Chris Sandford & The Coronets

Chris Sandford can be regarded as the very first soap star to hold down two careers simultaneously: becoming pop singer as well as actor. He appeared in TV's Maigret, No Hiding Place, Z Cars, The Persuaders, Dad's Army, The Liver Birds and Danger Man, as well as such films as Half A Sixpence, Deep End and Up The Chastity Belt.
Sandford was born 6th June 1944 in Wallasey, Cheshire but moved to London 2 years later.
He joined a band called the Tennessee Disciples until he attended an acting college where he met Mitch Mitchell, later drummer with the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
His theatrical background includes parts in The Kitchen, The Unexpected Guest. He first achieved notoriety as The Singing Milkman “Walter Potts” in television's soap Opera “Coronation Street”. The song he performed in the programme, "Not too Little, Not too Much" reached the 17th position in British charts in early 1964, as a result he became a real full time singer and needed a group to back him for live gigs and so The Coronets were formed around his friend Mitch Mitchell, on drums, and Norman Hale, the original organist of The Tornados. In February 1964, Chris Sandford & The Coronets went on the road, touring clubs such as The Bridgwater's Top Twenty which was packed for The Coronation Street star's visit. They then took part in the Roy Orbison’s British tour during April and May 1964 with Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, Freddie & the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders and Tony Sheridan & The Big Patrick Six. They also supported the Rolling Stones at Coventry about that time. In fall 1964, 14 year old drummer Eric Dillon replaced Mitch Mitchell who joined The Riot Squad, a R’n’B band assembled by producer Larry Page.
During 1965, Chris Sandford had a six-week stint as a DJ on the pirate station “Radio Caroline” where he was originally employed in the sales department. He then went into the A & R field and became the manager of the band which reverted to a quintet and used the old name of "The Lively Set". Sandford produced their debut single “Don't Call My Name”, released in July 1965 on Pye. They appeared on TV, 'Five O'Clock Club' and also backed American rocker Gene Vincent.
In September 1965, The Lively set toured the Storyville clubs in Germany alongwith Neil Landon & The Burnettes, which featured Noel Redding on guitar. Mitch Mitchell eventually returned to the fold because Eric Dillon was under age and couldn’t work there with the band. Kevin Lang, bass player with The Burnettes, recalls: “The first time we met Eric Dillon was in Frankfurt. He was only 14 years old and the band smuggled him into Germany under the seats of their van, he was under age and did not have a work permit. No one ever found out and he stayed in Germany quite a while.”
Dillon and keyboardist Norman Hale were briefly enlisted in The Burnettes a few time before they broke up.
Mitchell finally left the group and joined Georgie Fames & The Blue Flames, and Eric Dillon became the permanent drummer until The Lively set split up in 1966. Dillon re-united with Noel Redding in a new group, 'Fat Mattress', 3 years later.
Chris Sandford cut two other singles for Decca and Fontana labels, including a Bob Dylan spoof called “I Wish They Wouldn't Always Say I Sound Like The Guy From The USA Blues.” He then concentrated on his acting career.
During the 70s, Chris Sandford continued to make records and was backed by his Friendship then The Rag 'n' Bone Band.
Terry New, lead guitarist of The Coronets
"The Coronets was formed to back a TV actor called Chris Sandford who was then appearing regularly in a popular Soap Opera on UK TV - "Coronation Street". In the programme he was a singing window cleaner who wanted to become a recording artist. He made a record called "Not Too Little Not Too Much" which was quite sucessful at the time and got quite high in the UK Charts. He needed a group to back him for live gigs and so the Coronets were formed. Mitch was a friend of Chris Sandford, they met at an acting college.

The Coronets never recorded under that name and when the Chris Sandford & The Coronets gigs ended we recorded as The Lively Set with Chris Sandford as our recording manager."
Here is "You're Gonna Be My Girl"/Don't Leave Me Now (Decca F 11842) - February 1964, with The Coronets.
Enjoy.

The Zombies

The Zombies are an English rock band formed in 1961 in St Albans and led by keyboardist and vocalist Rod Argent and vocalist Colin Blunstone.

The group scored British and American hits in 1964 with "She's Not There". In the US two further singles, "Tell Her No" in 1965 and "Time of the Season" in 1968, were also successful. Their 1968 album Odessey and Oracle is ranked number 100 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The Zombies will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.
Three members of the band, Rod Argent, Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy, first came together to jam in 1961 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England. Argent wanted to form a band and initially asked his elder cousin Jim Rodford to join as a bassist. Rodford was in a successful local band, the Bluetones, at the time and so declined, but he offered to help Argent (Rodford would later join in 2004 when the band reformed). Colin Blunstone and Paul Arnold joined the other three to form the band in April 1961, while all five members were at school.
Their original name was the Mustangs, but they quickly realised that there were other groups with that name. It was Arnold who came up with the Zombies, according to Blunstone. When Argent was asked about the origins of the band's name in a 2015 interview with PopMatters journalist J.C. Maçek III, Argent said, "Well, we chose that name in 1962 and, I mean, I knew vaguely that they were: sort of, you know, the Walking Dead from Haiti and Colin didn't even really know what they were." Argent explains, "It was [original bass guitarist] Paul [Arnold] that came up with the name. I don't know where he got it from. He very soon left the band after that." However, Arnold also left his mark with the name. "I thought this was a name that no one else is going to have. And I just liked the whole idea of it. Colin was wary, I'm sure, at the beginning, I know, but I always, always really, really liked it."Arnold lost interest in the band and chose to leave to become a physician; he was replaced by Chris White. After winning a beat-group competition sponsored by the London Evening News, they signed a recording contract with Decca and recorded their first hit, "She's Not There". It was released in mid-1964 and peaked at number 12 in the UK, becoming their only UK Top 40 hit. The tune began to catch on in the United States and eventually climbed to number 2 in early December. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.
Like many other British Invasion groups, the Zombies were sent to the United States to tour behind their new hit single. Among their early US gigs were Murray the K's Christmas shows at the Brooklyn Fox Theatre, where the band played seven performances a day. On 12 January 1965, the band made its first in-person appearance on US television, on the first episode of NBC's Hullabaloo and played "She's Not There" (and their new single "Tell Her No") to a screaming, hysterical audience full of teenage girls.

In the UK, the Zombies' follow-up single to "She's Not There" was written by Chris White. "Leave Me Be" was unsuccessful in the UK and as a result was not issued as an A-side in the US. It did appear as the B side of their second US single, "Tell Her No". Penned by Rod Argent, "Tell Her No" became another big seller in 1965, peaking at No.6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March. As the band's third UK single, "Tell Her No" failed to make the Top 40, peaking at number 42. Subsequent recordings such as "She's Coming Home", "Whenever You're Ready", "Is This the Dream", "Indication" and "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself" failed to achieve the success of the previous two singles (although the Zombies had continued success in Scandinavia and the Philippines, which led to a series of concerts in 1967). A song by the Zombies released only as a B-side (to "Whenever You're Ready") in both the US and UK in 1965, "I Love You" subsequently became a sizeable hit for the group People! in the United States in 1968.In 1967, frustrated by their continuing lack of success, the Zombies signed a recording contract with CBS Records for whom they recorded the album Odessey and Oracle at EMI's world-famous Abbey Road studios. (Odyssey was accidentally misspelled by Terry Quirk, an art teacher who designed the cover). The band's budget would not cover session musicians, so they used a Mellotron. According to Argent, this was in fact John Lennon's Mellotron, which had been left in the studio because the Beatles had just finished recording their own album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album was mixed into the standard mono, however as another concession toward their limited budget, Argent and White (who, due to their songwriting royalties, had earned more than the rest of the members) personally paid for the stereo mixes.

The change in direction was evident on their first single released by CBS, "Care of Cell 44", a song about the anticipation felt while waiting for the singer's partner to be released from prison. It is also notable for the title of the song not appearing anywhere in the lyrics. Unfortunately, like their previous Decca releases, it failed to reach the charts. A second CBS 45, "Friends of Mine", was also unsuccessful. With the band experiencing a declining demand for live appearances, the band split up after a final gig in mid-December 1967. Odessey and Oracle, the band's swansong , was released in April 1968 and sold poorly. It was only given a US release because musician Al Kooper, then signed to Columbia Records, convinced his label of the album's merits. One of its tracks, "Time of the Season", written by Argent, was released as a single in 1968 and spent a long period as a 'sleeper'. Eventually, in 1969, it grew to become a nationwide hit in the US, peaking in the Hot 100 (Billboard at No.3).

In 1968, Argent and White began working on material for a possible new band when they were approached by CBS to do another Zombies album. Several new tracks were cut with a line-up of Argent, Hugh Grundy, Rodford (bass) and Rick Birkett (guitar), and were combined with some old Decca out-takes and demos that were overdubbed and enhanced in sessions at Morgan Studios in London. The album, scheduled for release in 1969, was cancelled and only a couple of the songs, "Imagine the Swan" (one of the newly recorded songs) and "If It Don't Work Out" (a demo of a song that Dusty Springfield recorded and released in 1965), were put out as singles instead (some of this material was released on several compilation albums during the 1970s and 1980s, and the album, titled R.I.P., was finally released in Japan in 2008).
n 2017, the four surviving original members (Colin Blunstone, Rod Argent, Chris White, and Hugh Grundy) re-united to carry out a North American tour marking the 50th anniversary of the recording of Odessey and Oracle. The first stop on this tour was a first-time performance in Jamaica, as the featured artist on the Flower Power Cruise on the Celebrity Summit while in port in Falmouth. A popular podcast, S-Town, used "A Rose for Emily" as its closing music. This exposure helped The Zombies land a guest appearance on Conan in May 2017. The band was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in October 2017. They were nominated again a year later and were announced as one of seven inductees for the 2019 class in December 2018.

Jim Rodford died after a fall on 20 January 2018, aged 76. He was replaced by Søren Koch (from the Danish band The Beatophonics).
Here is "This Will Be Our Year" From 1968 Enjoy.

My Xmas tree is up!!!!

At Last. Ive put up my Xmas Tree...Took me a while but i managed.......

Percy Faith

Percy Faith (April 7, 1908 – February 9, 1976) was a Canadian bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor, known for his lush arrangements of pop and Christmas standards. He is often credited with popularizing the "easy listening" or "mood music" format. Faith became a staple of American popular music in the 1950s and continued well into the 1960s. Though his professional orchestra-leading career began at the height of the swing era, Faith refined and rethought orchestration techniques, including use of large string sections, to soften and fill out the brass-dominated popular music of the 1940s`.
Faith was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. He was the oldest of eight children. His parents, Abraham Faith and Minnie, née Rottenberg, were Jewish. He played violin and piano as a child, and played in theatres and at Massey Hall. After his hands were badly burned in a fire, he turned to conducting, and his live orchestras used the new medium of radio broadcasting.

Beginning with defunct stations CKNC and CKCL, Faith was a staple of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's live-music broadcasting from 1933 to 1940, when he resettled in Chicago. In the early 1940s, Faith was orchestra leader for the Carnation Contented program on NBC. From 1948-1949 he also served as the orchestra leader on the CBS radio network program The Coca-Cola Hour (also called The Pause That Refreshes). The orchestral accordionist John Serry Sr. collaborated with Faith in these broadcasts.

In 1945, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He made many recordings for Voice of America. After working briefly for Decca Records, he worked for Mitch Miller at Columbia Records, where he turned out dozens of albums and provided arrangements for many of the pop singers of the 1950s, including Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Johnny Mathis for Mathis's 1958 Christmas album titled Merry Christmas, and Guy Mitchell for whom Faith wrote Mitchell's number-one single, "My Heart Cries for You".

His most famous and remembered recordings are "Delicado" (1952), "The Song from Moulin Rouge" (1953) and "Theme from A Summer Place" (1960), which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1961. Faith remains the only artist to have the best selling single of the year during both the pop singer era ("Song from Moulin Rouge") and the rock era ("Theme from a Summer Place"); and he is one of only three artists, along with Elvis Presley and The Beatles, to have the best selling single of the year twice. The B-side of "Song from the Moulin Rouge" was "Swedish Rhapsody" by Hugo Alfvén. In 1961 his fame in Sweden would rise exponentially as his work Mucho Gusto would become the theme music for the sports broadcasts of Sveriges Radio.

Though Faith initially mined the worlds of Broadway, Hollywood and Latin music for many of his top-selling 1950s recordings, he enjoyed popularity starting in 1962 with his orchestral versions of popular rock and pop hits of the day. His Themes for Young Lovers album was a top seller during this era and introduced the Faith sound to a younger generation of listeners. With the success of Columbia record-mate Ray Conniff's chorus and orchestra during this same time, Faith began using a chorus (usually all female in most of his recordings, but used a mixed chorus on his albums Leaving on a Jet Plane and I Think I Love You, which were released in 1970 and 1971 respectively) in several popular albums from the mid-1960s on. Faith's first single with a female chorus, "Yellow Days," was a substantial hit in the MOR (Middle of the Road) easy listening radio format of the mid-1960s. Faith continued to enjoy airplay and consistent album sales throughout the early 1970s, and received a second Grammy award in 1969 for his album Love Theme from 'Romeo and Juliet'.

Though best known for his recording career, Faith also occasionally scored motion pictures, and received an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of the song score for the Doris Day musical feature, Love Me or Leave Me. His other film scores included romantic comedies and dramatic features such as Tammy Tell Me True (1961), I'd Rather Be Rich (1964), The Third Day (1965) and The Oscar (1966). Faith also composed the popular theme for the long running NBC series The Virginian.

With the advent of harder rock sounds in the 1970s, Faith's elegant arrangements fell out of favour with the listening and record-buying public, although he continued to release albums as diverse and contemporary as Jesus Christ Superstar and Black Magic Woman. He released one album of country music and two albums of disco-oriented arrangements toward the end of his forty-year career, his very last recording being a disco-style reworking of "Theme from a Summer Place", titled "Summer Place '76", which was a minor and posthumous hit. Faith died of cancer in Encino, California, and was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. His wife, Mary (Palange) Faith, was born November 24, 1909, and died November 27, 1997, in Los Angeles. They married in 1928 and had 2 children, Marilyn and Peter.
Here is "Happy Holiday" From 1966 Enjoy.

The Rattles

The Rattles are a German rock band, formed in Hamburg in 1960, most prominently known for their 1970 psychedelic hit single, "The Witch".
The Rattles performed in Hamburg, and played at the same venues as The Beatles on several occasions in 1962. In 1964 the group recorded "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah", which charted in the UK. In 1968 they recorded their first version of "The Witch", with vocals by Henner Hoier. The band's records sold well in Germany during the 1960s.
Their second version of "The Witch" in 1970, this time with vocals by Edna Bejarano, became their only international hit. "The Witch" appeared in the Top 10 on the UK Singles Chart, the top 20 in Austria, and reached the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S.. It eventually sold over one million copies. Rosetta Stone released a gothic rock cover of "The Witch" in the 1990s. The Norwegian psychedelic hard rock band Motorpsycho covered the song during 1999 and 2000. A recording of this song can be found on their bootleg Live Union Scene from 14 April 1999.
Here is "Zip-A-Dee=Doo-Dah" From 1964 Enjoy.




Here is a Bonus "The Witch" FRom 1970 Enjoy.

The British Walkers

The British Walkers
From: Washington D.C., MD, USA

The British Walkers weren’t actually British. They were an American band whose sound was influenced by The Rolling Stones, The Who, and The Kinks. Forming in 1964, The British Walkers lasted only four years, breaking up in 1968. The band’s debut single was “I Found You,” released on Try Records. The song was written by Bobby Howard (vocals, harmonica, keyboard) and Roy Buchanan (lead guitar). Roy had actually started writing the song years before as a love song to his wife. The B-side was a remake of the Bo Diddley classic “Diddley Daddy.”

Buchanan would go on to become a Washington D.C. area legend, greatly renowned for his blues guitar prowess. It is believed that he was asked to replace Brian Jones in The Rolling Stones. Buchanan wasn’t a member of The British Walkers for very long. There were several occasions in which he was not at a gig, and would be found at home locked up in the closet. In 1988, Roy hanged himself in his jail cell after being arrested for public intoxication – at least, that is the “official” cause for his death. Bruises to Buchanan’s head were never explained, but it has been documented that Buchanan was beaten by the local police before his arrest. In 2003, Rolling Stone declared Buchanan one of “The 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time,” landing the #57 spot.

John Hall was another prominent member of The British Walkers. Hall joined the band briefly in 1967 towards the end of their career. Hall gained fame for co-writing the song “Half Moon” for Janis Joplin. Hall was also a guiding force behind the 1970s concert No Nukes, and later was the leader of the highly successful group Orleans. He also had an extended solo career. In 2006, Hall was elected Congressman for New York’s 19th district and assumed office in early 2007.

Frontman and band leader, Bobby Howard, was unhappy to find out that band representatives Bobby Poe and Mitch Corday had trademarked the name The British Walkers. This meant that, if Howard left the band, the name would go on. Howard did decide to quit the band in 1967 and the name did continue, with John Hall and other going in and out of the lineup. Corday even went to England to recruit actual British members for the band, including Geoff Richardson (guitar) of The Attack, but it was far from the same and everyone knew the band’s days were numbered.

In 1966, Howard recorded a “solo” single. It was recorded with the current lineup for The British Walkers, but released as a Howard song. The single eventually attained cult status in the UK and is seen as a collectors item. The band recorded the single “Sh’ Mon” under the moniker Mr. Dynamite. “Sh’ Mon” was a song that could very easily be mistaken for a Soul music workout by James Brown. The late Charlie Hampton arranged the song, and the horns on the track have is signature sound. The single was released by Sue Records in the UK and is considered a collectors item, selling for a substantial amount. In America, “Sh’ Mon” was the only release on Soultime Records, a label Poe started for the occasion.

The British Walkers recorded a number of singles over their brief existence. The only one that charted was “Shake” / “That Was Yesterday.” Initially, “Shake” had been written and recorded by Sam Cooke. This version featured Tom and Charlie Willett on vocals. Howard’s vocals had been removed from the single when he quit the band during an argument with management. The B-side, “That Was Yesterday,” was written by Frank Dillon and Vernon Sandusky of The Chartbusters. The Chartbusters were actually the backing band on the “Shake” single, and by this time, The British Walkers were a band in name only, primarily existing to fulfill concert commitments.

“Shake” was released on the Cameo Parkway label and landed on the national charts. The British Walkers Shoe Company was going to offer the band a substantial amount of money if the single entered the Billboard Top 10. However, two things happened, preventing this from happening. Otis Redding released a great version of “Shake” and the new owner of Cameo Parkway pulled the plug on the entire label, thus costing the band the shoe deal. The new owner was Allen Klein and when he purchased the label, there was talk that The Rolling Stones would record for Cameo Parkway, driving the stock price way up. In 1969, the label was resurrected in 1969 as ABKCO Records, but none of the previous roster was brought back.

Artist Info: thebritishwalkers.blogspot.com

Feel free to use Their Facebook page to discuss & ask any questions you have about this artist, a fellow PsycheHead is sure to have the answer.
Here is "Diddley Daddy"From 1964 Enjoy.

The Cake

 

The Cake was a 1960s girl group consisting of Jeanette Jacobs, Barbara Morillo and Eleanor Barooshian. They were managed and produced by Greene & Stone, two Sunset Strip impresarios who also managed Sonny & Cher, Buffalo Springfield and Iron Butterfly.

The Cake formed in New York in 1966, starting out as an a cappella vocal group singing at Steve Paul's The Scene. Barooshian and Morillo both appeared in You Are What You Eat, a 1968 documentary film produced by Peter Yarrow. In the film, Barooshian performed the Sonny & Cher hit "I Got You Babe" with Tiny Tim. She sang the male part, while Tiny Tim sang the female.

What set The Cake apart from other girl groups of the time is that they recorded their own material, as well as a number of R&B standards. Their own songs were in the vein of 1960s baroque pop with intricate madrigal-style vocal harmonies. They released two albums on Decca Records, The Cake (1967) and A Slice Of Cake (1968). Both were recorded at the Gold Star Recording Studios in Los Angeles.

Their debut single was the Jack Nitzsche and Jackie De Shannon penned song, "Baby, That's Me". The production of the song, which was arranged by Harold Battiste, mimicked the Wall of Sound technique created by Nitzsche and Phil Spector. Billboard named the song #64 on their list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time. Barooshian also contributed back-up vocals to "Why Are We Sleeping?", a track on The Soft Machine, the 1968 debut album by the British psychedelic rock band of the same name.

Following the break-up of The Cake in 1968, Jacobs and Barooshian toured with Dr John, who was one of the session musicians on their albums, and subsequently moved to the UK, where they became part of Ginger Baker's Air Force. Barooshian also recorded an album in Japan with Tetsu Yamauchi.

Jacobs married Chris Wood of the English group Traffic in 1969. Jeanette Jacobs-Wood died on January 1, 1982, aged 32.

The Kevin Ayers song 'Eleanor's Cake (which ate her)' from the LP 'Joy of a Toy' released in 1970 was written about Barooshian.

In 2006, after a thirty seven-year hiatus, Barooshian and Morillo reformed The Cake, to perform at a one-off Jimi Hendrix tribute concert in New York, organized by Hendrix archivist and documentary film-maker, David Kramer. The show also featured Buddy Miles, Johnny Winter, Jose Feliciano and Leon Hendrix. Their two Decca albums have been re-released on CD by Rev-Ola Records.

Eleanor Barooshian died in 2016 at the age of 66.

Discography

Studio Albums

The Cake (Decca,1967)

A Slice of Cake (Decca,1968)

Compilation

More of Cake(Rev-Ola (Cherry Red),2007)

Singles

"Baby,That's Me" / "Mockingbird" (Decca,1967)

"I Know" / "You can have him" (Decca, 1967)

"Fire Fly" / Rainbow Wood" (Decca, 1968)

"P.T. 280" / "Have you Heard the News" (Decca,1968)

Here is "You  can Have Him" From 1967 Enjoy.

The Syndicats

The Syndicats were an English popular music group, notable for being future Yes guitarist Steve Howe's first band. When Howe left for Tomorrow in 1965, he was replaced by Ray Fenwick, who was then replaced by Peter Banks, who Howe would come to replace in Yes. Fenwick played lead guitar on the band's most famous song "Crawdaddy Simone", which he co-wrote with Jeff Williams, the band's keyboardist. Further members were Tom Ladd (lead vocals; born Thomas Ladd in 1940), John Truelove (drums; born John Melton in 1941), Kevin Driscoll (vocals and bass; co-founder; born Kevin C. Driscoll on 16 September 1945 and died on 16 August 1982 in London), Johnny Lamb (lead vocals; born John Lamb), and, Paul Holm (drums on last single).Their three singles on Columbia (EMI) were produced by Joe Meek. "Crawdaddy Simone" is played over the end credits of Telstar, a film biopic of Meek, released in June 2009.
Singles
"Maybellene" (Berry) / "True to Me" (Ladd/Howe) (8 April 1964, Columbia DB 7238)
"Howling For My Baby" (Dixon) / "What To Do" (Howe/Truelove/K. Driscoll/T. Driscoll) (January 1965, Columbia DB 7441)
"On the Horizon" (Leiber/Stoller) / "Crawdaddy Simone" (Fenwick/Williams) (10 September 1965, Columbia DB 7686)
The band's output, except the song "Crawdaddy Simone", was released on Steve Howe's compilation album Mothballs (RPM Records, 1994).
Songs
Crawdaddy SimoneTelstar: The Joe Meek Story OST · 2009
Howlin' for My Baby 1994
On the Horizon 1994
Active From 1963-65
Here is "True To Me" From 1964 Enjoy.

Billy Cotton

William Edward "Billy" Cotton (6 May 1899 – 25 March 1969) was an English band leader and entertainer, one of the few whose orchestras survived the British dance band era. Cotton is now mainly remembered as a 1950s and 1960s radio and television personality, but his musical career had begun in the 1920s. In his younger years Billy Cotton was also an amateur footballer (soccer player) for Brentford (and later, for the then Athenian league club Wimbledon), an accomplished racing driver and the owner of a Gipsy Moth, which he piloted himself. His autobiography, I Did It My Way, was published in 1970, a year after his death.
Born in Smith Square, London, to Joseph and Susan Cotton, Cotton was a choirboy and started his musical career as a drummer. He enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers by falsifying his age and saw service in the First World War in Malta and Egypt before landing at Gallipoli in the middle of an artillery barrage. He was recommended for a commission and learned to fly Bristol Fighter aircraft. Not yet 19 years old, he flew solo for the first time in 1918, on the day the Royal Flying Corps became the Royal Air Force. After the end of the war, in the early 1920s, he worked at several jobs, including as a bus driver, before setting up his own orchestra, the London Savannah Band, in 1924.

At first a conventional dance band, the London Savannah Band gradually tended towards music hall/vaudeville entertainment, introducing visual and verbal humour in between songs. Famous musicians who played in Billy Cotton's band during the 1920s and 1930s included Arthur Rosebery, Syd Lipton and Nat Gonella. The band was also noted for their African American trombonist and tap dancer, Ellis Jackson. Their signature tune was "Somebody Stole My Gal", and they made numerous commercial recordings for Decca.

During the Second World War Cotton and his band toured France with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). After the war, he started his successful Sunday lunchtime radio show on BBC, the Billy Cotton Band Show, which ran from 1949 to 1968. In the 1950s, composer Lionel Bart contributed comedy songs to the show. It regularly opened with the band's signature tune and Cotton's call of "Wakey Wakey". From 1957, it was also broadcast on BBC television. Cotton often also provided vocals on many of his band's recordings, in addition to work as a vocalist on recordings that didn't feature his band.

As a racing driver, he raced at Brooklands between the wars but his finest moment came in 1949 when he finished eighth in the 1949 British Grand Prix, sharing an English Racing Automobiles with David Hampshire.

Cotton married Mabel E. Gregory in 1921. They had two sons, Ted and Sir Bill Cotton, who later became the BBC's managing director of television. In 1962 Billy Cotton suffered a stroke. He died in 1969 while watching a boxing match at Wembley Arena.

Billy Cotton was the great-great-uncle of TV & Radio Presenter Fearne Cotton.
Here is "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" From 1950 Enjoy.

P.S. "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" is a novelty song composed in 1944 (as "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts") by Fred Heatherton, a songwriting pseudonym for a collaboration of English songwriters Harold Elton Box, Desmond Cox and Lewis Ilda. The song was published by Box and Cox Publications (ASCAP).

The song celebrates the coconut shy (coconut toss) at funfairs, and the catchy chorus is the call of the showman "standing underneath the flare" (of gaslight), inviting the public to "Roll up, bowl a ball, a penny a pitch." (In American editions, the line is rendered instead as, "Roll or bowl a ball, a penny a pitch.") The ball is tossed or bowled (as in cricket) or pitched at the coconuts, with the object of knocking one off its stand.

The Southlanders

The Southlanders was a Jamaican / British vocal group formed in 1950 by Edric Connor and Vernon Nesbeth. Nesbeth had been receiving singing coaching from Connor, and when Connor decided to record an album of Jamaican songs, he asked Nesbeth to assemble a group to provide vocal backing for it. Members of the group were Vernon Nesbeth, Frank Mannah, and brothers Harold (Harry) and Allan Wilmot. "Songs from Jamaica" (Argo RG33) was released in 1954 with the group credited as "The Caribbeans". Connor then persuaded the group to appear with him in cabaret in London's Celebrity Restaurant to promote the album.

During the following year, the group was briefly known as "The South Londoners" and "The Southerners", but by the time of the group's second recording, again providing harmony vocals to Connor on "Songs from Trinidad" (1955, Argo RG57), it had settled on The Southlanders as its name, and went on to record a third album with him.

The group's biggest commercial hit, and its only appearance in the UK Top 40 Singles Chart, was their 1957 cover version of "Alone", which sold over one million copies. "Alone", released by Decca Records, entered the Chart on 22 November 1957 and spent a total of ten weeks in the chart, peaking at #17 on 28 November.

Its final single, "Imitation of Love", was released in 1961.

The song the group is most identified with is "I am a Mole and I Live in a Hole" (also known as "Mole", "The Mole" and "The Mole in a Hole"). The title line from the song was spoken by the group's bass voice Harry Wilmot, father of Gary Wilmot. Harry Wilmot died in 1961, when his son was six years old. The song failed to make the UK Singles Chart in 1958, but has been performed at every Southlanders' event since its release. Group founder Vernon Nesbeth said that the group tried to take the song out of their set but that club managers and audiences insisted upon hearing it. "It's become protected. Untouchable. We've even sung it in Japanese", said Nesbeth.

After its popularity began to wane, the group performed with success in cabaret on cruise ships and in hotels until it disbanded. Nesbeth semi-retired in January 2004 to reside in Spain; he died on 6 March 2017 in Torrevieja. Allan Wilmot retired and resides in South London.

Here is "I am a Mole(And i live in a Hole) From 1958 Enjoy.

Peter Sellers

Peter Sellers, CBE (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English film actor, comedian and singer. He performed in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film characterisations, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series of films.

Born in Portsmouth, Sellers made his stage debut at the Kings Theatre, Southsea, when he was two weeks old. He began accompanying his parents in a variety act that toured the provincial theatres. He first worked as a drummer and toured around England as a member of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). He developed his mimicry and improvisational skills during a spell in Ralph Reader's wartime Gang Show entertainment troupe, which toured Britain and the Far East. After the war, Sellers made his radio debut in ShowTime, and eventually became a regular performer on various BBC radio shows. During the early 1950s, Sellers, along with Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, took part in the successful radio series The Goon Show, which ended in 1960.

Sellers began his film career during the 1950s. Although the bulk of his work was comedic, often parodying characters of authority such as military officers or policemen, he also performed in other film genres and roles. Films demonstrating his artistic range include I'm All Right Jack (1959), Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962) and Dr. Strangelove (1964), What's New, Pussycat? (1965), Casino Royale (1967), The Party (1968), Being There (1979) and five films of the Pink Panther series (1963–78). Sellers's versatility enabled him to portray a wide range of comic characters using different accents and guises, and he would often assume multiple roles within the same film, frequently with contrasting temperaments and styles. Satire and black humour were major features of many of his films, and his performances had a strong influence on a number of later comedians. Sellers was nominated three times for an Academy Award, twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor, for his performances in Dr. Strangelove and Being There, and once for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959). He won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role twice, for I'm All Right Jack and for the original Pink Panther film, The Pink Panther (1963) and was nominated as Best Actor three times. In 1980 he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role in Being There, and was previously nominated three times in the same category. Turner Classic Movies calls Sellers "one of the most accomplished comic actors of the late 20th century.

In his personal life, Sellers struggled with depression and insecurities. An enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played. His behaviour was often erratic and compulsive, and he frequently clashed with his directors and co-stars, especially in the mid-1970s when his physical and mental health, together with his alcohol and drug problems, were at their worst. Sellers was married four times, and had three children from his first two marriages. He died as a result of a heart attack in 1980, aged 54. English filmmakers the Boulting brothers described Sellers as "the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin.

Here is "Any Old Iron" From 1957 Enjoy.

Tony Blackburn

Antony Kenneth "Tony" Blackburn (born 29 January 1943) is an English disc jockey. He first achieved fame broadcasting on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s, before joining the BBC. He was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 at its launch at the end of September 1967, and has had several stints working for the corporation. He has also worked for BBC Radio London, Capital Gold and Classic Gold Digital, and has had a singing career.

Blackburn was born in Guildford, Surrey, but in 1946 his family moved to Bournemouth, then in Hampshire, where his sister, Jacqueline, was born. His sister was born suffering from polio and has been unable to walk since birth. Blackburn's mother, Pauline Cubitt (née Stone), was a nurse, and his father, Kenneth Fleming Blackburn, was a GP. He was educated at Castle Court School in Parkstone, Poole, Dorset. He gained entry to Millfield School in Somerset on a sports scholarship and captained the school's cricket team.

He left before taking any examinations, but gained O-levels, following private tuition, and enrolled for an HND course in Business Studies at Bournemouth Technical College.

After beginning his career as a singer, Blackburn then worked as a DJ for the offshore pirate radio stations Radio Caroline and Radio London (1964–1967), before joining the BBC in 1967, initially broadcasting on the Light Programme.

After a simulcast with Radio 2 hosted by Paul Hollingdale, Blackburn was the first DJ to be heard on BBC Radio 1 when it officially launched on at 7am on 30 September 1967,with his first words on the new station being "And good morning everyone! Welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1". The Move's "Flowers in the Rain" was the first complete record he played. Blackburn recalled in 2014: "My job was to entertain and tell corny jokes, not have opinions or talk politics. If I wanted to wish the Queen a happy birthday, I had to get clearance from above." Throughout his Radio 1 career Blackburn was often accompanied by a jingle with the barking of the dog "Arnold" which he had previously used at Radio Caroline.

At first he was associated mainly with mainstream pop, but he later championed soul music. It was largely due to him that "I'm Still Waiting" by Diana Ross, which was initially just an album track, was released as a single in the UK in 1971 and reached number one. He was a regular host of Top of the Pops for a decade until 1979 and he appeared with fellow DJ's Noel Edmonds and Kenny Everett on the 500th anniversary show where he performed the spoken part of "Won't Somebody Dance With Me" and then danced with singer Lynsey de Paul. In 1968, he fronted his own show, Time For Blackburn, produced by Southern Television for the ITV network. "The Radio 1 DJs were a massive attraction. We were mobbed everywhere we went", Blackburn told Simon Hattenstone, referring to personal appearances. "It was all a bit mad, but great fun", he told Judith Woods in 2014. We "were built up to be stars in our own right, and as a result we were as famous as the artists we played."

In 1973, when his pantomime performance was interrupted by a power cut, he said the miners should go back to work. He was admonished by management and taken off-air for two weeks. In an interview for The Radio Academy's Radio Talk podcast in 2013, Blackburn said that it is not advisable for a broadcaster to reveal their political allegiances. In this interview, he says that he's "not a great lover of the TUC or of unions ... but I keep it to myself now."

He was in a group called Tony Blackburn and the Rovers which at one point included Al Stewart; they performed in the Bournemouth and surrounding areas. His singing career failed to take off, although 3 studio albums and 14 singles were released, of which two, "So Much Love" and "It's Only Love", made the UK Top 40 in 1968 and 1969 respectively. "So much Love" suffered from a shortage of copies because "the pressing plant went on strike, so nobody could get the record", he once recalled. "I don't think the strike was anything to do with the record, though it might have been ...quality control or something." As the years progressed he spent less time making his own music and concentrated on radio work, by the end of the 1970s he had stopped singing altogether.

In 1972 he released a self named album on the RCA label - two of the tracks were released as singles "Chop Chop" written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and "House of Cards" written by Lynsey de Paul and Barry Green. His version of Doris Troy's "I'll Do Anything" was recorded in 1969 for his second album, Tony Blackburn for the Polydor label; it was re-released as a Northern soul single under the pseudonym Lenny Gamble on Casino Classics in June 1978. Blackburn was allegedly furious when Noel Edmonds revealed the alias on air. Nevertheless, Blackburn and Edmonds became close friends.All of the Blackburn's singles, including "I'll Do Anything" and "House of Cards" were finally released in 2012 on a CD compilation album "The Singles Collection 1965-1980" on the Cherry Red label.

In June 1973, he took over the weekday mid-morning slot, where he introduced "The Golden Hour". The feature was to prove durable, being carried on by Simon Bates and Simon Mayo when they took over the slot later.

Over several years of the 1970s, Blackburn was a co-presenter on the BBC's summer programme Seaside Special, alongside other well known names from BBC Radio such as Dave Lee Travis and David Hamilton.

In November 1977 he took over the weekday afternoon show and from September 1979 until December 1981 he presented the Sunday Top 40 show on Radio 1.

At the start of 1980 he took over from Ed Stewart as the presenter of Junior Choice broadcast on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 8 am to 10 am, while continuing to present the Sunday chart show until the end of 1981. He was succeeded by Tommy Vance. During 1982, BBC Radio 1 dropped the name Junior Choice and the show became the Weekend Breakfast Show which Blackburn continued to host until his final show on 23 September 1984.

Blackburn also presents Sounds of the 60s on BBC Radio 2, having taken over in 4 March 2017 from Brian Matthew, who hosted it for 27 years. The show is broadcast live on Saturday mornings, and he now also presents his Golden Hour music programme on Friday nights.

On 30 September 2017, Blackburn recreated his first breakfast show on BBC Radio 2, playing the songs from vinyl, and he later joined Nick Grimshaw, and guests Mike Read, Simon Mayo and Sara Cox for a special show to celebrate Radio 1's 50 anniversary.

Here is "So Much Love" From 1968 Enjoy.

The Four Esquires

The Four Esquires were an American vocal group from Boston, Massachusetts. They had two hit singles in the U.S. late in the 1950s, both on Paris Records. The first, "Love Me Forever", featured orchestral backing by Sid Bass with a female session vocalist and peaked at #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1957. It also reached #23 on the UK Singles Chart. The second, "Hideaway", had orchestral accompaniment by Richard Hayman, and peaked at #21 in the U.S. in 1958.
In 1963 the group performed a vocal cover version of The James Bond Theme.
  While able to fill moderate-sized auditoriums and becoming a reliable support act in bigger venues, the Four Esquires clocked up no further chart entries and had disbanded by the early 60s.
Members: Bill Courtney (lead singer) and backing vocalists Walter Gold, Robert Golden and Frank Mahoney.
Here is The James Bond Vocal Cover Version "The James Bond Theme"Enjoy.

The James Bond Theme (Double-O-Seven)

 

Mel Blanc

Melvin Jerome Blanc (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor, comedian, singer, and radio personality. After beginning his over 60-year career performing in radio, he became known for his work in animation as the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, the Tasmanian Devil and many of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons during the golden age of American animation. He voiced all of the major male Warner Bros. cartoon characters except for Elmer Fudd, whose voice was provided by fellow radio personality Arthur Q. Bryan, although Blanc later voiced Fudd as well after Bryan's death. He later voiced characters for Hanna-Barbera's television cartoons, including Barney Rubble on The Flintstones and Mr. Spacely on The Jetsons. Blanc was also the original voice of Woody Woodpecker for Universal Pictures and provided vocal effects for the Tom and Jerry cartoons directed by Chuck Jones for MGM, replacing William Hanna. During the golden age of radio, Blanc also frequently performed on the programs of famous comedians from the era, including Jack Benny, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen and Judy Canova. Having earned the nickname The Man of a Thousand Voices, Blanc is regarded as one of the most influential people in the voice acting industry. My Favourite Song From Mel Blanc was "I Taut I Taw a Puddy Tat" From my years of being a Kid and i still remember it playing on the radio in my mothers kitchen lol. So Here it is From 1950 (But I first heard it on the radio in the 60's)Enjoy.

The Barron Knights

The Barron Knights are a British humorous pop group, originally formed in 1959 in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, as the Knights of the Round Table.
They started out as a straight pop group, and spent a couple of years touring and playing in English dance halls before making their way to Hamburg, Germany. Bill Wyman, later of the Rolling Stones, has written that the Barron Knights were the first group he saw with an electric bass, at a performance in Aylesbury in July 1961, inspiring him to take up the instrument. In 1963, at the invitation of Brian Epstein, they were one of the support acts on The Beatles' Christmas shows at the Finsbury Park Astoria in London, and later became one of the few acts to tour with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Their debut single was "Let's Face It" / "Never Miss Chris" released in 1962 by Fontana Records (H.368).. They also made their debut on BBC Television in this year performing on the children's programme Let's Go! 
They first came to fame in 1964 with the number "Call Up the Groups" (Parts 1 and 2). It overcame copyright restrictions and parodied a number of the leading pop groups of the time including the Searchers, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Dave Clark Five, the Bachelors, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. The song imagined the various artists singing about being conscripted, or "called up" into the British Army, although actual conscription had ended in 1960. The single climbed to number 3 in the UK Singles Chart. As an example, the song "Bits and Pieces" by The Dave Clark Five was parodied as "Boots and Blisters". They then followed this parody theme with two more hit singles "Pop Go the Workers" (1965) and "Merrie Gentle Pops" (1966), while continuing to work the cabaret circuit, as they do internationally to this day.
In 1967, the group released the single "Lazy Fat People", a satirical song written by Pete Townshend of The Who. In 1974 they toured South Africa with Petula Clark. By 1977 CBS Records had signed the group, bringing a resurgence in popularity, with "Live in Trouble" reaching number 7 in the UK Singles Chart. It was their first hit for over nine years. "Angelo" was just one song parodied on "Live in Trouble". Their 1978 release "A Taste of Aggro", which parodied "Rivers of Babylon", "Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs" and "The Smurf Song", became the group's biggest hit with sales of over one million, reaching number 3 in the UK chart.
They achieved four other UK hit singles in the 1960s and 1970s but their only US Billboard Hot 100 charted single, "The Topical Song", was another comedic parody written by the American poet Robert Spring White. Based upon Supertramp's "The Logical Song", White, who also took the 1980 American Song Festival award in the folk category for "Where Does The River Go", confined his humorous lyric compositions for the Barron Knights.
The group also produced Christmas specials on Channel 4 Television in 1983 and 1984 which continued to be repeated throughout the decade, a mix of sketches and songs with a comedy backbone for which the group brought in comedy writer Barry Faulkner (Grumbleweeds, Tom O'Connor, Week Ending, Russ Abbot's Madhouse) to write sketches and links. In 1986, they sang a parody of the Jimmy Dean song "Big Bad John", called "Big Bad Bond". It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond and his involvement in Australia's victory in the 1983 America's Cup. The single was released by WEA, and had "The Loan Arranger" on the B-side, both taken from their album California Girls.
As of 2013, the group continue to perform for a worldwide audience in a line-up featuring only Pete Langford from the original band members. Founding member, Barron Antony, retired on 05 October 1985, and fellow founding member Butch Baker retired in January 2007, and was replaced by Len Crawley. The Barron Knights' original lead singer, Duke D'Mond, died on 9 April 2009.
Here is "Call up the Groups" From 1964 Enjoy.

Grapefruit

Grapefruit were a London-based British band of the late 1960s, brought together by Terry Doran of Apple Publishing. Their brand of music was a typical late 1960s blend of rock, which they often fused with psychedelic effects such as phasers and vocoders, or classical arrangements.In summer 1967, Terry Doran, a longtime friend of Brian Epstein's and the new managing director of Apple Publishing, signed Scottish-born singer and bass guitarist George Alexander, born Alexander Young, the older brother of the Easybeats' guitarist/songwriter George Young (and also of Malcolm and Angus Young, both founding members of the Australian hard rock band AC/DC), to a publishing contract. Alexander Young had chosen to remain in Britain when the rest of the Youngs emigrated to Australia, and had previously played with The Bobby Patrick Six, with whom he toured Germany in the mid-1960s. In November 1967, John Perry, a former member of Tony Rivers and the Castaways, pitched some of his songs to Doran at Apple Publishing. Doran rejected the songs but proposed combining Perry and his bandmates Geoff Swettenham and Pete Swettenham with Alexander to form a new group. The band was named Grapefruit by John Lennon after a book written by his future wife, Yoko Ono that was also entitled Grapefruit. Doran became their manager, seeing some commercial potential in them. Apple promptly licensed Grapefruit's music publishing rights for the U.S. to a new publishing and recording label being formed by Terry Melcher entitled Equinox. However, since Apple did not have its own record label at the time, Doran arranged for the band's records to be licensed to RCA Records in the U.K. and to Equinox in the U.S. They were the second band signed to Apple Publishing, following the Liverpool group Focal Point, who were signed by Doran in September 1967. In addition, The Beatles continued to take an interest in Grapefruit, with John Lennon introducing the band to the media in January 1968 and inviting John Perry to join in on the recording of the hit single "Hey Jude". As well as Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr of the Beatles, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Donovan, and Cilla Black attended the press launch and were photographed with the band. Jimi Hendrix and Sajid Khan were reportedly also in attendance. When Melcher came to the U.K. to sign the publishing deal with Apple, he was persuaded to produce Grapefruit's inaugural single "Dear Delilah", which peaked at number 21 in the UK Singles Chart in the spring of 1968. As a follow-up single, Lennon and McCartney took the band into the studio in January 1968 to record the song "Lullaby" (also known as "Lullaby for a Lazy Day" and originally called "Circus Sgt. Pepper"). However, when RCA asked for the follow-up single, the recording (which had been made at Advision Sound Studios in London) was not turned over, as Lennon and McCartney were in India, and Grapefruit instead submitted the songs "Elevator" and "Yes", which became a two-A-sided single but failed to chart. For a third single, Grapefruit submitted several other new songs, and a cover of The Four Seasons' "C'mon Marianne" was remixed (at RCA's request) by Derek Lawrence and reached number 35. Before the next single could be released, RCA dropped the band in the UK, and the new head of Apple Publishing, Mike O'Connor, released the group from its Apple contracts, (except for the original publishing contract with George Alexander), and Terry Doran (still managing Grapefruit) signed the band directly to Equinox. Terry Melcher then resumed producing Grapefruit, including re-mixing or re-recording earlier songs (for which Apple was willing to supply the tapes), but the Lennon-McCartney version of "Lullaby" was still not released. In December 1968, Grapefruit added Mick Fowler on organ and released a fourth single, "Someday Soon", which also failed to chart. Grapefruit then released two albums (Around Grapefruit (1968) and Deep Water (1969)) with limited success, while their single "Deep Water" did crack the German Top 20, peaking at No. 19. Grapefruit broke up in late 1969, although Pete Swettenham had left the group earlier in the year and been replaced by Bob Wale on the second album. Toward the end of their career, following the new material being written by Alexander (with some inclusions by Wale), Grapefruit shifted from melodic pop to more of a rock-based sound, referred to as soft rock in a full-page Billboard advertisement for their second album, Deep Water. After the break-up, Alexander remained the most visible. Alexander joined forces with his brother George Young and his songwriting partner Harry Vanda from The Easybeats and, in 1970, they recorded for the Young Blood label as Paintbox and Tramp. Alexander also participated in sessions for Vanda and Young's Marcus Hook Roll Band. In 1971, they revived the Grapefruit name, issuing, "Universal Party" / "Sha Sha", but the single was a one-off release with no follow-up. In 2016, a 20-song compilation of all of Grapefruit's recordings for Apple prior to November 1968, entitled Yesterday's Sunshine, was released by RPM Records. This compilation (with 18 songs written by Alexander, 1 by Perry, plus the cover "C'Mon Marianne") was the first to include the original version of "Lullaby" that was produced by Lennon and McCartney, as the version released on Around Grapefruit was a later, group-produced version that had been remixed by Melcher, who also added an orchestral arrangement. Here is "C'mon Marianne" From 1968 Enjoy.