Karl Denver Trio
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Memories

"We worked with Karl Denver Trio sometime towards the end of the '70s at Chatham Barracks, Kent. Our guitarist, Bob, almost wet himself when he saw Kevin Neill was using the very same guitar from their pic in Beatles Monthly. I suppose you have to be a guitarist to notice things like that. "

Paul Mlynarz

Credit should also be given for Karl's massive selling Decca EP By A Sleepy Lagoon that reached No.2 during a 20 week stay on the EP charts.

The Beatles also made their live radio debut on Karl's Side By Side programme.

Also Karl's hit single Never Goodbye was a 1962  BBC TV Song For Europe entry. Although Ronnie Carroll got the nod as winner with his forgotten "Ring A Ding Girl" that peaked at 43 on the charts, Karl's offering  proved the big recording success of the contest.

Michael Clarke

We saw Karl in Benidorm Spain many times.  The last time was in 1996  -  he was great and enjoying life and we really loved his music and the jokes he told.

Really sorry for the loss of him  - we all miss his music.

Sylvia and Peter 

When Karl was doing a split week at the Palace Theatre Club and the Southern Sporting Club, he would turn up at the Sunday band call at the Southern and the bar would be opened especially for Karl, Gerry and Kevin.  It was obviously a cost effective exercise that wasn't done for any other act. 

His local was the Thatched Cottage in Reddish and sadly in his later years, there were fellow drinkers there who didn't realise what a star he'd been back in the early sixties

Pete Crooks
25/5/09

Eleven years after after his death the interest in Karl appears to be growing with more of his work available on You Tube. A 1964 clip of the Karl Denver Trio performing Wimoweh live on a Shindig TV programme recently passed 100,000 hits and two other You Tube sites with the same film have a combined viewing of over 28,000 taking the total views of this film to almost 130.000.

And last week the greatest discovery for Denver fans for years was suddenly placed on You Tube. Full colour film of The Trio performing Rose Marie and Love Me With All Your Heart at the 1983 Peterborough Country Music Festival couple with an interview after the show.

On this occasion Karl was on the bill with American C & W stars Tom T. Hall and Jimmy C. Newman. The Trio appeared on the 1980 show with Frank Ifield and Ken Dodd.

Doddy and Karl both charted in 1963 with the Country hit Still, Karl easily out paced the Knotty Ash maestro peaking at 13, during a 15 stay on charts.

Michael Clarke
23/1/10

Karl was declared bankrupt in 1966, 1973 and 1978 (but never out of work or demand!) To add to his biography I have been searching for Press reports of these matters for along time. As an in the public eye entertainer these matters would have been reported and I am looking for Press cuttings,any ideas or knowledge please??

Please send them to paul@manchesterbeat.com

Michael Clarke
8/2/10

Sorry to hear about Kevin- he was the bee's knees musically and I have had some transpositions done  by him over the years.

In the early 60's, in the small town of Castleford, South Yorks, the  hometown of Viv Nicholls- the spend, spend, spend lady,who 'won the pools', there was a niteclub called The Crystal Bowl Club with Karl Denver Trio in one room with a supporing act of three coloured girls, whose name escapes me at this time.

In another room Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas and in yet another room Adam Faith, whom I was supporting - all this under one roof! I knew Karl pretty well and we had some laffs together- good days.

Farewell, Kevin.

Robert Smith Wright
19/3/10

A Karl Denver mint condition promo simgle Uska Dara/Zimba on London label recently sold in America on ebay for 75 dollars!
I'm unsure whether the record was ever released in this country?

Michael Clarke
3/7/10

I met Karl on the Central pier in Great Yarmouth in 1963. He was performing there,I was a sixteen year old kid and though under age Ii was happy to accept a pint from him at the pier bar. I was a member of theTtravellers pop group from Rochdale at the time and because of our mutual interest in anything to do with groups and music we got on like a house on fire. That was until a groupie latched on to him.

He was obviously irritated by this and convinced her that I was his roady. Soon after Iwas left to deal with the young lady as Karl had dissapeared. Don't remember what the outcome of that was.  

Dave Brierley
10/8/10

I first met Karl at the Luxor Club in Hulme, Manchester, in late 1962 where he was topping the bill.

I was part of a group called THE AZTECS, later to become PETE AND THE PERSUADERS, whose drummer Denis Ashton was a friend of Karl.

We met him on more than one occassion, and I liked his sense of humour and, of course, his voice.

THE PERSUADERS were unfortunately involved in a serious accident in which the lead guitarist Sid Overett and rhythm guitarist Brian Valentine died. The first memory I have, when waking up in Stockport infirmary after the accident is a heavily Scots accented voice saying "Hey peterrrr it's me Karl Denver, how are you?", and he was so sincere and feeling, he also knew that we were ignorant to the fact that Brian,and Sid had died.

I don't remember most of our conversation, but I do remember him saying that he was going to contact lots of the gigs that we had done, and ask them to put on charity shows for us, to enable us to replace our van, and any equipment damaged. this as far as I know is what happened,and I will always remember Karl fondly.    

Peter Taylor
7/9/10

I was very mooved to see my favougerrite singer of all time was still remembered after all this time.  I still play his music.  I am now 67.

I am looking for the song By a sleepy lagoon.

He was magic.

Robert Lettice
7/2/11  

Avid Karl Denver memorabilia collector Bob Pattreson of New Romney Kent, has unearthed what he believes are the earliest known recordings  by the legendry singer.

Bob told me after tracking down the six track, 10 inch acetate demo  disc, recorded around 1958 in one the recording booths that existed then where budding entertainers rented a time and got the disc to keep at the end of the session. 

Bob believes his treasured acetate includes the generic version of Karl's massive hit Wimoweh. He says the basis of the hit version is there, but with a different arrangement and played slower.

Among the other tracks are two outstanding  "finds" the TRIO never released commercially. An impressive  Blues version of Lead Belly signature Black Girl and an ancient sentimental ballad That wonderful Mother of Mine.

Bob's alsao hads another remarkable stroke of luck recently in tracking down complete studio master tracks of a second, but never released Nevis album.

Read my full story on the Leicester Mercury web site, click This Is Leicester and then click Nostalgia on the banner, scroll down to  26 Feb. 

Michael Clarke  
1/3/11

The frist time I met Karl was at the Luxor Club working for Ginger  Chilton.  My dad was Wally Harper, a Manchester comic.

I was sixteen and played and sang country stuff.  The resident band did not know any of the songs I sang and could not play for me.  Karl and the boys overherd what was happening and backed me up for whole of the week.

He was a good freind.  Oh, he also gave me a pair of cowboy boots given to him by Lefty Frizzel.  He is sadly missed. God Bless you Karl. 

Johnny Harper
9/4/11

I believe I am right in saying that the Karl Denver Trio played at a holiday club in Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey and as that was where we used to go every holiday.  My parents became very good friends of them and Karl often stayed at my parents pub in Canterbury.  They also became good friends of Gerry - in fact my mother has photos of Gerry and his then young lady Naomi.

He used to drive a yellow open top car at the time.  My parents also had photos of the Trio hanging in the pub.

Linda Arnold
30/5/11

Just read Karl's website  - great memories. I grew up with Jerry Cotterell (bass).  Karl acutally taught my brother the guitar  - they were very very good.

God bless.

Tony Keegan
26/8/11

Another great pic from Roy Mozley!

He adds " I found this in my files one of the great summer seasons at Blackpool in 1964.  Tthe amount of star artists on this picture is un believable!  Here we go - Cliff Richard, The Shadows, Marty Wilde, Matt Munro, David Whitfield, Morcambe and Wise, Jimmy Clitheroe, Des O'connor, Karl Denver, Barbara Law, Eden Kane, The Dallas Boys, Sooty and Harry Corbett., Pinky and Perky, Peter Butterworth (Carry On films), Lonnie Donegan, Danny Williams, Edna Savage, Daley and Wayne, Jimmy Edwards, The Vernon Girls,etc.

What a great photo!" 

I met Karl in 1988 in Jersey.I played Keyboards for him on and off until he died in 1998.We became great friends and I miss his sense of humour.

Dave Garner
7/10/11

I played with Gus 1955? on the Citizen Showboat from Dunoon.  We met up later in the parly bar to do some songs with some other lads. It was then he said he was off to London. I said "no" as I was starting my time.  The rest is history.

RIP Gus 

Jim Chippington "Chippy Jim"
1/11/11

 I never saw KDT play live, but I was present when they opened a record shop on Underbank Stockport. It must have been early 60s, and the shop was owned by Peter Swales (ex Man City), Whites and Swales, at the bottom of Mealhouse Brow.

Dave Moore
19/11/11

In approximately 1969 I owned a garage business in Sykes Street in Reddish, one of the very few garages who owned a tow truck.

A regular call-out (usually by the police) was to recover a car which had crashed into the same lamp post outside the Houldsworth Mill on a number of weekends, the driver was Karl after spending the evening in the Poco a Poco Club.

I met him on a number of occasions (he lived in the street behind the garage) usually to repair his car and try and get payment!!! On his invitations all the lads from the garage went to the Poco to see and meet him, as always leaning against the bar with a bottle of champagne and a female friend?

Karl had a real sense of humour and was a very likeable character

Carl Gardiner
3/1/12

Discography

1961	Marcheta/ Joe Sweeney	Decca
	Mexicali Rose/ Bonny Scotland	Decca
	Wimoweh - Karl Denver  (LP)	Decca Ace of Clubs
1962	Wimoweh/ Gypsy Davy	Decca
	Never Goodbye/ Highland Fling	Decca
	A Little Love, A Little Kiss/ Lonely Sailor	Decca
	Blue Weekend/ My Mother's Eyes	Decca
	Dry Tears/ Pastures Of Plenty	Decca
	By A Sleepy Lagoon (EP)	Decca
	Karl Denver  (LP)	Decca Ace of Clubs
1963	Can You Forgive Me/ Love From A Heart Of Gold	Decca
	Indian Love Call/ My Melancholy Baby	Decca
	Still/ My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes	Decca
	Karl Denver At The Yew Tree (LP)          (recorded 15/02/63 live at the Manchester pub)	Decca
	EP Karl Denver Hits	Decca
1964	My World Of Blue/ The Green Grass Grows All Round	Decca
	Love Me With All Your Heart/ Am I That Easy To Forget?	Decca
	Sally/ Swanee River	Decca
	With Love Karl Denver    (LP)	Decca
1965	Cry A Little Sometimes/ Today Will Be Yesterday Tomorrow	Mercury
	Marta/ I'll Never Forget To Remember	Mercury
	The Tips Of My Fingers/ I'm Alone Because I Love You	Mercury
1968	You've Still Got A Place In My Heart/ I Still Miss Someone	Page One
1960s (year unkown)	Sonny Boy	Emerald
Late 1970s	Wimoweh Karl Denver (re-package of Ace Of Clubs album)	Decca Eclipse
1980 (approx)	The Karl Denver Trio (LP)	Nevis
1985	Karl Denver Greatest Hits (mostly re-records) cassette album.	Autograph/Avon Music
1986	The Very Best of Karl Denver	Decca Elite
1989	Wimoweh 89	Factory
1990	Lazyitis  (Karl Denver & Happy Mondays)	Factory
1991	Voices of The Highlands	Plaza
	Never Goodbye The Very Best  (CD album)	Pickwick
1993	Just Loving You (CD album)	Plaza
1995	Karl Denver Wimoweh (includes then new track Maybe) cassette album	Pickwick (Hallmark)
1999	Movin' On (CD album)	Plaza
	The Best of Karl Denver CD album	Spectrum Music
2008	Wimoweh & Karl Denver	Vocalion

* images are for illustation only and not representative of years.