Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich Bend It
Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich Bend It
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, Tich� and Swindon
Hold Tight! - Swindon's connectedness to the 60s chart toppers
Nobody remembers their real names, only Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich were on every popular fan�s lips in the 1960s.
Which one'southward Dozy?:
Dave Dee (front) with (l to r) Dozy,
Beaky, Mick and Tich
They scored a big number 1 � with The Legend of Xanadu � and between 1965 and 1969 spent more weeks on the United kingdom singles nautical chart than The Beatles, clocking up eight top ten singles in the UK.
Simply a alive performance in Swindon in 1964 proved a turning point � and there is a spooky fluke of fate that as well links frontman Dave Dee with a great rock �n� roll tragedy.
Non fifty-fifty Dave Dee performed under his existent name, having been born David Harman. Like the rest of the band, he was from Salisbury, and when they were founded in 1961, they called themselves Dave Dee and the Bostons.
At the time, they were all part-time musicians, with Dave Harman (Dave Dee) earning a living every bit a policeman in Swindon. In April 1960, he was a police cadet when, amazingly, he attended the scene of the car accident at Chippenham involving American rock �n� roll superstar Eddie Cochran, then aged 21.
Cochran was taken to St Martin�s Hospital, Bath, where he died, 16 hours later. Beau passenger Factor Vincent, himself a large star, suffered serious injuries but survived (he died from a ruptured stomach ulcer in 1971).
Death of a legend:
Dave Harmon (Dee) attended the
Eddie Cochran crash scene as a policeman
Dave retrieved Cochran�s undamaged guitar from the wreckage and, according to some sources, took it home for safekeeping, before it was returned to Cochran�s family, although it�south much more likely that it remained impounded at the police station.
Stories that he �taught himself to play guitar on it� are also fanciful every bit Dave himself admitted only that he had �had a expert strum on it�.
T-Rex
There is another bizarre coincidence associated with the guitar � a Gretsch � which is now in the Rock �n� Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.
Earlier in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland tour that ended so tragically at Chippenham, Cochran had allowed a thirteen-year-quondam boy called Marc Feld to bear the guitar from the Hackney Empire to his limousine after a concert. Marc Feld afterward adopted the stage name Marc Bolan, who would bask huge success as the lead vocaliser of T King only would besides run across an early on death - in a road accident.
Ahhh... the sixties!:
Dave Dee and the boys enjoying the delights of Coke
Though Dave Dee and the rest of his ring gave upwards their day jobs in the early Sixties, they seemed destined for pop anonymity by 1964.
Like The Beatles, they had learned their craft playing dodgy night clubs in Germany, but they were having to piece of work the summer season at Butlin�s in Clacton in 1964, and were yet to be offered a recording contract.
Swindon gig
All that changed on a Thursday nighttime during that summer of 1964, when the ring � still called Dave Dee and the Bostons - had a �night off� from the holiday camp to play at the Locarno in Swindon.
Dave recalled: �We used to get Th dark off, and the but style we could make money was to moonlight. We had a gig offered to us in Swindon, supporting The Honeycombs.
Swinging in the sixties:
the Locarno in One-time Boondocks,
now set to be redeveloped,
hosted a number of big names
including The Who and
The Yardbirds
"They�d merely gone to number i with Accept I The Right? We went on and did the outset hour, and Dennis Dell, who was the singer of The Honeycombs, so went backstage and said to their managers, �Look, yous�ve got to go and sentinel this band.�
�We got a tug into the dressing room later on, and they said: �We tin get y'all a recording deal.�
�They gave the states their menu and told the states to come and see them in London. Two weeks subsequently, nosotros were doing a gig in Barnet, so we thought we�d become and run across them.�
The Locarno was in Market Square, Old Town. Built in 1865 every bit the Corn Exchange, an extension to the existing Town Hall, by 1880 it had been converted into a kind of entertainment venue/exhibition hall. Between 1909 and 1919 it was a roller skating rink, then a cinema until 1949, when it became a dance hall.
During the Sixties it was on the tour circuit for many of Britain�s top pop stars, and acts who performed there include The Who, The Animals, The Pocket-sized Faces, Lulu and, ironically, Gene Vincent.
The Honeycombs managers who had spotted the band�s potential that night at the Locarno were Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard, who were already firmly established equally songwriters, and would go on to write Elvis Presley�s 1971 hit, I�ve Lost You.
They took Dave and the band under their wings and re-named them, using real-life nicknames that would keep DJs beyond the world on their toes, as they struggled to recall the right order.
As Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, Dave and the band enjoyed national stardom which peaked when they topped the UK singles chart in 1968 with The Legend of Xanadu � a year when they would too return to play at The Locarno.
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich
courtesy of YouTube
Legend of Xandu
Number i in 1968
The Legend of Xanadu was one of the few striking records to include the sound of a whip, famously wielded past Dave on Tiptop of the Pops � and proved to be the superlative for Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, whose decline was rapid. They only had one more top ten hit before Dave left in 1969 to pursue a solo career, but he never charted college than number 42.
He went on to gear up a successful charity promoting music therapy, then ran a guest house, and in a kind of repeat of his days of laying downwardly the law in Swindon, in later life became a magistrate.
Sadly, he died on Jan nine, 2009, aged 67, after a three-year battle with cancer.
For the record, their real names are:
Dave Dee � David Harman
Dozy - Trevor Ward-Davies
Beaky � John Dymond
Mick � Michael Wilson
Tich � Ian Amey
Top ten singles (UK):
February 1966 � Agree Tight (4)
June 1966 � Hideaway (ten)
September 1966 � Curve Information technology (two)
Dec 1966 � Save Me (three)
May 1967 � Okay! (4)
September 1967 � Zabadak! (three)
Feb 1968 � The Fable of Xanadu (ane)
June 1968 � Last Dark in Soho (viii)
Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich Bend It
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