Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 3 - The 1970s

[kalowski]

Amo Amas Amat as we say in Latin.

[daf]

341.  Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody



From : 11 December 1973 – 14 January 1974
Weeks : 5
B-side : Don't Blame Me
Bonus : Top of the Pops (pink suit)
Bonus : Top of the Pops (Mirror Top Hat)
Bonus : Top of the Pops (Christmas 1974)
Bonus : Dutch TV 1983
Bonus : Razzamatazz 1985

The Story So Further :  1987 - 1992

To avoid becoming known as just a 'Christmas' hit band, Slade delayed release the single "Still the Same" (b/w "Gotta Go Home") until February 1987. The single was not a hit, reaching only #73 in the UK, leaving RCA wondering whether it might have been a better idea to release it at Christmas after all!



Dave Hill : ""Still the Same" is basically being regarded as a flop in terms of what was expected of it. I think the record company were mostly disappointed, as it was more them than the group who chose it. We brought this record out, not in the usual Christmas period, which on the face of it seemed to me to be a feasible idea as an attempt to get away from the 'Slade only exist at Christmas time' situation. On listening to opinion though, it seems to have been regarded as another "My Oh My"-type song, which perhaps should have come out at Christmas. When "My Oh My" was released, it was just as slow to take off, but as soon as we got the radio play, it rocketed. "Still the Same" did virtually the same chart-wise in its first few weeks, but at the point where "My Oh My" picked up radio play, "Still the Same" was dropped completely."

Released in April 1987, "That's What Friends Are For", (b/w "Wild Wild Party), suffered a similar fate, peaking at number 95.

Dave Hill : ""That's What Friends Are For" looks to be the next single, mainly because there's a certain person up at RCA who is going wally over it. This is a 'scarf waver' type of number."



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Slade's fourteenth and final studio album, 'You Boyz Make Big Noize', was released a week later on 27 April 1987.



When the band set out to record their next album in 1986, they hoped to record a hit album that would put Slade back into the public eye. Initially the band hired producer Roy Thomas Baker to produce the album, but the band felt his working methods were too lengthy and expensive. In the end, Baker completed the tracks "Love Is Like a Rock" and "That's What Friends Are For".

Jim Lea : "I was out with Roy one night, and he got serious for one moment, and said "The only reason I'm here with you lot is because right now in America all the young bands, certainly in Los Angeles, are searching for the formula that Slade created – commercial songs with that edge, and that sound where it all comes out as one". Roy Thomas Baker was the one who put the word 'producer' on the modern map of production – it was a great compliment from him."



'You Boyz Make Big Noize' was recorded at Wessex Studios, Portland Studios, Redan Studios and Music Works. The album's title was chosen after Betty, a Wessex Studios tea-lady, commented to Slade "you boys make big noise" during a recording session.

John Punter produced "Still the Same" and "Ooh La La in L.A.", and Jim Lea finished the rest, including : "Fools Go Crazy", "She's Heavy", "Won't You Rock with Me", "Me and the Boys", "Sing Shout (Knock Yourself Out)", "The Roaring Silence", and "It's Hard Having Fun Nowadays".

Don Powell : "We finished the album yesterday, actually. We spent yesterday piecing it together and sorting out the running order. We know exactly which tracks will be on the album – all of which is new material. The album has taken us a long time to record, especially the tracks that John Punter and Roy produced. We spent the first two days with Roy just trying to get the drum sound as he wanted it. He had forty odd mikes over my kit, and it sounded like thunder in the studios. The album is more of a sing-a-long one, as opposed to a heavy metal album."



Upon release, Jon Hotten of Kerrang! described the album as having the "unmistakable Slade stamp" with "12 potential singles", and concluded: "If you like Slade, you'll like this, if you don't, then I don't think this is the album to convert you."



The album spent just one week in the UK chart, peaking at #98. Like much of Slade's later material, it fared better in Norway where it got to number 12. Due to Holder's personal reasons, the idea of touring to promote the album was ruled out.

Noddy Holder : "My wife filed for a divorce and my dad was extremely ill, so I told the band I wasn't going to tour any more. They didn't really like that. Slade had started out as a gang of four happy-go-lucky guys, and it wasn't that any more. When it stopped being fun, that was it for me."

Dave Hill : "We could announce a tour now, but caution tells us that we'd do better to announce one on the back of a hit. We haven't called it a day on the touring and if luck would have it, we could be touring after this LP. Fans might be feeling a little left out and a bit disappointed, but they've got to understand that 21 years now is a long time to stay together as a group. We are a little older and we are still trying. I think that deep-seatedly within the group, every one of us would play live, but what we are searching for is a way to take us to another stage of success."

Don Powell : "It wasn't us, there was no identity on that album. It would have been nice for the original band to have gone out with a better album, like the Slade in Flame album or Slayed?. It was like a certain magic was missing. The closeness that we'd had wasn't there."



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Following the album's failure, RCA agreed to let Slade return to their own Cheapskate Records label, although RCA still continued distributing. A new single, also called "You Boyz Make Big Noize" was released in August. Influenced by the Beastie Boys' musical style, it features rap-styled verses from Noddy, and vocals from Vicki Brown.

Jim Lea : "She was wandering along a corridor and Noddy said "ere, you're female, do you want to be on our record?" She was not supposed to sing, she was supposed to say two lines but she sang one of the lines and she had this amazing voice. I wish we had written more for her."
 
It was another commercial failure, just creeping into the top 100 at #94. The single did not feature on the European version of the album but became the title track for the American version which was also released in August 1987.

In America, reviews were generally positive. Billboard recommended the album, describing it as "raucous, guitar-based rock with shout-along choruses".

Guitar magazine noted that the album "carries on Slade's spirit with amazing vibrancy". They concluded: "Holder and Lea are masters of schoolboy hooks, big shouted choruses that anyone can latch onto. No one will ever mistake this for compositional brilliance, but Slade's consistent ability to suck you into their friendly carousing is impressive."

Jim Zebora of Record-Journal summarised: "Perhaps the thing that Slade does best and what makes their playing so entertaining is the mixture of rocking sincerity and good humor about what it all means. "Sing Shout (Knock Yourself Out)" describes this philosophy in song, and boy does it make you want to move. If this were a just world, Slade would still be making hit records. That they're not just doesn't seem to be their fault."

Despite the decent reviews, the album was not successful in America, neither was the single "Ooh La La in L.A." despite receiving radio play in the city of Los Angeles.



Dave Hill : "There is something about the chorus on this one. It is a very different sort of song for Slade. The lyric is very autobiographical. One verse is about Don being pissed all the time. There is mention of the Sunset Marquee, where a lot of bands stay. There is a verse about Barney's Beanery, where we used to play pool all the time."

In late 1987, "We Won't Give In" was released as a single in the UK, where it peaked at No. 121. In 1988, Slade released a cover of the Chris Montez song "Let's Dance"; a re-mix of the track from Crackers – The Christmas Party Album.

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In 1989, Hill formed his own group Blessings in Disguise with Ex-Wizzard keyboard player, Bill Hunt, Craig Fenney and Bob Lamb. They released the single "Crying in the Rain" featuring Holder on vocals in November 1989.

Dave Hill : "It was just a thing we did for fun, Nod and I got together. There was no pressure to do it and we recorded one of my own songs, which is also good and will probably be on the B-Side. "Crying In The Rain" came from a bit of a jam. We actually did an Elvis song as well, "A Fool Such As I", although it's not as good as the Everly's song. Nod sings it really well."



In late 1989, after what was initially supposed to be an 18-month break, Holder announced plans for a new album. Due to be released in 1990, the album never materialised, nor did the tour that would have followed had the album been a success. During 1990, Lea released his own version of Slade's "We'll Bring the House Down" under the name The Clout.

In late 1990, both Holder and Lea produced a cover of "Merry Xmas Everybody" by the band The Metal Gurus, featuring members of Goth band The Mission. The single peaked at #55 in the UK, and both Holder and Lea appeared in the song's music video, whilst Holder provided lead vocals on one of the single's b-sides, another Slade cover, "Gudbuy T'Jane". All artist royalties from the sale of the single were donated to Childline.



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In April 1991, the Slade fan club-organised a 25th anniversary party. The band, who were invited, played one song, Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" which turned out to be their last live performance.

In that same year, Lea produced the single "Where Have All the Good Girls Gone" for the Crybabys, which was not a success. Later, Polydor Records, after hearing "Crying in the Rain", contacted Slade about a new compilation album. It was hoped that Slade would promote it by releasing two brand new singles and, if successful, would record a new studio album.

The first single, "Radio Wall of Sound" (b/w "Lay Your Love On The Line"), written by Lea and originally intended for a solo project, was released in October 1991.



The compilation album, 'Wall of Hits' was released the following month, along with a video compilation under the same name.



Both the single and the album were moderately successful reaching #21 and #34 respectively.



A second single, "Universe" (b/w "Red Hot") was released in December 1991. Despite a number of TV performances, the single failed to reach the top 100. As a result, in January 1992, Polydor withdrew the option for a new album and future singles.

Dave Hill : "As time went by, things just weren't the same any more. There was a sense of running things down. The record company didn't re-sign us. Without touring, for me there didn't seem to be any point in being a band. I still find it difficult to talk about. Nod didn't want to do it any more, and I understood that."



In March 1992, the band returned to Rich Bitch Studios to record a new house/dance-style version of "We'll Bring the House Down". However, by the end of the month, Holder had decided to finally leave the band. He had become weary of the constant arguing and discontent within the band, and effectively managing their day-to-day affairs. He left after 26 years with the band to explore other career paths.

Noddy Holder : "When bands break up it's usually to do with five reasons – egos, money, drink and drugs, women or musical differences. In Slade's case it was all of the above. Though Dave and Don were paid for performances, Jim and I received more as writers. That became an issue when there was less money floating around. We hadn't been getting on for a while, and then Jim started to want more and more control in the studio."

Believing Holder to be an integral member of Slade, Lea also effectively retired from the band, preferring to work alone in the studio, rather than continue without Holder.

Don Powell : "The band had run its course. After so long of being together, that felt strange."

Powell briefly became a bartender in a hotel his wife managed, but would soon re-join Hill to form Slade II later in the year.

Dave Hill : "I was concerned; of course I was, not knowing what the hell I was going to do with myself. Don and I going out on the road under another name was never going to be an option. I had played the pubs and the one sure thing to come out of it was that I was going to miss the life for sure. Fortunately, a chap got hold of me, it was Len Tuckey who as you will know was in The Nashville Teens, and later was lead guitarist for Suzi Quatro, who he later married, and he asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was thinking of forming a band to which he replied, "you shouldn't be forming a band, you should be going out as Slade". He said "Everybody knows you, and if the other two don't want to do it, then that shouldn't mean that you don't". After that, I asked Don if he would like to be involved in this idea, he did and off we went. And, to be totally honest with you, Don and I have had some magical years. So, the good news is that I got through it."
 


Slade II was formed in 1992 by Dave Hill with Don Powell and three other musicians - Craig Fenney (bass), Steve Makin (guitar) and Steve Whalley (lead vocals and guitar). The suggestion to call the group Slade II came from Holder, but Lea was not happy with the Slade name being used at all.

Working solidly on the UK theatre circuit during the winter months and throughout Europe the rest of the year, the band released one studio album in 1994 entitled 'Keep on Rockin'. The album was not successful, nor were the singles "Hot Luv" and "Black and White World". The band have seen many line-ups but Hill and Powell have remained constant throughout.



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In the 1990s the surreal BBC comedy series 'The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer' included a series of spoof sketches featuring Slade at home in their shared council house. Noddy (Vic Reeves), Jim (Paul Whitehouse) and Don (Mark Williams) were the three mischievous ones who were constantly arguing, wrecking the house and messing around with fireworks, much to the annoyance of the motherly Dave (Bob Mortimer).

Dave Hill : "It was a nice compliment like it is when people cover one of your songs, but they really were hilarious; it was really funny. We had been told that they were going to do it, and to this day, I think that it is hilarious."

Noddy Holder : "It shows how much we meant to people, for them to remember that stuff and satire it. If there'd been Cup-a-Soups in the 70s we'd have drank 'em. All that stuff about cutting Dave's hair with a Fray Bentos tin around his head was pretty near the mark. We used to take the mick out of Dave, mainly about his clothes. You've got to remember that at the height of our fame, Dave bought a house right next to a girls' school! So they were camping on his lawn, screaming every time he left the house. He's always been on Planet Dave: naive, childlike. I've probably never met a nicer bloke. Don was merciless; very funny, actually. A few years ago, Dave had a stroke onstage, and when they brought him round, Don said: "You realise you're gonna have to stop shooting heroin now, Dave." Cos Dave is as clean as clean can be. He went: 'I nearly fuckin' died, you know!'"



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On 3 February 2020, Don Powell announced on his official website that Hill had sent him a "cold email" informing him that his services were no longer required. Hill disputes this version of events, stating that the break-up was more amicable.

Dave Hill : "I'm an entertainer, and people still want to hear those songs. There seems to be interest in getting me over to America again. I'm sad at falling out with Don, and it's hard to discuss without stirring up further animosity, but I will keep on going. I still love it as much as I did picking up my first guitar at thirteen."

Powell also announced that he will be forming "Don Powell's Slade" with former Slade II bassist Craig Fenney.

Don Powell : "Things are a little easier with Dave now, and I'm planning to form my own line-up of Slade."

Noddy Holder : "The way things are now between Dave and Don, it'll never happen. I couldn't do four or five gigs in a row singing like I used to. I don't think any of us could manage it. We're in our seventies. And I know that we wouldn't get on. Twelve or thirteen years ago there was talk of one final tour, but everybody fell out at the meeting. The only time I hear from Jim now is a solicitor's letter when I'm accused of saying something [in an interview]."

The Single :

"Merry Xmas Everybody" was written by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea, and recorded by Slade.



By 1973, Slade were one of the most popular bands in Britain. During the year, manager Chas Chandler suggested that Slade write and record a Christmas song. Although the other band members were initially against the idea, Lea came up with the basis of the song while taking a shower. After coming up with the verse melody, Lea recalled a song Holder had discarded in 1967, which he had written when the band were named the 'N Betweens. Entitled "Buy Me a Rocking Chair", it was Holder's first solo work. "Merry Xmas Everybody" used the melody of this song for the chorus, with Lea's melody as the verse.

Jim Lea : "Nod had written the chorus of it in 1967. In those days it was all flower power and Sgt. Pepper and Nod had written this tune. The verse was naff but then he came to the chorus and went 'Buy me a rocking chair to watch the world go by, buy me a looking glass, I'll look you in the eye' - very Sgt. Pepper. I don't use tape recorders, I just remember everything and if something's been written 10 or 15 years ago, it stays up there in my head. I never forgot that chorus, and I was in the shower in America somewhere thinking - Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan - and suddenly out came "are you hanging up the stocking on the wall" and I thought that'll go with that chorus Nod did in '67. So I rang Nod and said what about doing a Christmas song and he said alright, so I played it to him and that was it."

After an evening out drinking, Holder worked through the night at his mother's house in Walsall to write the lyrics, which he completed in one draft. Holder presented his lyrics to Lea, and the pair played the song to Chandler on acoustic guitars. Slade then set off on a sell-out tour. Ten weeks before the song was recorded, drummer Don Powell was injured in a car accident. His girlfriend Angela Morris was killed, and Powell remained in a coma for almost a week. After his eventual recovery, he was able to join the band to record the song.



"Merry Xmas Everybody" took five days to finish, but the band disliked the first completed version. It ended up being re-recorded, with the corridor outside used to record the chorus, as it provided an appropriate echo.

Jim Lea : "We recorded it in the Record Plant in New York which is on top of a skyscraper. We said we needed an echoey room but in those days nobody went for this big, big sound that they're all into now. These engineers thought we were mad, they're going 'no man, you know the Eagles, a very tight sound, Hotel California and all that pinging out of the speakers at you. I said what about the hallway downstairs and they went 'we can't use the hallway, there's all these businessmen walking through for the other offices'. Anyway we ran lines down to the hallway and there we were in September singing 'so here it is merry Xmas' and we were totally unknown over there and people thought we were mad."

The song was recorded in the late summer of 1973, partway through Slade's east coast US tour, at the Record Plant in New York, where John Lennon had just finished working on his album Mind Games.

Noddy Holder : "The best compliment I ever had was when we were recording Merry Xmas Everybody and John Lennon was next door and popped in and said: 'Great singer – he sounds like me.'"

Jim Lea : "The seasonal epic, as you call it, was recorded with me full of high anxiety. Don couldn't remember anything and no-one would rehearse it with me. They were against the idea. What you hear on the track is me playing bass, acoustic guitar, piano and harmonium as the track was built out of thin air, through lack of rehearsal. Dave conceded to play electric guitar. Poor Don looked on in horror as he drummed a single rhythm just to get it down. I knew it was good, but there was only one player in the team. Everything I tried out is on the record as Dennis Faranti (engineer) liked all the ideas I had. I dreaded hearing the mix, as we were on the road, while Chas and Dennis mixed it. I was relieved when I heard what was born from STRESS."



Upon release, Record Mirror stated: "When Slade get hold of a Christmas song, inevitably it's something different. Holder and Lea, that well known tunesmith duo, here on a gentler, more melodic, less rumbustious, guaranteed number one than usual."

Disc commented: "There is no doubt that this slice of festive cheer will be a huge monster hit: the main question is whether it'll go straight to number one..."



Before its release, "Merry Xmas Everybody" received about half a million advance orders. 350,000 copies were bought upon its release. It became the third song by Slade to enter the UK Singles Chart at number one in its first eligible week on 15 December 1973, the seventh number one of their career, and the fastest selling single in the UK. Polydor, Slade's record label, were forced to use their French pressing plant to keep up with the demand, and the song eventually went on to sell over one million copies, becoming the Christmas number one of 1973, beating another Christmas-themed song, "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" by Wizzard. "Merry Xmas Everybody" remained number one until mid-January, and stayed in the Top 50 for nine weeks. That it remained in the charts after Christmas caused confusion for Holder, who wondered why people continued to buy it.

Noddy Holder : "We did lots of TV in Europe where we'd be on with a juggler or a camel. We did one in the 80s when Merry Xmas Everybody went big again; it gets shown again every Christmas. Me and Don had been drinking for hours, and were blasted. There's snow coming down and Don decides to play it like a heavy metal drummer, playing all these drum rolls like Animal off the Muppets. A total shambles, but great telly."



Holder has referred to the song as his pension scheme, reflecting its continuing popularity and the royalties it generates. In 2015 it was estimated that the song generates £500,000 of royalties per year.

Noddy Holder : "So they say! It's a good pension plan, put it that way. We had 40-odd hits and people still think the Christmas record was the one, but it's been good to us. You wouldn't believe the offers I get in December. I do appear as Santa for charity, real reindeer and everything, but people think I live in a cave all year and come out in December, shouting: 'It's Chriiisstmasss!'"

Other Versions include :  Max Bygraves (1974)  /  The 4 Skins (1981)  /  "Gleðileg jól" by Eyjólfur Kristjánsson (1989)  /  The Metal Gurus (1990)  /  Kim McAuliffe (1994)  /  Die Roten Rosen (1998)  /  Steps (2000)  /  Hermes House Band (2001)  /  Oasis (2002)  /  Girls Aloud (2005)  /  Tony Christie (2005)  /  "Hyvää joulua kaikille" by Menneisyyden Vangit (2005)  /  Eve Graham (2006)  /  Connie Talbot (2008)  /  The Gentlemen of St John's College, Cambridge (2009)  /  Karine Polwart (2010)  /  The Blue Van (2010)  /  Derwood Andrews (2010)  /  The Wurzels (2011)  /  Handsome Poets (2011)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Sloan (2012)  /  Wretched Graverobber (2013)  /  MegaByteMusic (2013)  /  Ladyhawke (2014)  /  Vice Squad (2014)  /  Pulled Apart by Horses (2014)  /  Joe Reeves & Friends (2014)  /  Vibrators (2015)  /  David Buckingham (2015)  /  Paul Nelson Band (2015)  /  Train (2015)  /  ironmonger100 (2015)  /  Thom Cooper (2016)  /  Baked A La Ska (2016)  /  Cheap Trick (2017)  /  Giuliano Palma (2017)  /  Warbly Old James Blunt (2017)  /  IQ (2017) [The Return of the Giant Nodweed!]  /  Paul Canning (2018)  /  Six String Fingerpicking (2018)  /  Robbie Williams featuring Jamie Cullum (2019)  /  L.A. Guns (2019)  /  Benji Webbe (2020)  /  Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts (2020)  /  The Detox Twins (2020)  /  Blind Guardian (2020)  /  Bastille (2020)  /  Chasing Misfortune (2020)  /  Kieran Mcdonnell (2020)

On This Day :

11 December : The Treaty of Prague is signed by West Germany and Czechoslovakia,
13 December : Kosmos 615, a satellite intended as a radar target for anti-ballistic missile tests, is successfully launched by the Soviet Union
13 December : Henry Green, English author dies aged 68
15 December : American kidnap victim John Paul Getty III freed, minus one ear, after ransom paid by his tightwad oil tycoon grandfather J. Paul Getty.
15 December : American Psychiatric Association declares homosexuality is not a mental illness
17 December : Patrick Hadley, British composer, dies aged 74
17 December : Paula Radcliffe, long-distance runner, born Paula Jane Radcliffe in Davenham, Cheshire
17 December : Arab terrorists shoot passengers on Boeing 737 to Kuwait
18 December : Soyuz 13 launched into Earth orbit for 8 days
19 December : "Molly" closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 68 performances
20 December : Spanish prime minister Luis Carrero Blanco is assassinated in Madrid by the terrorist organization ETA.
20 December : Bobby Darin, American singer dies of a heart attack aged 37
22 December : Irna Phillips, American actress and writer, dies aged 72
23 December : Gerard Kuiper, Dutch-American astronomer, dies aged 68
23 December : OPEC doubles the price of crude oil.
23 December : French Caravelle airliner crashes in Morocco, 106 killed
24 December : Ferryboat capsized off coast of Equador, drowning 200
25 December : IT'S CHRIIIIISSSSTMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSS!!
26 December : Horror film "The Exorcist" premiers
26 December : Skylab 2 - three astronauts walk in space for a record 7 hours
26 December : Soyuz 13 returns to Earth
27 December : 21-year-old British student Lucy Partington is abducted by serial killers Fred and Rosemary West.
28 December : Seth Meyers, TV comedian, born Seth Adam Meyers in Evanston, Illinois
28 December : Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn publishes saucy bonk-buster "Gulag Archipelago"
28 December : Comet Kohoutek at perihelion
28 December : The Endangered Species Act is passed in the United States.
29 December : Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once : Cécile Cerf, French Resistance fighter, dies aged 57
31 December : Malcolm Middleton, musician (Arab Strap), born Malcolm Bruce Middleton in Dumfries, Scotland
31 December : Johan Cruyff chosen as European Football Player of theYear
1 January : 24-year-old Catholic civilian John Whyte was shot and killed during an IRA sniper attack on a British Army mobile patrol in Belfast.
2 January : Tex Ritter, American actor and country musician, dies aged 68
2 January : 55 MPH speed limit imposed in the US
3 January : Miguel Pinero's "Short Eyes" premieres in NYC
4 January : Paranoid blue-chinned ghoul Richard Nixon refuses to hand over tapes subpoenaed by Watergate Committee
5 January : 44-year-old Leo McCullagh, a Catholic civilian, was shot and hilled by a Loyalist group at his home in Belfast.
5 January : Iwan Thomas, Olympic sprinter, born Iwan Gwyn Thomas in Farnborough, London
6 January : United Kingdom begins three-day work week during energy crisis
8 January : E Wilson Jr's musical "Let My People Come" premieres in NYC
10 January : Gertrude Bambrick, American silent film actress, dies aged 76
10 January : 53-year-old civilian John Crawford, a Catholic, was shot and killed near his workplace in Belfast by the UVF.
10 January : Eddie Safranski, American jazz double bassist, composer and arranger, dies aged 55
11 January : Clotilde von Derp, German expressionist dancer, dies aged 81
11 January : Margit Barnay, German silent film actress, dies aged 77
11 January : 53-year-old Cecilia Byrne and 46-year-old John Dunne, both Catholic civilians, were killed by a car bomb planted by the Official IRA.
12 January : Libya & Tunisia announces they are merging as "Arab Islamic Republic"
12 January : Here Comes Chisholm! Sporty Spice, singer (Spice Girls), born Melanie Jayne Chisholm in Whiston, Merseyside
13 January : 43-year-old Catholic civilian Christopher Daly was found shot to death by the Official Irish Republican Army in Belfast.
14 January : 41-year-old Protestant civilian Andrew Jordan was found shot to death by the Ulster Volunteer Force in a field in Carrowdore, County Down.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

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Previously :
306.  Slade – Coz I Luv You
315.  Slade – Tak Me Bak 'Ome
319.  Slade – Mama Weer All Crazee Now
323b. (NME 338.)  Slade – Gudbuy T'Jane
326.  Slade – Cum On Feel the Noize
333.  Slade – Skweeze Me Pleeze Me

[daf]

Welcome to 1974!

342.  The New Seekers feat. Lyn Paul – You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me



From : 15 – 21 January 1974
Weeks : 1
B-side : Song For You And Me
Bonus 1 : Promo Film
Bonus 2 : Top of The Pops November 1973
Bonus 3 : Top of the Pops December 1973
Bonus 4 : TV Performance
Bonus 5 : Top of The Pops December 1974 (Pan's People)

The Story So Far : 

By 1973, The New Seekers had enjoyed a number of hits in the US, and toured there with Liza Minnelli.

Lyn Paul : "She was just incredible and so much fun. We toured by private plane - us, Liza and her huge orchestra. And on the very first leg of the tour - I don't remember where we were going, you have to remember that this was the Seventies and I don't remember very much about the Seventies... Anyway, she stood up and took the mike at the front of the plane and said: "I've got a present for you lads and I want you to enjoy it to the full, make the most of every second." And with that, down the aisle came these two ladies pushing the drinks trolley with not a stitch on - making it clear that cocktails wasn't all they were going to provide. We'd have parties every night and these girls would be doing things to the boys I didn't even know that you could do. I remember seeing the trombonist having a sexual act performed on him - and playing his trombone in time to it."

While there, they recorded the title track to the American Marlo Thomas television special, 'Free to Be... You and Me', a landmark programme designed to teach children how to express themselves and be independent through a series of vignettes.



In September 1973, the three "male members" from the group, Peter Oliver, Paul Layton and Marty Kristian released their own album, 'Peter, Paul & Marty'.



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While the group's biggest success had been as a five-piece harmony group, around this time they began to favour lead singers for their songs with title credits given to Marty Kristian for "Come Softly to Me", Eve Graham for "Nevertheless (I'm In Love With You)", and Lyn Paul - who took the lead on the new single, "You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me". The song became a big hit over Christmas and eventually peaked at No. 1 in January 1974, becoming their second biggest hit. The B-side, "Song For You And Me", was credited to The New Seekers Featuring Eve Graham

Eve Graham : "Our successful records such as Beg, Steal Or Borrow and You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me, meant bigger venues, huge crowds and tours with Liza Minnelli, Neil Diamond and Gene Pitney. We rushed around everywhere, working so hard that it left hardly any time for me to have a boyfriend."



Their next single, "I Get a Little Sentimental Over You", credited to The New Seekers Featuring Lyn Paul, backed by "Ride A Horse", credited to The New Seekers Featuring Paul Layton, also became a big hit - peaking Number 5 in the UK chart in March 1974.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In March 1974 the album 'Together' was released — their first in a year. It contained their recent Number 1 "You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me" and the top five follow-up "I Get a Little Sentimental Over You", but none of the other 1973 releases, which had not featured on any studio album, although it did include an American single "The Greatest Song I've Ever Heard", which had been released several months earlier while Peter Doyle was still with the group.



Meanwhile, the album gained markedly improved sales over their previous two and rose to #12 in the UK charts — their second highest position in the album charts and remained in the top 50 for nine weeks.

Unlike their previous releases, this album didn't feature any compositions by the group themselves, but was made up of original tracks interspersed with cover versions including The Beatles' "Here, There and Everywhere" and "With a Little Help from My Friends", Buck Owens' "Crying Time" and Blue Mink's "Melting Pot" — a song which Graham had been offered to record in 1969.

Other songs featured on the album included : "You're the One", "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show", "Fire and Rain Medley", "Brand New Day", "Come on World", "Vado Via", and "Dedicated to the One I Love".

A review in Disc magazine saw favourable mention of a number of tracks, with the reviewer commenting that "there's no denying that what they do tackle is seldom less than well-executed and often considerably better than that".

The album coincided with the news that the group had decided to split.

Eve Graham : "There was a change of line-up and I felt that the magic had gone, so I left in 1974 and took some time out for myself. I loved being on stage, but not the life outside of it."

Originally, Eve Graham had expressed her wish to go solo, while Lyn Paul also decided that she wanted to leave. This was against the terms of their contract (which allowed for only one member to leave at a time), so the announcement was made that the group were to split entirely. The story was carried in newspaper headlines, with many suggesting that the real reason was that despite their success, the members of the group were receiving little financial reward.

Lyn Paul : "We were on £50 a week until I'd Like To Teach...  was in the charts and it went up to £100. Occasionally, we'd kick up a fuss and we'd be given a bonus of, say, £1,000 to buy some new clothes. We were just so grateful to be in a successful band we didn't really query it, but there should have been enough to go round, if people had just been a bit fairer. We split up as friends, but of course the money side of it kicked in and it all went into litigation. People were suing each other left, right and centre."



The New Seekers officially disbanded in May 1974. To coincide with their split the group performed a farewell tour, and Mirabelle magazine commemorated the momentous occasion with a flexi-disc, "Farewell New Seekers For Mirabelle Readers", given away in their 18th May 1974 edition.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their final album, 'Farewell Album', was released in August 1974. Despite being no more, having ceased to be, being bereft of life, and resting in peace, the ex-group had however recorded a number of songs for Polydor before their disbanding, and the label issued these three months after the group had ended.



"Sing Hallelujah" was released as a single, but stalled outside the official top 50 in the UK at #65, and as the album received no promotion from the group, it similarly failed to chart.



Other songs featured on the album included : "Inspiration", "All I Wanna Do", "Everybody's Song", "Somebody Warm Like Me", "Old Fashioned Song", "All Pull Together Kind of World", "Love and Sunshine", "Perfect Love", "I Wanna Be the Star of the Show", "Sad Song", and "Oh My Joe".

The album received a favourable review from Disc magazine, commenting on the fact that 10 of the 12 tracks feature female leads, while member Marty Kristian features on lead for just two of the songs. GOOD FACT!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In 1975 Marty Kristian, Paul Layton plus Danny Finn, from the group Wishful Thinking, teamed up to form Marty, Paul & Danny, releasing three singles : "Coming Alive Again" in March, "Take Me Back" in September, and "Sweet Melinda" in November 1975.



Meanwhile, Peter Oliver, Eve Graham and Lynn Paul began solo careers.



Lyn Paul : "Bit by bit, it dwindled out. It just sort of went. And then I found myself slogging up and down the motorway to godforsaken places, doing an hour's act and then driving five hours back for money that was reasonably good, but not fantastic. It was soul destroying."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In 1976, the New Seekers reformed with Kathy Ann Rae and Danny Finn replacing Lyn Paul and Peter Oliver.



Although they never replicated their earlier success, the group signed to CBS (Columbia in the US) and released the single "It's So Nice (To Have You Home)" which reached #44 in the UK chart August 1976.



This was followed by their reunion album 'Together Again', released in November 1976.



Further singles included : "I Wanna Go Back" which reached #25 in January 1977, and "Anthem (One Day in Every Week)" which peaked at #21 in July 1978.



This line up remained intact until 1978, when Danny Finn and Eve Graham left the group to marry.

Eve Graham : "I got a call two years later inviting me to return as part of the new line-up. But it was never going to be the same as before because, by then, ABBA had arrived and I felt they had better songs than us. I didn't enjoy it as much the second time around, so I left after two years with Kevin, who I met in the new line-up, and married in 1979."

Their final single for CBS was "Don't Stop The Music" in 1979, with Kathy Ann Rae on lead vocal, but after it failed to chart, she left the band and the group signed their final contract with EMI, releasing their first single "Love Is A Song" (b/w "Collision Of Love") in October 1979.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In 1980, the group attempted to represent the UK again in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Tell Me", but it was disqualified shortly before the British heats were televised due to the fact the group had already performed the song on TV a year earlier. Had they appeared in the 1980 UK contest, the group would have been up against former member Danny Finn, who was the lead singer of the winning group Prima Donna.

Marty Kristian entered a song in the 1983 UK Eurovision finals, performed by a trio called Audio, which included Kathy Ann Rae in the line up. Since then, there have been personnel changes which included Caitriona Walsh, Nicola Kerr and Vikki James. Paul Layton remained with the band throughout this time. The final tour was 2010.

The Single :

"You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me" was written by Tony Macaulay and Geoff Stephens, and recorded by The New Seekers.



Arranged by Gerry Shury and produced by Tommy Oliver, the song was released in November 1973, and featured lead vocals by member Lyn Paul - the first time she had sung lead on a single.

"You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me", the group's third, and final number 1 single, became their biggest hit for two years, spending a week at the top of the chart in January 1974.



The song was included on the group's final album as an active band, 'Together', as they announced their decision to split a month later.

Other Versions include :  Gro Anita (1974)  /  Arthur Prysock (1974)  /  The Britain Singers (1974)  /  Kathy Kirby (1974)  /  "Du får aldrig fat i en klovn som mig" by Gitte Hænning (1974)  /  "Peppar peppar ta i trä" by Siw Malmkvist (1974)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  a robot (2019)  /  Jill Howe (2021)

On This Day :

15 January : TV sitcom "Happy Days" begins an 11 year run on ABC
15 January : Edith Bowman, radio DJ and TV presenter, born Edith Eleanor Bowman in Anstruther, Fife, Scotland
16 January : Kate Moss, model, born Katherine Ann Moss in Croydon, London
17 January : Styne, Comdem & Green's musical "Lorelei" premieres in NYC
17 January : 22-year-old Robert Jameson, an Ulster Defence Regiment soldier, was shot and killed by the Irish Republican Army in Trillick, County Tyrone.
17 January : 73-year-old Catholic civilian Daniel Hughes was shot and killed during a Loyalist gun attack on Boyle's Bar in Cappagh, County Tyrone.
18 January : "The Six Million Dollar Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV
19 January : Edward Seago, British artist, died aged 63
20 January : Edmund Blunden, English poet and critic, dies aged 77

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

[daf]

342b. (MM 301.)  Leo Sayer – The Show Must Go On
+        (NME 363.)  Leo Sayer – The Show Must Go On



From :  12 January - 1 February 1974 | 16 - 22 January 1974
Weeks : 3
B-side : Tomorrow
Bonus 1 : Top of the Pops Crowd Dancing December 1973
Bonus 2 : Top Pop September 1974
Bonus 3 : Live 1974
Bonus 4 : Muppet Show March 1978
Bonus 5 : Live 2018

The Story So Far :

Gerard Hugh Sayer was was born and raised in Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex to an Irish mother and an English father.

Leo Sayer : "The first record I bought was Jerry Lee Lewis, "Great Balls Of Fire", and my dad heard a little bit of me playing it in the bedroom, came storming in, picked it up and said 'I don't want to hear that in my house again' – opened the window and threw it into the garden. And at that moment my rebellion was set. It was always going to be the voice of family or authority that would set the meter for my expression. I suppose there's a rambling collection [of memories] from me starting to sing in the church choir – didn't really do much at school – although we had a school band and the drummer couldn't afford a drum-kit. He had a bass drum and a hi-hat and the rest of it was books on tables. So we were a crude band. But I remember how seriously we took it, even though we were probably crap! I knew even then, if we were going to do this thing, let's do it the best we can. I remember hours and hours of rehearsing, even for that school book banging performance! The teacher came up and said "you're damaging your books with your rock 'n' roll." This would have been '62 or '63 – The Beatles were just coming out. I hated them because I loved blues. We adored all the originals like Buddy Holly. We were kind of snobby about the fact that people like Boo Diddley, Chuck Berry and even Bobby Vee and Del Shannon made this music first. When the Rolling Stones came out we were into them because they were faithful to the original meter."



In January 1967, while 18-year-old Sayer was working as a hall porter at the King's Hotel in Hove, he assisted in the rescue of elderly guests from a serious fire that damaged the hotel's first floor. He himself was rescued from the blazing hotel by builders working on a block of flats beside the hotel.

Leo Sayer : "I was a teenager, working as a hotel hall lift porter in Brighton, and a fire started during a toy fair. The whole second floor went up in a ball of flame, and I took my lift up to get the people out. Most of my hair got burned off and I think that's why it is still so curly. But I managed to get two or three people out of the place. Sadly, I was also the last person to see two of the people I couldn't save. I was dragged out through the window by the fire people and I just saw them dying."

Sayer studied commercial art and graphic design at West Sussex College of Art and Design in Worthing, Sussex.

Leo Sayer : "I wanted to be an artist, a painter. Music wasn't important. I just drew and painted all day long in those days. It was all I did. I was a dyslexic kid, middle child, who took refuge in art. The art class in my secondary school became my haven of peace, one place where I wasn't bullied by my classmates. I painted over the walls, my desk, paper, board, anything. I left school and went to art school. My very 'straight' parents, terrified that I would become a 'Bohemian', insisted I went into a graphic design class. I was a bit of a rebel, spending most of my college time with the 'Fine Artists', and got ejected after completing only two years of a three year course. There was great revenge, however, when I got a job at a design studio within two weeks."

While working as a graphic designer in London, he started performing in clubs.

Leo Sayer : "I could play the harmonica, because I learnt how to do that at art school and I could bend a few notes. Friends of mine knew I could play and they were always trying to get me to get up on stage and play. I never did until Les Cousins in Greek Street. It was one of those 'come all ye' nights and John Martyn was hosting it and I think I asked Mr Martyn if I could get up and play with my harmonica. So I just grabbed the microphone and played this thing extraordinarily loudly. I didn't really know what I was doing, but it woke the whole place up and I got a standing ovation and everybody cheered! It was a great moment because I suddenly thought 'shit, I enjoyed that'. After that there was a little bit more of working in art studios, but it all crashed around me because I was trying to be too adventurous."

After working in graphic design he formed the group Patches with some mates.

Leo Sayer : "Anyway, the commercial art thing was alright, until I made a stupid decision to go and get my own studio. I started my own business and I had a bunch of artists I liked, who were friends, working with me. But it all went wrong because we never got paid. I couldn't face my parents – because  I'd told them I was a big success, and I wasn't – so I lived on a houseboat in the River Adur, in Shoreham-by-Sea, where I can from, with my parents living probably not even two miles up the road, so it was quite hilarious really. But a couple of mates of mine that I'd met were all in bands. So I ended up fronting some of these bands and the guitarist in one of them ended up moving out of his girlfriend's and moving in to the boat with me. So Max Chetwyn and I starting writing songs and we rejigged a band we were in at the time, got another member and called it Patches. That's how it all started. We went to an audition that David Courtney held."

He was initially discovered by musician David Courtney, who then co-managed and co-produced him with former pop singer turned manager, Adam Faith.



Leo Sayer : "David Courtney's dad had said 'I'll give you some money if you set up an agency'. A local talent agency. So there was this ad in the Evening Argus, the local paper, and me and the band said 'let's go along to that'. We'd been runners-up in the Melody Maker 'Battle Of The Bands' contest that went all around. It was like an early version of the X-Factor, and the area finals were in Worthing. We weren't as professional as some of the other bands , but we were still runners-up, so that was really encouraging. We had some songs – maybe a bit rough and ready – but there was something there. The Evening Argus audition was the next week, so we thought, let's strike while we're in this mode. You never know, something might happen – and it did! Adam Faith was apparently at that audition as well and saw it, and said to Dave 'bring this kid to meet me'. Dave and I had started to write some songs together, because he told me he didn't really want to be an impresario. He'd also got us no gigs, because he wasn't very good. But he took us to see Adam, and we played some songs that David and I had written, plus a couple of songs that me and Max, the guitarist, had written and he just said 'right, you're in the studio' and he made a booking, just like that!"

He changed his name from Gerard to Leo because Courtney joked that his hair looked like a lion's mane.

Leo Sayer : "I was a 'young talent' as it were, and I had met songwriter David Courtney, who had at one time been Adam Faith's drummer. After I had gone to an audition held by David, he singled me out and we started writing songs. He didn't have that many contacts, but then he said, 'Let's go and see Adam.' Immediately, we were in the studio and Adam was talking to record companies on my behalf. Things happened very fast. Adam was a crazy guy, incredibly entrepreneurial, incredibly courageous, feared nothing. You hang on to the shirt-tails of someone like that, and he's going to take you places. It was exciting!"

As part of the group Patches, his debut single, "Living in America" (b/w "The Hour Is Love"), was released in 1972, but failed to chart.



Leo Sayer : "As soon as Adam got involved, we went up to London to record a song called "Living In America" with the group Patches. It was released in 1971 on the Warner label – I think it sold 50 copies – but undaunted, and with Adam's great chutzpah, we were marching on to make the "Living In America", Patches album. But I think he already had designs that 'Leo Sayer' was going to come out of the band and be a solo artist."

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Following the single, Patches broke up and Sayer was launched as a solo performer.

Leo Sayer : "So as soon as we went up to The Manor in Oxfordshire, he fired all the band and I was on my own. That was pretty soon after that first recording, and so he had the job of launching me. Every moment in London he'd be taking me to Radio One, taking me to meet people and pushing me forward. So I had this amazing mentor. Keith Altham, publicist for the Stones, came onboard and when Keith got involved suddenly it was like "why don't you try this?" or "I'll put an article in the New Musical Express"."

Through Keith Altham, Sayer was introduced to Roger Daltrey from The Who.

Leo Sayer : "He said, "one of my clients, Roger Daltrey, has built a studio in his home, because he's a bit pissed off with Pete Towsnhend doing a solo album, so he's built a studio himself and he wants somebody to be a guinea pig and try it out. Why don't I suggest you guys?". So he did, and Roger said "bring it on, I love Adam, we were born in the same street" – and it's true, they were. Roger got really hands on as soon as we were in there. Even assistant engineering, putting on the tapes, that's Mr Daltrey for you!" 

Sayer co-wrote many of his songs with David Courtney, including "Giving It All Away", which gave Roger Daltrey his first solo hit in 1973.



Leo Sayer : "We got on like a house on fire – he was amazing. He loved us all very much and one day he turned around and said "I'm not going to pussyfoot around anymore, I've love your songs, Adam played me them and the reason I let you come up here is that I want to record your songs. I am going to do a solo album, so will you give me some songs?" Adam immediately chipped in and said "Look, let's hold up Leo's album" – which was pretty advanced by this time – "and let's put out Roger's first"."



Under the management of Adam Faith, Sayer signed to the Chrysalis label in the United Kingdom and Warner Bros. in the United States.

Leo Sayer : "He prepared me for it brilliantly. He made me do a thousand gigs before we cut a record, he'd come to every gig and he'd always tell me I'd done something wrong. He was so critical and tough, and he was like a Svengali to me. He trained me so well."

His first solo single, "Why Is Everybody Going Home" (b/w "Quicksand"), was released in August 1973, but failed to chart.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

His debut album, 'Silverbird' was released in late 1973 by Chrysalis in the UK, and Warner Bros. in the US.



It was co-produced by former British pop teen idol Adam Faith and David Courtney. Sayer wrote nine of the eleven tracks; the other two tracks were co-written with Courtney.

David Courtney : "Leo - Gerry as he was then - was always very animated, and reminded me of Al Jolson so I went out one day and bought him a pair of white gloves which he was bemused by. Photographer Graham Hughes, Daltrey's cousin and the guy who did all the early Who album covers, came down to see me at my Brighton apartment to discuss the concept for the Silverbird album sleeve. He listened to some of the tracks we had recorded, and asked me how I envisaged Leo's image. I told him about the white gloves and that sparked it off. Graham came up with the Marcel Marceau image, and later brought a real clown in to create the makeup. I remember Adam and I taking a 2-track recorder to record the 'Entry of the Gladiators' on an actual fairground organ, which we used as the intro for The Show Must Go On'. I guess it must have been those early Circus influences behind it...."



The recording of the album was a difficult and somewhat experimental process. Faith and Courtney were having loads of ideas but had no real experience in record production. The the album started to come together at Virgin Records' Manor Studios in Shipton-On Cherwell in Oxfordshire. Further recording took place at the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey's Barn Studio, Burwash, East Sussex.

Leo Sayer : "Then later on when I was making my first record Silver Bird, Adam Faith, and David Courtney (with whom I wrote all the lyrics) told me they'd heard that there was some guy down at the Beatles office in Savile Row who was really good. They told me had to go down there to master our record and it was such a thrill to go down there to Apple. I was wondering if I was ever going to bump into a Beatle in the building and then one day a guy came rushing out in a big fur coat and he turned around and said 'it's you isn't it'. And it was John."

Sayer had previously encountered John Lennon when working as a graphic designer. Yoko Ono had a flat above the design studio and Leo and Lennon bonded over cigarette breaks in the communal yard.
 
Leo Sayer : "I said yes my name is Leo Sayer and he said yes I remember you, we shared a 'ciggy' together. It was nice he remembered."

His second solo single, "The Show Must Go On" (b/w "Tomorrow"), was released in November 1973, and reached #2 on the official UK chart in December 1973. It also topped the NME charts for a week and the Melody Maker for three weeks in January 1974.



Leo Sayer : "We worked so intensely on it. Adam was like a movie director, the way he made that record. I'd absorbed his confidence. We were a great team; me, David and Adam. We knew we had something really great."

"The Show Must Go On" uses a circus theme as a metaphor for dealing with the difficulties and wrong choices of life. Early in Sayer's career, he performed it dressed and made up as a pierrot clown.

Leo Sayer : "If you look at it on YouTube you can see I'm pretty cool. I knew what I was doing and had some little bits of stagecraft. When fame and success followed Adam had already prepared me for it."

David Courtney : "It was probably the worse fashion period of them all, but the magic was in the spirit. Without doubt the most musically prolific period. The clown image added to the mystique, but it would have only ever have been a gimmick if it had not been backed up with substance with Leo's voice and the songs."



Other songs featured on the album included : "Innocent Bystander", "Goodnight Old Friend", "Drop Back", "Silverbird", "The Dancer", "Don't Say It's Over", "Slow Motion", "Oh Wot a Life".

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His second album, 'Just a Boy' was released in October 1974. The cover was painted by Humphrey Butler-Bowden as a tribute to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's artwork for his famous novella The Little Prince. The album's back cover pointedly depicted a group of new Sayers giving Pierrot the elbow.



Adam Faith, David Courtney and Leo Sayer had started work on the album while Sayer was on an American tour. More recording took place in London. Some of the songs, like "Long Tall Glasses", were written in the studio. The album features his version of "Giving It All Away" - originally written by Sayer and Courtney for Roger Daltrey's debut solo album.

Leo Sayer : "Listening to Roger Daltrey's first single, "Giving It All Away" with David Courtney. We had to listen to it on the radio in the car, so that was a great. When it actually finally came on, I can't tell you... the goosebumps, the adrenaline, it was just, yeah! So I'll never forget that moment, even though it was Roger, not me, singing – it didn't really matter, it was like, we were away, you know?"

The first single from the album, "One Man Band", was released in June 1974, peaking at #6 in the UK chart.



The song had also originally been recorded by Roger Daltery.

Leo Sayer : "We gave Roger the songs that were ready for the second album. Just before Roger said that he wanted to do some of our material, we'd already started writing for the second album. We were very, very prolific. "Just A Boy" was a much more relaxed affair. We started off doing the tracks in America, because I was on tour there, so Dave came over. "One Man Band" has Ry Cooder playing acoustic guitar on it. So that's pretty cool. But that's Adam again, you see. He'd go to Warners and say "I want your best guitarist, we're doing a session for Leo". He had clout and persuasion."



The follow-up, "Long Tall Glasses" (b/w "In My Life"), reached #4 in the UK chart in September 1974.

Leo Sayer : "It was based on my reaction to success in America. I was blown over to be in the States, the place of all my favourite singers like Bobby "Blue" Bland and B. B. King. They're all telling me I could sing and I'm going, "No I can't. Those guys can sing, I can't sing." But they all persuaded me, you can sing, you can sing. So I thought OK, I'll give in, I can sing, I accept it. And in the song the guy, like Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, goes into the bar and he can't dance but he's got to get the girl and he's got to impress her. So he pretends, even in his tramp's costume, and he persuades them that he can dance."



A cover of the song by the Canadian band Shooter hit the Canadian charts the same week as the Sayer original. The Sayer version reached No. 18, where the Shooter version reached No. 22.

Other songs featured on the album included : "Telepath", "Train", "The Bells of St Mary's", "When I Came Home This Morning", "Another Time", and "Solo".

Sayer was now popular in Europe and made many promotional appearances there. He headlined in Paris at The Theatre D' Champs Elysees, the theatre known as the home of his then-hero, mime artist Marcel Marceau.

The Single :

"The Show Must Go On" was written by Leo Sayer and David Courtney and performed by Leo Sayer.



"The Show Must Go On" was released in November 1973, and become Sayer's first hit record - reaching #2 on the official UK chart, and #3 on the Irish Singles Chart. The single was recorded in Roger Daltrey's studio in Sussex.

Leo Sayer : "We turned up, the studio was great, and we recorded three or four tracks. In fact, we recorded The Show Must Go On there. About a week later, Roger said to us, 'Look, I love these songs so much. Could you write me some?' Feeling very prolific, we had held back a lot of extra songs we had written, so we said of course we could. Giving It All Away was one of them. Roger released it as a single, and it went high into the charts. He also recorded another of ours, One Man Band. He then toured with The Who, but he was always telling everybody about his solo album because he was so proud of it. "Roger kept telling people, 'Wait till you hear this young guy who's written all these songs.' Suddenly I had this wonderful publicist in Roger Daltrey!"

The single reached Number 1 on both the Melody Maker and the NME chart in January 1974, and was included on Sayer's debut album Silverbird.

Leo Sayer : "We held up the release of my album to let his one come out first. It worked out well, and meantime I was doing lots of shows and getting all the road experience I needed. By the time my album came out, I was road-ready. In 1973, we were part of the Roxy Music tour. Funnily enough, The Show Must Go On rocketed up the charts, beating Roxy's own single!"



In 1974, the song was covered by Three Dog Night, becoming a hit in the United States, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Leo Sayer : "They saw me performing in England and I was dressed as a pierrot, as the whiteface, and they thought, "Hang on, here's something we can grab and make a hit out of." So they went straight back to the States and they made their own version of it. I just couldn't believe how banal it was that they walk around like clowns. I didn't understand how somebody would take an original item like that and claim that it was their own idea in the way that they performed it. It's kind of open season and you can't stop other people singing your songs."



In Sayer's version, the last line of the chorus is "I won't let the show go on". Three Dog Night changed this line to "I must let the show go on", which Sayer has criticized.

Leo Sayer : "'The Show Must Go On' has a lyric in the chorus that says, "I WON'T let the show go on." That was the core of the song: Look, he's NOT getting into show business. And Three Dog Night sang, "We MUST let the show go on." So I thought, you bunch of bloody idiots. The irony was later on I'm playing at the Troubadour in Los Angeles and I get a visit. Three Dog Night. And they've come to thank me for the song. I did a quick head change and I pretended that I was really thrilled that they recorded it and we had a lovely conversation but inwardly I kind of hated them for doing it. It was a big hit. I'm not sure I ever got the money but there it is in my royalties and they still pay me now. So hey, things aren't too bad."

Other Versions include :  Top of the Poppers (1974)  /  Springbok (1974)  /  John Keating Incorporated (1974)  /  "Tään shown jatkuvan tahdo en" by Battaglia (1974)  /  "Lampenfieber" by Su Kramer (1974)  /  "Lampenfieber" by Zdravko Čolić Dravco (1975)  /    Three Dog Night (1975)    /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  enda carolan (2012)  /  merseyboys (2013)  /  a robot (2016)

On This Day :

12 January : Libya & Tunisia announces they are merging as "Arab Islamic Republic"
12 January : Mel C, singer (Spice Girls), born Melanie Jayne Chisholm in Whiston, Merseyside
13 January : Catholic civilian Christopher Daly killed by the Official IRA in Belfast.
14 January : Protestant civilian Andrew Jordan killed by the UVF in a Carrowdore, County Down.
15 January : TV sitcom "Happy Days" begins an 11 year run on ABC
15 January : Edith Bowman, radio DJ and TV presenter, born Edith Eleanor Bowman in Anstruther, Fife, Scotland
16 January : Kate Moss, model, born Katherine Ann Moss in Croydon, London
17 January : Styne, Comdem & Green's musical "Lorelei" premieres in NYC
17 January : 22-year-old Robert Jameson, an Ulster Defence Regiment soldier, was shot and killed by the Irish Republican Army in Trillick, County Tyrone.
17 January : 73-year-old Catholic civilian Daniel Hughes was shot and killed during a Loyalist gun attack on Boyle's Bar in Cappagh, County Tyrone.
18 January : "The Six Million Dollar Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV
19 January : Edward Seago, British artist, died aged 63
20 January : Edmund Blunden, English poet and critic, dies aged 77
21 January : British Army soldier John Haughey killed by a remote-controlled IRA bomb in Creggan, Derry
22 January : Anna Lehr, American silent film actress, dies aged 83
23 January : Richard T. Slone, British artist, born in Newton-in-Furness, United Kingdom
23 January : Berwyn Mountain UFO incident: A small earthquake in North Wales coincided with atmospheric lights and led to reports of a UFO sighting.
24 January : 10th Commonwealth Games open in Christchurch, New Zealand
24 January : Four members of the IRA hijacked a helicopter to drop two milk churns packed with explosives onto Strabane Police Station in County Tyrone. One landed in a garden and failed to explode; the other landed in a river.
24 January : Students at Glasgow University organized a boycott of the school refectory to protest high meal prices.
24 January : Mohammad Mohammadullah was elected unopposed as President of Bangladesh
25 January : Dr Christiaan Barnard transplants 1st heterotopic heart transplant (adding donor heart without removal of old)
25 January : The crew of Skylab 4 became the world record holders for time spent in space
25 January : Yale University announced that the Vinland map, which purportedly showed the portion of North America explored by Leif Erikson in the 11th century, was a 20th-century forgery.
26 January : Bülent Ecevit becomes Prime Minister of Turkey
26 January : Turkish Airlines Flight 301 crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from Izmir Cumaovası Airport. 66 of the 73 people on board were killed.
26 January : 50-year-old John Rodgers, a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was shot and killed by the IRA while on foot patrol in Glengormley, County Antrim.
26 January : Joe Benjamin, American jazz bassist, died aged 54
26 January : Archie Semple, Scottish jazz clarinetist and bandleader, dies aged 45
27 January : "Lorelei" opens at Palace Theater NYC for 320 performances
28 January : Muhammad Ali beat Joe Frazier II at Madison Square Garden in New York City by unanimous decision.
28 January : Ed Allen, American jazz trumpeter and cornetist, dies aged 76
29 January : 79-year-old Protestant civilian Matilda Withrington was shot and killed in her home during an IRA sniper attack on a Royal Air Force bus in Newcastle, County Down.
29 January : 43-year-old William Baggeley of the Royal Ulster Constabulary was shot and killed by the IRA while on foot patrol in Derry.
29 January : H. E. Bates, English author, dies aged 68
30 January : Christian Bale, actor, born Christian Charles Philip Bale in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales
30 January : Olivia Colman, actress, born Sarah Caroline Colman in Norwich, England
30 January : Jemima Goldsmith, British journalist, born Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith in Chelsea, London
31 January : Samuel Goldwyn, film producer (MGM), dies of natural causes aged 91
31 January : Actress Linda Lovelace was arrested on drug possession charges at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1 February : Kuala Lumpur is declared a Federal Territory.

[gilbertharding]

Welcome to 1974!

342.  The New Seekers feat. Lyn Paul – You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me

I was pondering the lineage of the Seekers/New Seekers - but of course you've already covered it - not least here: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=73674.1230

[daf]

Some bands fascinate me strangely, and this is a case in point - on completion of my delve, I went and bought the entire New Seekers catalogue (one cheap box set for a tenner and a double CD).

Played it once!

(Some of my other whirlwind obsessions via doing the thread have been : The Monkees; Scott Walker; Sweet; and Dave Bowie (from the Dave Bowie Band) - but only his first album from 1967 that nobody likes!)

[kalowski]

Gawd, another clunker!

[bigfatheart]

I... actually quite like The Show Must Go On, although I wouldn't say it's good or anything. Just have a soft spot for it. I think I like its unconventional use of a banjo (played by Russ Ballard, apparently!) on a non-bluegrass/country song.

Thunder In My Heart is alright too, but the Old Sailor churned out a lot of shite otherwise. When I Need You, especially, one of the songs most likely to make me revert back to being a five-year-old, getting increasingly furious that it's TOO BLOODY SLOW and GOD WON'T IT END

[famethrowa]

I was pondering the lineage of the Seekers/New Seekers - but of course you've already covered it - not least here:

Still kind of unclear of the role of original Seeker Keith Potger, he started it, but wasn't in it, but then he was? Did he mastermind the songs or just stand back and let the younguns go for it?

Thunder In My Heart is alright too, but the Old Sailor churned out a lot of shite otherwise. When I Need You, especially, one of the songs most likely to make me revert back to being a five-year-old, getting increasingly furious that it's TOO BLOODY SLOW and GOD WON'T IT END

He's generally quite annoying, but I have a soft spot for Orchard Road, it's a sweet song but best part is the warm synth wash throughout.

[The Culture Bunker]

My only real positive memory of Sayer was being with a mate at my house when we were 15, both just getting into music but too skint to buy stuff to satisfy our wish to hear as much as possible (neither of us were keen on the Britpop that was all over radio at the time). Therefore, we chanced an arm on my parents' collection. Well, we both knew Elton John and Abba were shite, so sack them, so we took a chance on this one with some goon on the cover gurning after apparently being hurtled towards the camera by catapult.

Somehow, I chanced on putting the second track on first, and we creased up laughing at this squeak voiced gobshite bleating on about nothing at all until some nonsense about dancing in the chorus. We thought we had it on at the wrong speed at first.

[famethrowa]

Somehow, I chanced on putting the second track on first, and we creased up laughing at this squeak voiced gobshite bleating on about nothing at all until some nonsense about dancing in the chorus. We thought we had it on at the wrong speed at first.

Reminder that the drummer on "you know I can dance" was Michael Giles of King Crimson. Definitely held it back for that one...

[daf]

342c. (NME 364.)  The Sweet – Teenage Rampage



From :  23 - 29 January 1974
Weeks : 1
B-side : Own Up, Take A Look At Yourself
Bonus 1 : Live 1973
Bonus 2 : promo film
Bonus 3 : Crackerjack January 1974
Bonus 4 : Musikladen February 1974
Bonus 5 : Andy Scott's Song of the Month
Bonus 6 : Glitz Blitz & Hitz 1996 Re-recording
Bonus 7 : Isolation Boulevard 2021 Re-recording

The Story So Far : 

Sweet left RCA in 1977 and signed a new deal with Polydor. Their first single for the new label, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (b/w "Cover Girl"), was released in January 1978, and reached #9 on the UK charts, and #8 on the Irish, Canadian and US charts.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The first Polydor album, 'Level Headed' was released in January 1978.



Largely recorded during 1977 at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France after a 30-day writing session at Clearwell Castle in the Forest Of Dean UK, the album represented a new musical direction, largely abandoning hard-rock for a more melodic pop style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Connolly and Stevie Lange (who would emerge as lead singer with the group Night in 1979).

Different versions were released by Polydor in Europe and by Capitol in the US, Canada and Japan. "Love Is Like Oxygen" also features on the album in a substantially longer version than was released as a single.



Andy Scott : "By the time "Love Is Like Oxygen" came along, we were more of a progressive rock type of band. There's already been three cycles and it didn't exactly stop there. The only way I can ever describe The Sweet to people now is to just listen to the records, because I couldn't tell you one genre that is definitive of what The Sweet is about."

Other songs featured on the album included : "Dream On", "Strong Love", "Fountain", "Anthem No. I (Lady of the Lake)", "Silverbird", "Anthem No. II", and "Air on 'A' Tape Loop".



A second single, "California Nights" (b/w "Show Me The Way"), featuring Steve Priest as the lead vocalist, peaked at #23 on the German chart. It was also released as a single in the US in July 1978, but only managed to reach #76 on the Billboard charts.



With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by a single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978.

Steve Priest : "Brian was losing his voice. He was drinking much too much. He never really got over the voice thing. His vocal range was very reduced after that but of course we went on and did 'Give Us A Wink' which I think is one of our best albums and 'Level Headed'."

This was the last album to feature the classic Sweet lineup, as Brian Connolly departed around a year after the album's release, in order to embark on a solo career.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the US, as a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date in Birmingham, Alabama on 3 May, during which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience saw Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him.

Steve Priest : "Brian started taking God-knows-what pills and there was one night in Birmingham, Alabama - a place that I never particularly want to go to again - where Brian was so far out of it that he didn't even know where he was. And at the time Capitol Records had heard that things were going south so they had decided to come and see how good or bad we were. All of the heads at Capitol were there and it was a disaster so we told Brian that 'either you're in or you're out, unless you can get yourself together!'. So he got himself together on stage and he was excellent actually."

The band returned briefly to Britain before resuming the second leg of their US tour in late May supporting other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper. Concluding the US tour in early July 1978, Brian's alcoholism and estrangement from the group was steadily becoming a greater issue.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In late October 1978, having spent further time at Clearwell Castle to write for their next album, Sweet arrived at The Town House studio in Shepherd's Bush, London to complete and record, 'Cut Above the Rest'. Due to tensions between various members attributed to Connolly's health and diminishing status with the group, his long-time friend and fellow founding member, Mick Tucker, was tasked to produce Connolly's vocals. It was felt Tucker would extract a better performance than Scott from Connolly. A number of tracks were recorded featuring Connolly. However, these efforts were deemed unsatisfactory and Brian left the band on 2 November 1978.

Steve Priest : "So we got back into the studio and he just couldn't do it. He also decided that he didn't want to scream any more. He just wanted to do Country music. And that was the end of that, really."

On 23 February 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was formally announced by manager David Walker. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock.

Sweet continued as a trio with Priest assuming the lion's share of lead vocals, though Scott and Tucker were also active in that role. The first single release for the trio was "Call Me", (b/w "Why Don't You"), released in March 1979 which reached #29 in Germany.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their seventh studio album, 'Cut Above the Rest', was released on Polydor Records in October 1979.



It was their first album release following the departure of their original lead vocalist Brian Connolly. Connolly had begun recording this album with the band at the TownHouse Studio in Shepherd's Bush, London, but his vocals were subsequently wiped and replaced by vocals from bass player Steve Priest and guitarist Andy Scott. Original outtakes of "Play All Night" and "Stay With Me" featuring Connolly's vocals were later released on the album 'Platinum Rare'.

Steve Priest : "We did the album 'Cut Above The Rest' with me and Andy doing all of the vocals. I was getting used to it actually because on stage Brian would keep forgetting lyrics so I would have to keep my eye on him all night and step in when he missed his queues. You had to keep it going which was strain on me because I was doing my own vocals too. It all started to crumble." 

Other songs featured on the album included : Big Apple Waltz" which was released as a single in August 1979, the longer album version of "Call Me", "Play All Night", "Dorian Gray", "Eye Games", "Hold Me", "Mother Earth" which was released as a single in the US and Canada, "Stay With Me", and "Discophony (Dis-Kof-O-Ne)".



Andy Scott : "I could see that as being where The Sweet were headed for the future. One thing that used to always make me laugh — and I knew that we'd hit a vein — was when Frank Zappa released "Dancin' Fool" at the same time as we released "Discophony," and the DJs in America used to start playing them back to back. The radio stations were still trying to promote rock. Remember, there was this rock versus disco thing going on towards the end of the '70s in America. They hadn't really had the punk thing. And "Dancin' Fool" and "Discophony," they sound like disco tracks, but they've got a message in them. But I would travel to go and see Frank Zappa wherever we were in the world, if he was in, say, Germany and we had a day off; I would make sure that I could go and see one of his gigs. I was starting to move into a different area. I would go and see people like Jean-Luc Ponty and the Brecker Brothers and Return to Forever, the sort of jazz-rock crossover people. It's difficult to kind of perceive now that that's where my head was going, especially with a band like Sweet. But you can hear some of the influences in there."

'Cut Above the Rest' was released with two different sleeves - the European release featured a wood carving of the three members' faces.



Guest keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage. Guitarist Ray McRiner joined their touring line-up in 1979, with a small tour with Journey in the eastern United States and Cheap Trick in Texas in the spring and summer of '79 to support 'Cut Above The Rest' which was released in the US in March 1979.

Tragedy befell Mick Tucker when his wife Pauline drowned in the bath at their home on 26 December 1979. The band withdrew from live work for all of 1980.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their eighth studio album, 'Waters Edge' was released in August 1980. The album was recorded in Canada, produced by Sweet and Pip Williams.



Songs featured on the album included : "Getting in the Mood for Love", "Tell the Truth", "Own Up", "Too Much Talking", "Thank You for Loving Me", "At Midnight", "Waters Edge", "Hot Shot Gambler", "Sixties Man", and "Give the Lady Some Respect", which had been released as a single, backed by "Tall Girls" in April 1980, but had failed to chart . . . even in Germany!

This album was released in the US and Canada under the title 'VI' with different cover and sleeve. The 'VI' was a reference to the fact that this was Sweet's sixth album released on Capitol Records.

The track listing differed from the UK version, featuring an edited version of "Getting in the Mood for Love", and the single version of "Sixties Man".



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their ninth and final studio album, 'Identity Crisis', was recorded during 1980–81.

Steve Priest : "I was living in New York by then and I would come back to England every now and then because we needed an album. So we'd sit and write it and I'd come over to the States and stay somewhere with a friend and feel like a square peg in a round hole. I'd be there going 'Are we writing today?' and everyone would go 'Oh no, I can't make it!' I had traveled five thousand miles for all of these people not to make it. So we just sort of chucked that album together. It was the last thing we were going to do. At that time, I was staying at the Chelsea Hotel which is like an old peoples home because it was so cheap. I'd be getting to the studio by taking the subway. Everyone else was arriving in their Rolls Royces and I would arrive on foot. I just didn't feel very happy about the situation at all and the studio we did it in was rotten. It was horrible. The manger of the studio had these pictures on the wall of all of the employees and by the time we had finished the album, they had all been fired. So one day, I got a black magic marker and I just put crosses through all of there faces , just to make a point. the title of album pretty much said it all. We didn't know where we were going. We didn't have a direction. Punk had just hit and all though we were punks, we weren't punk rockers. That was ten years younger than us."

Sweet undertook a short tour of the UK and performed their last live show at Glasgow University on 20 March 1981. Steve Priest then returned to the United States, where he had been living since late 1979

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

'Identity Crisis' was originally released only in Germany and Mexico on Polydor Records in October 1982, almost a year after the band had disbanded.



Aside from the Billy Boy Arnold cover "I Wish You Would", and the Scott solo-penned track "Love Is the Cure", the rest of the songs on the album were all co-written by the remaining three members.

Andy Scott : "The band was kind of imploding by the time we got through Identity Crisis, hence the song 'Identity Crisis.' There were some good things on both. And you can hear that we are moving back towards Hammond organ and piano rather than synthesizers on both of those albums, because we realized that we were still fantastic live, that we had a great live band. And the last thing we wanted to become embroiled in forever is not being able to possibly reproduce. With Zeppelin, you know, you make a track like "Kashmir," you want to be able to go onstage to re-create that, and somehow they did. So it's the same with us — you want to start getting back to your roots."

Other songs featured on the album included : "Identity Crisis", "New Shoes", "Two into One", "It Makes Me Wonder", "Hey Mama", and "Strange Girl".

Andy Scott : "The disappointment with Identity Crisis was we had management who needed to deliver an album to get the last tranche of money. And this is what it comes down to sometimes. I'm in the studio, I'm not ready to mix, but I'm told you must provide listenable mixes, just so that we can release the money. "You'll have time to do a proper remix when the album is going to be released properly." Well, that never happened. The things that I delivered are the ones that got released, and they don't have all the final overdubs on them and are not the final mix. It's what I would call... if you had demos like that, you'd be very pleased, you know? And that's when I realized that I didn't want a manager ever again, because I'd realize that I've had 10 years of lies. Why would I want another 10 years of lies? Plus, as I said, the band was imploding. Steve was moving to America, and we were never going to be the same again."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In January 1980, Brian Connolly released his first solo single, "Take Away The Music" (b/w "Alabama Man"), which was followed by "Don't You Know A Lady (When You See One)" (b/w "Phone You") in August 1980.



In 1981, Brian Connolly was rushed to hospital, where he suffered 14 cardiac arrests in 24 hours. He was left with slurred speech, partial paralysis and violent tremors. His third single, "Hypnotized" (b/w "Fade Away"), was released in February 1982 in Germany and in March in the UK.



In 1984 he formed a new version of the Sweet without any of the other original members. Despite recurring ill health, Connolly toured the UK and Europe with his band, Brian Connolly's Sweet, which was later renamed New Sweet.



In December 1984, Sweet released the 'medley' single, "It's It's...The Sweet Mix". Mixed by Sanny X, it reached #45 in the UK chart in January 1985.



In May 1985, the superbly punning 'Sweet 2th' was released, featuring "The Wigwam-Willy Mix" and "The Teen-Action Mix". The single reached #85 - becoming their final UK chart entry.



During 1987, Connolly met up again with Frank Torpey, who invited Connolly to go into the recording studio with him, as an informal project. The track "Sharontina" was recorded featuring Connolly would eventually appear on Torpey's 1998 album 'Sweeter'.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In 1988, Mike Chapman contacted Connolly, Priest, Scott, and Tucker, offering to reunite the classic lineup and finance a recording session in Los Angeles.

Mike Chapman : "I met them at the airport and Andy and Mick came off the plane. I said, 'Where's Brian?' They said, 'Oh, he's coming.' All the people had come off the plane by now. Then this little old man hobbled towards us. He was shaking, and had a ghostly white face. I thought, 'Oh, Jesus Christ.' It was horrifying."



Reworked studio versions of "Action" and "The Ballroom Blitz" were recorded, but it became clear in the studio that Connolly's voice lay in ruins. Priest remembers Chapman taking him aside and saying, "This is like icing a cake with shit."

Connolly's voice and physical health had made Sweet's original member comeback too difficult to promote commercially. Consequently, not having a clue what to do, the reunion attempt was blitzed.



Andy Scott : "I've sat there and I've tried to work out what might've been the best way for Brian. And it probably wouldn't have been, you know, having loads of hit records. It would have been Brian still being the go-getter, the troubleshooter, the guy dealing with the nuts and bolts. For me, the music is my part in Sweet. And for Brian it was the organizational skills and the sociability, to be the guy who can talk things up. And I think once you take that away from somebody like that, the whole dynamic changes. Left to your own devices, as I said, you fly to America, you're not doing anything for the first two days because you fly in, you might do a press conference, but you're not really needed for at least 48 hours because the gear is going to be at the first rehearsal or gig or whatever. And in that first two days, maybe you sit in your room and you have a couple of bourbons and you quite like it and you carry on. I don't know. That's not what I did. I certainly wouldn't want to make any kind of judgments or excuses for any of it, but it's a sad story when you break it all down."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

By July 1990, plans were made for Connolly and his band to tour Australia in November. During the long flight to Australia, Connolly's health had suffered and he was hospitalised in Adelaide Hospital, allegedly for dehydration and related problems. Connolly joined the other band members in Melbourne for a gig at the Pier Hotel, in Frankston. After several other shows, his band played a final date at Melbourne's Greek Theatre. It was felt Connolly's health was sufficient reason for the tour not to be extended, and some of the planned dates were abandoned.

Meanwhile, legal problems were going on in the background over the use of the Sweet name between Connolly and Scott. Both parties agreed to distinguish their group's names to help promoters and fans. New Sweet went back to being called Brian Connolly's Sweet and Andy Scott's version became Andy Scott's Sweet.

Andy Scott : "Everybody thinks that me and Brian had a feud but that's not true. He knew that I wanted to keep the standards of the band high and when he was going through his alcoholism at the end of the '70's I was the only one who could stand there and say that he was an alcoholic and either he leaves or the band splits up. Nobody could win in that situation unless he changed. We tried it for a year and it didn't happen. We always stayed in touch though and he even came along to a couple of our gigs and got on stage with us and did a couple of songs at the end. The possibilities were always there but you can't repair something that's so far broken."

By 1994, Connolly had healed the differences with Steve Priest and Mick Tucker, and was invited to the wedding of Priest's eldest daughter, Lisa. At the private function, for which Priest specially flew back to England, Priest and Connolly performed together.

In 1995, Connolly released a new album entitled 'Let's Go'. The album featured nine re-recorded Sweet hits, plus the new tracks "Do It Again", "Wait Till The Morning Comes", and "Let's Go".



Brian Connolly's final concert was at the Bristol Hippodrome on 5 December 1996, with Slade II and John Rossall's Glitter Band Experience. He died at the age of 51 on 9 February 1997, from liver failure and repeated heart attacks, attributed to his abuse of alcohol in the 1970s and early 1980s.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Andy Scott and Mick Tucker organised their own version of Sweet with Paul Mario Day (ex-Iron Maiden, More, Wildfire) on lead vocals, Phil Lanzon (ex-Grand Prix) on keyboards and Mal McNulty on bass. This line-up toured Australia and New Zealand pubs and clubs for more than three months in 1985 and for a similar period again in 1986. Steve Priest was asked to join Tucker and Scott for the 1985 Australian tour, but declined at the last moment.

Steve Priest : "I never knew anything about Brian's version. I did eventually, but I didn't know it at the time. In 1985 there was a point when Andy had asked me if he could use the name Sweet. He and Mick were going to be touring Australia and I had figured that that was going to be it. So I said yes. So Andy and Mick went off as Sweet and then Brian was out there as Brian Connolly's Sweet and I was sitting there going like 'My God! What is going on! What did I do!'"

Singer Paul Day departed in 1988 after marrying the band's Australian tour guide and relocating downunder. Mal McNulty moved into the front man spot, and Jeff Brown came in to take over bass early in 1989. Phil Lanzon left for Uriah Heep, and was replaced by Steve Mann (Liar, Lionheart, McAuley Schenker Group) in December 1989.

Mick Tucker departed after a show in Lochau, Austria, on 5 May 1991. He later was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. He was replaced by Bodo Schopf (McAuley Schenker Group).

Steve Priest : "So they kept going and one day around the time Mick started getting ill - he had leukemia -  Andy had fired him. Mick was fired from his own band.  So Andy flew Mick back to England and had another drummer the next day and continued as Andy Scott's Sweet, but of course promoters immediately dropped the Andy Scott bit. So Andy was going on as Sweet while Brian was going on as Sweet and I wasn't."

'Andy Scott's Sweet' released the album 'A' in 1992. An updated version of the album, with several extra tracks, was released as 'The Answer' in 1995.

Mal McNulty, now lead vocalist, departed in 1994, though he would return briefly that year to fill in for Jeff Brown on bass. Chad Brown (ex-Lionheart) was the new front man, and 'Glitz Blitz and Hitz', a new studio album of re-recorded Sweet hits, was released in 1996.



Mick Tucker died on 14 February 2002 from leukemia, at the age of 54.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In January 2008, Steve Priest assembled his own version of the Sweet in Los Angeles. He enlisted a guitarist Stuart Smith and L.A. native Richie Onori, Smith's bandmate in Heaven & Earth, was brought in on drums. The keyboard spot was manned by ex-Crow and World Classic Rockers alumni Stevie Stewart. Front-man and vocalist Joe Retta was brought in to round out the line-up.

Steve Priest : "I've known Stuart Smith ever since I've moved to L.A. so thats been a while and he's a good guitarist. I've put bands together with him in the past just to do a one off shows. We would do three of four Sweet songs for fundraisers and things like that. So I phoned  him and said 'Let's get a band together and since I own the band's name in America - let's just do it!'."

The "Are You Ready Steve?" tour kicked off at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood on 12 June 2008. The band spent the next several months playing festivals and gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Steve Priest : "Stuart Smith is on guitar and he's an excellent guitarist. We've got Richie Onori on drums and he is excellent. He's on par with Mick. He's got great timing. Stevie Stewart is on keyboards. Everyone in this band has been around the block a few times so they know the ropes. Joe Retta is on vocals. He's got a great vocal range and a wonderful voice. I've known Stewart and Richie for a while and they knew Joe and Stevie so I said 'All right , let's go into a rehearsal room and try it.' It worked right away! It just got together really quickly."



In 2009 the new band recorded a cover version of the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride", which was included on a Beatles tribute CD, and in April 2010, they released their first single - an updated, hard rock version of the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There".

Steve Priest : "From what I've heard from fans who've seen Andy's version and ours, they say that we do it like rock n roll and that Andy does it to perfection or to his idea of perfection anyway. We do it the the way I wanted it to be done in the first place, you see what I mean? A lot more rock n roll. We do put on a good show. It goes straight to the point and there is no waffling. Everyone says that it's an excellent show and that now they can see who the real band is." 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In March 2012, Andy Scott's Sweet' released a new album 'New York Connection'.



Recorded in England, it comprised 11 cover versions, including the 2011 single "Join Together" and one revamped original recording; the 1972 B-side "New York Connection". All the covers either featured 'bits and pieces' of Sweet hits or other artist songs, such as a version of the Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop" which featured samples from "Ballroom Blitz" and a take on Hello's "New York Groove".

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Following Steve Priest's death in June 2020, his version of Sweet decided to carry on presenting live performances, "in tribute" to Priest and the band. The band featured Richie Onori drums, Mitch Perry guitar, Paulie Z vocals. With Stevie Stewart moving replace Priest on bass, Dave Schulz joined as keyboardist.

It left Andy Scott as the sole living member of Sweet's 'classic lineup'. During the COVID-19 pandemic Scott's band recorded a new album of re-recorded old tracks, 'Isolation Boulevard', which was released in 2021.



Andy Scott : "We did a re-record quite a few years ago where they sound like the original recordings. We fooled a lot of people with that set of re-records, but this time we wanted to do something slightly different. I said, 'If we're going to be recording things that we do live, then we don't need any more than 12,' but it took some finding to put 12 together, never mind any more than that. The tracks just automatically chose themselves." 

Songs featured on the album included : "Fox on the Run", "Still Got the Rock", "Action", "Love Is Like Oxygen", "Hellraiser", "The Six Teens", "Blockbuster", "Set Me Free", "Teenage Rampage", "Turn It Down", "New York Groove", and "Ballroom Blitz".



Andy Scott : "The album title, 'Isolation Boulevard', which is a take on our 1975 album 'Desolation Boulevard', kind of dictated the way forward. Once that was set, the project raced along. As for re-interpretation then, that is for the listener. We purposely left the loose endings of some the songs because it felt more alive. The songs have a template, which is written in stone as far as the arrangements, but each member of the band brings something fresh to the table. And, of course, 45 years on it will sound better sonically, one hopes."

The Single :

"Teenage Rampage" was written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, and performed by The Sweet.



According to the Chinn and Chapman, Teenage Rampage" was written in just one day, as Sweet had to be in the studios imminently and both Mike and Nicky were due to go abroad on business. Chapman claimed to have slept for two days afterwards due to 'mental exhaustion'.

Mike Chapman : "'Teenage Rampage' really sums it all up. From the age of two they're buying records. Believe it or not, two-year-olds are thinking like ten-year-olds now. Kids are learning a lot quicker and the whole feeling in the country at the moment is aggression/tension and it's having an effect on the kids. By making aggressive records you can get the feelings out of kids, they can express themselves by dancing, they all dance now."

Nicky Chinn : "It's aggression but fortunately it doesn't seem to be too violent an aggression. It's not like the days of the teddy boys with flick knives. It's a different aggression. I think kids want to get their tensions out by going to concerts and screaming, going to ballrooms and discotheques and dancing non-stop for three hours, by going home and imagining tomorrow night's date is with Brian Connolly! The teddy boy era was violent in a different way; now it's hysterical aggression, but not violent. The football scene is far more violent than the pop scene. They're always beating each other up at football grounds, they're not in ballrooms."



The Sweet had been a regular presence on Top of the Pops during 1973 - notching up 15 appearances with their three singles, "Blockbuster", "Hell Raiser" and "Ballroom Blitz".

Steve Priest : "It was a very long day. You get there at like eight o'clock in the morning, which when you're in a rock n roll band doesn't exist. Anyway, you get ther at eight, you do a run through and they do the camera angles and all of that crap and then you are on your own until like four o'clock and they bring you back for dress rehearsal and then you are on your own again until eight in the evening by which time you have been to the bar a few times which is not good. So for a lot of performances, not just by us, everyone would be slightly under the influence. In the early days, you lip synched but the Musician's Union complained that the musicians that had played on the record weren't getting paid for that session so we had to go in and redo the song with a Musician Union person there. So it wasn't the album itself. It was actually a remake and then you either put the vocals on or sing live. But we used to fiddle all of that anyway. We used to just give them the back track of the record and go 'All right! Here you go!' Then we'd go in and sing to the back track. It cost us a lot of money because we had to rent the studio for three and a half hours. In those days it was quite expensive."



Though they also released three singles in 1974, The Sweet only performed the first, "Teenage Rampage", on the show - which almost didn't happen thanks to some subversive shenanigans with their jackets.

Andy Scott : "By the end of 1973 we were have success over in America and the shows we were doing in Europe were much bigger and Top Of The Pops wanted to keep us in that naughty boys sort of image but still be in the concept of what would sell their show. When we brought out Teenage Rampage the next years after doing the Christmas Crackerjack we said no to these children's shows for the whole of 1974 as we were trying to move on. TOTP producer Robin Nash said to us if you do Crackerjack you'll get the first slot in the new year a week before your new single is released". Unbeknown to him in the meantime we'd had these stage jackets made that had these let's say indiscreet writings on the back and in the rehearsal sessions he spotted them and gave us a dressing down in front of everyone. Nick Chapman was holding me back from remonstrating back at him and we'd thought that we wouldn't be on the show later so we were about to leave. When one of the staff saw us packing in the dressing rooms they asked us to return but not wear the jackets which we complied."

 

The song was the subject of an exchange of letters between the UK's self-appointed 'moral guardian', house-proud town-mouse, Mary Whitehouse, founder of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association of Nose-pokers and Pie-fingerers, and the then Head of BBC Radio, Ian Trethowen.

Mary Whitehouse : "Dear Mr. Trethowen, I am writing with regard to a 'pop' record currently being played on radio, namely, 'TEENAGE RAMPAGE' sung by SWEET. The words include the following :
'All over the land the kids are out to get the upper hand, They're out on the streets, to turn on the heat, And soon they'll be completely in command. Imagine the sensation at the teenage occupation, At thirteen they'll be learning, but at fourteen they'll be violent. Join the revolution NOW, NOW, NOW (crescendo), Get yourself a constitution, turn another page in the teenage rampage NOW, NOW, NOW.'
This record, thanks to the publicity given to it, is now No. 1 in the charts. Yesterday I rang your duty officer about the matter and asked that it should be brought to your attention immediately. I hope you will agree that the playing of such a record is wholly inadvisable in present circumstances and look forward to hearing that you have seen fit to ban any further transmission of this record."

Ian Trethowen : "Thank you for your letter of 13th January.  Careful consideration has been given to 'Teenage Rampage', but we have not felt that we would be justified in banning this record from the air. Nor do we feel that it would have been right for us to have excluded the recent recording from 'Top of the Pops'. As you will know, we are not deterred from placing a ban on any record, however high it may be in the charts or however popular the group associated with it. Bans in the past have been placed on records by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. However, in this case, although I doubt if anyone would think the lyrics particularly distinguished (and you know I am given to understatement), they do not identify any target for 'the revolution' and we believe that young people, while possibly enjoying the easy beat of the music, will be unaffected by the words, since they are totally empty of real content – like all too much pop music. This is by no means the first record of its kind and certainly past examples have proved harmless in their effect. Indeed, we believe that to ban this record would have the sole result of making young people feel it did have a significance, as well as a meaning, which, in my view, neither exists nor was intended."

Released in January 1974, "Teenage Rampage"  peaked at Number 2 on the official UK chart, and topped NME chart for a week at the end of January 1974. The song also went to Number 1 on the Irish, German and Danish charts.



Mike Chapman : "What do you do – commit suicide, beat somebody up, drive a car fast? There are a few ways of doing it, all of which are bad. But there's another way: by buying loud aggressive records, or even soft aggressive records, and listening and dancing to them. Certain people who knock it really are led astray I think because if the kids aren't doing that they're gonna be doing something a lot worse. Mary Whitehouse for instance is constantly knocking hit records and pop records for being violent and rude. She's entitled to her opinion but personally I think she's wrong. She's trying to stop kids having the one form of entertainment that gives them the opportunity to unleash. Mike Leander and Gary, and Slade and Chas Chandler, not just us, know what the kids are all about at the moment, know what they need to get rid of their feelings and they put it all into records. And with all these crises happening in this country they're buying more and more records."

Nicky Chinn : "God alone knows the kids need what people like us are giving them because if they're old enough to think and read the bloody papers and look at the country, God knows they need something to lift them up, if this is the country they've gotta grow up in."

Other Versions include :  Top of the Poppers (1974)  /  Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods (1976)  /  Vice Squad (1984)  /  Oz (1986)  /  Party Animals (2001)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  Sigi Pop (2012)  /  21st Century Girls (2020)

On This Day :

23 January : Richard T. Slone, British artist, born in Newton-in-Furness, United Kingdom
23 January : Berwyn Mountain UFO incident: A small earthquake in North Wales coincided with atmospheric lights and led to reports of a UFO sighting.
24 January : 10th Commonwealth Games open in Christchurch, New Zealand
24 January : Four members of the IRA hijacked a helicopter to drop two milk churns packed with explosives onto Strabane Police Station in County Tyrone. One landed in a garden and failed to explode; the other landed in a river.
24 January : Students at Glasgow University organized a boycott of the school refectory to protest high meal prices.
24 January : Mohammad Mohammadullah was elected unopposed as President of Bangladesh
25 January : Dr Christiaan Barnard transplants 1st heterotopic heart transplant (adding donor heart without removal of old)
25 January : The crew of Skylab 4 became the world record holders for time spent in space
25 January : Yale University announced that the Vinland map, which purportedly showed the portion of North America explored by Leif Erikson in the 11th century, was a 20th-century forgery.
26 January : Bülent Ecevit becomes Prime Minister of Turkey
26 January : Turkish Airlines Flight 301 crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from Izmir Cumaovası Airport. 66 of the 73 people on board were killed.
26 January : 50-year-old John Rodgers, a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was shot and killed by the IRA while on foot patrol in Glengormley, County Antrim.
26 January : Joe Benjamin, American jazz bassist, died aged 54
26 January : Archie Semple, Scottish jazz clarinetist and bandleader, dies aged 45
27 January : "Lorelei" opens at Palace Theater NYC for 320 performances
28 January : Muhammad Ali beat Joe Frazier II at Madison Square Garden in New York City by unanimous decision.
28 January : Ed Allen, American jazz trumpeter and cornetist, dies aged 76
29 January : 79-year-old Protestant civilian Matilda Withrington was shot and killed in her home during an IRA sniper attack on a Royal Air Force bus in Newcastle, County Down.
29 January : 43-year-old William Baggeley of the Royal Ulster Constabulary was shot and killed by the IRA while on foot patrol in Derry.
29 January : H. E. Bates, English author, dies aged 68

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Previously :
325.  The Sweet – Block Buster!
338b. (NME 356.) (MM 296.) The Sweet – The Ballroom Blitz

[daf]

Royal Funeral Special! . . .

343.  Mud – Tiger Feet



From : 22 January – 18 February 1974
Weeks : 4
B-side : Mr Bagatelle
Bonus 1 : Top of The Pops January 1974
Bonus 2 : Top Pop 1974
Bonus 3 : Disco 74
Bonus 4 : Hits A Go-Go 1974
Bonus 5 : Top of the Pops December 1974
Bonus 6 : Top of the Pops 1988
Bonus 7 : Rob Davis Guitar Solo 2011
Bonus 8 : Live 2019

The Story So Far : 

Thomas Leslie Gray was born in Carshalton, Surrey, in 1946. He was a self-taught musician, and during his school years he played trumpet with a jazz band, and then, with younger brother Pete on drums, went on to form the skiffle unit The Mourners. After leaving school he worked for Pearl & Dean, writing commercials, and later for Moss Bros.

Robert Berkeley Davis received his first guitar when he was 11 years old and music became a central part of his life. In 1962, at the age of 14, he and Dave Mount formed a Shadows inspired band called The Apaches. He and Mount continued to work together in several bands, including The Barracudas and in 1964, formed The Remainder. He joined The Mourners who were looking for a lead guitarist.

Rob Davis : "After leaving school I worked in an engineering company's accounts department and Dave Mount, was an apprentice electrician. Les Gray had various jobs."

With a few line-up changes, in February 1966, The Mourners evolved into Mud with Les Gray on vocals, Pete Gray on drums, Rob Davis on guitar, and Ray Stiles on bass.

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In 1967 Mud won a national contest "Search for Sound" which led to them signing to Pye Records.



The band released their debut single, "Flower Power", (b/w "You're My Mother"), was released on CBS in October 1967. Both songs were written by Rob Davis.



Rob Davis : "At the very beginning of Mud, I just used to write B-sides and stuff like that, but I've always been into the production side of things. I've always been good at harmonies. Where there were harmony things I'd work them all out on a Revox at home, and I'd multitrack guitars and stuff for a lot of the solos on the early Mud records."



In 1968 the boys had to decide whether to become professional or not. Les, Rob and Ray were in favour, but Pete decided to leave to pursue a career as a draughtsman so left the band. Rob's old thunderstick pal Dave Mount was brought in to replace him.

Ray Stiles: "I worked in the architect's department at the London Electricity Board. When the band got busier, we all quit our jobs."

Their second single, "Up The Airy Mountain" (b/w "The Latter Days") was released in March 1968. In February 1969, Mud appeared as the backing band on the single "I Will See You There" by Linda Kendrick, who was one of the stars of the nudey hippie musical 'Hair'.



Signed to Phillips, "Shangri-La", (b/w "House On A Hill"), was released in May 1969.



The follow-up, "Jumping Jehosaphat", (b/w "Won't Let It Go"), was released in June 1970.



Mud had been professional for three years and had still failed to make the big time. It was a frustrating time for the band, but they continued gigging all over the country.

In late 1972, they were spotted by pop entrepreneur Mickie Most while playing at London's Revolution Club, and were signed to his RAK label. They were given a new imaged, new suits and teamed up with the hit songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman.

"Crazy", (b/w "Do You Love Me"), was released in January 1973, and peaked at #12 in the UK, and #40 in Germany.

Rob Davis : "We'd been professional about six years and released four singles before our first hit with Crazy, which reached number 12 in March '73. By that time, we were working with writers and producers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and making TV appearances."



The follow up, "Hypnosis", (b/w "Last Tango In London"), released in June 1973, reached #16 in the UK and #57 in Australia.



In later interviews it was revealed that the band themselves did not play on either of these two singles, or their b-sides. As had happened on the early Sweet singles, the music was actually recorded by session musicians, with the band members only required to provide the vocals.

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In October 1973 the image changed with the introduction of teddy-boy gear and a rock and roll sound.

"Dyna-Mite", (b/w "Do It All Over Again"), was released in October 1973. The single peaked at Number 1 in the Netherlands, #2 in Belgium, and reached #4 in the UK.

Ray Stiles: "We were always working. Sometimes, we'd make a TV appearance in Holland during the day and fly back for a UK gig in the evening – it was hectic. Back then, you'd record a single in a day and an album in a week – our Mud Rock album was cut in that time. Dyna-Mite was our first top 10 hit, reaching number four in '73."



Their next single, "Tiger Feet" (b/w "Mr. Bagatelle"), was released in January 1974, and became their first UK number 1 . . .

The Single :

"Tiger Feet" was written and produced by the songwriting team of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, and performed by Mud.



Rob Davis : "Chinn and Chapman always did things quickly. Mike Chapman would write the song, and he'd come and routine it with you in a rehearsal room, and then take you into a recording studio to record it. I think earlier on they used session players, but we always played on our stuff. With the actual production in the studio, we were all pretty well involved with that as well, but the early Mud hits were done really quickly. 'Tiger Feet' was made in a day. In that era, production was all about enthusiasm — getting the band and whipping them up and making them routine a song, and getting the vibe and the enthusiasm into the track. There were no click tracks then!"

"Tiger Feet" was number No. 1 in the UK and Ireland charts for four consecutive weeks, from 26 January to 16 February, in 1974, and also topped the charts in the Netherlands and Belgium.



Rob Davis : "Tiger Feet was our first number one. It topped the UK chart in January '74 but was a big hit across Europe."

It sold over 700,000 copies in the UK alone and over a million copies globally. It was also the best selling single in Britain that year.



Other Versions include :  Top of the Poppers (1974)  /  "Saat mut rokkaamaan" by Marjo-Riitta & Savannah (1974)  /  Bedlam Erikson (1985)  /  Girlschool (1986)  /  BATMOBILE (1986)  /  James Last (1987)  /  The Griswalds (1989)  /  "Sain tiikerin" by Kepa Salmirinne (1993)  /  The Big 6 (1996)  /  Osmo's Cosmos Band (1999)  /  Showaddywaddy (2006)  /  John Lindberg Trio (2007)  /  Hot Wire (2009)  /  The 59ers (2011)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  MrClitheroe (2012)  /  Clubb Singer (2012)  /  Glamstar (2012)  /  Justin Fletcher (2015)  /  New Hope Club (2018)  /  Bay City Rollers starring Leslie McKeown (2018)  /  David Kiernan  (2018)  /  Counting Colours (2019)  /  GLITZ  (2020)  /  Big Russ Wilkins & Lightnin' Holling (2022)  /  Ben Smith (2011)

On This Day :

22 January : Anna Lehr, American silent film actress, dies aged 83
23 January : Richard T. Slone, British artist, born in Newton-in-Furness, United Kingdom
23 January : Berwyn Mountain UFO incident: A small earthquake in North Wales coincided with atmospheric lights and led to reports of a UFO sighting.
24 January : 10th Commonwealth Games open in Christchurch, New Zealand
24 January : Four members of the IRA hijacked a helicopter to drop two milk churns packed with explosives onto Strabane Police Station in County Tyrone. One landed in a garden and failed to explode; the other landed in a river.
24 January : Students at Glasgow University organized a boycott of the school refectory to protest high meal prices.
24 January : Mohammad Mohammadullah was elected unopposed as President of Bangladesh
25 January : Dr Christiaan Barnard transplants 1st heterotopic heart transplant (adding donor heart without removal of old)
25 January : The crew of Skylab 4 became the world record holders for time spent in space
25 January : Yale University announced that the Vinland map, which purportedly showed the portion of North America explored by Leif Erikson in the 11th century, was a 20th-century forgery.
26 January : Bülent Ecevit becomes Prime Minister of Turkey
26 January : Turkish Airlines Flight 301 crashed and burned shortly after takeoff from Izmir Cumaovası Airport. 66 of the 73 people on board were killed.
26 January : 50-year-old John Rodgers, a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, was shot and killed by the IRA while on foot patrol in Glengormley, County Antrim.
26 January : Joe Benjamin, American jazz bassist, died aged 54
26 January : Archie Semple, Scottish jazz clarinetist and bandleader, dies aged 45
27 January : "Lorelei" opens at Palace Theater NYC for 320 performances
28 January : Muhammad Ali beat Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden in New York City by unanimous decision.
28 January : Ed Allen, American jazz trumpeter and cornetist, dies aged 76
29 January : 79-year-old Protestant civilian Matilda Withrington was shot and killed in her home during an IRA sniper attack on a Royal Air Force bus in Newcastle, County Down.
29 January : 43-year-old William Baggeley of the Royal Ulster Constabulary was shot and killed by the IRA while on foot patrol in Derry.
29 January : H. E. Bates, English author, dies aged 68
30 January : Christian Bale, actor, born Christian Charles Philip Bale in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales
30 January : Olivia Colman, actress, born Sarah Caroline Colman in Norwich, England
30 January : Jemima Goldsmith, British journalist, born Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith in Chelsea, London
31 January : Samuel Goldwyn, film producer (MGM), dies of natural causes aged 91
31 January : Actress Linda Lovelace was arrested on drug possession charges at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1 February : Kuala Lumpur is declared a Federal Territory.
3 February : "Pajama Game" closes at Lunt Fontanne Theater NYC after 65 performances
4 February : Provisional IRA bomb explodes on a bus in West Yorkshire carrying British Army soldiers and family
4 February : Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army
5 February : British miners begin their strike in reaction to the three-day week
5 February : Maximum speed on Autobahn reduced to 100 kph
6 February : Dutch speed limit set at 100km due to oil crisis
7 February : Arline Judge, American actress, dies aged 61
8 February : Fern Andra, American actress who worked in German silent cinema, dies aged 80
8 February : 3 US astronauts return to Earth after a 85 days in the US space station, Skylab
8 February : Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, musician (Daft Punk), born Guillaume Emmanuel de Homem-Christo in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
8 February : Seth Green, actor, born Seth Benjamin Gesshel-Green in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
10 February : "Gigi" closes at Uris Theater NYC after 103 performances
11 February : Titan-Centaur rocket test launch fails
11 February : Alex Jones, talk radio host & crackpot, born Alexander Emerick Jones in Dallas, Texas
13 February : Robbie Williams, singer (Take That), born Robert Peter Conway in Stoke-on-Trent, England
13 February : "Rainbow Jones" opens & closes at Music Box Theater NYC
13 February : Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is deported from the Soviet Union to Frankfurt and stripped of his Soviet citizenship
15 February : Kurt Magnus Atterberg, Swedish composer, dies aged 86
15 February : Mr. Lordi, singer (Lordi), born Tomi Petteri Putaansuu in Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland
18 February : NASA launches Italian satellite San Marcos C-2

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

[bigfatheart]

Absolute belter. Glam seems to have been particularly forgiving to journeymen bands jumping on board the bandwagon, letting outside figures determine their direction. I don't know if that says something deeper about the nature of the genre, or if it's just that there was a surfeit of behind-the-scenes greats (Chinn & Chapman, in this case) that meant this stuff was of higher quality than when an equivalent band would have been trying to do new wave, say, five years later.

That clip of them performing it on the Top of the Pops 1974 Christmas special is one of my favourite Top of the Pops performances. Just pure, unalloyed, joyous shtick.

[kalowski]

[daf]

344.  Suzi Quatro – Devil Gate Drive



From : 19 February – 4 March 1974
Weeks : 2
B-side : In the Morning
Bonus 1 : Top of the Pops
Bonus 2 : Biba Promo film
Bonus 3 : Live in Japan 1975
Bonus 4 : Happy Days 1977
Bonus 5 : Live Revolver
Bonus 6 : 'What Goes On' Re-recording 1995
Bonus 7 : Live 2015
Bonus 8 : Suzi Quatro Bass Line Episode 50 : Devil Gate Drive

The Story So Far : 

Suzi Quatro's sixth studio LP, 'Suzi ... and Other Four Letter Words', was released 1979.



This was her last studio album before she decided not to renew her contract with record producer Mickie Most's RAK Records label - She subsequently signed a contract with Dreamland Records, which had been set up by songwriters/producers Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn.

The album contains three singles, all of which charted : "She's In Love With You" (b/w "Space Cadets"), which reached #11 in October 1979 and was a number 1 hit in South Africa, where it topped the chart for 7 weeks!



"Mama's Boy", (b/w "Mind Demons"), was released in January 1980 reached #34 in the UK.



"I've Never Been In Love" (b/w "Starlight Lady"), was released in March 1980 and reached #38 in Germany, #44 in the US and #55 in the UK.



Other songs featured on the album included : "Hollywood", "Four Letter Words", "You Are My Lover", and "Love Hurts".



Writing for Smash Hits in 1979, Red Starr described the album as "ten immediately accessible chunks of bouncy, straightforward pop-rock".



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Her seventh solo studio album, 'Rock Hard', was released in October 1980, and was her first and only release by the record label, Dreamland.



The album was recorded over a period of one month in 1980, at United Western Studios, in Hollywood. It features three prolific guest backing vocalists, including Paul Delph, Michael Des Barres, and Andrea Robinson.

Three singles were released from the album : "Rock Hard" (b/w "State Of Mind"), in October 1980 reaching #9 in Australia, #26 in Germany, and #68 in the UK . . .



"Glad All Over" (b/w "Ego In The Night"), was released in January 1981 . . .



"Lipstick" (b/w "Woman Cry"), was released in May 1981.



Other songs featured on the album included : "Love Is Ready", "Hard Headed", "Lonely is the Hardest", "Lay Me Down", and "Wish Upon Me".



On release, the album was received favourably by the majority of music critics, with many critics claiming it to be her best album of the 1980s. However, it was still Quatro's poorest selling studio album up to that point.

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Her eighth studio album, 'Main Attraction' was released in November 1982, on Polydor Records.



The album was recorded over a period of four months at The Studio Toppersfield, in Essex, England with the sessions starting in late 1981, and ending in early 1982. The album is generally regarded as the culmination of the smoother, more adult-oriented sound of Quatro's later work.

The album is notably Quatro's only studio album not to contain any cover versions of songs by other artists. However, she did have a hand in composing each track, with the exception of the sixth track "Two Miles Out of Georgia", which was solely written by Chris Andrews.

The first single from the album, "Heart Of Stone" (b/w "Remote Control"), was released in October 1982, reaching #60 in the UK chart. The title-track of the album, "Main Attraction", was released as a single, backed by the album track "Transparent", in February 1983, but failed to chart.



Other songs featured on the album included : "Cheap Shot", "She Knows", "Candy Man", "Fantasy in Stereo", and "Oh Baby".

The album was received negatively by the majority of music critics, with most of the criticism being directed towards its musical direction being too commercial from her hard rock roots. The album went largely unnoticed by the public, being a commercial disappointment, and even missed the album charts worldwide - her first studio album to do so.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She was back on RAK for her next single, "I Go Wild" (b/w "I'm A Rocker"), released in July 1984. The single was reviewed in Smash Hits by the devious, truculent and unreliable pop weed Morrissey : "On this sleeve, bearing a bloodcurdling resemblance to the Witch Of Capri, the seemingly deathless Suzi revs up yet again with a musical plot which remains unaltered since 1973. "I'm an alley cat," she growls, sentiments which a decade ago, were mildly forgivable, but which in 1984, seem almost unhealthy, Quatro is worthless because of her absolute inability to convey any emotion other than pre-teen hysteria, A "Rocker" she claims and a "Rocker" she is. Rocking, in fact, into oblivion."



"Tonight I Could Fall In Love" (b/w "Good Girl (Looking For A Bad Time)"), was released in July 1985, and tanked at #140 in the UK charts.



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She appeared the London revival of Irving Berlin's musical 'Annie Get Your Gun', and in October 1986, released the single "I Got Lost In His Arms" (b/w "You Can't Get A Man With A Gun")



The single was taken from the album, 'Annie Get Your Gun (1986 London revival cast)', released in August 1986.



Songs on the album that featured Quatro included : "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly", "There's No Business Like Show Business", "They Say It's Wonderful", "Moonshine Lullaby", "I'm an Indian Too", "I Got the Sun in the Morning", "Old Fashioned Wedding", and "Anything You Can Do".

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She teamed up with Reg Presley for the single "Wild Thing" (b/w "I Don't Want You"), released in November 1986.



She released the singles "We Found Love" in 1988, and "Baby You're A Star" in 1989. Both songs would be included on her next album . . .



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Her tenth studio album, 'Oh, Suzi Q.' was released in 1990, on the record labels Generation Record, and Bellaphon.



The album was her last recording of original material for five years, and was notably the first album not to feature her long-time guitarist and then-husband Len Tuckey, whom she would divorce in 1992.

Songs featured on the album included : "Suzi Q.", "Southern Comfort", "Take Me In Your Arms (And Rock Me)", "Victim of Circumstance", "Elusive Lover", "Best Thing in My Life", and "We Live Forever"

The album went largely unnoticed by the public, and was her second studio album in a row to fail to chart anywhere in the world.

Further singles from the album included : "Kiss Me Goodbye" in April 1991; "The Great Midnight Rock 'N Roll House Party" (b/w "Intimate Strangers"); and "Love Touch" in 1992.



In 1991 she performed the title role in a musical about the life of actress Tallulah Bankhead. Titled 'Tallulah Who?', the musical was co-written by her and Shirlie Roden, adapted from a book by Willie Rushton. Running from February 14 to March 9 at Hornchurch, England, the show received favourable reviews from the majority of critics.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Released in 1992, "I Need Your Love", another team-up with Chris Norman, was featured as the lead track on Norman's album 'The Growing Years'.



"Hey Charly" by The Bolland Project featuring Suzi Quatro was a Netherlands-only release, and featured on the 1992 album 'Darwin – The Evolution'.



The non album single "Fear of the Unknown" was released in 1993 followed by "If I Get Lucky" in 1994.



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Her eleventh solo studio album, 'What Goes Around – Greatest & Latest' was released in 1995.



Featuring mostly re-recordings of her original Chinn and Chapman hits from the 1970s, it also includes four new tracks : "What Goes Around", "Empty Rooms" and "Make Love To Me" written by Quatro, plus a cover version of Bruce Springsteen's song "Born to Run".



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Her twelfth studio album, 'Unreleased Emotion' was released in 1998. It had originally been recorded the early nineties, produced by Len Tuckey, but was shelved for several years. It first emerged in Germany in 1993 as part of the 2CD 'Best of' collection 'Then And Now'.



Songs featured on the album included : "Pardon Me", "There She Goes", "Can I Be Your Girl", "Strange Encounters", "Comes The Night", "Starry Night", "Good Girl (Looking For A Bad Time)", "Everything I Ever Wanted", "Secret Hideaway", "Just Like Momma", and "Suzi Q".

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In 1999 she collaborated with Shirlie Roden for the "inner experience" self-help album, 'Free the Butterfly', which uses music and movement as a healing therapy.



According to the liner notes : "This is a unique double CD, specially created, written and performed by Suzi and Shirlie, to help you connect with your inner self and discover the Lessons of your Life. Based on the idea of the School of Life, this CD works with the elements of Water, Air, Fire, Earth, Wood, Stone and Gold in the form of seven separate songs. Together with a guided narration by Suzi or Shirlie, each element allows the listener to discover and unearth their feelings and emotional truth. Suzi and Shirlie lead you with words, music, sound and movement to let you lose your inhibitions, express your truth and emotions, and become your own alchemist to transform your shadow into pure gold."

Suzi Quatro : "She's a sound healer and she asked me to do some workshops with her, which I did, and it was quite an interesting experience. I think that, whenever you do something like that, you realize that most people really have the same kind of problems."

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Her fourteenth studio album, 'Back to the Drive' was released in March 2006, produced by Sweet guitarist Andy Scott and Steve Grant with input from Quatro's classic era producer Mike Chapman. The front cover photograph was created by Steve Payne which featured a photo of Quatro screaming whilst playing the bass guitar with graphics which made the cover look like she had shattered a window.



The title track "Back to the Drive" samples the intro from "Devil Gate Drive" and the guitar line from her debut worldwide hit "Can The Can". "Duality" is derived from an Indian raga and was co-written with Vicki Tischler Blue (Formerly of The Runaways).  The ballad "Sometimes Love Is Letting Go" tells a story of her past relationships with her parents and Len Tuckey. The download-only single "I'll Walk Through the Fire With You" features a duet with her daughter, Laura.



Other songs featured on the album included : "15 Minutes of Fame", "I Don't Do Gentle", "Wasted Moments", "No Choice", "Dancing in the Wind", "Free the Butterfly", "Born Making Noise", and the Neil Young cover "Rockin' in the Free World". The Japanese version included two bonus tracks : "Ambition" and "Why Do Rainbows Die".



Suzi Quatro : ""Back to the Drive" was a collection of 15 years of my life in song, starting with 'Free the Butterfly', about the breakup of my first marriage. It was a highly personal album and one I am very proud of."

The album was warmly received by the critics and fans, and was her first album to chart since 1980s 'Rock Hard' - peaking at #78 in the Swiss album charts!

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Her fifteenth studio album, 'In the Spotlight' was released in August 2011.



The seeds for the album were sown when Mike Chapman, Quatro's original producer and composer of most of her hits, approached her with plans to take her back to her roots.

Suzi Quatro : "Mike wanted to reclaim my legacy. He says on the album, 'Every girl who came along in the last 40 years owes something to me...the original.' He had a vision about this album. He wanted control (tongue-in-cheek) and got it. I respect him. He respects me. We have had a lot of success together."

Songs written by Chapman included "A Girl Like Me", "Whatever Love Is", "Spotlight", and "Rosie Rose"



The album featured a cover of Goldfrapp's "Strict Machine", which included two extra lines taken from her own number one hit "Can the Can". Other songs featured on the album included : "Breaking Dishes", "Hurt with You", "Hot Kiss", "Turn Into", "Hard Headed Woman", and the bonus track "Singing with Angels" featuring Elvis Presley's guitarist James Burton.

Suzi Quatro : "We were doing "Singing With Angels," my tribute to Elvis. And he was on the track with The Jordanaires. And I was playing him some of my new songs from my new album. This is quite a few years ago. And we were standing outside, and he came up to me after listening for a while, and he said, "Suzi? You know, you have what Elvis had." I nearly went right through the floor. I got goosebumps just now saying it. I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "The only way I can explain it is whatever you do, it's you." Wow. But even to say that. I mean, I'll take that to my grave. What a compliment."



When the album was released, it received many positive reviews — Allmusic commented that (except for one track): "...In the Spotlight is an impressive comeback, which admirably doesn't rely solely on nostalgia to make itself heard."

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On March 31, 2012, Quatro broke her right knee and left wrist while boarding an aircraft in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she had performed the night before. She had to cancel her appearance at the Detroit Music Awards, where she was to be inducted into the Detroit Hall of Fame along with her sisters, scheduled for April 27. This would have been her first performance in America in over 30 years.

In April 2013, she performed in America for the first time in over 30 years, at the Detroit Music Awards where she received the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to her by her sister, Patti.

In 2014, Quatro marked her 50th anniversary in the music industry with a 4-disc anthology, 'Girl from Detroit' which included two new tracks : "Cost Of Living", and the Chinn-Chapman song "The Girl from Detroit City" which was released as a single.

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She teamed up with guitarist Andy Scott from Sweet, and drummer Don Powell from Slade for the album 'Quatro, Scott & Powell', released in 2017.



Suzi Quatro : "That was absolutely brilliant fun. The three of us have known each other forever and we bonded incredibly well. Whenever we get together and play it feels as though we have been playing together forever. It was a wonderful experience; Andy and I have written some fantastic songs together. So on the album there are six originals and eight standards." 

Songs featured on the album included : "Slow Down", "Long Way From Home", "Tobacco Road", "If Only", "Bright Lights Big City", "Pain", "Just Like A Woman", "Mend A Broken Heart", "The Price Of Love", "Broken Pieces Suite", "I Walk On Gilded Splinters", "Late Nights Early Flights", "Little Sister", "Fever", and "Tossin' & Turnin'"



Suzi Quatro : "When the album was released just before the tour of Australia it went straight into the charts at number twenty. It is a great album and we are all very proud of it."

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In 2019, she released the album 'No Control'.



Most of the songs on the album were co-written with her son Richard Tuckey, who also played guitar on the album.

Suzi Quatro : "It was not planned, and it was unexpected. It was like an express train going down the track - it couldn't be stopped. Richard has done his own thing. He's a guitar player and has been in bands, and he goes out with bands on the road. He came to me about eight months ago and said, "I want to write some stuff with you." I said, "OK. What you got?" He showed me one particular song - which was just a riff - which became "Don't Do Me Wrong." It was the first thing we went into the studio with and it worked so well I said, "Let's keep going." We spent time at the house here writing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and all of a sudden, we were doing an album, and it started to take on a life of its own. All the best things, you don't plan - they just happen. Life happens."



Three singles were released from the album : "Love Isn't Fair", "Heart on the Line", and  "No Soul/No Control".

Suzi Quatro : "It's been my mantra my whole life. All you really have is yourself and you shouldn't give that up for anybody - professionally or privately. All you've got is you. This is your little light, let it shine - nobody can take it from you. Everybody has had it happen before where they've fallen into a situation or into a relationship where they try to take your soul and your control. And I say, "No soul, no control." Done. I'm me, you can't have this. This is mine."



Other songs featured on the album included : "Going Home", "Easy Pickings", "Bass Line", "Don't Do Me Wrong", "Heavy Duty", "I Can Teach You To Fly", "Going Down Blues", and "Macho Man".

Suzi Quatro : "I've had two or three that I've known in my life, and they haven't lasted more than a day, but it always left a lasting impression on me. The macho man that just is so caught up in being macho that they're afraid to show their feelings. And it's almost in a funny kind of way like they're a victim of their gender, which is a shame."

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Her latest album, 'The Devil in Me', was released in 2021.



Two singles were released : "My Heart and Soul (I Need You Home for Christmas)"; followed by "I Sold My Soul Today". Other songs featured on the album included : "The Devil In Me", "Hey Queenie", "Betty Who?", "You Can't Dream It", "My Heart And Soul (Long Version)", "Get Outta Jail", "Do Ya Dance", "Isolation Blues", "Love's Gone Bad", "In The Dark", and "Motor City Riders"

Suzi Quatro : "I had this riff. Richard is a real riff guy, but I had one, and I went out to the studio, and he took it from me. He said, "You should write something about Detroit." And I immediately thought, "Motor City Riders." It just was exactly correct. And then because I was going to write it about Detroit — which is obviously my hometown — I took time with these lyrics. Because I wanted them to express every syllable of what it was like to go as a '60s teenager growing up in that atmosphere — in Detroit. It was quite special. You had your riots in that era. Everything was happening – the music, black and white, Motown and white rock. Fantastic era to grow up. So, I took very much care. And I have to say it's a well-written lyric, because I took it from deep inside."



Suzi Quatro : "I'm proud of my whole life when I look at it, you know? Some sad, some great. I'm really proud that I've been in this industry for 56 years as a professional now, and I have my feet on the ground, and I am pretty normal. That's what I'm proud of. And I'm also proud that my fans love me, and I love them. I love the whole relationship, and I'm proud that I've been able to make people happy for so many years. How wonderful. Can't believe I get paid for it."

The Single :

"Devil Gate Drive" was written and produced by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, and performed by Suzi Quatro.



"Devil Gate Drive" was Quatro's second and final solo number one single in the UK, spending two weeks at the top of the chart in February 1974. In America, it was released only as a promotional single because she had no real fanbase there.

Suzi Quatro : "It's the place where you go when you're a teenager, and your parents say, 'Where are you going?' 'I'm going out.' 'Don't you dare go to such-and-such.' That's 'Devil Gate Drive,' and that's where you go. Of course, as soon as your parents say, 'Don't go,' that's where you go."



In 1977, Quatro performed this in character of Leather Tuscadero, a tough rocker who was the sister of Fonzie's love interest, Pinky on the Fifties-set show Happy Days during season 5, on the episode "Fonzie, Rock Entrepreneur: Part II", first broadcast on ABC-TV on 15 November 1977.

Suzi Quatro : "I played Leather Tuscadero in Happy Days for three years and Henry Winkler is one of the most serious guys that I have ever met.  We are still in contact with one another after all these years and I have to say that for me it really was a very nice experience. I was honoured to be a part of such an iconic show."



Suzi Quatro : "Before I did what I did, we didn't have a place in rock 'n' roll. Not really. You had your Grace Slick and all that, but that's not what I did. I was the first to be taken seriously as a female rock 'n' roll musician and singer. That hadn't been done before. I played the boys at their own game. For everybody that came afterward, it was a little bit easier, which is good. I'm proud of that. If I have a legacy, that's what it is. It's nothing I take lightly. It was gonna happen sooner or later."



Other Versions include :  Inger Lise (1974)  /  Tommy James (1976)  /  Petty Booka (1997)  /  Olivia Newton-John (2012)  /  Jasmine Thorpe with Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  Rosie Maria Meader (2012)  /  Supersonic 70s Show (2016)  /  Bounty Hunters Band (2016)  /  Dario Western (2018)  /  revampedtheband (2019)  /  GLITZ (2020)  /  The Pirate Biker (2021)

On This Day :

21 February : Wish Bone, rapper (Bone Thugs-N-Harmony), born Charles C. Scruggs in Cleveland, Ohio
21 February : Israeli forces leave western Suez
22 February : James Blunt, musician, born James Hillier Blount in Hampshire, England
22 February : Chris Moyles, English DJ, born Christopher David Moyles in Leeds, United Kingdom
25 February : Veronica & Colin Scargill begin tandem bicycle ride a record 18,020 miles around the world
28 February : UK general election results in a hung parliament.
1 March : Mark-Paul Gosselaar, actor (Zack in 'Saved by the Bell') born Mark-Paul Harry Gosselaar in Panorama City, Los Angeles
1 March : Bobby Timmons, American jazz pianist, dies of cirrhosis, aged 38
2 March : Grand jury concludes US President Richard Nixon is involved in Watergate cover-up
3 March : "Sextet" opens at Bijou Theater NYC for 9 performances
3 March : Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crashes in the Ermenonville Forest outside Paris, killing all 346 people onboard
3 March : Frank Wilcox, American actor (Beverly Hillbillies), dies from a heart attack aged 66
4 March : Adolph Gottlieb, American painter, dies aged 71
4 March : Harold Wilson (Labour) replaces resigning Edward Heath (Conservative) as British prime minister

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

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Previously :
331.  Suzi Quatro – Can the Can

[daf]

345.  Alvin Stardust – Jealous Mind



From : 5 – 11 March 1974
Weeks : 1
B-side : Guitar Star
Bonus 1 : Promo Video
Bonus 2 : Top of the Pops February 1974
Bonus 3 : Top Pop April 1974
Bonus 4 : Disco May 1974
Bonus 5 : Top of the Pops 27 December 1974
Bonus 6 : Spanish TV 1975
Bonus 7 : Re-recording
Bonus 8 : 2009 Interview

The Story So Far : 

Bernard William Jewry was born in 1942 in Muswell Hill. Having moved at a young age to Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where his mother ran a boarding house frequented by musicians and entertainers appearing locally, Bernard attended the Southwell Minster Collegiate Grammar School in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, near Newark-on-Trent, as a boarder. He made his stage debut in pantomime at the age of four.

Bernard received his first guitar for his twelfth birthday, It was a child size acoustic which he heavily customised with skeletons and sequins. In 1954, he formed his first band, The Jewry Rhythm Group, and performed at local fetes and garden parties.

Aged 17, he took part in a talent showcase at the Mansfield Palais. Also appearing were Johnny Theakston and the Tremeloes. Bernard sang "Who slapped John" and won the competition. Bernard joined the band as their roadie, and would occasionally perform with them onstage.

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Johnny Theakston and the Tremeloes roots can be traced back to the Diamond Skiffle Group and Roger Lymer and his Crusaders. Following the break up of the two groups, some members from each of them ended up in a group called Johnny Theakston with his Beat Boys.



By 1960 Theakston decided that the group needed a more commercial name. He had given himself a more American image and adopted the name Shane Fenton. At the time the group consisted of Johnny Theakston on vocals, Jerry Wilcock and Mick Eyre on lead and rhythm guitars, Graham Squires on bass and Tony Hinchcliffe on drums.

Under the new name of Shane Fenton and the Fentones, the group recorded a demo tape around 1961 which was sent to BBC, as result of the tape being heard, they were offered an audition. Just days before the audition was due to take place, Theakston became ill and died, aged 17, of rheumatic fever.

After the death of Theakston the group were going to call it quits, but Theakston's mother asked that they keep the group going as a tribute to her son as well as keeping the original name. Bernard took Theakston's place as Shane Fenton.

After the audition, the group became regulars on Saturday Club, and they soon got a recording contract with EMI's Parlophone label, and teamed up with producer George Martin.

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In September 1961, their debut single "I'm a Moody Guy" (b/w "Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue") was released. Spending eight weeks on the chart, the single peaked at #22.



Not long after the success of the single, the group was soon touring on rock'n'roll 'package show' events.

The next single was "Walk Away", (b/w "Fallen Leaves On The Ground"), which got to #38.



Pop music in Britain had entered a transitional period, the press claiming that rock 'n' roll was on the way out and citing Trad Jazz as the next major force. George Martin pulled the group into Abbey Road to record a revival of an old music Hall song, "It's All Over Now", which, backed by "Why Little Girl", peaked at #29 in April 1962.



Thanks to an appearance in the Billy Fury film 'Play it Cool' performing their new single, "Cindy's Birthday", (b/w "It's Gonna Take Magic"), climbed to #19 in July 1962, spending eight weeks in the charts.



"Too Young For Sad Memories", (b/w "You're Telling Me"), was released in October 1962, and reached #18 in Sweden.



The single was specially written for Fenton by 'Oliver' hitmaker Lionel Bart.



"I Ain't Got Nobody", (b/w "Hey Miss Ruby"), was released in January 1963.



On 18 April 1963, The Beatles appeared in a live concert at the Royal Albert Hall for the first time, the second half of which was broadcast live on BBC radio.  Also performing were Shane Fenton and the Fentones, Del Shannon, the Springfields, Lance Percival, Rolf Harris, the Vernons Girls, Kenny Lynch and George Melly. All acts came together to sing "Mack The Knife" in the shows Grand Finale

After the show, Shane drove Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and young actress Jane Asher over to journalist friend Brian Hutchins' flat in Chelsea. Shane later met Paul's ex-girlfriend Iris Caldwell, who was the sister of Merseyside favourite Rory Storm, when they played at the Tower Ballroom in Wallasey, where Iris worked as a dancer. Fenton would go on to marry Iris in 1964 - peaking at Number 1 in her UK heart.



"Fool's Paradise", (b/w "You Need Love"), was released in April 1963



Around this time, he turned down a management deal with Brian Epstein, who was offering Fenton the chance to record Lennon and McCartney's "Do You Want To Know A Secret". After Fenton's rebuff, song went instead to Billy J. Kramer.

His next single, "Don't Do That", (b/w "I'll Know"), was released in July 1963, credited to 'Shane Fenton' alone. The last single for the group was "Hey Lulu", (b/w "I Do, Do You"), in 1964. After that, the group appeared together one final time on Saturday Club, and then broke up.



Fenton disappeared from the spotlight for a decade after the break-up of the Fentones, working in music management and performing at small venues with his first wife Iris Caldwell.

He re-emerged in August 1972 with the single, "The Fly" (b/w "Perdona Mia"), released under the name Jo-Jo Ellis. A final Shane Fenton single, "Eastern Seaboard" (b/w "Blind Fool"), was released in 1972. Both singles were released on Billy Fury's Fury Label.

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Born Peter Alexander Southworth in London, Peter Shelley entered the UK music industry in 1965, working initially as a song plugger with the music publisher, Chappell & Co. He then joined EMI as personal assistant to their chief songwriter/record producer Norman Newell, learning the basics of record production. He later joined Decca Records as a talent scout, discovering for the label Amen Corner, Ten Years After, and the nucleus of a band that would later become King Crimson. He left Decca in 1968 to become an independent writer/producer.

In 1973, Shelley co-founded Magnet Records with Michael Levy. Shelley wrote, produced and sang on Magnet's first release, "My Coo Ca Choo", (b/w "Pull Together"), released under the stage name of Alvin Stardust.



Shelly appeared performing the single as 'Alvin Stardust' on the television show Lift Off with Ayshea, and was surprised when the record went straight into the chart the following week. Shelley, however, had no interest in performing live or making further public appearances, so even as the single was climbing the charts, he was on the lookout for someone to take over the role of Stardust.

Hal Carter, Shane Fenton's manager, suggested his client as a substitute, and he took over as Alvin Stardust in time to lip-synch "My Coo Ca Choo" on its first Top of the Pops appearance.

The Alvin Stardust name was a reference to Ziggy Stardust, a character invented by Dave Bowie, from Dave Bowie and The Dave Bowie Band, partly based on the fifties rocker Vince Taylor. Fenton's version of Alvin Stardust was visually closer to Taylor than Bowie's creation - with massive sideburns and jet-black leather outfit.



The single peaked at No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart and No. 1 in Australia where it became the biggest chart seller of 1974, staying at the top slot for seven weeks. It also reached #2 in Austria, and #3 in Belgium, Germany and Ireland.



Shelley continued writing and producing for Stardust, including his next single, "Jealous Mind", (b/w "Guitar Star"), which was released in February 1974. The single peaked at Number 1 in the UK and Ireland, #5 in Germany, #9 in Finland, and #10 in Austria.



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His debut album, 'The Untouchable', was released in March 1974.



Songs featured on the album included : "My Coo Ca Choo", "Be My Judy", "The Bump", "My Sweet Deutsche Friend", "Jealous Mind", "Dreambreaker", "I'm In Love Again", "High Fever", "Dressed In Black", "You're My Everything", and "Guitar Star".



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His next single, "Red Dress", (b/w "Little Darlin'"), was released in April 1974. The single peaked at #7 in the UK, and reached #8 in Austria, #12 in Ireland, and #14 in both Germany and Finland.



"You You You" was released in August 1974. The single peaked at #4 in Austria, and reached #5 in Ireland, #6 in the UK, #10 in Finland, and #19 in Germany.



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His second album, 'Alvin Stardust', was released in November 1974.



Songs featured on the album included :  "Red Dress", "Heartbeat", "Just Love Me Baby", "Where's She Gone", "You, You, You", "Chilli Willi", "Jump Down!", "Shake On Little Roller!", "First Train Out", and "Blind Fool".



"Tell Me Why", (b/w "Roadie Roll On"), was released as a single in November 1974, and peaked at #10 in Finland, #14 in Ireland, and #16 in the UK.



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"Good Love Can Never Die", (b/w "The Danger Zone"), released in January 1975. The single peaked at #8 in Finland, and reached #11 in the UK, and #5 in Germany.



In February 1975, taking a leaf out of The Glitter Band's success, Stardust's backing band, Alvin's Heartbeats, released the single "Chilli Willi Part 1", (b/w "Chilli Willi Part 2"). The single flopped, and Alvin's Heartbeats went back to being Stardust's backing band.

 

The non-album single, "Sweet Cheatin' Rita", (b/w "Come On!"), was released in June 1975, and peaked at #30 in Finland and #37 in the UK.



The single, written and produced by Roger Greenaway, was his first after splitting with Peter Shelley, who, by this time, was having some chart success of his own, with "Gee Baby" from 1974 and "Love Me Love My Dog" in 1975.



"Move It", (b/w "Be Smart Be Safe (The Green Cross Code Song)"), was released in September 1975, and peaked at #23 in Finland, and reached #55 on the UK 'Breakers' list.



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His third album, 'Rock With Alvin', was released in September 1975.



Songs featured on the album included : "Twenty Flight Rock", "C'Mon Everybody", "Bony Maronie", "Move It", "It's Only A Song Peggy Sue", "Good Love Can Never Die", "The Love Bug", "Come On", "Bye Bye Love", and "Never In A Million Years".




The album track "Angel From Hamburger Heaven" was released as a single in November 1975, but failed to chart.



A second single taken from the album, "It's Better To Be Cruel Than Be Kind", (b/w "Here I Go Again"), was released in April 1976, but, again, failed to chart.



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In 1976, Stardust was part of the Green Cross Code road safety campaign 'Children's Heroes', which saw him instructing children to look both ways before they crossed the road.



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"The Word Is Out", (b/w "No Parking Space"), released in July 1976. The single was featured on the 1976 "Tape only compilation", 'No Parking Space'



The final single releases on Magnet, "Growin' Up", (b/w "A Hobo's Life"), was released in April 1977, and included on the 1977 compilation album 'Greatest Hits'.



The non album single, "Shakin' All Over", (b/w "I Gotta Gotta"), was released in July 1979 on Gale Records.

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In 1981 he signed with Stiff Records, and released the single "Pretend", (b/w "Goose Bumps"), in August 1981. The single peaked at Number 1 in Belgium, and reached #3 in the Netherlands, #4 in the UK, #5 in Austria, and #6 in Ireland. "Wonderful Time Up There", (b/w "Love You So Much"), was released in November 1981, peaking at #14 in Belgium, and #20 in the Netherlands, #21 in Ireland, and #56 in the UK.



The non-album single, "Weekend", (b/w "Butterflies"), was released in April 1982, but failed to chart.



"I Want You Back In My Life Again", (b/w "I Just Wanna Make Love To You"), was released in July 1982, and reached #33 in Belgium.



"A Picture Of You", (b/w "Hold Tight"), was released in November 1982, and peaked at #19 in Belgium and #48 in the Netherlands.



The single was included on his fourth studio album, 'A Picture Of You' released in 1983.



Songs featured on the album included : "Pretend", "Victim Of Romance", "I Want You Back In My Life", "What Looks Good On You Is Me", "Picture Of You", "Wonderful Time Up There", "Laughter Turns To Tears", "Dreamer", "I'll Never Forget You", "You're The Reason", and "That Habit".

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His final UK single on Stiff, "Walk Away Renee", was released in April 1983. Further singles included the Europe-only release "Corina Can", (b/w "Forever Tonight"), in the Netherlands, and "Candy" (b/w "Stealer"), which reached #33 in Belgium in 1983.



His first single for Chrysalis, "I Feel Like Buddy Holly", (b/w "Luxury"), was released in April 1984. The single peaked at #3 in Ireland, #7 in the UK, and #37 in Germany.



"I Won't Run Away", (b/w "Tigers Don't Climb Trees"), released in October 1984, and reached #7 in both the UK and Ireland. "So Near To Christmas", (b/w "Alright - O.K."), was released in November 1984, and reached #15 in Ireland, and #29 in the UK.



His fifth studio album, 'I Feel Like... Alvin Stardust', was released in 1984



Songs featured on the album included : "Pink Bedroom", "Give It A Little Time", "America", "The Morning After", "I Won't Run Away", "I Feel Like Buddy Holly", "Got My Money On You", "I Do So Love You Now", "She's So Young", "In The Morning", "Save The Children", "Hurt By Love", and "So Near To Christmas".

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The non-album single, "Got A Little Heartache", (b/w "Again"), was released in March 1985, and reached #55 in the UK. His next single "(The) Clock On The Wall" was a contender to represent the UK at the 1985 Eurovision Song Contest but was eventually placed 3rd out of 8 entries at the 'A Song For Europe' national selection show held on 5 April at BBC TV Studios in London. The winning song, "Love Is..." by Vikki was chosen by the votes of 9 regional cloth-eared juries. Following the disappointing result, although the release had been scheduled for April 1985, it was eventually cancelled. His next single, "Sleepless Nights", (b/w "Show You The Way"), was released in June 1985.



In December 1985 the cancelled "Clock on the Wall" single was included in a double pack single along with a re-issue of "So Near To Christmas".



Stardust performed the duet "I Hope and I Pray" with Sheila Walsh on her album 'Shadowlands', which was released as a single, backed by "Speak Of Love", in March 1986.



Back on Magnet Records, the single "Jailhouse Rock (The Coming Out Mix)", (b/w "Love Is Real"), was released in October 1986.



Written by John Betjeman, and produced by Mike Read, his final single "Christmas", (b/w "Executive"), was released in 1989.



In 1989, he also hosted his own Sunday morning children's TV series on ITV called It's Stardust. It featured stories, songs, poems, jokes and also cartoons for younger children.

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On 23 October 2014, Stardust died aged 72 at home after a brief illness. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer 18 months earlier, which later metastasised. He was cremated in Morriston Crematorium and his ashes scattered in the grounds.

A posthumous final album, 'Alvin', his first for 30 years, was released shortly after his death.



Songs featured on the album included : "Robbery", "Tongue Tied", "Now That I've Found You Again", "Did Someone Make A Fool Out Of You", "Whiskey Sweat", "Still Haven't Seen You Cry", "It Had To Be You", "Big Jack", "Always In The Rain", and "Lovin' You Till I Die".

The Single :

"Jealous Mind" was written by Peter Shelley and performed by Alvin Stardust.



"Jealous Mind" was Stardust's only number-one single in the UK Singles Chart, spending a single week at the top of the chart in March 1974. 



Though credited to Stardust, some of the vocals were sung by Peter Shelley, who also sang on the first single "My Coo Ca Choo". The single also topped the chart in Ireland, and reached #5 in Germany, #9 in Finland, and #10 in Austria.

Other Versions include :  Ed Muirton (2009)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  Stevie Riks (2018)  /  Rik Gaynor (2021)

On This Day :

5 March : "Candide" opens at Broadway Theater, NYC; runs for 740 performances
5 March : Matt Lucas, comedian, born Matthew Richard Lucas in Paddington, London
5 March : Eva Mendes, actress, born Eva de la Caridad Méndez in Miami, Florida
6 March : "Over Here!" opens at Shubert Theater, NYC for 341 performances
6 March : Guy Garvey, singer-songwriter (Elbow), born Guy Edward John Garvey in Bury, Lancashire
8 March : Charles de Gaulle Airport opens in Paris, France
9 March : Japanese soldier, Hiroo Onoda, surrenders, 29 years after World War II ended
10 March : "Sextet" closes at Bijou Theater NYC after 9 performances
11 March : Mount Etna in Sicily erupted

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

[daf]

346.  Paper Lace – Billy Don't Be a Hero



From : 12 March – 1 April 1974
Weeks : 3
B-side : Celia   
Bonus 1 : Promo video
Bonus 2 : Top of the Pops December 1974
Bonus 3 : Live TV Performance

The Story So Far : 

Music Box were formed in Nottingham in 1967 by Cliff Fish, Dave Manders, Roy White and Phil Wright.

Phil Wright : "I grew up round Elm Avenue, on the fringes of St Anns. I started with a band from school, but then I answered an advert in the Evening Post for a Ripley band called Music Box in 1967, which is where I met Cliff Fish who remains the other original in the band today. Most pubs in those days had a piano in the corner and were happy to let you perform. There were also a lot of theatre bars, The Heart of the Midlands, Joanna's up Talbot Street and we were working every night we could. You could actually make a living as a professional musician in Nottingham at the time without a record deal, and there were plenty of gigs out of town too. I was working professionally for 5 years before the fame bit happened."

By 1969, the band took up a residency in a Mecca dancehall in Rochdale for six months, and decided to change their name . . .

Phil Wright : "We were looking for a new name. We were looking at horse races. Just different subjects to find a name that was actually good enough. One of the guys looked in a book of things to make and folding paper, and tearing holes into it makes Paper Lace. Then we looked at the connection of Nottingham which is famous for lace making. So, it all seemed to fit really."

Paper Lace worked their way through small club gigs, a season at Tiffany's, a Rochdale club, and in 1971 at The Birdcage in Ashton-Under-Lyne.

They released their first single, "You Can't Touch Me" (b/w "I've Got You, That's Enough For Me") in April 1971 on Concord records. Their second single, "In The Morning (Morning Of My Life)", (b/w "Elsie"), was released in January 1972.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their first album, 'First Edition' was released in March 1972.



Songs featured on the album included : "In The Morning", "Stoney End", "Lady", "I've Got You, That's Enough For Me", "Threw My Love Away", "Martha (Whatever Happened)", "Games People Play", "Please Be My Friend", "You Can't Touch Me", "Elsie", "Like A Rolling Stone", and "Early One Morning".

The line up featured Phil Wright on Drums & Lead Vocals, Cliff Fish on Bass & Vocals, Roy White on Keyboards & Vocals, and Dave Manders on Guitar & lead Vocals.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Despite some TV appearances, mainstream success was not achieved until they appeared on Opportunity Knocks, the ITV talent contest series in 1973. The band had originally auditioned for the show in 1970.

Phil Wright : "Our management at the time had arranged an audition for a very popular TV talent show, "Opportunity Knocks" this took place in 1970, we attended the audition together with about a thousand other 'hopefuls' all competing for a place on the show, we played couple of numbers in front of a judging panel of three or four people, who wanted to hear more, so we played a couple more songs from the repertoire and they liked us, so we thought well, we'll be on the show next week, this was not the case and after waiting six months or so we thought they had forgotten about us."

Four years later, the band were finally invited to appear on the show.

Phil Wright : "In 1973 we had a letter from Thames Television to report to the Studios at Teddington Lock where they filmed the show, we thought it over and wondered whether we needed to be on a talent show at that point in our career, after all we had been making records, we had a couple of releases but no real success, then we saw that the show had a viewing audience of some seven million each week and we knew we had to be on the show, so we went for it. And we won five weeks on the trot!"

"Ragamuffin Man", (b/w "Martha (Whatever Happened)"), was released in May 1973 - their final single on Concord records.



On the basis of Opportunity Knocks' performances, songwriters Mitch Murray and Peter Callander offered the band the song "Billy Don't Be a Hero".

Phil Wright : "There were two songwriters who got in touch with our management and offered us Billy, Don't Be A Hero, with the possibility of more songs if it took off. We went down, recorded it, and they said "Hey, this a great song, it's gonna be a hit". And the song proved to be stronger than the band, because everyone knows it, they just can't remember who recorded it. Except in Nottingham, of course!"

Released in January 1974 on Bus Stop records, "Billy - Don't Be A Hero", (b/w "Celia"), would spend three weeks at Number 1 on the UK Singles Chart in March 1974, with a total of 14 weeks on the chart. The single also topped the charts in Ireland and Australia, and reached #3 in New Zealand.



In the United States, Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods released a cover of the song before Paper Lace managed to get theirs out, so the single only reached #96 there.

Phil Wright : "Nobody was in the band to make it, it was just one of those things that happened, and you don't think about the ramifications of having a hit until you get one. And obviously it meant more then than it does now, because the number of singles sold then were phenomenal."



Another Murray/Callander composition, "The Night Chicago Died", (b/w "Can You Get It When You Want It"), was released as a single in April 1974. It reached Number 3 in the UK and spent 11 weeks on the charts.

Despite contractual problems preventing the band from performing the song in America, it would top the Billboard Hot 100, selling over three million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the in August 1974. The single also topped the chart in Australia and New Zealand, and reached #2 in Canada, and #5 in Ireland.



Phil Wright : "That was even more successful. No.1 in America. I got a platinum disc for that...and I certainly didn't give that away! I remember us being on Top Of The Pops and Elton John shaking my hand backstage and congratulating us on a US No.1, which he hadn't achieved at the time! The really strange thing was we couldn't even perform the song in America, due to some contractual hassles. And the label told us that they could make it a hit without us having to be there. We did a few radio stations, but that's all."

"The Night Chicago Died" is about a shoot-out between the Chicago Police and gangsters tied to Al Capone. It was inspired by the real-life Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, although that involved Capone's men killing seven of Bugs Moran's gang members and had nothing to do with the police. No confrontation large enough to leave around one hundred police deaths ever happened. Capone was arrested in 1932 for income tax evasion.



The song's events supposedly take place "on the East Side of Chicago". However, Chicago has no East Side, as Lake Michigan is immediately east of Downtown Chicago. Songwriters Peter Callender and Mitch Murray admitted that they had never been to Chicago before that time, and that their knowledge of the city and that period of its history had been based on gangster films. Callender defended his interpretation of Chicago's geography by saying : "There's an East Side of everywhere!"

Paper Lace sent the song to the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, who greatly disliked it. A member of Daley's staff is quoted as saying that Paper Lace should "jump in the Chicago River, placing your heads under water three times and surfacing twice. Pray tell us, are you nuts?"



Phil Wright : "We never toured America. We actually thought we'd probably do some good in America. In those days it was a tremendous expense to tour in the States. It was a fortune and you needed help from your record company. Our record company at the time was Mercury, and they said, "Look, we don't need the band over here to have a number one record and the evidence that you're number one proves that. So, we're not prepared to put money into a tour." We couldn't really finance it ourselves, and so we never toured the States. We toured Canada. We toured New Zealand and Australia, but we didn't do the States. But by that time we'd had a number one hit in the U.K. "The Night Chicago Died" actually only got to number three in the U.K., but it got to number one in America."



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In June 1974 the band released its second, and final, album, 'Paper Lace and Other Bits of Material'.



Songs featured on the album included : "Billy - Don't Be A Hero", "Hitchin' A Ride '74", "I Did What I Did For Maria", "Mary In The Morning", "Sealed With A Kiss", "Bye Bye Blues", "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen", "The Night Chicago Died", "Love Song", "Dreams Are Ten A Penny", "Love - You're A Long Time Coming", and "Cheek To Cheek".



A third Murray/Callander-penned single "The Black-Eyed Boys", (b/w "Jean"), was released in July 1974. It peaked at #7 in Ireland, and reached #11 in the UK, #23 in Australia, #37 in Canada, and #41 in the US.



The album was released in the US as 'Paper Lace' with a slightly shuffled track-list, with "The Black Eyed Boys" replacing "Bye Bye Blues".



The band line-up at this point consisted of Philip Wright on drums & lead vocals, Mick Vaughan on lead and rhythm guitar, Cliff Fish on bass guitar, and Chris Morris on guitar and vocals - who left for a solo career . . .



. . . and then rejoined the group a few months later, thanks to "public demand". Carlo Paul Santanna was added as a fifth band member during 1974.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Hitchin' A Ride '75", (b/w "Love - You're A Long Time Coming"), was released in February 1975.



The single peaked at #16 in New Zealand, and reached #55 on the UK's 'Breakers List'



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their final single on Bus Stop records, "So What If I Am", (b/w "Himalayan Lullaby"), was released in June 1975, and failed to chart in the UK. It's only chart placing was reaching #64 in Canada.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Briefly signed to EMI, "I Think I'm Gonna Like It", (b/w "Lost Love"), was released in July 1976, but failed to chart.



Paper Lace were invited to perform on the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen Mother. However, as musical tastes/styles evolved in the mid-70s the band's popularity waned and by early 1976 Vaughan, Morris and Santanna had left the band, replaced alongside Wright and Fish by Jamie Moses and from 1975 to 1978 Peter Oliver (previously with The New Seekers).



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In February 1978, the band surfaced briefly with a sing-along version of "We've Got the Whole World in Our Hands" with their local football team, Nottingham Forest F.C.. The single, with "The Nottingham Forest March" as the B-side, reached #24, and spent six weeks on the UK chart.



Phil Wright : "We knew Cloughie as soon as he came to town, as we were under the same management. And it was put to us that if we could come up with a good song idea, we could do something with Forest. And in 1978, we went up on a coach to Birmingham with the Forest team – and what a team it was – all done up in their blazers. We had a few beers and did the song. Not many of them could sing, but we found four decent ones and triple-tracked 'em. And Cloughie bought us fish and chips on the way back, bless him. We did TOTP, Jim'll Fix It...it was great promotion for the city."

Chris Raynor, who had formerly been Billy Fury's guitarist, joined the band in 1978.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Paper Lace finally split up in 1980, but Morris and Raynor re-formed the group in 1983 with a new line-up that did not include Wright or Fish.

Phil Wright : "By the latter half of the 70s, I'd just had enough. I always wanted to quit at the top, and I didn't want to do the full circle. There was a major split in the band – Cliff and myself carried on as Paper Lace with a guy from the New Seekers and a chap called Jamie Moses, who now plays with Brian May and Paul Young and is one of the country's greatest session musicians. Mick still manages, produces and engineers in a studio in Forest Road. Cliff runs a shop in Derbyshire. And I became a builder. And then eight years ago, I joined the reformed Sons and Lovers."

In 1990, three original Paper Lace members, Philip Wright, Mick Vaughan and Chris Morris, were given the financial backing to re-record "Billy Don't Be a Hero" with an up-to-date sound. However, this was never released, because when the Gulf War began the BBC produced a list of songs it deemed inappropriate at the time, which included "Billy Don't Be A Hero".

A version of the band featuring Raynor released the single "Trinidad Boy" in July 1992.



In 2011 Carlo Paul Santanna re-joined Morris' and Raynor's Paper Lace. The line-up features Carlo Paul Santanna (lead vocal, guitar), Chris Raynor (lead guitar, vocal), Graham Wyvill (bass, vocal) and John Raynor (drums, vocal), plus Chris Morris on occasional live dates.

Phil Wright : "The band members went their separate ways in 1982. In 1983, that was when one of the members, Chirs Morris, who was the guitarist in the band, got three other guys together and reformed Paper Lace. But he only stayed in the band for short of three months and then he left. Things weren't working for him. So, he left and the band that carried on is basically the other band that call themselves Paper Lace, and now own the actual name, which is a bit of a travesty in actual fact because they were never proud of what they achieved because they hadn't achieved anything."

Phil Wright continues to perform with his version of Paper Lace : Phil Wright's Original 70s Paper Lace. The line-up features Phil Wright  on drums & lead vocals, Cliff Fish on bass and vocals, Dave Major on keyboards and vocals & Phil Hendriks on lead guitar and vocals.

Phil Wright : "I've always been proud of what we did and now the band I'm in, which has two original members and two new guys, we've been working for approximately eight years. All the material that we perform is material that Paper Lace had a hit with or recorded on an album. So, it's all Paper Lace material. And that's basically what we promote."

The Single :

"Billy Don't Be a Hero" was written by Mitch Murray and Peter Callander, and performed by Paper Lace.



Because the song was released in 1974, it was associated by some listeners with the Vietnam War, though the war to which it actually refers is never identified in the lyrics. It has been suggested that the drum pattern, references to a marching band leading soldiers in blue, and "riding out" (cavalry) refer to the American Civil War. For one of the band's performances on Top of the Pops they wore Union-style uniforms.

"Billy Don't Be a Hero" reached No. 1 in the UK on 16 March 1974, and did likewise in Australia, where it spent eight weeks at the top spot.

Phil Wright : "When we came back on the train from London after we got to No.1, we practically got a civic reception. All the local media were at the station, and before we knew it we put into an open-top limo and driven round the city. It was like Forest winning the Cup! People were out on the streets! In the end, we presented our silver disc to the city of Nottingham don't know where it is now. But having said that, when we actually played gigs in town, we didn't get much of a reception. It's a bit of an East Midlands thing, that – it was like when Forest were winning everything in sight, and some of the gates were a bit poor. I remember Cloughie saying there was quite a bit of apathy in town when local people were successful, and he had a point."



A cover by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods reached No. 1 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 on 15 June 1974, and was dubbed into French for Canada, selling over three and a half million copies, and was awarded a gold disc in June 1974. Billboard ranked it as the No. 21 song for 1974. Despite the song's popularity, it was voted No. 8 on Rolling Stone magazine's readers' poll of "10 Worst Songs of the 1970s".



Other Versions include :  Top of the Poppers (1974)  /  Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods (1974)  /  James Last (1974)  /  Agnes Chan (1974)  /  "Sankari et olla saa" by Battaglia (1974)  /  "Kaitsu ethän saa kuolla" by Leo Luoto (1974)  /  The Limp Richerds (1984)  /  The Doug Anthony Allstars (1990-ish?)   /  John Otway (1992)  /  Andrew Liles (1993)  /  "Ville, lupaa ja vanno" by Menneisyyden Vangit (2002)  /  John C. Reilly as Dewy Cox (2007)  /  zerobio  (2009)  /  Cameragirl803 (2009)  /  Larry L (2010)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  Twokelele (2012)  /  The Dick Weller Band (2015)  /  Tammy Gale Johnson (2017)  /  HC Stubbs (2019)  /  Bernard Litwin (2021)

On This Day :

15 March : Brazilian president Garrastazu Médici resigns
17 March : Mark Dolan, TV Presenter, born in London
18 March : After 23 consecutive years on television, Lucille Ball airs the finale of Here's Lucy.
21 March : Attempt made to kidnap Princess Anne in London's Pall Mall
21 March : Candy Darling, American transgender actress, dies of lymphoma aged 29
24 March : Alyson Hannigan, actress (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), born Alyson Lee Hannigan in Washington, D.C.
25 March : Finley Quaye, musician, born in Edinburgh, Scotland
26 March : George Foreman TKOs Ken Norton in to win heavyweight boxing title in Caracas, Venezuela
26 March : Romanian communist party names party leader Nicolae Ceaușescu president
28 March : Scott Mills, British radio DJ, born Scott Robert Mills in Eastleigh, Hampshire
28 March : Dorothy Fields, American singer, dies aged 68
28 March : Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, American blues singer, dies of a heart attack aged 68
29 March : Mariner 10's, 1st fly-by of Mercury, returns photos
29 March : Chinese farmers discover the Terracotta Army near Xi'an, 8,000 clay warrior statues buried to guard the tomb of China's 1st emperor, Qin Shi Huang
30 March : 128th Grand National - Red Rum wins for the 2nd consecutive year
31 March : Stefan Olsdal, bassist (Placebo), born Bo Stefan Alexander Olsdal in Gothenburg, Sweden
1 April : "Local Government Act 1972" : New Welsh counties created
1 April : The world population reaches 4 billion people estimated by the United States Census Bureau.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

[The Culture Bunker]

Can't say the song does much for me - I think the ham-fisted way the writers tell us the tale of daft Billy and his unfortunate fate is part of that - but it struck me that I have no idea what 'The Night Chicago Died' sounds like, despite being a hit both here and the States.

I did wonder who the four Forest players from Clough's legendary who could hold a tune were? Frank Clark was apparently prone getting his guitar out and leading the team on a sing-song during away trips, so presumably he's one.

[daf]

347.  Terry Jacks – Seasons in the Sun



From : 2 – 29 April 1974
Weeks : 4
B-side : Put The Bone In
Bonus 1 : Mono version
Bonus 2 : Top Pop
Bonus 3 : Top of the Pops (Pan's People)
Bonus 4 : French TV 2014

The Story So Far : 

Terrence Ross Jacks was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His family relocated to Vancouver in the early 1960s. At 17 he put together a "surf band", The Sand Dwellers. The group never played live but recorded two unreleased songs including one original penned by Jacks and fellow member John Crowe called "Build Your Castle Higher". When the Sand Dwellers folded, some of the members re-formed as The Vancouver Playboys.

Guy Sobell was a guitarist in a Vancouver band, The Ken Clark Trio. While in Europe, he was influenced by the Swedish group The Spotnicks and the English group The Shadows, and decided to form his own band when he returned to Canada.

Jacks and Sobell were introduced by a mutual friend, Sam Bawlf, while all three were attending the University of British Columbia. Guy and Terry teamed up with two other students, Bill Lockie, a guitar player who was learning to play bass, and Erik Kalaidzis, a singer who played chess with Guy, to form The Chessmen.

They started out doing gigs at UBC fraternity houses for $40 a night without a drummer. Kalaidzis later left the group because his vocal style was more classical and not geared to what the group was doing at the time. So the band became an instrumental group.

After touring around for a few months, The Chessmen got a new drummer, Kenny Moore, who played with them on their first single, "Meadowlands" (b/w "Mustang") and a third previously unreleased song called "When I'm Not There". These were recorded at Robin Spurgin's Vancouver Recording Studio in 1964.

The single was released on London Records in December 1964, and the band toured, playing roller rinks, high schools and dances across British Columbia throughout the spring of 1965.



Their next single, "The Way You Fell", (b/w "She Comes By Night"), was written and sung by Jacks. Recorded at Vancouver Recording Studio with their new drummer Al Wiertz, it was released on London Records in April 1965, and peaked at #4 on the CFUN Top 50 in Vancouver.

In September 1965, The Chessmen made their way down to Nashville for a recording session via a Greyhound bus. New drummer Myles Kingan and Chordovox player Bruce Peterson had since become members of the band. Mercury had booked the group into Fred Fosters studio, where many famous hits had been recorded including all of Roy Orbison's records. During the recording session, the group found it amusing that their producer Jerry Kennedy kept going to the vending machine, throughout the session, purchasing peanut butter filled Ritz crackers, which he seemed addicted to.

A single from the sessions, "Love Didn't Die" (b/w "You Lost Your Game"), was released in November 1965.



In February 1966, The Chessmen returned to Nashville for two sessions to cut what was to be their last single. Prior to the session Guy Sobell had shown up looking a bit pale, he had apparently been hit by a car outside the studio. Although shaken, he wasn't seriously injured.

"What's Causing This Sensation" (b/w "Running Wild"), was released in April, 1966 on Mercury Records.

On the flight home from Nashville, drummer Miles Kingan passed out having had a bit too much to drink prior to leaving the airport. Terry and Guy remember pulling down his pants and putting his hand down his underwear, then calling the stewardess and complaining that Miles was acting in an obscene manner. The stewardess woke him up and told him to get his act together or she would have to report him to the pilot.

Upon their return, The Chessmen continued touring across British Columbia with their new drummer Duris Maxwell, their fifth and final drummer.

Their final gig was in Ladner, British Columbia on July 15th 1966 where the band was paid $180 to play. The break-up of The Chessmen occurred after Guy's father gave him a choice of either going to London University or getting out of the house and continuing music with Jacks. He chose University.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Following The Chessmen, Terry Jacks and Susan Pesklevits, whom he later married, formed The Poppy Family along with Craig McCaw and Satwant Singh.

Their first single, "Beyond The Clouds", (b/w "Free From The City"), was released in September 1968. The follow-up, "What Can The Matter Be", (b/w "Evil Overshadows Joe"), was released in April 1969



Their next single, "Which Way You Goin' Billy?", was released in August 1969.

Terry Jacks : ""Which Way You Goin' Billy?" That's quite a thing. Buddy Holly was my idol, and it was written as, "Which way you goin', Buddy?" I had the melody of the chorus in my mind a few years before I'd written the song, and I was trying to figure something out and I couldn't figure it out. Nothing was working. But I had "which way you going, Buddy?" And all that. And then later on when The Poppy Family started, Susan and I had a couple of records that were little hits in Canada, but they weren't much. And it was tough in those days. So I was writing this song, I had this great chorus. "You are my soul, babe, my heart and my soul." You know, "You are my whole, baby, my heart." It was a real infectious chorus, but I didn't know where to take the thing."



The song was written and produced by Jacks, earning him a Gold Leaf (Juno) award in 1970 for his production.

Terry Jacks : "It was in 1969 and I had been reading about all these guys going to Vietnam and leaving their women behind in Seattle, and I knew somebody down there that was doing that. I thought, "Wow, that must be awful." These guys go and their wives or girlfriends wouldn't know whether they were coming back. That's quite a deal, going to war over there, and it was such a stupid war. So I said, "That's what I'm going to write about: this woman that's left behind. Which way you going, Billy? Can I go, too?" I wrote it very simple. I believe in simplicity in writing - simplicity is the hardest thing to achieve. It's so easy to overwrite or overproduce. So I started writing that, and I didn't know which name to use after "Which way you going." I had no clue. But one of my favorite groups in Canada was a group called The Beau Marks. They were out of Montreal, and had one big hit in the States called "Clap Your Hands." But my favorite song of theirs was called "Billy, Billy Went A Walkin'." It was a really neat song. They were all disabled, the whole group was, but they had some neat records in Canada. But anyway, I remembered this song, "Billy" and I thought, "Which way you goin'... ah, Billy! that'd be a great name." Like "Billy, Billy Went A Walkin'" and sort of "Which Way You Goin', Billy?" So I used the name Billy, because you've got to use a name that isn't going to stick out like a sore thumb. You can't do, "Which way you goin', Lawrence." Lots of people are called Billy, and it's a name that doesn't rub you wrong or anything. So I decided to use "Which Way You Goin', Billy?" and wrote this song."

"Which Way You Goin' Billy?", (b/w "Endless Sleep"), went to #1 in Canada and #2 on the Billboard charts in the U.S.



Terry Jacks : "It was not going to be the A-side. We went in the studio and recorded it. Susan sang it perfect, but it didn't have the feel I wanted. It's a very sad song, and it was done really well. I remember going home with her that night - we were married - and saying, "There's something wrong. I don't like it." And she was saying, "Oh, I think it's fine." I said, "No." Because as a producer, I didn't figure it caught that emotion that I wanted. It was too happy sounding. It was really well done, but it was too happy. I argued with her, and finally, I said, "Look, I'm going to cut it again. We've still got the track you got, I want to cut it again." So the next day we went in and she did it first take, because she was so tired and she was so worn out, she captured the feel. It fit the song. The other performance was too happy."

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The Poppy Family Featuring Susan Jacks released their debut album, 'Which Way You Goin' Billy?', in 1969.



Songs featured on the album included : "Free From The City", "Beyond The Clouds", "A Good Thing Lost", "You Took My Moonlight Away", "There's No Blood In Bone", "Happy Island", "Which Way You Goin' Billy?", "Shadows On My Wall", "What Can The Matter Be?", "For Running Wild", and "Of Cities And Escapes".

Outside of Canada and the UK, the album was issued with a different cover which featuring the whole band.



Also included was their next single, "That's Where I Went Wrong", (b/w "Shadows On My Wall"), which was released in November 1969.



Terry Jacks : "That was the fastest song I have ever written. My first group was called The Chessmen. We got a contract with Brenda Lee's manager, Dub Albritton, to go to Nashville and record. We went down by bus. Can you imagine that, from Vancouver to Nashville by bus? It was hell. And I was leaving this girlfriend behind. She dumped me. Most of my songs, my emotions, came from that girl, like "Good Friends," and "That's Where I Went Wrong" and all that. The bus was cold, and I got that emotion. You've got to pick up an emotion for a song and then you can rewrite words. Your words can be fictitious. It can be artistic license. You can write whatever you want. But I got that feeling, like "this bus is awful cold, we've gone so many miles, God, please help me go to sleep and forget her for a while. I know it's not her fault, I've known it all along. I was the one that trusted her, that's where I went wrong." So I caught that emotion. Because she'd left me for somebody. I was only 17, but that was a big, big thing for me. We'd planned what we were going to call our kids when we got married and all that. But her parents didn't like me, because I'd quit university. I was going to be an architect. So I sat down with my guitar and I just played that song. It just flowed. The bloody song just flowed, right from the very beginning."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Poppy Family's second album, 'Poppy Seeds' was released in 1971.



The first single from the album, "I Was Wondering", (b/w "Where Evil Grows"), was released in February 1971.



Terry Jacks : "Another big hit we had in Canada, it was #1 called, "Where Evil Grows." It made the charts down in the States and it was #1 in San Francisco. I sing lead on that one, by the way. I'd written this, but I didn't have a good chorus. I wrote the chorus six years later when I started doing environmental work. I fought the pulp mills up here in British Columbia for, oh, 12 years. I took the environment minister to court and I took one of the pulp mills to court for breaking their permits; the government wasn't fining them. I'd written the chorus for "Evil Grows," which goes, "Evil grows in the dark where the sun, it never shines. Evil grows in cracks and holes, and lives in people's minds." Because these pulp mills were pumping all this shit way down on the bottom of the ocean so you couldn't see it, and they were getting away with it. They were doing terrible pollution along the British Columbia coast."

Other songs featured on the album included : "I Started Loving You Again", "Living Too Close To The Ground", "Someone Must Have Jumped", "So Used To Loving You", "Remember The Rain", and "Winter Milk".

Further singles from the album included : "No Good To Cry", (b/w "I'll See You There"), released in October 1971; and "Good Friends?", (b/w "Tryin'"), released in February 1972.



The Poppy Family split up when Terry and Susan Jacks divorced in 1973.

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Terry Jacks was an atypical pop star. Quoted as saying he wasn't greatly concerned with accumulating wealth, he disliked touring and was reluctant to make media appearances. Jacks also owned his own publishing company, Gone Fishin' Music Ltd, and later Sunfish Publishing, but preferred to work as a producer.

Jacks' first solo single, "I'm Gonna Capture You", (b/w "A Good Thing Lost"), had been released in May 1970 in Canada. His second, "Concrete Sea", (b/w "She Even Took The Cat"), was released in August 1972.

Terry Jacks : ""Which Way You Goin', Billy?" I'd started off with a question, and a question is really a neat way to start a song, because you grab people's attention. So then I start out with another question: "What's your name?" See, I had to change the gender for all the Poppy Family things. I'd write from my heart, then I'd have to write it through a girl's point of view. That was bugging me after a while, so that's why I started recording myself, like "Concrete Sea" because I said, "Screw it. Maybe I'm not a good signer, but I want to write without having to change a song around.""

"I'm Gonna Love You Too", (b/w "Something Good Was Over Before It Ever Got Started"), was released in Canada in December 1972, and reached #7 in the RPM chart in Canada.

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His next single, "Seasons in the Sun", was released under his own label, Goldfish Records, which Jacks established in late 1973. It would become his biggest hit. The song, originally written by Jacques Brel in 1961, was recorded by The Kingston Trio in 1963.

Terry Jacks : "The first time I ever heard the song was in the '50s when the Kingston Trio recorded a song called "Seasons in the Sun." Now, this was not at all like my song. The original song was by Jacques Brel, who was a friend of mine. He was from Brussels. It was about an old man who was dying of a broken heart because his best friend was screwing his wife. He wrote this in a whorehouse in Tangiers, and the words were quite different."

Jacks adapted his version from Rod McKuen's English translation of Jacques Brel's 'Le Moribond.'



Terry Jacks : "The song originally he used to do on stage was quite a different thing. This old man was dying of a broken heart and he was saying goodbye to his priest and his best friend and his wife, who cheated on him. Her name was Francoise, and it went, "Adieu, Francoise, my trusted wife, without you I'd have had a lonely life. You cheated lots of times but then I forgave you in the end, though your lover was my friend." He was dying of this broken heart. The Kingston Trio recorded that song with those words, those translations. It was translated by Rod McKuen or somebody Rod McKuen knew or something - I don't know what the story was. I did know Rod McKuen spoke French, but it was translated with Jacques Brel's words. Now, a really good friend of mine died, he had acute leukemia. This was years and years later. I guess maybe 1971. We were playing golf and he told me he's got six months to live. I said, "Oh, come on." And he said, "No, there's no cure for what I've got." He was gone in four months. I remembered this song of an old man dying of a broken heart, and I liked some of the melody and there was something there. I rewrote the song about him and how he said goodbye to his friend and then he said goodbye to his father instead of his priest, and then he said goodbye to his girlfriend. A lot of my friends didn't like the song because they knew him and they thought, Oh, this is kind of crazy. So I didn't release the song right away."



Jacks had started producing it with The Beach Boys, but the recording was never completed.

Terry Jacks : "Meanwhile, The Beach Boys had been really good friends of mine, and Brian was having trouble down there in the States. I was a hot producer at the time up in Canada - I had a few hits that I produced for other people. The Beach Boys knew that I really liked their music and they asked me if I'd come down and produce them. I said, "Wow, that's quite an honor. The only one that's ever produced you is Brian." They said, "Well, do you have something that we could use?" Because I'd been writing a lot and doing well with the songs that I'd written in the past. And I thought of this song, because one of the lines in the song was, "But the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach." I thought, Wow, this would be a great song for The Beach Boys. Carl had that beautiful voice that he used in "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations." So I said, "This is the song." I worked on the arrangement and they flew me down. We were cutting this at Brian's house. We hired all these different musicians, cut the track and put Carl's voice on it. We weren't finished, but I was having tremendous trouble producing this thing, because there was so much fighting going on amongst the group, and they wouldn't all come in at the same time. I remember Mike Love came in to do his lines in a guru outfit with some girl, and they were on a watermelon fast. His lines were like "We had joy, we had fun... Bom bom bombombom, bom bombombombaba". Typical Mike Love-type voice on that. Then I had Brian come in and play organ on it. Brian wouldn't sing the high part, and he's got the best really high voice. Al Jardine and I, we worked on the background vocals for it. The thing never got finished. Brian wanted to get hold of the tape and add some things, and the engineer would have to take the tape home at night so that Brian wouldn't get hold of it. This went on and on, and I was almost having a nervous breakdown because I would put so much energy into this thing and the stress was really getting me. So I said, "I'm not going to be able to finish this. I can't get you guys all in here together." So it never got completed."

Mike Love : "We did record a version, but it was so wimpy we had to throw it out. It was just the wrong song for us."

He then attempted to convince Larry Evoy to record it with Edward Bear before finally recording it himself.

Terry Jacks : "So I went home and got myself together, and I recorded it myself. I wasn't going to record it at all. I was going to London, England at the time, and there was a good friend of mine named Larry Evoy. He was lead singer with Edward Bear. We'd been talking, and I said, "I've got this great song, it would have been a smash for The Beach Boys, but it never got finished properly. I think it would be great for you, because you've got that type of voice that would be really good for it." He says, "Well, I've got a song I wrote that I think you should hear that I'd like you to produce." I said, "OK, but I think this one's perfect for you." So I met him at the airport and he played me this song that he wanted me to produce for him. I said, "I don't know, Larry. I don't think that's a hit, man. I love your voice and I love the songs you've done, but I don't think that's a hit. I don't want to produce it, but I've got a perfect one for you." I played him "Seasons in the Sun." He listened to it, and he says, "Oh, man, I don't know about that song. I don't know whether it's right for me." So I took off."

"Seasons In The Sun" (b/w "Put The Bone In"), was released in Canada in November 1973, and the UK in March 1974.



Jacks' version stayed on the charts for 17 weeks in Canada and 15 in the US, reaching No. 1 on both the adult contemporary and pop Billboard charts in the US in 1974. In the wake of his success Jacks appeared on American Bandstand in February 1974, but declined most other media and stage appearances.

Terry Jacks : "I became labeled, because I didn't want to tour, I didn't want to do television. The record company was just changing over - it was on Bell Records, which was a small record label, and it was being changed over to Arista. And I was told if I didn't go public, I wouldn't sell as many records. So finally they said, "Look, we'll give you a junket, we want you to go all over Europe. And if you do that, we will pay you all of it, it won't come off, it won't be recouped or anything." And they wanted me to do some TV in the States, and at the time Sonny & Cher had the top show. They'd phoned me, because I didn't want to do it. The producer got quite pissed off. He says, "Well, how do you expect to sell any records if you don't do our show?" So, anyway, I didn't do it. So then Dick Clark, he had the big music show, I guess it was called American Bandstand or something. His producer phoned me and they wanted me to do it. I said, "Golly, I just don't want to do anything like that." In fact, I took off and went scuba diving down in the South Pacific for two months. When I came back my phone was just jammed and the mail was all over the place. It was a mess. But before all this happened, Dick Clark himself phoned me. That was a big thing, even though I had the #1 record. You don't say no to Dick Clark, because he was the big one. When Dick Clark phoned, I was like, Oh, wow. I was 12 years old listening to Dick Clark, and this was him phoning me to be on his show? How could you say no?"

The single won Juno awards for best male vocalist and best contemporary/pop single in 1974 as well as best-selling single in 1975, and has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide.



Terry Jacks : "In Canada, that song was the biggest selling record two years in a row: both '73 and '74. My ex-wife, Susan, said I was a really good producer and writer, but I couldn't sing. I won Male Vocalist of Canada two years in a row. That was an honor."

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His first album, 'Seasons in the Sun', was released in 1974.



Songs featured on the album included : "Concrete Sea", "I'm Gonna Love You Too", "Pumpkin Eater", "Again And Again", "Since You Broke My Heart", "Fire On The Skyline", "I'm So Lonely Here Today", "It's Been There From The Start", "Sail Away", and "Seasons in the Sun".

His next single, "If You Go Away", (b/w "Me And You"), was released in June 1974 in the UK, and reached #8 in the charts.



The follow-up, "Rock And Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life)" (b/w "The Love Game") was released in October 1974, and peaked at #22 in Canada, and #97 in the US.



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His second album, 'Y' Don't Fight the Sea', was released in 1975.



Songs featured on the album included :  "Saginaw Michigan", "Me And You", "If You Go Away", "Everyday", "Rock 'N' Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life)", and rather tragically, "Seasons In The Sun" again!

Singles taken from the album included : "Christina", (b/w "The Feelings That We've Lost"), released in May 1975, which peaked at #9 in Canada; "Holly" (b/w "Until You're Down"), released in September 1975, which peaked at #64 in Canada; and "Y' Don't Fight The Sea" (b/w "Me And You"), released in January 1976, which reached #31 in Canada.



Further singles included : "In My Father's Footsteps" released in May 1976; "You Keep Me Up", (b/w "Ghosts In Your Mind"), released in March 1977; "Hey Country Girl" released in October 1977; and "Greenback Dollar", released in December 1980.

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He released his third album, 'Pulse' in 1983 on A&M Records.



Songs featured on the album included : "Voice Of America", "Too Much Too Soon", "You Fool Me", "Television", "Laura Dreams", "The Final Line", "Rainy Eyes", "Talkin' To Myself", and "The Whale Of Juan Perez Sound".

Singles released from the album included : "You Fooled Me", (b/w "Cynthia"), released in May 1983; "Voice Of America", released in October 1983; and a new version of "Where Evil Grows", released in December 1983.

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His fourth album, 'Just Like That' was released in 1987.



Songs featured on the album included : "Tough Guys Don't Dance", "I Wonder If She Might", "Traitors To The Heart", "Life With You (Was Oh So Easy)", "Back Of A Map Of The Moon", "Land Of The Northern Lights", "Minimum Motion", and "Changes".

Singles taken from the album included : "I Can't Forget It", and "Just Like That".

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In the late 1980s Jacks left the music industry to become an environmentalist and anti-pollution activist. Through founding the organization Environmental Watch of BC, Jacks spoke out against the pollution caused by pulp and paper mills to the province's coastal waters.

Terry Jacks : "After "Seasons in the Sun," I bought a boat. That was the first thing I bought. And I called it "Seasons in the Sun," because it paid for it. It was a big boat. I had it made in the States. I traveled up and down the coast, 1,000 miles of coast between Vancouver and Alaska for 30 years, two to three months every summer. I loved the coast, but I saw the destruction that was being done from the pulp and paper industry and the forest industry. Cutting all these old trees, 500-year-old trees down and putting all this shit into the air and water. The government was in bed with them because they get duties and taxes from all this."

The Single :

"Seasons in the Sun" was written by Jacques Brel, with English lyrics by Rod McKuen.



The first version of the song was recorded by Jacques Brel, who reportedly wrote it in a brothel in Tangiers. Sung in a marching tempo, it tells of a man dying of a broken heart and shows him saying his last farewells to his close friend Emile, a priest friend, an acquaintance named Antoine, and his wife who has cheated on him numerous times with Antoine. Despite knowing of Antoine being his wife's lover, he wishes no ill upon him but tells him to take care of his wife.

Terry Jacks : "The song was originally called "Le Moribond." It means "The Dying Man," "The Dying." And it was a funny song. He wrote it in a whorehouse in Tangiers. Jacques told me. He told me it in person. I had dinner with him. I've got a great picture of me and Jacques Brel eating dinner in Brussels. We had a whole roast of lamb and a couple of bottles of wine. He didn't speak much English and I don't speak much French, and it was quite funny. He also said that I should have gotten credit for writing the song. I wrote the whole last verse. I changed the context of it, changed chord structure. But I was 28 years old, and I didn't know about that. I should have gone to a lawyer and gone to a publisher, but I didn't know that kind of stuff. The record was such a big hit, I was just, like, "Wow, look at all this money coming in!""



American Rod McKuen translated the lyrics into English. Jacks rewrote the lyrics, although he is uncredited for it. He justifies the rewriting by stating that he deemed the original version and its translations as "too macabre".

Terry Jacks : "He invited me down to his place, and he wanted me to produce an album for him. But I didn't really want to, and that was that. I didn't particularly want to do that. But the record's screaming up the charts. I'm flying around in Europe. The record company got me a Lear jet with a pilot and a copilot and I'm flying around Europe hitting all the big cities doing television shows."



The piano arpeggio parts and double bass parts in the second verse were credited to a young David Foster.

Terry Jacks : "David Foster played two notes. He doubled a bass. Oh, yes, and he also played a little arpeggio in the last verse, like, the way it goes, "Goodbye Michele, it's hard to die, and all the birds are singing in the sky. Now that spring is in the air..." It's goes, "doodledoodledoodledoodledoo." You can barely hear a little arpeggio going on the piano. And he doubled a bass on "Goodbye papa, please pray for me," BOMBOM. He doubled a low piano note on the bass. He did just a little bit of stuff. He was just starting out then. I brought him in because people were saying he was the hottest piano player around. I just wanted to add a couple of little things, so I brought him in and just had him play those things."

However, David Lanz, who became one of the top pianists in the New Age genre, claims that he, not Foster, played on this track.

David Lanz : "It is like being in the twilight zone for me... he describes exactly what I played on 'Seasons in the Sun,' but says David Foster played this part... very bizarre. David was also living in Vancouver at the time, and he was putting together Skylark and also working in Skylark with two members of my previous Mercury Records band, Brahman: Duris Maxwell, drummer, and keyboardist, Robbie King, who played organ on 'Seasons in the Sun.' David was also coming round my apartment at the time looking for songs for Skylark, so yeah, we were all in the same place at the same time, but it just sounds like Terry mixed the two of us up. David and I were both up-and-coming pianists at the time, and during the session I played on 'Seasons in the Sun'. I was happy to work with Terry, as he payed his session players well... at least we got paid, which was not always the case!"



Released in November 1973 the single soon topped the record charts in the US, in Canada, and the UK, selling over 14 million copies worldwide.

Jacks also released a German-language version, "In den Gärten der Zeit", in Germany with lyrics by Gerd Müller-Schwanke.



Other Versions include :  Jacques Brel (1961)  /  Rod McKuen (1963)  /  The Kingston Trio (1963)  /  Alex Hassilev (1964)  /  Nick Taylor (1965)  /  Bud Dashiell (1968)  /  The Fortunes (1968)  /  John & Anne Ryder (1970)  /  Pearls Before Swine (1971)  /  Craig Scott (1971)  /  Top of the Poppers (1974)  /  Andy Williams (1974)  /  Bobby Wright (1974)  /  Springbok (1974)  /  Felicia Wong (1974)  /  James Last (1974)  /  Freddie Starr (1974)  /  Nana Mouskouri with The King's Singers (1974)  /  "Livets cirkel drejer rundt" by Peter Belli (1974)  /  "Wir sind jung, wir sind frei" by Stein Ingersen (1974)  /  "En sommerdag engang" by Stein Ingebrigtsen (1974)  /  "Sommar varje dag" by Schytts (1974) [Language Timothy!] /  Peters and Lee (1974)  /  Ray Conniff (1975)  /  "Léta prázdnin" by Karel Gott (1975)  /  "Adieu Emile" by Klaus Hoffmann (1975)  /  The Brothers Four (1976)  /  "Fényben fürdött minden év" by Korda György (1977)  /  Detox (1985)  /  "Twice My Age" by Krystal & Shabba Ranks (1988)  /  "Turon isä - Jori 16 vuotta" by Aki & Turo - The Hepamamas (1988)  /  The Squirrels (1992)  /  Bhonus (1992)  /  Nirvana (1993)  / Spell (1993)  /  Me First and The Gimme Gimmes (1997)  /  Black Box Recorder (1998)  /  Karin Hougaard (1999)  /  Westlife (1999)  /  Osmo's Cosmos Band (1999)  /  Alcazar (2000)  /  The Twang (2010)  /  Brendan Quinn (2011)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  Teak Wood Gallows (2012)  /  Sally Shaar (2013)  /  Damon Albarn (2015)  /  Jeffrey Foskett (2015)  /  a robot (2016)  /  Dave Monk (2017)  /  Celtic Thunder (2018)  /  Mappe Of (2018)  /  Jim Bob (2021)

On This Day :

2 April : Georges Pompidou, French President (1969-1974) and Prime Minister (1962-1968), dies in Paris aged 62
6 April : 200,000 attend rock concert "California Jam" at the Ontario Motor Speedway
6 April : 19th Eurovision Song Contest: ABBA for Sweden wins with 24 points - singing "Waterloo"
7 April : Herb Gardner's "Thieves" premieres in NYC
10 April : Golda Meir resigns as Israel's Prime Minister
10 April : Magicians Penn Jillette and Teller first meet
11 April : Zöe Lucker, British television actor, born Zöe Elizabeth Lucker in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
16 April : "Words & Music" opens at John Golden Theater NYC for 127 performances
17 April :  Muslim fundamentalists assault military academy in Heliopolis, Egypt
17 April :  Posh Spice, singer (The Spice Girls), born Victoria Caroline Adams in Harlow, Essex
18 April : Red Brigade kidnaps Italian attorney general Mario Sossi
18 April : Edgar Wright, film director, born Edgar Howard Wright in Poole, Dorset, England
18 April : Madeleine Peyroux, American French jazz and blues singer-songwriter, born in Athens, Georgia
22 April : Shavo Odadjian, bassist (System of a Down), born in Yerevan, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union
23 April : USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR
24 April : Comedy Dave, Chris Moyles Sidekick, born David Lloyd Vitty in Hong Kong
24 April : Bud Abbott, American comedian, dies of cancer aged 78
25 April : Günter Guillaume, an aide to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, is exposed as a Stasi spy
26 April : Adil Ray, radio presenter, born in Birmingham, England
28 April : Penélope Cruz, actress, born in Madrid, Spain
28 April : Vernon Kay, TV/radio presenter, born Vernon Charles Kay in Bolton, England

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

[kalowski]

I love how so many of these artists have a Thamesmen, Lovely Lad, Originals, New Originals kind of history.

[daf]

347b. (NME 370.)  Mud – The Cat Crept In
+          (MM 307.)  Mud – The Cat Crept In



From :  24 - 30 April 1974  |  27 April - 3 May 1974
Weeks : 1
B-side : Morning
Bonus 1 : Top of the Pops 11 April 1974
Bonus 2 : Top Pop
Bonus 3 : Top Pop 2
Bonus 4 : Never Too Young To Rock 1975
Bonus 5 : 2006 Re-Recording

The Story So Far : 

Mud's next single, "The Cat Crept In" (b/w "Morning") was released in April 1974. While it stalled at #2 on the Official UK chart, it topped both the NME and Melody Maker charts.



Their next single, "Rocket" (b/w "The Ladies"), was released in July 1974. It peaked at #3 in Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and reached #6 in the UK, #7 in Ireland and Finland, and #8 in Germany.



Released under the name Dum, "In The Mood" (b/w "Watching The Clock") was released in July 1974, but failed to chart.



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Their first album, 'Mud Rock', was released in September 1974, by RAK Records, and was a Top 3 album in both Finland and the Netherlands, and peaked at #8 in the UK.



Songs featured on the album included : "Rocket", "Do You Love Me / Sha La La La Lee", "Running Bear", "The Hippy Hippy Shake", "Shake Rattle And Roll / See You Later Alligator", "Dyna-Mite / The Cat Crept In / Tiger Feet (Medley)", "The End Of The World", "Blue Moon", "In The Mood", and "Bye Bye Johnny".

Ray Stiles: "It was fun being part of the glam rock period. The reaction at concerts was incredible."

The Single :

"The Cat Crept In" was written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, and performed by Mud.



"The Cat Crept In", released on 8 April 1974, reached #2 on the Official UK chart, and topped both the NME and Melody Maker charts for a week. It was also a number 1 in the Netherlands, #3 in Belgium, #5 in Germany and Ireland, and #12 in Austria.



Other Versions include :   Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  MrClitheroe (2012)  /  lampidistelami12 (2014)  /  The Rattlers  (2017)  /  Restless (2020)  /  MJA1066 (2021)

On This Day :

24 April : Comedy Dave, Chris Moyles Sidekick, born David Lloyd Vitty in Hong Kong
24 April : Bud Abbott, American comedian, dies of cancer aged 78
25 April : Günter Guillaume, an aide to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, is exposed as a Stasi spy
26 April : Adil Ray, radio presenter, born in Birmingham, England
28 April : Penélope Cruz, actress, born in Madrid, Spain
28 April : Vernon Kay, TV/radio presenter, born Vernon Charles Kay in Bolton, England
30 April : Agnes Moorehead, American actress (Bewitched), dies of uterine cancer aged 73
30 April : US President Richard Nixon hands over partial transcripts of Watergate tape recordings

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

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Previously :
343.  Mud – Tiger Feet

[daf]

The ABBA Story So Far - Part 1 :  A is for Agnetha

Agneta Åse Fältskog was born in Jönköping, Sweden in 1950. She wrote her first song at the age of six, entitled "Två små troll" ["Two Small Trolls"]. In 1958, she began taking piano lessons, and also sang in a local church choir. In early 1960, Fältskog formed a musical trio, The Cambers, with her friends Lena Johansson and Elisabeth Strub. They performed locally in minor venues and soon dissolved due to a lack of engagements. At age 15, Fältskog decided to leave school and pursue a career.

Agnetha : "My father was a variety show king in Smеland. He had his own ballet and wrote his own lyrics for the New Year's variety shows. But I was never a part of that. He always played the guitar at home. I really grew up with music around me. When I look back on all the idols I had... I sat in front of the record player and put on LPs with Connie Francis and sang along. That's when I learned perfect playback. At that time I hadn't studied English yet."



Fältskog worked as a telephonist for a car firm while performing with a local dance band, headed by Bernt Enghardt. The band soon became so popular that she had to make a choice between her job and her musical career.



The group decided to send a tape of demos to Cupol Records in the autumn of 1967. Singer, producer and A & R man Karl-Gerhard Lundqvist (a.k.a. 'Little Gerhard') listened to the tape which included Fältskog's song "Jag var så kär" ["My other car's a Jag"]. Lundqvist was so impressed with the song and Fältskog's voice that he called her at the car firm where she was working at the time and offered her a recording contract, but awkwardly only as a solo singer, and without the band.

Agnetha : "It was a big thing to me. I had really committed myself to this. Before I released my first single I sang with a dance orchestra in Smеland for three years. One day I sent a tape to Little Gerhard - the old rock king. He didn't like the orchestra but fell for me. It was very difficult for me. I was under contract with the orchestra and had to in a nice way try to tell them I was quitting to make a record."



Eventually, Fältskog's first recording session took place on 16 October 1967, at Philips Studio in Stockholm. This recording session produced four songs, which would all end up on her first album.

Agnetha : "I was a young, inexperienced, very naпve girl who beamed with happiness because I was going up to Stockholm to make a record with Lille Gerhard for the record company Cupol. And my dad came with me and we took the train there, and it was very exciting. I stayed with an aunt then. And then there was the first day of recording at the Phillips studio. They were my own songs and the string ensemble sat there and played them. "Oh God, it's really my song, wow!" It was a really incredible experience."



Her first single, "Jag var så kär", (b/w "Följ med mig"), was released in November 1967. It topped the Swedish Chart in January 1968 and sold more than 80,000 copies.

Agnetha : "It was 1968 or 1967 and I was only 17-18 years old and I was unhappily in love, you know, with a guy. And it's often then that you come up with such material, you come up with a lot of melodies and then you're in a state of mind, or were, which is... Often it's like that nowadays as well that I write when I'm a bit depressed like that."



In February 1968, she released the single "En Sommar Med Dej". The B-side "Försonade", written by Agnetha, was originally  submitted to Melodifestivalen, the Swedish preliminary for the Eurovision Song Contest, but was not selected for the final.



In the Spring of 1968 she became engaged to German songwriter/producer Dieter Zimmermann. Her next single, "Slutet Gott, Allting Gott" was released in March 1968. The B-side "Utan Dej" was written by Agnetha.



In 1968, she was teamed up with Jörgen Edman for the single "Sjung Denna Sång" (b/w "Någonting Händer Med Mej") . . .



. . . and released the free single "Borsta Tandtrollen Bort" - produced to promote dental health to children. Agnetha sings about the "worst trolls that live in Sweden's long land, which is the tooth-troll that lives in your teeth...."



Further singles released in 1968 included : "Allting Har Förändrat Sej", (b/w "Den Jag Väntat På") ["I Want This Jag, Pa"], released in September 1968 . . .



. . . and "Snövit Och De Sju Dvärgana", (b/w "Min Farbror Jonathan"), in October 1968 - both songs were co-written by Agnetha and Zimmermann.



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Her debut album, 'Agnetha Fältskog', was released in December 1968.



Songs on the album co-written by Agnetha and Zimmermann included : "Jag har förlorat dej", "Tack Sverige", and "Snövit och de sju dvärgarna". "Jag var så kär" was written by Agnetha alone.

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Zimmermann promised her she would achieve great success in Germany. However, the venture was not a happy one. Fältskog clashed with the producers, describing their chosen material as "horrible".



Her first German single, "Robinson Crusoe" (b/w "Sonny Boy") was released in May 1968; followed by "Senor Gonzales" (b/w "Mein schönster Tag") in December 1968.



Her next single, "En Gång Fanns Bara Vi Två", (b/w "Fram För Svenska Sommaren"), was released in April 1969, followed by "Hjärtats Kronprins".



Further German singles included "Concerto D'amore", (b/w "Wie der Wind"), released in March 1969; and "Wer schreibt heut' noch Liebesbriefe", (b/w "Das Fest Der Pompadour") in April 1969. She ended her engagement to Zimmermann in September 1969 and returned to Sweden.



She developed a career as one of Sweden's most popular pop music artists, participating in a television special about Swedish composer Jules Sylvain in 1969.

She co-wrote the single "Zigenarvän" in November 1969 which was about a young girl attending a Gypsy wedding and falling in love with the bride's brother. Its release coincided with a heated debate about Gypsies in the Swedish media, and Fältskog was accused of deliberately trying to make money out of the situation by writing the song.



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Her second album, 'Agnetha Fältskog Vol. 2', was released in November 1969. The album was recorded in Metronome Studios, Stockholm, and produced by Karl Gerhard Lundkvist.



Awkwardly, several songs on this album were co-written by Agnetha's recently dumped ex-fiancé, Dieter Zimmermann who had attempted to launch her career in German-speaking countries with several German language singles. Tracks originally recorded in German on this album include "Señor Gonzales" and "Det handlar om kärlek" ["Don't Handle My Garlic"].

Songs co-written by Agnetha and Zimmermann included : "Lek med dina dockor", "Skål kära vän", "Glöm honom", and "Som en vind kom du till mig". "Tag min hand låt oss bli vänner" was written by Agnetha alone.

Other songs featured on the album included : "Fram för svenska sommaren", "Ge dej till tåls", and "En gång fanns bara vi två".

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Despite splitting with Zimmermann, she continued releasing German language singles, including : "Fragezeichen mag ich nicht", (b/w "Wie der nächste Autobus"), in January 1970; and "Ein kleiner Mann in einer Flasche" ["This Man is a Flasher"], (b/w "Ich suchte Liebe bei dir"), in July 1970.



In March 1970, she released "Om Tårar Vore Guld" (b/w "Litet Solskensbarn"). The Danish composer Per Hviid claimed that she used 22 bars from his composition "Tema", even though it was written in the 1950s and had never been recorded. The case dragged on until 1977, when a settlement was reached and Fältskog paid the Danish musician SEK 5.000,000.

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Her third album, 'Som jag är' ['As I Am'] was released in October 1970.



The album was co-produced by Karl-Gerhard Lundqvist and Agnetha's new boyfriend, Björn Ulvaeus from The Hootenanny Singers. Recording took place in January 1970 as well as September and October of the same year. All songs were recorded in Metronome Studios, Stockholm.



Two of the songs, "Om tårar vore guld" and "Jag skall göra allt", were composed by Agnetha herself, while she wrote the Swedish lyrics to a couple of cover versions including "Tänk va' skönt", "Spela vår sång", "Du ska minnas mig", and "Sov gott min lilla vän" ["Some Git's Nicked My Van"].

Other songs featured on the album included : "Som ett eko", "När jag var fem", "Ta det bara med ro", "Hjärtats saga", and "Så här börjar kärlek" which also featured Bjorn.



"En Sång Och En Saga" was released as a single in Early 1971. The B-side "Jag Skall Göra Allt" was written by Agnetha.

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Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus were married on 6 July 1971 in the village of Verum, with Björn's bezzie mate Benny Andersson from the Hep Stars playing the organ at their wedding.



Further German singles included : "Geh' mit Gott", (b/w "Tausend Wunder"), released in September 1971; and "Komm doch zu mir", (b/w "Ich denk an dich"), released in November 1972.



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Her fourth album, 'När en vacker tanke blir en sång' ['When a Beautiful Thought Becomes a Song'] was released in December 1971.



The recording of the album took place on various occasions during 1971, beginning in May, continuing through July and October and ending on 4 November. Björn Ulvaeus produced the entire album, and the recording was assisted by engineer Michael B. Tretow and featured Sven-Olof Walldoff and his choir and orchestra.

In contrast to her previous album, which mainly included cover versions, Agnetha's fourth studio album consists almost entirely of her own work. The last track, "Dröm är dröm, och saga saga", was the only exception, being a cover version of Anna Identici's hit "Era bello il mio ragazzo". The song was one of the first occasions that all four of the future ABBA members can be heard on the same recording. Additionally, both Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad also contributed to some other tracks on the album.

"Kungens vaktparad" was released as a single in August 1971, followed by "Många gånger än" in September 1971.



Songs written by by Agnetha alone include : "Jag vill att du skall bli lycklig", "Jag ska inte fälla några tårar", and "Kanske var min kind lite het". Songs with lyrics co-written with Björn include : "Mitt sommarland", and "Han lämnar mig för att komma till dig".

Other songs featured on the album included : "Nya ord", "Då finns du hos mig" which feature Benny Andersson on piano, "Sången föder dig tillbaka", plus "Tågen kan gå igen", which feature background vocals by Benny and Anni-Frid.

Three years after its original release, the album was re-released in 1974 by Swedish label Embassy with a new cover and the simple title "Agnetha".



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In February 1972, Fältskog portrayed Mary Magdalene in the Swedish production of the international hit musical Jesus Christ Superstar.



In March 1972 two songs from the musical, "Vart Ska Min Kärlek Föra", (b/w "Nu Ska Du Bli Stilla") - were released as a single  produced by Björn Ulvaeus. The single became her first number 1 hit on Svensktoppen.



"Tio Mil Kvar Till Korpilombolo", (b/w "Så Glad Som Dina Ögon"), was released as a single in November 1972

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In late 1973, she released the compilation album, 'Agnetha Fältskogs Bästa'.



The album included many of her biggest hits from all her four previously released studio albums, starting with her breakthrough single "Jag var så kär", dating back to 1967.

Despite her tight schedule with the group that would eventually be named ABBA, Fältskog managed to record two new songs for the album : "En sång om sorg och glädje" a cover of "Union Silver" by Middle of the Road, and "Vi har hunnit fram till refrängen", a cover of "Our Last Song Together" by Neil Sedaka. Both songs were featured on a single released in November 1973.



The recording session of those two tracks marked the first time that Fältskog produced her own recordings, a job which she enjoyed and eventually repeated on all of her future Swedish-language recordings.

Further singles included "Golliwog" (b/w "Here For Your Love") released in April 1974, and "Dom Har Glömt" (b/w "Gulleplutt") released in September 1974.

[daf]

The ABBA Story So Far - Part 2 : B is for Björn

Björn Kristian Ulvaeus was born in Gothenburg in April 1945. In 1951, he moved with his family to Västervik, Kalmar County.  He got his first guitar at the age of 12 and joined the Westbay Singers, a band at his school in Västervik. The other members were Tony Roth, Hansi Schwarz and Johan Karlberg.

In 1963, Stig Anderson and Bengt Bernhag were looking for a folk band for their new record company Polar Music. After hearing a demo tape from the Westbay Singers, they signed them up and gave them the new name Hootenanny Singers.

Their first record, a four track EP featuring : "Jag Väntar Vid Min Mila", "Ann-Margret", "Ingen Enda Höst", and "Ave Maria No Morro", was released in November 1963.



Their second EP, released in early 1964, featured : "Lincoln-Visan", "This Land Is Your Land", "Hem Igen", and "Godnattsaga".



In June 1964 they released the single "Darlin'" (b/w "Bonnie Ship The Diamond").



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They released their first album, 'Hootenanny Singers', in the summer of 1964.



Songs written by Björn included : "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue" and "Kevin Berry". Co-written songs included : "This Little Light Of Mind",  and "Hey Liley Liley Lo".

Other songs featured on the album included : "Frogg", "Jag Väntar Vid Min Mila", and "En Ballad Om Franska Kungens Spelmän".

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A third EP followed in October 1964, featuring "En Mor (La Mamma)", Gabrielle", "Körsbär Utan Kärnor" and "I Lunden Gröna" - the last two both co-written by Björn.



Their second album, also called 'Hootenanny Singers', was released in late 1964.



Songs co-written by Björn included : "Körsbär Utan Kärnor", "I Lunden Gröna", "Min Gröna Dal", and "Darling".

Other songs featured on the album included : "Lera Och Sten", "Älvens Mörka Strand", "En Mor - La Mamma", "I Ösregnet", and "Stanna En Stund".



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In 1965 they released their fourth EP, which included : "Björkens Visa", "Finns Det Liv Så Finns Det Hopp", "En Festlig Dag", and "Vildandens Klagan". Also released in 1965 was the single "Den Gyllene Fregatt", the B-side, "Där Skall Jag Bo", was co-written by Björn.



Their Fifth EP 'Hootenanny Singers Sjunger Evert Taube' was released in June 1965, and featured : "Britta (Soldatvisa)", "Solola", "Telegrafisten Anton Hanssons Vals", and "En Håttespeleman".



The songs from the EP were also featured on their third album, 'Hootenanny Singers Sjunger Evert Taube', released in summer 1965.



"Wenn Alle Ströme Versiegen" (b/w "Nimm Dein Banjo Dir Zur Hand", was released as a single in Germany in October 1965.

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Their fourth album, 'International', was released in late 1965.



Songs co-written by Björn included : "Björkens Visa", "Vildandens Klagan", "No Time", "Time To Move Along", and "Fermati In Me"   

Other songs featured on the album included : "Små Nära Ting", "Finns Det Liv Så Finns Det Hopp", "Lili-Marleen", "In The Darkness Of My Night", and "La Mamma".

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Their next single "No Time" (b/w "Time To Move Along") was released in Sweden in May 1966, with both sides co-written by Björn. The single had previously been released in the UK in February 1966 under the name The Northern Lights.



While on the road in southern Sweden in 1966, they encountered the Hep Stars, and Ulvaeus quickly became friends with the group's keyboard player, Benny Andersson. The two musicians shared a passion for songwriting, and each found a composing partner in the other. On meeting again that summer, they composed their first song together: "Isn't It Easy To Say", a song soon to be recorded by Andersson's group. The two continued teaming up for music, helping out each other's bands in the recording studio, and adding guitar or keyboards respectively to the recordings.



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Their sixth EP was released in 1966, and featured the two Björn co-writes "Marianne" and "Vid Roines Strand" plus "Vid En Biväg Till En Byväg Bor Den Blonda Beatrice" and "En Man Och En Kvinna".



Songs from the EP were featured on their fifth album, 'Många Ansikten - Many Faces', released in 1966.



Songs co-written by Björn included : "Marianne", "Just The Way That You Are", and "Baby Those Are The Rules".



The album also featured "In Thoughts Of You" written by Björn, and "Sunny Girl" written by his new best mate, Benny Andersson.

Other songs featured on the album included : "Blomman", "Tänk Dej De' Att Du Och Jag Var Me'" ["Thanks For Lending Me The Jag"], and "The Long Black Veil".

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Their final single of the year, "Through Darkness Light", was released in December 1966. The B-side "Baby Those Are The Rules" was co-written by Björn. The single had been released in the UK in November 1966 as by The Northern Lights.



They released two EP's in 1967. Their Seventh included : "En Sång En Gång För Längesen", "Det är Skönt Att Vara Hemma Igen", "Blomman", and "Tänk Dej De' Att Du Och Jag Var Me'".



Their Eighth EP included : "Början Till Slutet", "Adjö, Farväl", "Mårten Gås", and "Marie-Christina" - co-written by Björn.



Their sixth album, 'Civila', was released in 1967.



Songs co-written by Björn included : "Sång Och Musik", "Den Dagen Den Sorgen", "Adjö, Farväl" and "Mårten Gås". "Du Eller Ingen" was written by Björn alone.   

Other songs featured on the album included : "Du Ska Bara Tro På Hälften", "Laura (Vad Är Det Han Har Som Fattas Mej)", and "Silver Och Guld Och Gröna Skogar".

Singles released in 1967 included : "En Gång Ingen Gång"; and "Mrs. O'Grady" (b/w "The Fugitive").



Singles released in 1968 included : "Så Länga Du älskar är Du Ung", which featured the Björn-written B-side, "Vilken Lycka Att Hålla Dej I Hand"; and "Måltidssång (så Lunka Vi Så Småningom)" (b/w "Till Fader Berg, Rörande Fiolen (nå Skruva Fiolen)". Björn and future ABBA manager Stig Anderson co-wrote "Fåfängans Marknad", which was released as the B-side of the single "Elenore".



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Their seventh album, '5 År', was released in 1968.



Songs written by Björn included : "Vår Egen Sång", "Du Dansar Om Sommar'n", and "Love Comes, Love Goes"

Other songs featured on the album included : "Mary's Boy Child", "Så Länge Jag Lever", "Greenback Dollar", "Den Som Lever Får Se", "Mamma, Pappa Och Barn", and "Tro Mej, Tro Mej".

In 1968 Björn Ulvaeus released his first two solo singles : "Raring " (b/w "Vill Du Ha En Vän?") ["Will You Lend Me The Van?"], followed by "Fröken Fredriksson".



In 1968, Björn and Benny Andersson composed two songs together: "A Flower in My Garden", recorded by Hep Stars, and their first real hit "Ljuva Sextital" ["Love The Sex-title"], for which Stig Anderson wrote lyrics. The latter, a cabarét-style ironic song about the 1960s, was submitted for the 1969 Swedish heats for the Eurovision Song Contest, but was rejected; it was later recorded by diva Brita Borg. Another hit came in 1969 with "Speleman", also recorded by Hep Stars.



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Hootenanny Singers eighth album, 'Bellman På Vårt Sätt - Ur Fredmans Epistlar & Sånger', was released in 1968.



Hootenanny Singers singles released in 1969 included : "Om Jag Kunde Skriva En Visa" (b/w "Casanova"); and "Vinden Sjunger Samma Sång" (b/w "Hem Till De Mina")



Björn Ulvaeus solo singles released in 1969 included : "Saknar Du Något Min Kära", which featured "Gömt Är Inte Glömt" on the B-side which was written by Björn and Stig Anderson; and "Partaj-aj-aj", written by Bjorn, Benny and Stig, backed by "Kvinnan I Mitt Liv"



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Their ninth album, 'På Tre Man Hand', was released in 1969.



Songs featured on the album included : "Vinden Sjunger Samma Sång", "Casanova", "Hem Till De Mina", "When I Was Young", "Om Jag Kunde Skriva En Visa", "Who's Gonna Hold Her Hand", and "Värt Samtal I Morse".

"Ring Ring - Här Är Svensktoppsjuryn" (b/w "Lev Som Du Lär") - both songs arranged by Benny and Björn were released as a single from the album, as well as the two solo Björn songs, "Partaj-Aj-Aj" and "Kvinnan I Mitt Liv".



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Their tenth album, 'Skillingtryck', was released in 1970. All songs on the albums were arranged by Benny and Björn.



Songs featured on the album included : "I Fjol Så Gick Jag Med Herrarna I Hagen", "Rose Marie", "Bröllopsvisa", "En Visa Vill Jag Sjunga Som Handlar Om Min Lilla Vän" ["I left My Visa in the Jag Next To The Little Van"], "Elin Och Herremannen", "Karlsborgsvisan", "Hej Dunkom Så Länge Vi Levo", "Jungfrun Och Sjömannen", "Ack, Göta Konungarike", "Älvsborgsvisan", and "Spelmansvisa".

Further singles released in 1971 included : "Aldrig Mer" (b/w "Lilla Vackra Anna"); "Hjärtats Saga" (b/w "Jungman Jansson"); and "Tess Lördan" (b/w "Rosen Och Fjärilen")

[kalowski]

Music aside, Agnetha sure was beautiful. (I assume she still is).

[daf]

Yes - though, weirdly, that little gap between her front teeth seems to have dissappeared (voted the world's sexiest tooth gap by randy Australians in 1977!)

[daf]

The ABBA Story So Far - Part 3 : B is for Benny

Göran Bror Benny Andersson was born in 1946 in the Vasastan district of Stockholm to civil engineer Gösta Andersson and his wife Laila. His sister Eva-Lis Andersson followed in 1948. Andersson's father and grandfather taught him Swedish folk music, traditional music, and schlager. Both enjoyed playing the accordion, and at six, Benny got his own.

The first records Benny bought were "Du Bist Musik" by Italian schlager singer Caterina Valente and Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock". He was especially impressed by the flip side, "Treat Me Nice", as this featured a piano.

At ten, Andersson got his own piano and taught himself to play. He left school at 15 and began to perform at youth clubs. This is when he met his first girlfriend Christina Grönvall, with whom he had two children.

In early 1964, Benny and Christina joined "Elverkets Spelmanslag" ("The Electricity Board Folk Music Group"); the name was a punning reference to their electric instruments. Their repertoire consisted mainly of instrumentals.



The Hep Stars were founded by drummer Christer "Chrille" Pettersson and bass guitarist Lennart "Lelle" Hegland with keyboard player Hans Östlund and guitarist-singer Jan "Janne" Frisk.

Originally, the band called themselves Quartet Yep. Their repertoire included various styles of music from Latin-dance to rock in order to get as many gigs as possible in varying venues. When their music started to veer towards rock'n'roll and pop, the band changed their name to Hep Stars - a pun on 'Hipsters' - inspired by a line from Bill Haley's "Razzle Dazzle".

Hegland called Sven Ove "Svenne" Hedlund to fill the singer's slot for Frisk who had temporarily joined a tour backing band for some extra money for a new guitar amp. On Frisk's return, they shared lead vocals for a period of time with Frisk singing the more straightforward rockers and Hedlund handling the ballads.

After the group's first single, "Kana Kapila" (b/w "I Got A Woman"), released in June 1964, the original keyboard player, Hans Östlund, was asked to leave because of souring relations between Hedlund and founder member Pettersson, who left the band fed up with squabbles. He was asked to rejoin and the band continued as a four piece for a short time in autumn 1964.



Hedlund owned a van and occasionally drove other bands to gigs. One of these bands was Elverkets Spelmanslag where Hedlund saw Benny Andersson performing. On Hedlund's suggestion, Andersson was called for audition.

The band had now settled on the classic line-up of Sven Hedlund (vocals), Jan Frisk (guitar/vocals), Benny Andersson (keyboards), Lennart Hegland (bass guitar) and Christer Pettersson (drums).

"A Tribute To Buddy Holly", (b/w "Bird Dog"), was released in February 1965 and peaked at #5 on the Swedish Chart.



Their next three singles : Summertime Blues", (b/w "If You Need Me"); "Farmer John", (b/w "Donna"); and "Cadillac", (b/w "Mashed Potatoes"), were all released in March 1965.



"Cadillac" peaked at #1 for a week, and "Farmer John" peaked at #1 for four weeks on the Swedish charts. "Bald Headed Woman", (b/w "Lonesome Town"), was released in June 1965.



The Kinks cover, "So Mystifying", (b/w "Young and Beautiful"), was released in September 1965.



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The Hep Stars first album, 'We and Our Cadillac', was released in September 1965 on Olga Records.



The album contains Benny Andersson's first original composition, "No Response", which was written by him after the band was criticised for not being able to write original material. It was issued as a single in September 1965, backed by "Rented Tuxedo". Despite reaching #2 on Kvällstoppen, in later interviews, Andersson considered the album imperfect and a "rush-job".



In contrast to their later works, guitarist Janne Frisk shares lead vocal duties with Svenne Hedlund on 4 of the album's 12 tracks. Tracks on the album includes a re-recorded version of their hit song "Cadillac", which would go on to become one of their signature songs.

Other songs featured on the album included : "Be My Baby", "That's When Your Heartaches Begin", "Send Me Some Lovin'", "Rockin' Love", "No Response", "I'll Never Quite Get Over You", "Sweet Little Sixteen", "Oh! Carol", "Then She (He) Kissed Me", and "Bald Headed Woman".

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Their first live album, 'Hep Stars on Stage' was released in November 1965 on Olga Records, the album featured recordings made on 7 and 8 August 1965 at two separate Folkparks in Trollhättan and Västerås, Sweden.



The album is composed of rock standards, including "What'd I Say", "Surfin' Bird" and "If You Need Me", and also features the band's hit singles of the time, including "Farmer John", "Bald Headed Woman", "No Response" and "So Mystifying", all of which had been hits on both Kvällstoppen and Tio i Topp.

Other songs featured on the album included : "Cadillac", "Donna", "What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For!", "Only You", "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck", "Whole Lotta Shak-in' Goin' On", and "Talahassie Lassie".

"Should I", (b/w "I'll Never Quite Get Over You"), was released as a single in December 1965.



"Hawaii", was released in March 1966. The B-side, "Sunny Girl", was penned by Benny.



"Wedding", co-written by Benny and Hedlund, (b/w "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again"), was released in May 1966.



"I Natt Jag Drömde", (b/w "Jag Vet"), was released in September 1966.



"Consolation", written by Benny, (b/w "Don't"), was released in October 1966. The single was a massive hit in Sweden but, being a folk-song, divided the band to a degree. It also caused confusion among rock-oriented fans.



The band was at the height of popularity, especially among rock audiences, during 1965–1966 with both cover and original songs. In 1966, they performed 150 gigs in Sweden alone. The popularity grew rapidly and the band was highly successful also in Norway and Finland making several tours in both countries.



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Their second studio album, 'The Hep Stars', was released in December 1966.



In contrast to their heavier and more rhythm and blues based sound of their debut album, the songs on 'The Hep Stars' varies between pop on songs such as "Lady Lady" to psychedelia.

Five tracks on the album are credited to keyboardist Benny Andersson. "Isn't It Easy To Say" is also the first collaboration by him and Björn Ulvaeus.

The album features an English version of "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream", a song Hep Stars previously had a hit with in Sweden with a Swedish translation called "I Natt Jag Drömde". "No Time" was a song given to the band by Ulvaeus, since he had decided to record "Sunny Girl" for his band Hootenanny Singers'. It also features two hit singles, "Wedding" and "Consolation", which both topped the Swedish chart for 4 and 10 weeks respectively.

Other songs featured on the album included : "The Birds In The Sky", "Easy To Fool", "Sound Of Eve", "Isn't It Easy To Say", "Morning Comes After Night", and "I've Said It All Before".

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"Malaika", backed by "It's Nice To Be Back" written by Benny, was released in April 1967.



Two singles were released in September 1967 - "Mot Okänt Land", written by Benny and Hedlund, (b/w "Någonting Har Hänt"), and "She Will Love You", (b/w "Like You Used To Do") which featured Benny/Hedlund songs on both sides.



The band continued playing up to 200 gigs in 1967. However, problems arose when the back-up organisation made a less than adequate job with the tax authorities and in the general running of the business.

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Their third album, 'Jul med Hep Stars' (Christmas with Hep Stars) was released in December 1967.



The album is made up by arrangements of well-known traditional Swedish Christmas songs mixed with somewhat newer tracks such as "Alla Sover Utom Jag". The seasonal pairing of "Christmas On My Mind", (b/w "Jingle Bells"), was released with typical Swedish perversity in August 1967 - the mad bastards!



Other songs featured on the album included : "Christmas Today", "White Christmas", "Johanssons Boogie-Woogie Vals", "Hej Tomtegubbar", "The Boy That Old Santa Forgot", "Gläns Över Sjö Och Strand", "Nu Tändas Tusen Juleljus", "Stilla Natt", and "Dotter Sion".

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Their fourth studio album, 'It's Been a Long Long Time' was released by Cupol Records in February 1968.



Intended to be their international breakthrough, it was recorded in London with session musicians, with the only members of the Hep Stars to appear on the album being lead singer Svenne Hedlund, keyboardist Benny Andersson and tour manager Lennart Fernholm.

Richard Reese-Edwards approached the Hep Stars, certain of gaining them a successful international career. He managed to secure them a performance on the successful British television show Dee Time, hosted by Simon Dee, where the Hep Stars performed "It's Nice to Be Back", which had been issued as the B-side of "Malaika" earlier in April 1967.



The material on the album falls mostly towards the baroque-pop category, with many songs having string and brass-arrangements. The songs have a broader sounds compared to previous albums. The album features only one original composition, that being its title track, "It's Been A Long Long Time", written by Benny Andersson and Lasse Berghagen. Released as a single in February 1968, it reached #14 on Kvällstoppen, becoming one of their lowest charting singles.



Most other material was written by either American or British songwriters, including the opening track "Enter the Young", which was originally recorded by The Association.

The album itself failed to chart in the UK, and was never released in the US. "Musty Dusty", which initially was the B-side of the title track, was issued as a single in the US in February 1969 on a smaller record label called Chartmaker Records in a vain attempt to make an international breakthrough.

Other songs featured on the album included : "Hope", "Five A.M.", "It's Time For A Change", "Changing Away From You", "Spinning, Spinning, Spinning", "There Is Love", "Would You Like To Go", "It's Now Winter's Day", and "Another Time".

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Further singles included : "Sagan Om Lilla Sofi", co-written by Benny and Lars Berghagen, (b/w "Det Finns En Stad"), released in April 1968; and "Let It Be Me", (b/w "Groovy Summertime"), released in August 1968.



The general economic situation in Sweden started to stagnate towards the end of the 1960s. This forced the band to navigate towards a wider audience and the showband scene. The American singer Charlotte Walker joined in 1968.



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The live album, 'Songs We Sang '68' was released in December 1968.



Songs featured on the album included : "Shake - Svenne I Love You - We Say Yeah", "Goin' Out Of My Head - Can't Take My Eyes From You", "You Keep Me Hangin' On", "Svart-Vit Calypso - Naturbarn - Pata Pata - Charlotte's Children Game", "Groovy Summertime - Shake", "Save Your Heart For Me", "Bilden Av Dig", "Suddenly Tomorrow Is Today", "Warten Auf Den Tag", and "Songs We Sang".

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The single "Holiday For Clowns" was released in February 1969. The B-side, "A Flower In My Garden" was co-written by Benny and Bjorn Ulvaeus.



The compilation album, 'På Svenska', was released in 1969.



The album featured several songs written by Benny and Bjorn including "Speleman" and "Precis Som Alla Andra" which was released as a single in April 1969. Other songs featured on the album included : "I Natt Jag Drömde", "Mot Okänt Land", "Bilden Av Dig", "Är Det Inte Kärlek, Säg?", "Lilla Sofi", "Nångonting Har Hänt", "Jag Vet, "I Sagans Land" and "Tända På Varann" - which had previously been released as a single in October 1968.



Unhappy with their new direction, Frisk was asked to leave, and was replaced by Björn Ulvaeus from the Hootenanny Singers. The original member leaving the band led to mixed feelings, and the decision was made to call it a day after fulfilling the tour contracts. The band played its last gig in August 1969 after which Andersson, Ulvaeus, Walker and Hedlund left the band.

Following the departure of Andersson and Ulvaeus, the band went through several line-up changes, releasing the albums 'Again' in 1970, and 'California Maiden' in 1971, before finally breaking up in the early 1970s with guitarist Lelle Hegland the only original member left.



Following the split, Hedlund and Walker formed the duo Svenne & Lotta, who enjoyed considerable success, especially in Denmark and in mid-Europe.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

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The ABBA Story So Far - Part 4 : A is for Anni-Frid

Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad was born in November 1945 in Bjørkåsen, a small village in Ballangen near Narvik, in northern Norway, to a Norwegian mother, and a German father, Alfred Haase, who was a sergeant in the Wehrmacht. Her father returned to Germany when his unit was evacuated at the end of the war, several months before she was born.

In early 1947, Anni-Frid, her mother Synni, and her maternal grandmother, Arntine "Anni" Lyngstad, left Norway, fearing reprisals against those who had dealings with the Germans during the occupation. Anni-Frid was taken by Anni to Sweden, where they settled in the region of Härjedalen. Synni joined her mother and daughter in Sweden, and the three moved to Malmköping. Synni died of kidney failure soon afterwards, aged 21 years, leaving Anni-Frid to be raised solely by her grandmother.

In June 1949, they both relocated to Torshälla, outside Eskilstuna, where Anni worked as a seamstress. Anni-Frid grew up in Torshälla and began to attend school in August 1952.

In 1958, at the age of 13, Lyngstad got her first job as a dance band and schlager singer, with the Evald Ek's Orchestra. She performed every weekend in front of a dancing audience, with sets often lasting up to five hours.

Evald Ek : "It was hard to believe, such a young person could sing that well. She was so easy to rehearse with and she was never shy onstage. The only thing I taught her was to sing out. In those days, she had a tendency of holding back her voice a little."



She also started to take singing lessons with opera tenor, Folke Andersson. Later, she teamed up with a 15-piece Bengt Sandlunds Bigband, who performed a jazz repertoire covering Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and Count Basie; her vocal idols being Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. It was around this time that she met the trombonist Ragnar Frederiksson who she married in April 1964. After Bengt split up the big band, the newly-weds joined the Gunnar Sandevarn Trio.



Soon after, the band was renamed The Anni-Frid Four, and comprised of Frida, Gunnar, Ragnar (on electric bass) and her drumming brother-in-law. Their set included more contemporary material, like 'Goldfinger', 'Downtown' and James Brown's 'I Got You (I Feel Good)'.



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On 3 September 1967, Lyngstad won the Swedish national talent competition, "New Faces", arranged by record company EMI Svenska, and held at Skansen, Stockholm. The song she chose to sing was "En Ledig Dag". The first prize in this contest was a recording contract.

Unbeknownst to Lyngstad, the winner of the contest was also expected to appear the same evening in the country's most popular TV show at that time, Hylands Hörna. This happened on the same day Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right-hand side. Driving on that day was discouraged, so most of the nation was watching TV that night.

This first exposure to a wider television audience caused a sensation, and many record companies and producers contacted Frida immediately. EMI executives, fearing they might lose their new singer, took the precaution of driving from Stockholm to Lyngstad's home in Eskilstuna the next morning with a recording contract for her to sign.

[EMI producer] Olle Bergman : "We got so interested and fond of her and I thought she had everything a person needs to become something."

On 11 September 1967, Lyngstad recorded the vocals for her first single for EMI Sweden, under the company's His Master's Voice label in just one take.

"En Ledig Dag", (b/w "Peter, Kom Tillbaka"), was released as a single, but failed to chart.



On 29 January 1968, she performed "En Ledig Dag" on 'Studio 8' on national television and on this occasion briefly met future ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog, who also performed her first single on the same SVT1 programme.

Her second single, "Din" (b/w "Du är Så Underbart Rar"), recorded in October 1967, also failed to chart.



She decided to leave her family and move to Stockholm to start working full-time as a singer. She toured Sweden with Lasse Lönndahl and Bengt Hallberg in 1968, and recorded several singles for EMI, including "Simsalabim" (b/w "Vi Möts Igen") released in June 1968, and "Mycket Kär" (b/w "När Du Blir Min"), released in October 1968.



In 1969, she participated in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish heats for the Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "Härlig är vår jord" ["Our Earth Is Wonderful"], and finished in fourth place. The runner-up was "Hey Clown" by Jan Malmsjö which was co-written by Hep Star Benny Anderson – with whom Frida had a brief conversation.



A few days later, Frida encountered Benny again when she and the Hep Stars ate in the same restaurant after each had been performing at different venues in Malmö. Romance blossomed and they announced their engagement after the two guested on a radio programme early in 1970, commenting on new releases.

"Härlig är Vår Jord" (b/w "Räkna De Lyckliga Stunderna Blott"), recorded in December 1968, was released as a single in March 1969, and peaked at #8 in the Swedish charts.



"Så Synd Du Måste Gå" (b/w "Försök Och Sov På Saken"), was released in May 1969, but failed to chart.



In September 1969 she recorded "Peter Pan" - written for her by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. Backed by "Du Betonar Kärlek Lite Fel", the single failed to chart.



"Där Du Går Lämnar Kärleken Spår" (b/w "Du Var Främling Här Igår") was released in March 1970, and reached #9 on the Swedish charts.



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Her first album, 'Frida', produced by her fiancé Benny Andersson, was released in March 1971 by EMI Columbia.



The single "En Liten Sång Om Kärlek" ["A Little Song Of Garlic"], (b/w "Tre Kvart Från Nu") had been released ahead of the album in January 1971.



The album received generous praise from critics and the press, who especially commented on the precision and versatility of Lyngstad's voice. A reviewer for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter wrote: "Professional, sure and certain LP-debut ... low-key but self-assured personality with sprinkles of temperament, humour and tenderness. And she sings in such a way that you understand that she's got something between her ears – she sings, in other words, in a very intelligent way".

The album featured the song "Lycka" which was written by Benny and Björn. Other songs featured on the album included : "Tre Kvart Från Nu", "Jag Blir Galen När Jag Tänker På Dej", "Sen Dess Har Jag Inte Sett'en", "Allting Skall Bli Bra - Vad Gör Jag Med Min Kärlek", "Jag Är Beredd", "Telegram För Fullmånen", "Barnen Sover", plus the Paul Simon cover "En Ton Av Tystnad" and "Suzanne" by Leonard Cohen.

The single "En Gång Är Ingen Gång" was released in August 1971. The B-side "Min egen stad", a cover version of Benny's song "It's Nice To Be Back" with lyrics by Peter Himmelstrand, reached No. 1 on Svensktoppen - the weekly record chart airing at Sveriges Radio. The song featured backing vocals by all four future members of ABBA.



The success of the single led EMI Columbia to re-package the Frida album with "Min egen stad" added to the beginning of side two of the LP. This version of the album was re-issued in 1974 following the success of ABBA.



"Min egen stad" was also included, along with many of her earlier singles on the compilation album 'Anni-Frid Lyngstad', released in late 1971.



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In 1971, Lyngstad toured with Lars Berghagen, and released the single "En Kväll Om Sommarn" (b/w "Vi Vet Allt, Men Nästan Inget").



Another song written by Benny and Björn, "Vi är Alla Bara Barn I Början", (b/w "Kom Och Sjung En Sång"), was released in 1972 - her final single on EMI Columbia.



In 1972, after five years with EMI Sweden, Lyngstad changed record companies and moved to the Polar Music label.

Her first single for Polar, "Man vill ju leva lite dessemellan", (b/w "Ska Man Skratta Eller Gråta"), released in August 1972, became her second Svensktoppen Number 1.

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The ABBA Story So Far - Part 5 : Ring Ring

Having established their partnership in the Hep Stars, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus continued both as a songwriting team for Polar Music as well as the duo Björn & Benny. They released two singles in 1970 : "She's My Kind Of Girl" (b/w "Inga Theme"); followed by "Hej Gamle Man!" (b/w "Lycka") in October 1970.



Their debut album, 'Lycka', was released in November 1970. The album was produced by Björn and Benny with Bengt Bernhag and engineered by Michael B. Tretow. Benny and Björn played on all the tracks with two Swiss musicians, drummer John Counz and bassist Gus Horn. Sven-Olof Walldoff was responsible for the orchestral arrangements.



Other songs featured on the album included : "Nånting är på väg", "Kära gamla sol", "Det där med kärlek", "Välkommen in i gänget", "Lilla du, lilla vän", "Kalles visa", "Ge oss en chans", and "Livet går sin gång".

Most of the songs feature lead vocals by Björn. Backing vocals on the album were provided by Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog - who also co wrote the song "Liselott" with Björn and Benny.

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In April 1970, the two couples went on holiday together to the island of Cyprus. What started as singing for fun on the beach ended up as an improvised live performance in front of the United Nations soldiers stationed on the island.

Frida : "Yes we met on the road. All four of us were popular artists in Sweden. I remember meeting Benny & Björn in Malmö. I think Björn and Agnetha met around the same time. They both participated in the same television show. A show about old folklore music. They became a couple. the same thing happened to Benny and me. And because Benny and Björn were friends, we all began to work together. That's how it all started."

Andersson and Ulvaeus were at this time recording their first album together, 'Lycka', which was to be released in September 1970. Fältskog and Lyngstad added backing vocals on several tracks during June, and the idea of their working together saw them launch a stage act, "Festfolket" (which translates from Swedish to "Party People" and when written as 'Fästfolk' means "engaged couples"), on 1 November 1970 in Gothenburg.



Before the start of the tour they appeared on the radio show Våra favoriter (taped September 29, broadcast October 3) where they performed Frida's "Barnen sover", Agnetha's "Som ett eko" and Björn & Benny's "Hej gamle man!" from their upcoming solo album.

On October 21 or 22 the TV programme Five Minutes Saloon was taped (broadcast December 13) with them performing on the songs "Red Roses For A Blue Lady" and "California Here I Come".

Accompanied by the dance band The Lolas, they usually performed on or around the weekends with a set lasting about 45 minutes. According to Frida the audience varied from 14 to about 400. The Festfolk shows were pretty disappointing and are remembered by the group as a big disaster, with people ordering their meals and raising their glasses to each other during the show.

Agnetha : "It was not a success, generally comprising of a thin spread of vapid jokes and other people's songs."



Björn : "This is the low end of the collaboration between the four of us. Because we were not doing what we were supposed to do. We were singing other people's songs in a kind of cabaret act. Benny and I were doing a number where we supposed to be two little boys. It was embarrassing, but it was after that tour that we realized, our own songs that's we should do."

The cabaret show attracted generally negative reviews, except for the performance of the Andersson and Ulvaeus hit "Hej, gamle man" – the first Björn and Benny recording to feature all four future ABBA members. They also performed solo numbers from respective albums, but the lukewarm reception convinced the foursome to shelve plans for working together for the time being, and each soon concentrated on individual projects again.

Björn : "Hej gamle man! got absolutely the best audience reaction of all the numbers in the show. That's when we really knew that we should concentrate on doing our own material in the future – it was a kind of turning point."

A following summer tour with all four together may have been dropped because of their experiences with spending so much time together so closely.

Frida : "It's not a good idea to both work and live together. It's easier to get in a bad mood. We sat in the car together, dined together, performed together, checked in the hotel together. It was just too much."

Agnetha : "I guess, it's just too much, to both work and live together. You get on each other's nerves in the end. Even if you don't want to have a fight, you still do sometimes, and it's hard to go onstage and look happy afterwards."

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Two more singles credited to "Björn & Benny" were released in Sweden in 1971 : "Det Kan Ingen Doktor Hjälpa", (b/w "På Bröllop"); followed by "Tänk Om Jorden Vore Ung" (b/w "Träskofolket"). By the middle of 1971, Fältskog, Ulvaeus, and Andersson were performing together as a trio on a regular basis at the Swedish folkparks.



Stig Anderson, founder and owner of Polar Music, was determined to break into the mainstream international market with music by Andersson and Ulvaeus. He encouraged Ulvaeus and Andersson to write a song for Melodifestivalen, and after two rejected entries in 1971, Andersson and Ulvaeus submitted their new song "Säg det med en sång" ["Say It with a Song"] for the 1972 contest, choosing newcomer Lena Anderson to perform. The song came in third place, encouraging Stig Anderson, and became a hit in Sweden.

Björn : "She was huge in Sweden at the time. We were working in Polar Music's office from 9 to 5 as songwriters and producers. She was to enter Eurovision and had to have a song, so we wrote one. We wanted to break outside the borders of Sweden. That was one of the first attempts. The only launching pad that really existed for us was Eurovision, because to send songs out was hopeless. No one ever paid any attention."

The Andersson and Ulvaeus single "She's My Kind of Girl" was released through Epic Records in Japan in March 1972, and became their first taste of overseas success - becoming a surprise Top 10 hit.



Their final Swedish single, "En Karusell", (b/w "Att Finnas Till", was released in 1972.



In Japan, an English version, "En Carousel", was released as a single, followed by "Love Has Its Ways" (a song they wrote with Kōichi Morita). The B-side "Rock'n Roll Band" would be later included in a longer mix on the first ABBA album in 1973.



Ulvaeus and Andersson persevered with their songwriting and experimented with new sounds and vocal arrangements, and realising the qualities of Lyngstad's and Fältskog's voices combined, decided to expand the duo into a quartet.



Their next single, "People Need Love", was released in June 1972, credited to Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. The song peaked at number 17 in the Swedish charts. The single also became the first record to chart for the quartet in the United States, where it peaked at number #114 on the Cashbox singles chart and number #117 on the Record World singles chart.

Credited to Björn & Benny with Svenska Flicka [Swedish Girl], it was released there through Playboy Records. This association with Playboy caused much confusion, many mistaking it for soft-core pornography! According to ABBA's manager Stig Anderson, it could have been a much bigger American hit, if not for the limited distribution resources of the label that was unable to meet the demand from retailers and radio programmers.



After the success of "People Need Love" in 1972, the group's manager, Stig Anderson, realised the potential of coupling the vocal talents of the women with the writing talents of the men. It was then decided that the quartet would record an LP.

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In November 1972, they released the single "He Is Your Brother", again credited to "Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid".

Due to its limited release, and the fact that ABBA had not achieved a great following outside of their native Sweden at the time, the song only charted in Scandinavian countries. In Sweden, it did not reach the Swedish sales chart but was a big radio hit reaching #1 on the Tio i Topp singles chart. The single was also released in New Zealand on the local Family Label, and in the United States in 1973 on the Playboy label.



The B-side of the single, "Santa Rosa", had the working title "Grandpa's Banjo". Considered a "Björn And Benny" track, it was originally recorded in 1972 with the intention of releasing it as single in Japan. The writers have explained their dislike of the song, saying that the lyrics were clumsy due to the fact they only put the name "Santa Rosa" in because it fit the song.

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Benny, Björn and Stig were invited to enter a song into Melodifestival 1973, whose winner would represent Sweden in the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest. After several days, Andersson and Ulvaeus came up with the music for the Swedish version of "Ring Ring", with the working title "Klocklåt" [Clock Tune]. Stig wrote the lyrics with the intention of making a pop-oriented song.

To make it more accessible to a universal audience, Anderson asked American songwriter Neil Sedaka to pen the lyrics for an English version. Sedaka, with the help of his then-current lyricist Phil Cody, wrote a set of English lyrics.

On 10 January 1973, the song was recorded at the Metronome Studio in Stockholm. Studio engineer Michael B. Tretow had read a book about troubled nutcase record producer Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound". While Spector used several musicians playing the same instruments in the same recording studio at the same time, such a technique would be far too expensive. Tretow's solution was to simply record the song's backing track twice in order to achieve an orchestral sound. Changing the speed of the tape between the overdubs, making the instruments marginally out of tune, increased the effect.



Melodifestival 1973 was broadcast on Saturday 10 February 1973. The performance of "Ring Ring" was filmed in the afternoon and broadcast in the evening.



A dab hand with a needle and thread, Frida had sewn the outfits for herself and Agnetha, who was heavily pregnant, for this performance.

Frida : "Agnetha was highly pregnant, and I was very good at making clothes. We decided that I would do the clothes and I designed the outfits for Agnetha and me. Not the ones for Björn & Benny. They had their own designer. I was very fond of creating costumes. I had some extravagant ideas about how we needed to dress. In the end we found a designer who created our clothes, but I kept very much a part of the creative process."
 


While "Ring Ring" only finished third in the competition, the song fared better in the Swedish charts - the Swedish version, "Ring Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal)", (b/w "Åh, vilka tider"), performed very well on the Swedish charts, and gave ABBA their first No. 1 hit.

Björn : "There was an uproar in the papers from people writing in, "How can you chose the wrong song?" It was so evident, and Ring, Ring became a huge hit and the other one just a minor hit."



The English version of "Ring Ring" fared almost as well, peaking at No. 2 in Sweden, Norway and Austria, and reaching the Top 10 in the charts of the Netherlands, South Africa and Rhodesia. It was the group's first release in the UK in October 1973, but failed to chart, selling only 5,000 copies.

A remixed version of "Ring Ring", with saxophone by Ulf Andersson, would eventually peak at #32 in the UK charts when it was re-released in June 1974, following their Eurovision success with "Waterloo".



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Despite the failure of "Ring Ring" to be selected for the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest, the quartet decided that performing as a group was a serious and realistic idea, and went out on a tour of Sweden. When Agnetha gave birth to her daughter Linda in 1973, she was replaced for a short period by Inger Brundin on a trip to West Germany.



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Initially credited as Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Frida, their first album, 'Ring Ring' was released in Scandinavia on 26 March 1973, and later in a limited number of other territories, including West Germany, Australia, South Africa and Mexico, through Polar Music.



The original 1973 Polar version of the album opens with "Ring Ring (Bara du slog en signal)", the Swedish version of the track, and places the English-language version as track four on side two. The second song on the album, "Another Town, Another Train", was recorded in German under the title "Wer im Wartesaal der Liebe steht" (with lyrics by Fred Jay), as the B-side to the German version of "Ring Ring". It was released as a 7" vinyl single in Japan in March 1973, and as a single on Playboy Records in the USA.



"Disillusion" is notable as the only song ABBA recorded and released on a studio album to have a songwriting credit from Agnetha Fältskog. She was a songwriter as well as a singer, and had dabbled in that in her pre-ABBA career. She wrote the music, with lyrics added by Björn. Although she wrote several Swedish top 40 hits during her solo career, Fältskog did not feel her compositions were suitable for ABBA's albums. The sparse instrumentation on the track differs from the Swedish version, "Mina Ögon", she recorded for her 1975 solo album 'Elva kvinnor i ett hus'.



"People Need Love" had been released as a single in June 1972, peaking at #3 on Swedish Radio's Tio i Topp. "I Saw It in the Mirror" was recorded in early 1970 and features Björn and Benny on lead vocals. The original version of the song had been released as a single by Billy G-son. "Nina, Pretty Ballerina" was recorded in November 1972, and released on as a single in Austria and France in October 1973. It reached #8 on the singles chart in Austria.



Other songs on the album included, "Me and Bobby and Bobby's Brother", recorded in 1970, "He Is Your Brother", recorded in 1972, which was issued as a single in Scandinavia, "I Am Just a Girl", and "Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough)", a country rock song which was one of the last to be recorded for the album. It was the fifth single to be released from the album.



International versions of the album removed "Ring Ring (Bara du slog en signal)", and featured "She's My Kind of Girl" in it's place. The song was was written for the Swedish movie Inga II: The Seduction Of Inga, and originally released in March 1970 as the first Björn and Benny single. Two years later it was released in Japan, hitting #1 and selling half a million copies. As well as having contributions from Agnetha and Frida, the song is also unusual in that it is the only track in the entire catalogue that appears in fake stereo.



The final song on the album, "Rock'n Roll Band", was released as single in the US by Playboy Records credited to "Björn & Benny with Anna & Frieda" (with an 'E' added to Frida). An alternative mix of the song had previously been released as the B-side of a Björn & Benny Japanese single in 1973.

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348.  ABBA – Waterloo



From : 30 April – 13 May 1974
Weeks : 2
B-side : Watch Out
Bonus 1 : Alternative Mix
Bonus 2 : Swedish Version
Bonus 3 : French Version
Bonus 4 : German Version
Bonus 5 : Promo Film
Bonus 6 : Promo Film Backwards
Bonus 7 : Lyric Video
Bonus 8 : Melodifestivalen 1974
Bonus 9 : Eurovision 1974 First Performance
Bonus 10 : Eurovision 1974 Second Performance
Bonus 11 : Top of the Pops April 1974
Bonus 12 : Top of the Pops May 1974
Bonus 13 : Top Pop 1974
Bonus 14 : Musik aus Studio B June 1974
Bonus 15 : Eddy Go Round 1974
Bonus 16 : Starparade 1974
Bonus 17 : Top of the Pops Christmas 1974
Bonus 18 : BBC Seaside Special 1975
Bonus 19 : Momarkedet Festival, Norway 1975
Bonus 20 : Australia 1976
Bonus 21 : Musikladen 1976
Bonus 22 : Abba in Japan 1978
Bonus 23 : Live 1979

The ABBA Story So Far - Part 6 : Waterloo

In 1973, Stig Anderson, tiring of the cumbersome Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid name, started to refer to the group privately and publicly as ABBA. A competition to find a suitable name for the group was held in a Gothenburg newspaper. Suggestions included BABA, FABB, Friends And Neighbours and Alibaba. Obviously none of them were chosen as they were all catshit!

Instead they it was officially announced in the summer that the group were to be known as "ABBA" - an acronym formed from the first letters of each group member's first name: Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid, although there has never been any official confirmation of who each letter in the sequence refers to. As Abba was also the name of a well-known fish-canning company in Sweden, the group negotiated with the canners for the rights to the name.

Agnetha : "We had to ask permission and the factory said, 'O.K., as long as you don't make us feel ashamed for what you're doing'."



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Following "Ring Ring"'s failure to qualify as Sweden's entry for the Euorovision Song Contest in 1973, Stig Anderson immediately started planning for the 1974 contest.

Ulvaeus, Andersson and Stig Anderson believed in the possibilities of using the Eurovision Song Contest as a way to make the music business aware of the band, and in late 1973, they were again invited by Swedish television to contribute a song for the Melodifestivalen 1974. From a number of new songs, the upbeat song "Waterloo" was chosen, inspired by the growing glam rock scene in England.

On 9 February 1974, performing the Swedish-language version in the same striking costumes they would wear in Brighton but with Björn strumming an acoustic guitar instead of his silver starburst electric, ABBA won a landslide victory, scoring 302 points - almost 100 points ahead of the runner up.



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The Eurovision Song Contest 1974 was the 19th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Brighton, United Kingdom and was organized by the European Broadcasting Union and host broadcaster the BBC, who agreed to host the event after Luxembourg, having won in both 1972 and 1973, declined to host it for a second successive year on the grounds of expense - the cheapskates!



The contest was held at the Brighton Dome on 6 April 1974 and was hosted by Katie Boyle.

Each song was introduced by a 'postcard' featuring a montage of film material, beginning with library footage of the participating nation provided by the various national tourist organizations. This was then intercut with various clips of the artists in rehearsal, conducting their press conference with the media or posing for photographs in and around the Brighton Pavilion complex. It was the first time the contest had broadcast rehearsal footage or behind the scenes footage from the run-up to the grand final.

Seventeen nations took part in this year's contest. Greece made their début in the contest, while France withdrew during the week of the contest after the sudden death of French President Georges Pompidou.



Frida : "It was of course totally exciting. We arrived there, four people from Sweden, and we had no idea what was gonna happen. I also remember that particular year being one with a very strong field of contestants."

Each performance had a conductor who conducted the orchestra - Sven-Olof Walldoff conducted for the ABBA performance wearing a Napoleon costume.



Björn : "We changed into our stage outfits at the hotel, and a bus came to take us to the arena. I was overweight and couldn't sit down because my trousers would split. And then there was some kind of mistake when we won and were going on stage as writers first. Stig and Benny managed to get up there, but this guard said to me, "No, it's not for the writers." "But I am one!" "No, no, in that outfit? Writers don't look like that.""

ABBA performed in 8th position between Yugoslavia's Korni Grupa with "Generacija '42" and Luxembourg's Ireen Sheer with "Bye Bye I Love You".

Björn : "We were not in any way feeling like favourites. That's how it seems now to everyone, but being there – Olivia Newton-John, for heaven's sake! And I think Mouth & MacNeal had a huge hit before."



Ten-member juries from each country distributed ten points among their favourite songs. ABBA got off to a good start - with 5 points from Finland. Luxembourg gave them 1 point, followed by Israel who gave them 2 points. Further scores included : 2 points from Norway, 1 point from Yugoslavia, 1 point from Ireland, 2 points from Germany, 1 from Portugal, 3 from The Netherlands, 1 from Spain, and another whopping 5 points from Switzerland. The UK jury failed to award them any points, possibly because they saw the Swedish entry as the UK's biggest threat.

Björn : "It certainly could have been, because the Brits were the first ones to embrace us after winning, so the jury could have been as cunning as that - very likely actually. Because it's kind of strange they would give us zero points. It sounds like they were trying to do something cunning."

Frida : "The competition was of course very hard. I remember us really giving everything we had in us. And of course we had very extravagant stage-outfits. In only a few hours our lives had completely changed. After that the future was wide open. I think one could easily say that »Waterloo« had conquered the whole world."

At the end of the night, with a total of 24 points, ABBA won the contest, with the UK's entry, "Long Live Love" performed by Olivia Newton-John coming fourth with 14 points.

Björn : "Frida is a good friend with Olivia. She says that Olivia knew that we would win. We certainly talked that night, but I don't remember that, it was such chaos I hardly remember anything other than waking up the next day and finding myself and us being all over the globe suddenly. We had gone overnight from this obscure Swedish band to world fame... so unreal."

 

Following their success at the Eurovision Song Contest, ABBA spent the evening partying in the appropriately named first-floor Napoleon Suite of The Grand Brighton Hotel.

Björn : "Everyone left immediately. We stayed on at the hotel for one day, just talking about what might happen now. Planning and thinking, trying to realize that we were in that situation all of a sudden. The world was opened to us. You can imagine–you go to Brighton, and you are this band which is very well-known in Sweden but not outside. And bam! One night, and it all opens up. And, if you have something to deliver after that, it is a launching pad. Nothing was like it."

"Waterloo" (b/w "Watch Out") was released as a single in the UK on 5 April 1974 - the day before the contest.

Björn : "Stig prepared the release of the record. They shipped them the day after, not just in the U.K, but everywhere."

In the United States, the song peaked at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, paving the way for their first album and their first trip as a group there. Albeit a short promotional visit, it included their first performance on American television, The Mike Douglas Show.



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Their second album, 'Waterloo' was originally released on 4 March 1974 in Sweden through Polar Music.



The album is credited to "ABBA (Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida)" although copies released various countires including the UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the US, replaced 'Agnetha' with 'Anna' – by which she was often known in the press at the time.

Agnetha : "According to my passport, my name is Anna, Agnetha Fältskog – therefore both names are right. When I started my career as a solo singer in Sweden eight years ago, I called myself Agnetha. With ABBA, I changed it into Anna, because it was the start of a completely new career for me. My husband Björn calls me Anna as well."



Recording sessions for the album began on 24 September 1973 with the track "Dance (While the Music Still Goes On)". This song was unusual in that it is the only ABBA track not to feature member Benny Andersson on keyboards, but instead featured American pianist John Rabbit Bundrick who was in Sweden at the time. Bundrick, however, was not credited on the album.

Three weeks later the next two songs, "Suzy-Hang-Around" and "My Mama Said", were recorded. A recording sheet from the day credits the artist as "ABBA", the first time the name was ever used in writing, the group until now being called "Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid". With the working title of "Where The Sunshine Is", "Suzy-Hang-Around" was the only time Benny Andersson sang lead on an ABBA track.

Two more tracks were recorded on 17 October; "What About Livingstone" and "Honey Honey" – the latter being the second single released from the album in several countries including the United States, Australia & New Zealand, but not in the UK.

ABBA's British record label, Epic Records, decided to release a remixed version of "Ring Ring" instead of "Honey, Honey". However, this single only reached No.32, and a cover version of "Honey, Honey" became a Top 10 hit  for Sweet Dreams, featuring vocalist Polly Brown who controversially 'blacked up' for a TV performance!



"Honey Honey" spent 4 months in the top 5 in West Germany and also reached the top 5 in Austria, Spain and Switzerland. In the United States, it reached No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. Cash Box called it "a sweet pop rocker, featuring tight harmonies and excellent production."



"King Kong Song", which had the working title of "Mr. Sex", was recorded on 14 November 1973, the same day it was announced that ABBA were to appear at the Swedish selection for the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. From that point, recording sessions speeded up and the rest of the tracks were recorded like shit off a shovel.



"Gonna Sing You My Lovesong"  was recorded on 13 December 1973, and featured Frida on lead vocals, As well as Benny and Björn, the other musicians on the track included Ola Brunkert on Drums, Rutger Gunnarsson on Bass, and Janne Schaffer on Guitars.

"Waterloo" and "Watch Out", featuring a lead vocal form Björn, were recorded on the same day – 17 December 1973 the songs that made up the lead single and its B-side. The English and Swedish versions were recorded at the same session.

On 18 December 1973, the backing tracks for "Sitting In The Palmtree" and "Hasta Mañana", still known under its original working title "Who's Gonna Love You?", were recorded. The lyrics were later written by Stig Anderson while on a Christmas holiday to the Canary Islands and dictated over the telephone. While the song was being recorded, they decided to give up on it at one point because none of them could sing it properly. Agnetha was in the studio alone and decided to play around with it. She felt if she could sing it in a Connie Francis style it would work — and it did.



The album topped the Swedish album charts for 12 weeks, becoming one of the biggest-selling Swedish albums ever to that point. In the UK the album made No. 28, and it also performed well in the rest of Europe.

The album peaked at number 145 on the Billboard 200 chart, but received unanimous high praise from the US critics: Los Angeles Times called it "a compelling and fascinating debut album that captures the spirit of mainstream pop quite effectively ... an immensely enjoyable and pleasant project", while Creem characterised it as "a perfect blend of exceptional, lovable compositions".

The Single :

"Waterloo" was written by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson, and performed by ABBA.



"Waterloo" was written specifically to be entered into the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, after the group finished third with "Ring Ring" the previous year in the Swedish pre-selection contest, Melodifestivalen 1973.

Recording of the song, original titled "Honey Pie", commenced on 17 December 1973, with instrumental backing from Janne Schaffer (who came up with the main guitar and bass parts), Rutger Gunnarsson and Ola Brunkert.

The song's production style was influenced by troubled nutcase Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound". Engineer Michael B. Tretow layered multiple instrumental overdubs on the band's recordings, which became an integral part of ABBA's sound.

Subsequently, German and French versions were recorded in March and April 1974 respectively: the French version was adapted by Alain Boublil. The Swedish version of the single was backed with the Swedish version of "Honey Honey", while the English version featured "Watch Out" on the B-side.



The band considered submitting "Hasta Mañana" to Eurovision, but decided on "Waterloo" since it gave equal weight to both lead vocalists Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, while "Hasta Mañana" was sung only by Agnetha.

Björn : "It might sound ludicrous today, but then it was quite a hard decision to make. Hasta Mañana was a solo for Agnetha and a good tune, more in the Eurovision vein than Waterloo, because it was much more fun to perform. It was riskier. We took a chance, knowing it was going to be different from all the others. It could have been Hasta Mañana, and this would never have happened. It would never have won."

ABBA performed the song at Melodifestivalen 1974 in February, singing it in Swedish. The song won, and therefore advanced to Eurovision.

The song differed from the standard "dramatic ballad" tradition of the Eurovision Song Contest. ABBA gave the audience flashy costumes (including silver platform boots), plus a catchy uptempo song. The group also broke from convention by being the first winning entry in a language other than that of their home country; prior to 1973, all Eurovision singers had been required to sing in their country's native tongue, a restriction that was lifted briefly for the contests between 1973 and 1976.

Clinched with 5 votes form the Swiss jury, the song scored a total of 24 points to win the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 final on 6 April, beating runner-up Italy's entry "Sì" by Gigliola Cinquetti by six points.



"Waterloo" topped the charts in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and South Africa. It reached #2 in Austria and Zimbabwe; #3 in Spain and New Zealand; #4 in Australia, and France; #6 in the US and #7 in Canada. In Sweden, the Swedish version peaked at #2, while the English version reached #3.



Other Versions include :  Elvira Voća (1974)  /  Miluška Voborníková (1974)  /  Lecia & Lucienne (1974)  /  Top of the Poppers (1974)  /  The Wynners (1974)  /  Springbok (1974)  /  Inger Lise (1974)  /  Christina (1974)  /  Ami Aspelund (1974)  /  Koivistolaiset (1974)  /  Moog (1976) /  Nashville Train (1977)  /  St. Winifred's School Choir (1980)  /  Doctor & The Medics with Roy Wood (1986)  /  Cloth (1995)  /  Nation (1995)  /  Los Enemigos (1995)  /  Wonderprick (1995)  /  Abbacadabra (1996)  /  E-Rotic (1997)  /  Osmo's Cosmos (1997)  /  Bananarama (1998)  /  Gabba (1999)  /  Tiny T (2000)  /  Small Talk (2001)  /  The Monks of Moramanga (2003)  /  Michelle Hardwick, Vickie Gates, Will Mellor, Lee Otway (2004)  /  Carola & Marit Bergman (2005)  /  Banaroo (2005)  /  Riff Raff (2006)  /  Cotton Club Singers (2006)  /  Kaapo & Zetor (2007)  /  Black ABBA (2008)  /  Andreas Johnson (2008)  /  Eliza Lacerda (2009)  /  Brdr. Olsen (2010)  /  Claudia Barbosa (2011)  /  Jasmine Thorpe ft. Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  Sound Of Strings (2013)  /  Yesiloveguitar (2013)  /  Judith Nijland (2016)  /  Judith Nijland feat. Yuri Honing (2016)  /  Hugh Skinner & Lily James (2018)  /  Cher (2018)  /  Daniela Simmons Jazzed with A Certain Note (2019)  /  ABBA Chique (2019)  /  Corinne Mammana (2020)  /  Francesco Parrino (2021)  /  Gutter Rose (2021)  /  Sam Ryder (2022)  / Shut Up & Kiss Me! (2022)

On This Day :

30 April : US President Richard Nixon hands over partial transcripts of Watergate tape recordings
30 April : Agnes Moorehead, American actress (Endora in Bewitched), dies of uterine cancer aged 73
2 May : Six Catholic civilians killed and eighteen wounded when the UVF explode a bomb at Rose & Crown Bar on Ormeau Road, Belfast
4 May : Geraldo, British dance bandleader, dies of a heart attack at 69
6 May : West German Chancellor Willy Brandt resigns amidst controversy over his aide Günter Guillaume's ties with the Stasi
8 May : 50 MPH speed limit in Britain lifted
8 May : Jon Tickle, TV presenter (Brainiac), born in Norwich, England
8 May : Graham Bond, British R&B musician, dies jumping under a train at 36
11 May : A violent 7.1 earthquake shakes the Chinese city of Zhaotong causing between 1,600 and 20,000 deaths.

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