Gang

Gang was assembled and managed by British songwriter and producer John Goodison, who also wrote and produced hits for other 1970s pop acts like The Bay City Rollers and Mud. He had been an original foundational member and vocalist for The Brotherhood of Man and co-wrote their early international hit United We Stand.

The group of handsome young teen lads was designed to appeal to the massive teen bubblegum and glam market of the mid-70s.

Goodison packaged the boys in a distinctive Prohibition-era gangster style – complete with double-breasted pinstripe suits, fedoras, and toy Tommy guns – to capitalise on the popular 1920s nostalgia craze of the mid-70s (popularised at the time by the 1976 musical film Bugsy Malone).

Actively promoted to the teenybopper market across the UK and Germany in 1975 and 1976, their distinct visual look earned them features in the British teen music press like Supersonic (July 1976) and a prominent multi-page photo story/profile in Germany’s massive Bravo magazine, where readers voted them as one of the most promising and handsome-looking new groups.

A 1976 self-titled album was released on the short-lived Buk Records label (a boutique 1970s subsidiary imprint of Decca Records) and contained their single, I’m Both Sides Now

John Goodison died on 3 September 1988, after suffering a heart attack aged 45.