Gerry Levene And The Avengers

When Gerry’s Mother realised he was serious about music, she went into Westwoods Music in John Bright Street, Birmingham and bought Gerry a Hofner Committe guitar.
One of the first gigs he played was at the Youth Club in Perry Barr, Birmingham with John Watson, his brother’s friend. By the age of 14, Gerry had become part of a group and played at Birchfield Rd School Youth Club alongside; Mike Cassell, John Matthews and John Watson. Gerry and John Watson remained together and took on new members before settling on the following line-up:
*Gerry Levene (vocals)
*John Watson (guitar)
*Mike Hopkins (lead guitar)
*Jim Onslow (bass)
*Graeme Edge (drums) born 30 March 1944, Coventry Road, Small Heath Birmingham
Ken Smith became the bands manager, and named them Cliff Angel and The Virtues before settling on Gerry Levene and The Avengers. They started playing all the pubs in Birmingham until they landed a gig at the West End Ballroom, and ended up being the resident band every Wednesday and Saturday thereafter.
Ken then moved to Liverpool and started booking the band on the Liverpool circuit so they could play at the West End Ballroom at lunch-time and venues in Liverpool on the evening.
John Watson left the band and was replaced by Roy Wood. During this time, the band auditioned for EMI and Decca on the same day at the Plaza in Handsworth and actually had a choice of which record company to go with. They chose Decca, managed by Phil and Dorothy Solomon who also had a group called, The Batchelors.
Gerry Levene and The Avengers recorded, ‘Do You Love Me’, ‘Twist and Shout’ and ‘Dr Feelgood’, and went on to release ‘Dr Feelgood,’ while Brian Pool and The Tremeloes released the other two songs and had number one hits!
The current band line-up was working well and appeared on ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars.’ However, Roy left for Mike Sheridan and The Nightriders (see under artists) to play lead guitar and was replaced by Peter Cook, a blind keyboard player from West Bromwich. Peter left the band and went on to work for BBC2 on programmers such as Stamash. Mike and Jim also left during this time to join The Diplomats, so Gerry and Graeme went on to form a new band with Denny Laine called the M and B5 which became The Moody Blues.
Gerry left The Moody Blues following a dissagreement with Denny, Jim eventually went on to play with Raymond Froggatt and Mike Hopkins joined Magnum.
Gerry joined a band called The Chicanes which became The Avengers. Various members came and went before Gerry left himself.
In 1968, producer/engineer, Bill Farley of Regents Sound put Gerry in a new band called Crossbones consisting of:
*Gerry Levene
*James Parsons
*Les Fortnham
*Mike Millard
On the Penny Farthing label, they released, ‘Shakin’ All Over’
Then Gerry joined The Hinge, a duo with Chris Sedgewick and recorded songs including, ‘The Village Postman’ and ‘You’d Better Go Home.’ Peter Lee Sterling (Daniel Boone – ‘Beautiful Sunday’) wrote one of the B-sides.
During this time, Gerry started recording for Pye under the solo name of David Lincoln and produced, ‘Hold Back The Daybreak’ with a 50 piece orchestra.
In 1974, Gerry was reunited with Jim Onslow in a group called the Rockin Rockets Road Review which was a huge group of musicians who performed an impressions show. It consisted of:
*Big Al Johnson (guitar)
*Jim Onslow (bass)
*Mike Alexander (keyboards)
*Nick Pentelow (sax)
*Dave Hollis (drums)
*Danny King (vocals)
*Gerry Levene (vocals)
*Mike Sheridan (vocals)
*Brenda Bosworth (vocals)
Together they toured colleges and clubs but were mainly based at Barbarellas. The remnants of this band became Cirkus in which Gerry was the ’straightman.’
Gerry remained in the music industry but during the last years spent a long time fighting bowel cancer. As a result, he became involved with running shows for the Holly Trust Bowel Cancer Charity. He also plays solo gigs and runs dance nights.(Excerpt From Birmingham Archives)
Gerry Levene and the Avengers were one of the pioneering beat groups out of Birmingham, England, and they made a bit of a noise before disappearing, although their most important contribution to music lay in their membership, and getting some future musical notables into the business. Roy Wood played guitar with the group long before he put the Move together, and his fellow ax-man Mike Hopkins later played with Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders, while future Moody Blues drummer Graeme Edge played the skins. The group cut one single for Decca, "It's Driving Me Wild" b/w "Dr. Feelgood," in 1964. It sank without a trace and the members all went their separate ways.
Here is " Dr Feelgood" From 1964 On The Decca Label F11815 Enjoy.

Brad Newman

Brad Newman (born Charles Melvyn Thomas in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, 6 December 1938, died in Spain on 18 January 1999) was an English singer-songwriter and pianist who, in 1962, reached number 47 in the UK Singles Chart with the song "Somebody to Love".
Charles Thomas's musical career started with a vocal duo called The Kingpins whom he joined as a pianist following six years at the Leeds College of Music. After a while he began to sing with them as well. In 1955 The Kingpins topped the bill at the Newcastle Palace, and went on to make successful appearances at the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow. Then he was called up and he served two years in the RAF. Afterwards he returned to join the group on the TV show Six Five Special. More success followed after they became the resident group on the BBC pop show Drumbreat, which also starred Adam Faith, the John Barry Seven, Vince Eager and Billy Fury. After another seasonal theatre show at Weymouth, Dorset with Morecambe and Wise and a tour with Cliff Richard, the trio broke up after which Thomas decided to go solo.

Before he launched his own solo career, under the pseudonym Brad Newman, he went to the Isle of Wight in 1961 to play piano in the residents' bar at the Sandringham Hotel, Sandown. During this period he and Tommie Connor wrote a song called "Somebody to Love". When Newman performed it the audience received it enthusiastically and one of them, a songwriter himself, advised him to go to London and contact the publisher Dick James. James was impressed with the half-dozen songs that Newman sang and took him to see Fontana's A & R Manager Jack Baverstock to demonstrate the numbers. James was only trying to sell the songs but Jack Baverstock liked Newman's singing voice and decided that he would make the discs too. The result was Newmans's first disc for Fontana Records, "Somebody to Love", coupled with "This Time It's Love", both his own compositions. "Somebody to Love" reached number 47 in the UK pop charts in February 1962. On the back of this small hit record Newman appeared on top rated TV shows including Discs A Gogo for TWW (Television Wales and the West), Thank Your Lucky Stars (TV series) for ABC TV (Associated British Corporation), a BBC Light Programme series of shows called Teenagers Turn and a radio series called Here we go with the NDO (BBC Northern Dance Orchestra). He also joined the Adam Faith Show tour for a series of one-nighters.
The follow up single, "Get a Move On", was entered in the heats of the Eurovision Song Contest 1962 to pick the British entry, which took place on 11 February of that year. (See United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1962). There were twelve entries. The winner was a number entitled "Ring-a-ding Girl" by Ronnie Carroll. Newman came nowhere at all and the record went the same way. After his third self-penned single, "Stay By Me", failed to chart Newman turned to a Goffin and King number, "Point of No Return", for his fourth release. This one did no better and he returned to his own material for his last Fontana offering, "I'll Find You Another Baby". He did his best to produce a contemporary sound but Fontana was past funding the lavish orchestral backing that the song warranted and he had to make do with a small combo and his own piano playing. After that he and Fontana parted company. There was however one last disc on the Piccadilly label. Released on 6 March 1964, "Please Don't Cry" failed to generate significant sales and became his last recording. The B-side, "Every Hour of Living", was a better song, reminiscent of "Somebody to Love".

In 1967, Newman returned to the Isle of Wight and opened at The Vancouver Bar on Sandown sea front, with himself on piano and Bert Reed on drums. His repertoire covered the music of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Dusty Springfield, the Turtles and Tom Jones. He was well received and performed there for three seasons. Leaving the Vancouver, Brad played at Daishes Hotel and The Holliers at Shanklin and Sandown Social Club during the 1970s and 1980s. He then went to Spain before returning to Oldham in the early 1990s. There he entertained in various public houses for a year or two before returning to Spain in the mid-1990s to run his own bar on the Costa del Sol. On 18 January 1999, he died there at the age of sixty. He was performing until just before his death.
Here is "Somebody To Love" From 1962 on Fontana Label H357 Enjoy.

The Four Jones Boys

First noticed touring in the revue 'Eve Goes Gay' in 1954 they were then just three and none of them named Jones. Originally The Mell-O-Macs, Bernard Burgess, Johnnie Harrison and John Padley were later joined by Ron Robinson, all in their early twenties, becoming The Four Jones Boys, taking advantage of the song 'The whole town`s talking about the Jones boy' as their signature tune. One of their first bookings as a quartet was a three month season at Doncaster Grand. From here on The Jones Boys never seemed to be short of work, whether it be T.V. or stage, never quite the star turn, but always busy. During 1956 they played the summer season at Portsmouth Theatre Royal with comedy magician David Nixon and were later in the pantomime 'Robinson Crusoe' at Belfast Opera House. The following year it was summer at Blackpool North Pier in 'Show Time' with Tommy Cooper and Ruby Murray. Before the season was over Ruby and Bernard Burgess were engaged and, following what the papers called "a whirlwind romance", were married.
Signed up by Decca The Jones Boys cut their first disc, 'When I let you go' backed by 'A real romance', in July 1955. Unfortunately this and their other Decca sides were pleasant but not particularly memorable tunes, having no great impact on the buying public. Decca also used the Boys as backing group on four Annette Klooger sides. After spending most of 1957 in the recording wilderness they came back on the Columbia label, with several up-tempo sides reflecting the increasing rock influence of the time.
In 1959 Ruby Murray and The Jones Boys played another summer season together at Gt.Yarmouth Wellington Pier, but by the following year Burgess had left the group to join Ruby in a double act. He was replaced by Clem Ratcliffe from the Morton Fraser Harmonica Gang.
Keeping busy in variety plus service camp tours around Europe, the Boys suffered quite a setback when John Padley was severely hurt in a car accident in fog while returning from a concert at Carlisle on the night of Friday 9th October 1959. At the time they were negotiating an Australian tour, but all these plans had to go on hold while they carried on as a trio until John was back on the road in February 1960. The group were still touring in cabaret at home and abroad while playing summer season at the smaller resorts, at least into the 1970`s.
Bernie Burgess gave up performing during the sixties, returning behind the scenes (he had started as a call-boy in Northampton, and worked his way up on that side of the business before becoming a performer) managing his wife Ruby and other artists. For a few years in the early seventies he also ran The Cresta Club at Solihull, West Midlands. When his marriage to Ruby ended in 1977 he continued his booking agency from home at Wootton in Northamptonshire.
Here is "Tutti Frutti" From March 1956 on the Decca Label F10717 Enjoy.