Chart entered : 25 October 1962
Chart peak : 31
Marty could be seen as the Beatles' first victim but his real nemesis was Larry Parnes. Parnes panicked at the emergence of Cliff Richard and pulled Marty from Oh Boy for fear that he would be seen as a supporting act. This of course left Cliff with a clear field as Marty's new show Boy Meets Girl was never as popular. His chart positions immediately suffered ; after his opening salvo of 5 Top 10 hits only "Rubber Ball got as high again. What's more some of his teen fans deserted after he married his new TV co-star Joyce Vernon.
By the time of this release Marty's Wild Cats had broken up with Brian Bennett and Brian Licking replacing Tony Meehan and Jet Harris in The Shadows. "Ever Since You Said Goodbye" was written by Alan Fielding who'd recently given Billy Fury a Top 5 hit with Last Night Was Made For Love. It's a perfectly serviceable mid-paced rocker with some melodic similarities to Rubber Ball, nice guitar work as ever from Big Jim Sullivan and a mildly anguished vocal from Marty sounding suitably self-pitying. It's over in less than two minutes and just doesn't lodge itself in the memory cells.
Marty changed labels at the end of the year and his last single on Philips actually came out a month after his first for Columbia "No! Dance With Me" was his own song, a well-produced ditty set to a cha-cha rhythm giving Marty a chance to impersonate Hollywood-era Elvis. Again it's not particularly memorable. His debut for Columbia was a version of Doc Pomus's "Lonely Avenue" an R & B hit for Ray Charles. He was backed by John Barry and his Orchestra but it's a much rawer record with lots of R& B harmonica and a raunchy vocal. "Bless My Broken Heart " from November 1963 also has a more R & B feel and sounds similar to a Hollies track I can't quite put my finger on.
His first release of 1964 was "When Day Is Done" which I haven't heard. "Kiss Me" closed his account with Columbia and his next single in September that year was on Decca. "The Mexican Boy" was arranged by Mike Leander and produced by Andrew Loog Oldham. It was his first record where he used the pseudonym Frere Manston to disguise the fact that he wrote it.
In 1965 he changed tack and formed a trio, The Wilde Three with his wife and young singer and guitarist Justin Hayward who answered their ad in Melody Maker. Their first single "Since You've Gone" is an uncomfortable listen. Their voices don't blend well; Marty's falsetto is particularly painful on the ear and the minimalist percussion becomes irritating. There's not much of a tune to speak of either. The arrangement only lasted for one more single "I Cried" in September 1965 although Hayward has spoken warmly of his time with the Wildes as a very valuable apprenticeship.
In 1966 Marty got back with Philips and released "I've Got So Used To Loving You" . In 1968 he was the first British singer to have a crack at Jimmy Webb's "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" and it's a credible attempt though you wouldn't choose it ahead of Glen Campbell.
Marty's fortunes now substantially improved as he formed a songwriting partnership with Ronnie Scott of the Bystanders - not the jazzer - who also used a pseudonym Jim Gellar. Their first collaboration "Abergavenny" was released by Marty in May 1968. It's a bizarre concoction of brass band flourishes , psychedelic lyrics and Spector-ish production held together by Marty's arch vocal. It got a lot of airplay and is well-remembered for a non-hit . Bizarrely Marty chose to release it under another pseudonym Shannon internationally and saw it chart everywhere else ; number 5 in Holland, 6 in New Zealand and most fruitfully 47 in the USA. Manston and Gellar were now hot property and UK hits - for other artists- were soon on the way; Jesamine (The Casuals) , I'm A Tiger (Lulu) and Ice On The Sun ( Status Quo ). Marty's own next single "All The Love I Have" in March 1969 slipped by unnoticed.
Philips then muddied the waters by including "Endless Sleep" in a reissue programme , unhelpful for an artist still on the label trying to escape his association with a bygone era. "Shelley" from October 1969 saw Marty and Scott dropping the Manston / Gellar handle ( perhaps Marty was having trouble remembering which name to put on his cheques ) which was a bit risky considering how much the record owes to The Move. It's a good song but it's very easy to sing Blackberry Way over the top of it.
Marty's next project was a commission from the BBC for he and Scott to write some songs for a new version of Alun Owen's play No Trams On Lime Street . It was the third adaptation in less than a dozen years - someone at Auntie must have liked it ! It was transmitted in March 1970 and Marty put out a single of the same title the same week but it did no business.
As far as I can determine it was the last collaboration between Marty and Scott ( who we'll meet again circa 1976 ) . Marty was performing on the northern club circuit when he released "The Busker" in 1971. Things hadn't got that bad; there was a full scale rock and roll revival under way and Marty was more bankable as a live act than for many years previously though he didn't appear at the big Wembley Stadium concert in 1972 ( how on earth did Heinz get on the bill ? ).
Marty had another project on the go in 1972, the launch of his eleven year old son Ricky as a pre-teen idol to do battle with Neil Read and Jimmy Osmond. His first single "I Am An Astronaut" was written by Marty and Peter Shelley ( the dog-loving balladeer not the Buzzcocks frontman ) and dreadful doesn't begin to describe it. I would make a flippant remark about child abuse except it was released on Jonathan King's UK label. I don't know who's written Ricky's Wikipedia entry but "King ... groomed him for stardom" isn't a good choice of words. Ricky's bid for stardom lasted for six singles up to 1974's "I Wanna Go To A Disco" ( hopefully not The Walton Hop ) and they're all awful. Ricky can't sing in tune and each one gets noisier than the one before in an attempt to disguise the defect.
Marty himself turned up on Bus Stop records under a new guise , Cold Fly , at the beginning of 1973. His one single "Caterpillar" is an entirely vacuous attempt to jump on the glam bandwagon which apart from some nice cello work sounds like a Mud B-side. Shelley ( who co-wrote the flip side ) then invited Marty to sign up to his new label, Magnet.
I'm not quite sure of the sequence of events in the next episode. Shelley wrote My Coo-Ca-Choo and released it under the name "Alvin Stardust". He and Marty wrote "Rock And Roll Crazy" which Marty released under the name Zappo almost simultaneously. Shelley and his business partner Michael Levy drafted in Bernard Jewry to take on the Stardust mantle as the single took off . Whether Marty had the opportunity to become Alvin I don't know nor why the records came out at the same time but it's certain that musically Marty got the raw end of the stick. Coo-Ca-Choo is a glam rock classic; "Rock And Roll Crazy" is terrible , a blatant Gary Glitter / Sweet pastiche with no hooks of its own. To judge from the sleeve, Alvin had the edge in the image stakes too.
By June 1974 he was back under his own name with the single "All Night Girl" which is a passable stab at mid 70s pop in the vein of Kenny or The Arrows with some interesting early synthesiser effects. I haven't heard the follow-up "I Love You" which appears to have been his last single for the label although he co-wrote all Shelley's 1975 singles including the big hit, Love Me Love My Dog .
Marty had a good role in Stardust but it didn't reignite his film career and he returned to the club circuit for the rest of the seventies ; the next Wilde release was Kids In America which we'll come to in good time. Kim's success and the revival in fortunes of contemporaries like Alvin Stardust and Billy Fury allowed Marty to briefly resume recording with KRL in 1982 but horrible synthesiser covers of "In Dreams" and "Sea Of Heartbreak" were a tawdry end to his singles career.
After that Marty and Ricky concentrated their energies on Kim's career and raising the much younger Wilde siblings Roxanne and Marty. When the elder kids no longer needed him he concentrated on keeping in shape ( mainly through golf ) for the nostalgia circuit. Roxanne accompanied him on his 2007 tour celebrating 50 years in the business which culminated in a gig at the London Palladium where all the surviving Shadows joined him on stage.
He's still on the road as I write, appearing at The Millfield Theatre, Edmonton on Thursday night ( 27.03.2014 ).
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