Chart entered : 14 February 1970
Chart peak : 10
Number of hits : 10
Here's two peculiarly seventies tales. Firstly it's the story of a brand rather than a band , that had two hits with one line up and then eight with a completely different one. Secondly it's the first of many examples coming up of what could be deemed as "lesser lights" of the sixties getting a second chance when the likes of Floyd, Zep and ELP declared that the album chart was the only place to be.
The group was the brainchild of 42 year old British songwriter called Tony Hiller who had been in a song and dance duo with his brother, The Hiller Brothers, that trod the boards in the UK during the fifties and sixties. His previous track record as a writer was modest to say the least, the B-side to one of Lulu's early hits back in 1965.
Realising he was getting a bit long in the tooth to perform his own material he put together The Brotherhood of Man as a vehicle for his songs. The original line-up was made up of a producing friend John Goodison , singer Tony Burrows who was already in another group ,White Plains, hitless female duo Sue and Sunny and most surprisingly the successful songwriter Roger Greenaway which seems a bit like John Lennon joining the Hollies. Roger had a long association with Tony Burrows which helps explain his presence.
The Kestrels went back to 1956 when they formed as The Hi-Fis in school in Bristol. They changed their name because many of the American vocal harmony groups they wished to emulate had birds' names eg. The Penguins. They first got the chance to record an EP for Donegall Records in 1958 when Roger - who was originally the lead singer - was doing National Service. Their first real single was in November 1959 on Pye : "There Comes A Time" was a cover of a recent US hit by Canadian singer Jack Scott, a sombre ballad of loss with a dark undertow that anticipates Roy Orbison. It was followed in 1960 by a straight cover of a recent US hit for the American doo wop group The Fireflies, "I Can't Say Goodbye".
While these singles didn't chart they were noted by the top artists of the day and The Kestrels found themselves doing backing vocals for Billy Fury, Eden Kane and Benny Hill among others and invitations to appear on TV began to arrive. At Fury's suggestion they switched to Decca and recorded their next single "Sounds Off ( Duckworths Chant ) " a musical version of the American military marching chant inspired by Vaughan Monroe's adaptation in 1951. It's something of a novelty item recorded at the end of a session with Billy Fury which produced the number 40 hit "Don't Worry". At this point they were calling themselves The Four Kestrels and were credited as such on both singles. It 's not one of Billy's better singles, sounding like an average Elvis country ballad done by an inferior singer, but it marks Tony and Roger's first appearance in the charts in April 1961. By the time of their next single in September, "All These Things" written by Les Vandyke they'd reverted to the original name.
Pye lured them back in 1962 with a longer term deal to release records on the Piccadilly imprint while working as a regular backing group for Lonnie Donegan. Their first single for the label was a cover of Claude King's "Wolverton Mountain" which I haven't heard. In October 1962 they released " Don't Want To Cry", a sumptuously arranged ( by John Keating ) old fashioned ballad which sounds like a hit but wasn't. At the beginning of 1963 they took on the folk pop classic "Walk Right In" but were squashed by the original version by The Rooftop Singers which reached number 10. In May 1963 they acknowledged the Beatles by covering "There's A Place" which seems to straddle the decades with Roger ( I presume ) doing his best Tony Williams impersonation and the others doing very credible beat group harmonies behind him. The much-covered "Love Me With All Your Heart" was the next single, sounding very like The Bachelors ( who covered it themselves three years later ).
By December 1963 they had decided to sound like a beat group and put out a lively version of The Drifters' "Dance With Me". The B -side "I Want You" was written by Tony and Roger. Another Roger, surnamed Cook joined the line up in their final year.
When the group called it a day in 1965 the two Rogers decided to work together as songwriters and soon hit paydirt when The Fortunes reached number 2 with their song "You've Got Your Troubles " and they were quickly in demand. They wanted to perform as well and started releasing singles under the name "David And Jonathan" . Their first single "Laughing Fit To Cry" is a likable energetic pop song but a little over-busy and didn't make it. At the beginning of 1966 they had the same idea as The Overlanders to cover The Beatles' "Michelle" from Rubber Soul . It was semi-endorsed by the Fabs as George Martin arranged it but the outsiders won the chart battle with the Rogers peaking ten places lower at number 11. However their version was the only one to make the US Top 40.
Their next single in April 1966 was a Clint Ballard song "Speak Her Name" a big dramatic ballad in the Walker Brothers vein which is good though you know Scott and his mates would have given it more oomph in the vocal department. The next single was their biggest hit in June 1966 "Lovers Of The World Unite" which, with some unidentified female input, sounds like a lost Seekers song with an irresistible chorus. It reached number seven, after which their own records stopped charting except for some minor placings in Australia. It's tempting to think other people grabbed their best songs like "Somethings Got A Hold On My Heart", the last major hit for Gene Pitney and they recorded the ones no one wanted. The next single "Ten Storeys High" is all build up and no discernible chorus. "Scarlet Ribbons" is a pointless cover of a fifties hit for Harry Belafonte. "The Magic Book " is a great , lightly psychedelic pop song that wasn't a hit for either them or The Gibsons, a young Australian band that covered it shortly afterwards . "She's Leaving Home" is another Beatles cover with George Martin arranging which doesn't achieve the heartbreaking pathos of the original. "Softly Whispering I Love You" reached 19 in Australia in late 1967 and would be a big UK hit for The Congregation in 1971 but the original, grandly arranged by Martin and Mike Vickers didn't do the trick.
"You Ought To Meet My Baby" was the last David and Jonathan single in June 1968 and I haven't heard it. After that they announced they were retiring as a recording duo but really the public had made the decision for them. Soon afterwards the playing core of what came to be Blue Mink approached Roger G to be their vocalist. He declined but Roger C was up for it and they continued to collaborate with one in the band and one out. That might be another reason why Roger accepted the invite to join The Brotherhood of Man; he had time on his hands when his partner was out on the road.
Straight after the Kestrels split Tony Burrows put out an album of standards as a Bobby Darin style crooner, "Presenting Tony Bond with the Keating Sound". The idea was to associate himself with the glamour and sophistication of the Bond movies but the LP sank without trace. The following year he was invited to replace John Carter ( who continued writing for the band ) in the Ivy League. He was in time to sing on their final UK hit "Willow Tree" which managed a single week at number 50 in July 1966. It's a nice piece of harmony pop in the style of the Mamas and Papas or The Seekers and it was probably only the competition around that kept it so low. The follow-up "My World Fell Down" from October is an early psychedelic pop item with complex harmonies that borrows from everyone - Zombies, Beach Boys, Mamas and Papas - and probably suffered from being released at the same time as Good Vibrations. It was a hit in the US for the studio collective Sagittarius ( with an uncredited Glen Campbell doing the lead vocal ) the following year. "Four And Twenty Hours" is virtually a Beach Boys tribute record with the harmonic arrangement and what sounds very like the You're Too Good For Me riff below.
I'm not quite clear about the course of events from this point. It seems certain that Tony is on the next single they put out in July 1967 , "Suddenly Things" which uses a lot of bluster , especially the drumming, to disguise a pretty weak song. A month later the departed Ivy Leaguers John Carter and Ken Lewis put out "Let's Go To San Francisco" , under the guise of The Flowerpot Men ( which is probably where this fake band thing got started ) . Tony did some harmonies on the single. The record was long derided by punk-era writers as a prime example of cynical bandwagon-jumping but has since been accepted as a valid and welcome addition to the music of the period. When it was a major hit in the UK and Europe there was a demand to see "the band". Carter and Lewis did not want to perform again so invited Tony and fellow Ivy Leaguer Neil Landon to join a touring version of the Flowerpot Men ( which included future Deep Purple men Jon Lord and Nick Simper ). The remaining man in the Ivy League , Perry Ford did recruit new men and carry on but it seems unlikely that he could have done this by October when the final single "Thank You For Loving Me" came out so it probably does feature Tony. It's a Carter-Lewis song and sounds like "Let's Go... " slowed down a bit.
The second Flowerpot Men, the epic "A Walk In The Sky" was released in November 1967. It 's a riot of Beach Boy and Beatles influences with tempo changes and a kitchen sink production. It bamboozled the British audience but was a hit in Holland and Germany. The third single in April 1968 was "Man Without A Woman" a big dramatic ballad with some cheeky steals from You've Lost That Loving Feeling. At this point Deram started interfering in the band's affairs. First they decided the group's name was now out of date and insisted that the bubblegum follow-up "Piccolo Man" be issued under their suggested name of "Friends". When that didn't work they allowed the name to revert but suggested to Tony that the touring band record a Cook-Greenaway number "In A Moment Of Madness" without Carter and Lewis being involved. The single was released in March 1969 and is a terrific late 60s pop song in the Love Affair vein. When it failed there was general agreement that the name was a problem and they became White Plains whose first single came out at the same time as this one.
Details about the portly John Goodison are a bit sketchier. He was it seems a Coventry tool-maker who fancied a crack at the pop business and released his first single "School Is In " as "Johnny B Great and the Goodmen" in September 1963. I haven't heard that one but his next single was a rollicking version of "Acapulco 1922" also covered by Kathy Kirby and Kenny Ball ( who got the hit ) . John's single showcases a raw but rumbustious voice and the brass work is great too.
He falls off the radar for a while until 1966 when he appeared in the British beat film Just For You, at a piano doing a Jerry Lee Lewis take on "If I Had A Hammer". That same year he appeared on Germany's Beat Beat Beat at the head of a 10 piece soul band , John B Great and the Quotations backing Beryl Marsden ( the clips from this on youtube are well worth checking out ). Whether this was a one-off pairing or a more permanent arrangement I don't know nor whether the new outfit made any records. In the late sixties he pops up again as a producer with credits on records by The Gun and Love Affair amongst others.
Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie were actually sisters Yvonne and Heather Wheatman born in Madras. They came to England as children and made their first record , a version of Lesley Gore's "Just Let Me Cry" in 1963 when Heather ( " Sunny" ) was barely 12. They changed their name to the Sue and Sunshine and released "A Little Love " in November 1964 and "We're In Love in April 1965. They changed their name to "Sue and Sunny for the single "Every Ounce of Strength" in November. None of these records can be easily found. In 1966 they turned professional and did backing vocals on Alex Harvey's 1965 R & B single "Agent 00 Soul" . They started singing on the cabaret circuit but soon grew bored of appearing before middle-aged audiences and went to Germany for a while to entertain the squaddies. They put out a couple of singles in German while they were there.
They returned to London in 1966 and did a session with Lesley Duncan. Although not yielding any hits it seemed to open doors for them and they got regular work as session singers. In January 1967 they tried again with "You Can't Bypass Love". A year later they released "You're Never Gonna Get My Lovin" as The Stocking Tops. The song was written by Mort Shuman and Kenny Lynch and sounds like an over-produced Supremes knock-off although I do like the screaming guitar solo at the end. Lynch wrote their follow-up "I Don't Ever Wanna Get Kicked By You" which was arranged by John Paul Jones ; he presumably supplied the buzzing bassline that underpins it. This one sounds more like Dusty although the vocals are a bit bland. Both songs became Northern Soul favourites. Also in 1968 they recorded a demonstration disc for the Bush sound system. At the end of the year they worked with Joe Cocker and are on With A Little Help From My Friends . Appearing on Top Of The Pops with him raised their profile further.
In June 1969 they came into the orbit of Hiller and Goodison ( under his writing alias Peter Simons ) when they covered their song "Running Round In Circles" previously recorded by the pre-Burrows Ivy League. Their last single before going into Brotherhood of Man was "Let Us Break Bread Together " is a communion hymn re-arranged by their producer Bobby Scott and is a good showcase for the gospel style they were developing.
The first Brotherhood of Man single was "Love One Another" written by Tony Hiller and John. It's a New Seekers-ish unity anthem and it's hard not to smile at the naive lyrics but the quintet certainly packed some vocal power. It didn't chart.
"United We Stand" is another Hiller/Symons song and covers the same ground lyrically though it's a simpler construction jumping into the huge anthemic chorus after very brief verses where Sunny and Tony share the lead vocals. Although the chorus is obviously multi-tracked the vocal chops of this line-up can't be denied and though the single is crudely manipulative it is effective. Although largely forgotten here it has had a long shelf life in the US where it was used by the Democrats during George McGovern's doomed presidential campaign in 1972, as the closing song for Brady Bunch Hour in 1977 and then was covered by a number of artists in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Seeing the band doing it on Top Of The Pops is a reminder that if the forthcoming decade would come to be routinely described as grey and pessimistic it didn't start out that way.
( You also notice John's girth, the girls' full figures and the 19 year old Sunny's heavy hand with the hair laquer and eye shadow ). The group also made a rather stilted promo film where they posed around a medieval castle - I hope they got permission to stand on the walls.
This song also features in the enduring legend ( often repeated at pop quizzes where most of the other players are around 10 years older than me ) that Tony featured in three different bands on an edition of Top Of The Pops performing this, White Plains' "My Baby Loves Loving" and the number one hit "Love Grows ( Where My Rosemary Goes )" by Edison Lighthouse which Tony had hoped would come out under his name but the label had other ideas. It's also been said that the programme-makers didn't like this peep behind the curtain and unofficially decided it wouldn't happen again. Tony himself seems convinced of the story. In fact he never appeared more than twice on the same programme and there was no such ban. The feat of doing lead vocals on four simultaneous hits ( Pipkins' "Gimmee Dat Ding " was the other ) is amazing enough without the embellishments.
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