David John And The Mood

David John & The Mood were a solid beat group from Lancashire who released three singles in '64 and '65.

David John & the Mood made two cool, offbeat British Beat R&B singles in the mid-1960s, rare as get-out these days, but reissued on various compilations of obscure British Invasion recordings. Nothing is known about the band, except that they were produced by Shel Talmy (the Who, the Kinks, early David Bowie, Creation, and others). David John had a high-pitched, fey voice that led some collectors to guess that he might in fact be David Bowie, particularly as Talmy produced some David Bowie recordings in 1964 and 1965. It has since been established that the singer is definitely not Bowie, and that David John's real name was Miffy Charnley.

All four of the David John tracks are worth hearing by connoisseurs of sub-Pretty Things-styled British R&B, with the twist of those high, giggly, almost squirrelish vocals. These included a vicious cover of "Pretty Thing" with an incredibly wacked-out, rudimentary out-of-tune guitar solo, a version of Bo Diddley's "Bring It to Jerome," an accomplished "I Love to See You Strut" with high-pitched whistles, and a Charnley original in the R&B-rock style, "To Catch That Man." "Bring It to Jerome" and "I Love to See You Strut" were included on Pebbles Vol. 6; "To Catch That Man" showed up on Broken Dreams Vol. 2; and "Pretty Thing" is on (Trans-World Punk Vol. 2.

R&B band from Preston, Lancashire (northern England), formed in the winter of 1963. They broke up in early 1966.

Lineup:

David John Smith (voc)

Malcolm Fred Isherwood (dr)

John Brierley (b)

Peter Illingworth (lead-g, harmonica)

Peter Atkinson (g)

The band were formed in Preston in the early sixties but David had already found notoriety with a letter he had written to the music press about seeing this upcoming band at the Cavern called the Beatles. It was the first ever national press mention for the Beatles and he became friends with Paul McCartney who gave him his stage name of David John instead of his local nickname Miffy.

It is rumored that Macca(Paul McCartney) wrote I Saw Her Standing there at David Johns house whilst returning from an early Beatles gig in Morecambe.

David John and the Mood toured with the Stones and the Yardbirds after signing to Eric Easton the Stones manager and they also worked with Joe Meek but a combination of bad management of the death of Meek finished the band off and they remained a cult 'what if'.

Here is "Bring It To Jerome" From 1965

Enjoy