Adam Faith was born Terence Nelhams in Acton, London, on 23 June 1940, and left school wanting to enter the film world. The desire led…
Browsing: British Invasion
Alan Price started out as a northern British bluesman, playing with a combo of Hilton Valentine, Bryan ‘Chas’ Chandler and John Steel on the Newcastle…
So it goes like this . . . 15-year-old Paul McCartney hears a Skiffle group called The Quarrymen play on Saturday 6 July 1957. Along with a police dog…
Billy Kramer (real name William Howard Ashton) was an apprentice fitter for British Rail. He was also the lead singer for a Liverpool group called…
In the halcyon years of the ‘British Invasion’ of America – 1964 and 1965 – who were the two most successful acts? Well The Beatles were obviously…
Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde were friends and classmates at the prestigious Central School for Speech and Drama in London. They originally came together musically…
Cilla Black was born Priscilla Maria Veronica White in Liverpool on 27 May 1943. The family lived over a bank and behind a barber’s shop…
Originally a backing group for north London singer Stan Saxon, the Five originally comprised Dave Clark on drums and vocals, backed by various musicians, including…
Hailing from the same West Country region of England as The Troggs (the agricultural cathedral city of Salisbury, actually) this group started life as Dave Dee and…
Donovan Phillips Leitch was born in Glasgow in May 1946 and moved to Hatfield in Hertfordshire when he was ten. By 1964 he was living…
The Fortunes began life as a Birmingham-Welsh vocal trio fronting The Cliftones – whose repertoire was based around easy-listening songs (including Maria from West Side Story). With the…
The group formed in late 1959 and were originally called The Blue Jays, then The Four Jays and then The Four Mosts. One of the…
In 1956, sixteen-year-old Freddie Garrity won a razor as first prize in a Sale talent contest with an Al Jolson impersonation. Sucked into skiffle’s vortex,…
Born Gerard Marsden in Liverpool on 24 September 1942, Gerry formed his first group with his brother Freddie. A skiffle outfit, the band were originally called The…
Herman’s Hermits were one of the most interesting of the original wave of British Invasion groups. Unlike The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, The Hermits didn’t threaten authority figures with…
When The Hollies began recording in 1963, they relied heavily upon the R&B/early rock & roll covers that provided the staple diet for most British…
One of the first rock groups to have a female drummer, The Honeycombs, were formed in London in 1963 as The Sheratons by hairdressers Martin…
The Hullaballoos formed in Hull (hence their name) in August 1964 after working for several years under the name of Ricky Knight and The Crusaders.…
Three session singers – John Carter, Ken Lewis and Perry Ford – got together as The Ivy League. Carter (born John Shakespeare) and Lewis had…
The Kinks – from London’s Muswell Hill district – began their career in a similar way to hundreds of other groups, playing R&B and blues…