Forgotten Bands of the Sixties

SloopJohnB

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I was going through a stack of old 45's owned mostly by my older brothers and sister in the 1960's and found a version of "Midnight Hour" by a group called Michael & The Messengers. I remember playing this a lot back in 1967...

 

Hurdy Gurdy Man

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I like the nod that a previous post gave to the Knickerbockers and I do have a second pressing copy of the "Lies" 45.A reviewer in an old Rolling Stone Record Guide stated that it was one of the reasons God invented the pop single.As far as LOVE is concerned,they're so overlooked by so many it absolutely makes me ill.Arthur Lee was positively creative genius!I also would like to add the Strawberry Alarm Clock to list of the undeservedly obscure.
 

tkitna

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I love the Knickerbockers too. This is my favorite by them.

 

Big Ears

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There was a host of British bands that never made the transition from hit-singles group to album rock band, as did The Beatles, Kinks, Who, etc:

Love Affair - Lead singer Keith Ellis later formed Widowmaker

Tremeloes - Really should've made the transition

Marmalade - Ditto

Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich - Ditto. The silly name may have eventually counted against them.

Fortunes - Ditto

Vanity Fair - Don't know what happened to these

Chicory Tip - Formed in the sixties and became Moog synthesizer pioneers in the early seventies. I have heard they evolved into DP copies, but without success
 

CP/M User

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Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich - Ditto. The silly name may have eventually counted against them.

This group had a lot of Hits in the UK between 1966-1970 according to my CD of them. A lot of their Success came from the songwriters Ken Howard/Alan Blaikley.

Howard/Blaikley also made songs for UK group The Herd with Peter Frampton, which to be honest I wasn't aware existed until I came across a Best Of album and decided to look them up on the Internet. The Herd in contrast to DDDBMT only had 3 hits, 2 of those songs "From The Underworld" and "Paradise Lost" written by Alan Blaikley and their last hit "I Don't Want Our Loving To Die" was Howard/Blaikley. The Herd have a longer history though, that little bit of success came for them when Peter Frampton joined the group at the age of 17.
 

Big Ears

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I remember when Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich were formed, because they were in the Daily Mirror for their funny name. The name made them memorable, so it worked in their favour and they had a lot of (quality) hit singles. When it came to evolving from a light-hearted singles group into a serious albums band something counted against them and I can't help feeling the name was a part of this. Manfred Mann had to create another band with a new name and style, twice, and had to forego the hit singles for musical integrity.

I have a soft spot for the British singles bands of the sixties, because I grew up with them, and have compilations of DDDBM&T, Marmalade, Love Affair, Manfred Mann and others.

The Cuff Links (really Ron Dante) are another forgotten band of the sixties. They were very big here for a while.

Tony Burrows is probably not forgotten, but despite success into the mid-seventies, he should have gone on to 'respectability' instead of session harmonies.
 

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