The Manchester Scene: 1963 – 1973

The overnight success of The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers in early 1963 sent the London managers, agents and record company men scurrying not just to Merseyside but to other large centres of population in the North of England – to Birmingham, Newcastle and to Manchester.

Because of its proximity to Liverpool, the Rainy City was an obvious place to seek out groups to ride the Beat Boom bandwagon, and indeed, one Manchester outfit, The Dakotas, had already achieved success by migrating to Merseyside and joining up with singer Billy J Kramer.

Very soon, other Mancunians were experiencing an equally swift rise to national prominence, and in an early interview, Graham Nash described how it happened for The Hollies:

“When Tommy Sanderson, who became our manager, heard about us, we had only been formed as our present group for a month. He travelled up to Manchester to hear us play, and almost immediately, we were rushed to London for a recording session with Parlophone. The next thing we knew, we had signed a recording contract and our first record – (Ain’t That) Just Like Me – had hit the charts within three days of release.”

That was in September 1963, when The Hollies were the second all-Manchester act to make the hit parade. They were preceded by Freddie and the Dreamers, who had already reached the Top 10 twice, with If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody and I’m Telling You Now.

Despite the fact that his first record was a soulful rhythm and blues song by an obscure American singer called James Ray, Freddie Garrity soon turned out to be Manchester’s answer to Gerry Marsden. “Zany” was the word the publicists used most often to describe his stage act.

He was small and wore glasses and had a large toothy grin that never seemed to sag. His stage movements consisted mainly of waving his arms about and leaping up and down at frequent intervals.

After his first record, his songs were all tailored to fit this image – jolly little pieces rather like the numbers Mitch Murray was turning out regularly for Gerry.

Freddie and the Dreamers didn’t last very long as a hit-making group, but six records reached the Top 20 in two years.

Ironically, the last hit was the old ballad I Understand – but Freddie Garrity clearly did, because instead of carrying on as a pop has-been, he deftly switched to the role of ‘all-round entertainer’. He increased the number of jokes in his act, threw in some pre-rock songs and made a good living for himself around the clubs, in pantomime and ultimately on children’s TV.

Looking back, it can be seen that Freddie, Like Gerry and others before him (notably Tommy Steele), was basically a traditional type of British entertainer who used pop as the most accessible way into show business as a whole. He was never as committed to music as his Manchester contemporaries, The Hollies.

If Freddie was the Manchester Gerry, The Hollies were that city’s reply to The Beatles. Apart from the Fab Four, no other 1960s group has had as many Top 20 hits, and none had as intricate and instantly recognisable vocal harmonies.

The man behind The Hollies’ singing was Graham Nash, rhythm guitarist and leader of the band until he left for the greener pastures of California in 1969. Together, Nash, guitarist Tony Hicks and lead singer Alan Clarke got closer than anyone else in Britain to the sheer joyful power of The Beach Boys‘ vocal work.

The other thing The Hollies had going for them was a series of well-made pop songs for their singles, with just the right touch of class in the lyrics and melody; aside from the groups who wrote all their own stuff, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who, only Manfred Mann could pick them as well as The Hollies.

Like many other bands of that era, they began by recording earlier American songs – Searchin’ by The Coasters and Stay by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. The latter set the format for the next few hits: Just One Look, Here I Go Again, and I’m Alive, The Hollies’ only #1 record.

They were all fast-paced, opening with exhilarating harmonies leading into Alan Clarke’s lead voice and Tony Hicks’ solid guitar solos, which followed the melody line. Like George Harrison on the early Beatles hits, there were to be no Hendrix-style pyrotechnics here.

On stage, The Hollies looked pretty good, too. Hicks and Nash were small, good-looking boys, by turns cherubic and impish, while Clarke was the big handsome hunk out in front. Behind them, drummer Bobby Elliott and bass guitarist Eric Haydock thumped out the rhythm.

While many of the lesser beat groups who rode the crest of the Merseybeat wave sank below the surface after a year or two, The Hollies seemed to get better all the time. Their best records came alI in a bunch in 1966 – 1967, at the same time as The Beatles were making a great leap forward with Revolver and Sgt Pepper.

Though they were mostly still love songs, their settings were imaginative and unusual.

Bus Stop was a two-and-a-half-minute version of a love comic story expressed in a concise series of verses and must be the only hit record to have used the words “umbrella” and “queue”. Carrie Anne included a flashback to children’s games in which “I was a Janitor, you were a Monitor”, while On A Carousel drew its central image from fairground roundabouts and contained the haunting line “nearer and nearer by changing horses”.

Best of all, though, were Stop Stop Stop and King Midas In Reverse. Stop had a daring subject for its time: the problems of a patron of a belly-dancing performance who couldn’t keep his hands off the dancer – “Like a snake, her body fascinates me/I can’t look away now”. The customer is eventually thrown out and concludes ruefully, “It happens every week”.

Midas, on the other hand, was a superb production job, building from 12-string guitar through woodwind in the middle eight to a crashing climax of brass. It was also a simple but novel lyrical idea: “He’s not the man to hold your trust/Everything he touches turns to dust”.

And through all these hit singles, the well-established Hollies sound shone out.

The group was less successful when it came to making albums. Like everyone else in the mid-’60s, they had ambitions to emulate The Beatles by making ‘concept’ albums that would stand up as well as their singles. They tried social comment and psychedelia (though the most way-out thing about the album Evolution was its cover) and even did Hollies Sing Dylan.

But none of it quite came off, and time and again, their singles hits were still better than anything on the accompanying LPs.

The Hollies began to tail off when Graham Nash left to form his supergroup with David Crosby and Steve Stills, though they made a couple of subsequent hit records without him in the classic Hollies style. Alan Clarke also left to start a solo career with an album called My Real Name Is ‘Arold, but eventually rejoined.

Throughout the ’60s, another very different Manchester performer kept pace with The Hollies. He was boyish actor Peter Noone, better known as the lead singer of Herman’s Hermits.

‘Singer’ is perhaps a misleading description for Herman because, though he could warble a little, he was, like Freddie, basically a face. But a pretty face, not a funny one.

His appeal was that of a one-man Monkees: sexy, but in a cheerful, cheeky and therefore safe way. Like The Monkees, he captured the hearts of teenage America before conquering Britain.

Listen People was the song, written by Graham Gouldman, a member of another Manchester group, The Mockingbirds. It sold a million copies in the States but didn’t come out in Britain. Not that it mattered much because the first British release, I’m Into Something Good (yet another cover of a US hit, this time by a girl called Earl Jean), went to #1 anyway.

After that, it didn’t really matter what Herman recorded. They all became hits, though none did quite as well as the first single. His singing voice had the gangling charm of his stage presence, which was enough.

The records came and went regularly every few months as, eventually, did the TV appearances and the pantomimes.

Herman, The HoIlies and Freddie were the leading figures in Manchester pop in the 1960s, but mention should also be made of some of the also-rans. Like The Four Pennies from nearby Blackburn, whose sweetly sincere voices put Juliet at #1 in the summer of 1964, only to disappear from view almost as quickly as they had arrived.

And the more durable Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders who scored with Major Lance’s curious soul ballad Um Um Um Um Urn Um later that year. They were a complete contrast in style and appearance to Herman’s Hermits.

Wayne Fontana had long, straight, greasy-looking dark hair and was rugged and moody. He was obviously from the other side of the Manchester tracks.

After another hit, Game Of Love, he split with his backing group and tried unsuccessfully to go it alone. Surprisingly, The Mindbenders, now led by the equally saturnine Eric Stewart, kept on where Wayne left off, making the charts with A Groovy Kind Of Love in 1966.

And that should have been the end of the story of Manchester pop: gradually fading out, like Merseybeat, as one by one, the leading figures of 1963/1964 fell by the wayside.

But in 1971, a phoenix arose from the ashes of the Beat Boom.

From a small recording studio in nearby Stockport, used mainly for TV jingles and football songs, came a novelty hit, Neanderthal Man. The group responsible for it was called Hotlegs and included ex-Mindbender Eric Stewart, plus ex-members of The Mockingbirds, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley.

A few months later, Graham Gouldman returned from songwriting in America to his native Manchester, where the four worked together on a new song –  Donna. 10cc, one of the brightest hopes in ’70s British pop was born.

More than anyone, Graham Gouldman was the link between the old and new Manchester scenes. As a songwriter, he was a crucial backstage figure in the ’60s. As well as Herman’s Listen People, he wrote Bus Stop, No Milk Today (one of Herman’s more memorable hits), and a series of songs recorded by The Yardbirds: For Your Love, Heart Full Of Soul and Evil Hearted You.

Donna was the start of an unbroken string of hits for 10cc, and Stockport’s Strawberry Studios began attracting attention from other artists, notably Neil Sedaka, who recorded an album there with 10cc as the backing group.

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