Original Line-up
| Jim Bilsbury |
Singer |
Ian Moncur |
Bass |
Peter Shoesmith |
Lead Guitar |
Allan Wilson |
Drums |
"The band was managed by a guy called Mike Collier who worked for Campbell Connelly music publishers and who secured a recording contract with CBS records. Reasonable success was had with "Excuse me Baby", "Rumplestiltskin", "Knight in Rusty Armour" and then "Auntie Grizelda".
It was at this point that I joined the band as Rhythm Guitar/Vocalist, which would have been around 1966/67.
We then recorded "We'll Meet Again" which was not the best of sellers but was extensively played on Radio1 and appeared to be popular with the pirate radio stations.
After this our management was transferred to Double R Productions (Double R used to do the recordings for Dave Dee, Dozy.....etc and P.J.Proby). Our first recording for Double R was "Shame Shame" (which was arranged by John Paul Jones of Led Zep fame).
On it's release it was heavily promoted by Radio 1 and in fact we appeared on TOTPops in I think Oct 1968. Unfortunately it didn't do enough to chart and just prior to TOTP we had member changes in the group.
Peter Shoesmith was replaced by Pete Garner, Ian Moncur was replaced by Mike Osborne and Allan Wilson was replaced by Harry Ward.
"Shame Shame" was released in the U.S.A. by Atlantic Records and sales went mad. I still have cuttings from the Record Mirror showing the progress up the Cashbox Charts from bubbling under the top 50 to reaching a high of number 17 (I believe that it went to no 1 in Canada). This was quite an achievement for a local UK band.
We then recorded and album for Atlantic which was only released in the States. Sales were moderate and we followed up with a single called "Melt All Your Troubles Away". Again sales were only moderate.
We then had a further change in personel and Mike Osborne was replace by George Lynam. After having done a tour in Sweden, month long gigs at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg and K22 in Frankfurt, the group broke up."
Alistair Beveridge |
