Entertainment For Lively Minds
Don't treat me like a White Swan
Posted by Sour Crout on 20 September 2011 - 8:29pm.
Just read that Helen Shapiro was in a band with Marc Bolan,
"At the age of ten, Shapiro was a singer with "Susie and the Hula Hoops," a school band which included Marc Bolan (then using his real name of Mark Feld) as guitarist." from Wikipedia.
Any other bits of strange pop/rock trivia you've read/heard recently ?
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Mark Feld once shared a flat with actor James Bolam...
... and allegedly tweaked "Bolam" to become "Bolan" and hence his stage name.
I read a biography of William Golding recently
and for some reason I was amazed to find out he was good friends with Pete Townshend of the My Generation Hitmakers. They were neighbors and used to go sailing together.
There was a quote from Pete on the back of the book that I saw when I bought it however I thought "Must be a different Pete Townshend" but it wasn't. Not surprisingly they argued about the quality of rock music.
I've known both their work for decades but can't put them together in my head.
requiem for a dream
Strange and possibly not true marvin Gaye cut an album with pink floyd! For the full story and the download google ill poetic.
Definitely not true...
What's Going On from these "sessions" features Keep Talking as a backing track, which was recorded around 9 years after he died!
Some of those Wiki
facts and figures don't quite add up.
Helen Shapiro is older than Marc, so if she was only 10 when this school band was formed, how old was he? 8 or 9? What kind of band was that?
Also, if Helen was 10, this would put the date as 1956. Rock & rock hadn't quite taken off outside America at that stage and the hula hoop craze didn't reach the UK until 1958/59.
I think we should be told ;-)
Bloody Hell! By purest coincidence...
I came across the Bolan/Shapiro connection the other day - from a completely different source (DK's "Q Encyclopedia of Rock Stars) and was considering posting it as part of a quiz.
Bolan was born in 1947 and formed a skiffle group, featuring Helen Shapiro, in 1957 when HE was 10.
I've found 1 or 2 errors in this weighty tome (they got the title of the 1st Yardbirds album wrong) but this seems like a more plausible
version.
Here's another interesting piece of trivia from the same book. I'll pose it as a question and if it entertains I'll look up some more at a later date.
Which singer/songwriter/guitarist (band member and solo artist) played flute in his High School Orchestra, harmonica with his brother on US-TV's "Ted Mack's Amateur Hour" as a teenager and contributed oboe and saxophone parts to mid-60's recordings by Frank Sinatra?
That seems
much more plausible, date-wise.
Even so, a skiffle band formed by a 10 year-old hardly seems like a viable proposition.
This is...
...Helen Shapiro's recollection:
'When he was famous, he used to talk about our little group. It wasn't just me and him. It was a few of us. He said we called ourselves Suzy And The Hula-Hoops, but I don't remember giving ourselves a name. He might've been right. He was nine and the rest of us were ten. We went to the same school. We had this little group. None of us could really play the instruments. I played on a little plastic toy guitar, tuned to a ukulele. Marc had a sort of beaten up guitar and this other guy had a smashing, lovely guitar.
'In those days, to have a guitar, I'm talking 1956 or thereabouts, was like a big deal. Not like now. We used to sing Elvis songs and a little bit of Buddy Holly. Yeah, we just kind of sang songs together.
'A couple of times we went to a couple of local cafes and we said "Hey Mister, can we sing in your cafe?" And we did. Then they gave us a cup of tea each and kicked us out. We did play in the school once, during the summer break when some of the kids would still go to the school for meals, because their parents were working. It was a poor area. And we would go and play and sing for them.
'I knew him as a little, chubby kid called Marc Feld, and he was the last one to join our little group.'
Thanks for the extra info
The hula hoop fad didn't happen until 1958/59, so it seems as if Marc was elaborating the story.
David Hepworth played the sax solo on Baker Street
true dat
Nah...
It was Careless Whisper.
You're both wrong
He played sax on Walk on the Wild Side, or was that David Bowie? I always confuse the two of them.
Can't we settle this once and for all?
Surely all someone has to do is call Gerry Raff - sorry, what was that? Oh.
No, no, no
This myth is based on a misheard comment DH made at an awards ceremony. Turns out he played the character 'Six' in the '80s sitcom 'Blossom'.
I hope that's it cleared up.
Wrong again
It was Bob Holness. Any fule kno that.
Super Freak
Hard to believe that Rick James and Neil Young were band-mates (in the Mynah Birds). Must have been some interesting tour bus conversations.
A couple of others:
>Glen Campbell replacing Brian Wilson for a Beach Boys tour in the late 60s (as well as being a go-to guitar studio pro).
>Tony Iommi in a very brief role with Jethro Tull (see Rock and Roll Circus)
>Ronnie Montrose from, er, Montrose was Van Morrison's guitarist on Tupelo Honey
Les Paul
Les Paul taught Steve Miller to play guitar... Steve Miller taught Robert Palmer to play guitar...
Not only was Bernard Jewry...
...not the original Shane Fenton, he wasn't the original Alvin Stardust either.
Paolo,more info please
We need to know more.
What he said
The original "Shane Fenton" John Theakstone, died as a result of childhood rheumatic fever and Alvin, then known as Bernard Jewry and roadie to the the group, was asked to take his place. He changed his name to Shane Fenton officially in 1960.
He was asked to be the "face" of Alvin Stardust after Peter Shelley (no, not that one) asked him to appear in his place after performing the song My Coo Ca Choo according to Wikipedia, however we all know reliable Wikipedia can be so this may or may not be true.
Alvin, or Shane to give him his "real" name, has just celebrated his 69th birthday and still performs.
Yes, all that's (apparently) true.
I already knew about him stepping into Shane Fenton's (dead man's) shoes, but only learnt of Peter Shelley being the original Alvin thanks to Keith Badman's column in a recent issue of RC.
Alvin Stardust's first TV appearance was performing My Coo Ca Choo on Lift Off, with the song's writer and vocalist, Peter, doing the duties - apparently, he didn't care for the experience much and 'Shane' subsequently took over.
Peter Shelley as in
the Love Me Love My Dog hitmaker?
That's the one
As opposed to the Buzzcocks leader, whose real name is McNeish. Complicated, isn't it? Presumably the "real" Peter Shelley had a change of heart about being the centre of attention.
Alvin Stardust
About 6 months ago, my mate his wife, & a couple of others went to a Glam Rock weekend at Skegness.
My mates wife won first prize in the raffle, a guitar signed by
Alvin Stardust.
By all accounts, his concert was excellent.
He's ace
A few years back a digital channel had a press do that was Seventies themed. The Rollers were there (I met them, very scary men) and there was a surprise guest who turned out to be Alvin Stardust.
He did all his hits, in leather, big ring on, etc., and he was really good. I was already a fan but it confirmed how brilliant he was.
Great Milton Fete
I used to live in a little village in Oxfordshire called Great Milton (home also to Le manoir aux quatre saisons, and, then, Tim Rice). The Tim connection meant we quite often had famous peeps appear at the fete. Alvin showed up with his wife, actress Liza Goddard. I recall a big finned American car. He was decked out in full regalia and a top bloke, posing for photos, having a cuppa and a scone, and he and we loved him being there. I used to have a soft spot for Liza back in the day too.
Liza Goddard
I used to have a soft spot for her too as Clancy on Skippy and many years later as Phillipa Vale on Bergerac.
Are you sure...
...it was soft?
*blushes*
I'm saying NUTHIN'!
That programme she was in
Where she lived with a songwriter? Really limp comedy. Except for the episode where she tried to distract him from his work by appearing in a basque and stockings. Oh yes.
The break-up of their marriage...
...according to a review of her autobiography:
"what really seems to have been the death knell for their marriage occurred when he was converted to evangelical Christianity during a train journey from Surrey to Waterloo. The cleaners found him on his knees, praying with a group of strangers."
Here is Bernard with Ronald
directed by Michael Winner