music we can make'
fashion in the late 60s. Their music was innovative and
inspired, but, as with a lot of bands, there were conflicts
as to the direction the band should be going (pop/rock
or progressive?) Paper Sun, Hole In My Shoe and
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush were very
respectable pop singles but the band scored better
musically with the albums Mr. Fantasy, Traffic,
Last Exit and the highly regarded
John Barleycorn Must Die.
Traffic. Jim Capaldi, Chris
Wood,
Dave Mason, Steve Winwood
The Tremeloes
After Brian Poole and his group had
split,
The Tremeloes ironically had greater success
while he went into obscurity. Starting with Cat Stevens'
Here Comes My Baby, then Silence is Golden,
Even The Bad Times Are Good, Suddenly You Love Me,
Helule, Helule & My Little Lady were all big hits.
The group was fronted by Chip Hawkes who gave the
group a good-looking face for the fans to recognise.
After the impressive Call Me Number One which
was written by the band, they moved into a
progressive phase and announced they were going heavy,
adding that fans of their previous output were morons.
This unspeakably arrogant assertion effectively
ended their careers.
The Tremeloes. Chip Hawkes,
Rick West,
Dave Munden, Alan Blakely
The Troggs
The Troglodytes and Ten Foot Five
merged in Andover,
England and Reginald Ball changed his name to Presley
to impress the Elvis fans. Thus were born The Troggs
who had several major hits worldwide although suffering
from an unfortunate image problem in the UK due to their
country roots and accents. Wild Thing & With A Girl Like
You
were both big sellers but their US record company goofed
and put Wild Thing out on two labels at the same time!
To make it worse With A Girl Like You was a B-side on
one pressing. I Can't Control Myself and Any Way That
You Want Me were both highly suggestive lyrically
and in Reg's delivery & at odds with the band's
seemingly naive image, but both did well. Although
Love Is All Around, penned by Reg Presley, was a hit
for them it took Wet, Wet, Wet thirty years later
to realise the song's full potential and keep it on top
of the UK charts for months and provide Reg with some
useful royalties. These days Reg can be found
examining crop circles and investigating UFOs.
The Troggs
Jethro Tull
Formed in Luton, Bedfordshire in
1967, and
fronted by Edinburgh's son Ian Anderson, this album
and live performance band has been very productive
up to the 90s. Major singles included Life's a Long
Song, Living In The Past & The Witch's Promise with
classic albums Aqualung, Thick As A Brick, Too Old
To Rock And Roll, Too Young To Die and the compilation
Living In The Past. Impossible to categorise, their
musical style, a mix of folk/rock with Anderson's
quirky vocals and hectic flute is without comparison.
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull
Twinkle
Lynn Annette Ripley was born on 15th
July 1947 in
Surbiton, Surrey. She was signed to Dick Rowe’s Decca
and had her first big hit with the self-penned Terry,
a biker anthem in the Leader Of The Pack mould. The 17
year-old followed this with a minor hit, Golden Lights. She
wrote and released several further singles – Boy That I
Once Knew, Saturday Nights and Unhappy Boy. These didn’t
receive much interest and Twinkle retired until the early
70s when she tried a comeback with a cover of I’m A
Believer. Interest in Twinkle is clearly still there as I
receive many emails asking about her.
Twinkle
'The US In The UK'
The US embraced the British invasion in the same way
that the UK had accepted American acts for years.
At the same time as Britain was exploding with
creativity and new talent the Americans continued
to produce many fine acts with international appeal.
Bob Dylan, Tamla Motown, The Beach Boys, The Lovin'
Spoonful, The Mama & The Papas, The Byrds. There
was also a healthy cross-pollination of ideas - it was
said that elements of The Beach Boys
classic album
Pet Sounds were inspired by The Beatles' Rubber Soul
and The Beatles were quoted as being influenced by
Brian Wilson's work when they created Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band. Many American acts came to
work and make a career in the UK, among them Jimi
Hendrix, The Walker Brothers, Julie Felix and
P.J. Proby. Others were regular visitors such as
Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Phil Spector and Gene Pitney.
Many American writers had some of their biggest
successes with British acts, including Burt Bacharach
(Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw),
Bob Dylan ( Manfred Mann ), Jackie De Shannon
(The Fortunes, Marianne Faithfull.)
In the States, many groups adopted a
British look
or style, such as The Byrds and The Turtles or British
-sounding names as did The Sir Douglas Quintet.
Several groups had members from both sides of the
Atlantic too, such as Crosby, Stills
& Nash,
Fleetwood Mac, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and
The Monkees. The silly snobbery that exists
between pop and 'serious' music was
full of
contradictions - in The States, The Move were
considered underground but were light pop at
home and conversely The Lemon Pipers were thought
to be cool in the UK. The list of groups and performers
that made it in the States contains some impressive and
quality names but it is also noticeable that there
seems to be no rhyme or reason why
some groups did
or didn't make it. Why were Herman, Dave Clark and
Freddie huge in the States whereas The Small
Faces, Cliff Richard & The Shadows and Traffic
had little impact? The same is true
for many American
acts which were huge there and which didn't make any
impression in the UK, such as The Grateful Dead and
Country Joe & The Fish.
The Walker Brothers
Getting nowhere in homeland
U.S.A., Noel Scott Engel,
John Maus and Gary Leeds decided they liked the look of
what was happening in Britain and made the trip over in
1965. The first single, Pretty Girls Everywhere, made no
impression but the follow-up, Love Her, charted. The lads
thereby received the attention of the teenage mags and,
never able to resist such good-lookers, the teenage
female population of Britain succumbed to their charms.
Big sounding 'Spectoresque' production was their stock
in trade - Make It Easy On Yourself, My Ship Is
Coming In and The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore being
notable and worthy hits. By 1967 the young girls had
tired of the lads but, unusually, a comeback album as
late as 1975 called No Regrets proved that their force
was not spent. The pin-ups have long since been ripped
from the walls; nevertheless The Walker Brothers left
a legacy of some powerful, great and memorable
pop numbers.
The Walker Brothers
The Who
From London, The Who, aka The
Detours and
The High Numbers, allied themselves to the Mod
movement and provoked media and parental outrage
with their destructive antics on stage and in hotels.
With strong songwriting from Pete Townshend they
provided many powerful and enduring 60s anthems
including My Generation, Substitute and Pinball Wizard.
American success came after The Monterey pop
festival. I Can't Explain, Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,
& I Can See For Miles were further examples of their
hit-making capabilities. Original drummer, the eccentric and
energetic Keith Moon, died prematurely of a drug
overdose. They wrote and performed two classic rock
operas on album and film, Quadrophenia and
Tommy, as well as appearing at the Live Aid concert.
*See
Shel Talmy
(producer) interview in our
Star Interviews section*
The Who. John Entwistle,
Keith Moon,
Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend
The Yardbirds
R&B pioneers, Keith Relf, Paul
Samwell-Smith,
Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty and Eric Clapton,
they followed The Rolling Stones as resident band
at Richmond's Crawdaddy club. Their first hit was
strangely reminiscent of Chris Montez' Let's Dance,
entitled Good Morning Little Schoolgirl. Their grass roots
R&B
album work was at odds with the more commercial singles.
They had several successes with titles by Graham Gouldman
including the haunting For Your Love, Heartful Of Soul
and Evil Hearted You. Eric Clapton moved on and was
replaced by Jeff Beck. More hits followed including
the seemingly drug-induced Shapes Of Things and
Over, Under, Sideways, Down. Jimmy Page joined the
band but although now under the control of Mickie Most
success dried up and the members parted to form
Led Zeppelin and Renaissance.
*See
Jim McCarty
interview in
our Star Interviews section*
The Yardbirds
The Zombies
From St. Albans in Hertfordshire,
The Zombies
had their biggest success immediately with She's Not
There. Thereafter, they struggled to repeat this chart
success despite some great material and only
Time Of The Season did well. Rod Argent
formed Argent (Hold Your Head Up, God Gave Rock
& Roll To You) and Colin Blunstone had a solo career
(Say You Don't Mind, I Don't Believe In Miracles),
both doing much better in these new ventures. These
days they are performing as The Zombies once again,
with remarkable new albums such as Out Of The Shadows.
*See
Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent
interviews in our Star
Interviews section*
The Zombies
Zombies image © Chris Walter www.chriswalterphotography.com
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