by Malcolm Pheby | Sep 19, 2018 | Manchester, Music
Few would mention Manchester group Simply Red in the same breath as the Sex Pistols. One was renowned for polished, soulful vocals – the other for raw, rasping power. But the lineage of Simply Red, like so many Manchester bands of the 1970s, can be traced directly...
by Malcolm Pheby | Sep 13, 2018 | Hall Of Fame, Music
Life-long Manchester United supporter David Gray achieved world-wide fame when he released his smash-hit album White Ladder in 2000. It was actually the second time round for the LP as the Sale-born singer had originally released it in November 1998. It hardly scaled...
by Malcolm Pheby | Aug 25, 2018 | Liverpool, Music
Barbara Dickson has vivid memories about auditioning for Willy Russell’s musical John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre. It was the early 1970s and she was a little-known folk singer at the time. How would she cope with belting out a string...
by Malcolm Pheby | Aug 22, 2018 | Music
It’s a commonly held belief that The Smiths started life when guitarist Johnny Marr knocked on singer Morrissey’s door in May 1982 and asked if he’d like to form a group. But there’s evidence that the two met well before then at a Patti Smith gig at Manchester’s...
by Malcolm Pheby | Aug 1, 2018 | 1960s, Manchester, Music
It had to be one of the oddest encounters of the 1960s… Wacky Manchester pop group Freddie and the Dreamers rolled up at Longleat House in August 1965 to a play a gig for the aristocratic Marquess of Bath. Lead singer Freddie Garrity, all five foot three of him, went...
by Malcolm Pheby | Jul 18, 2018 | 1990s, Music
There was a seismic shift in British pop music when four young men from the Manchester area decided to form a band in 1990. Along with a precocious talent from Stoke-on-Trent, they created a sensation that took the teenage world by storm. They became so big that the...
