Chart entered : 3 July 1982
Chart peak : 67
Here begins a big cull of seventies stalwarts in the second half of the year.
Brotherhood of Man on this last hit were a completely different band from the one that recorded "United We Stand" , the only link being songwriter Tony Hiller. The original line up stayed together long enough to record the debut LP "United We Stand" including the follow-up hit "Where Are You Going To My Love ?" By the time the latter was released in the summer of 1970 Tony Burrows and Roger Greenaway had left because they were over-committed. Russell Stone and Hal Atkinson filled the gaps and they managed another minor hit in the US but disbanded in 1972 after the failure of their second album. Hiller refused to let the brand die and put together a new line up despite conventional wisdom suggesting it might be better to give them a fresh name.
Martin Lee ( the one with the 'tache ) was a singer-songwriter from Surrey with one single to his name. Lee Sheriden was a resident musician at the Top Rank Club in Bristol. Nicky Stevens was a night club singer from Wales and the unrelated Sandra Stevens had been in The Nocturnes with New Seeker Eve Graham. Though competent enough the newbies didn't have the same vocal firepower as their predecessors so stuck to pure pop without the leanings towards soul.. At first the decision to keep the name looked a poor one as the string of flops continued and Deram dropped them in 1973. They signed for a label called Dawn and in 1975 enjoyed a big hit in Europe with the Barry Blue song "Kiss Me Kiss Your Baby". Then of course they won the Eurovision Song Contest with "Save Your Kisses For Me" in 1976. Martin sang the lead on that but was soon dropped in favour of the girls as impersonating Abba became the name of the game. This worked for a couple of years and they scored two more number ones before the public got fed up of them and this was their first hit since 1978 though they had scored in the album charts with "Sing 20 Number Ones" where they did what the title suggests. When another quickly recorded album of covers missed the charts the band seemed to have run its course and early in 1982 Lee left the band to go to university and was replaced by Barry Upton.
The success of Buck's Fizz hadn't gone unnoticed and Hiller convinced EMI that a revitalised Brotherhood of Man could take advantage of the New Pop climate. "Lightning Flash" takes ripping off Abba to a new degree as it's basically Super Trouper speeded up a bit and set to a horribly cheap Pickwick synth arrangement. The girls even sing with Swedish accents. Hiller's own production sounds terribly tinny. It wasn't even a good time to mimic the Swedes as they were widely seen as past their prime and Head Over Heels had become their first single to miss the Top 20 since 1975 just moths earlier.
The follow-up "Cry Baby Cry" takes The Winner Takes It All as its starting point and has a somewhat fuller sound with Barry credited as arranger. It's a better record but didn't chart. In 1983 Martin, Barry and Hiller came up with "When The Kissing Stops" for Eurovision but decided not to risk failure as Brotherhood of Man and gave it to a duo called Rubric. When it finished runner-up to Sweet Dreams in the British heat , the group reclaimed it and released it as a single themselves. It's somewhat over-produced and sounds more like Dollar and Abba but it isn't a bad synth-pop effort. These latter three singles were all included on their "Lightning Flash" album which bombed and EMI dropped them.
They continued to tour for the next year but there were no plans to record again and when Barry announced he was leaving the group decided to split.
Two years later Lee was available again and the group decided to reunite without Hiller's involvement. They are still together today performing on the nostalgia circuit and have occasionally gone into the studio to re-record their old hits and covers for sale at their gigs though nothing has been generally released.
Barry released a solo single, the dance track "Ask The DJ" in 1986 but became more notable as a producer and manager working with Sonia before mega-success as the founder of Steps. He is now based in Thailand where he is a major player in their music industry as well as a disc jockey and performer.
So what happened to the earlier line up ? Tony caused great confusion by singing lead vocals on hits by four different acts early in 1970 but he quit Edison Lighthouse and White Plains after one single as well as Brotherhood of Man concentrating on his solo career and the occasional single with Roger as the novelty duo Pipkins. He had already had a minor hit in the US under his own name "Melanie Makes Me Smile" before quitting BoM. It was written by the same guys as Love Grows ( Where My Rosemary Goes ) and is a virtual Xerox copy.
That was as good as it got for Tony as a solo artist. He claims that he got wind that senior figures at the BBC felt his frequent appearances on Top of the Pops had undermined the programme's credibility and there was an unofficial ban on Radio One playing his subsequent records. So while White Plains chalked up some more hits without him Tony was left out in the cold. Certainly the next two singles "Every Little Move She Makes" ( written by Tony Macaulay, Cook and Greenaway ) and "The Humming Song" ( Macaulay alone ) sound eminently hit-worthy. He then lost his way a bit recording covers and after a dreadful pop reggae version of "Rhythm of the Rain" in 1972 he left Bell and Cook and Greenaway to try his luck with the Ammo boys. I've only heard one of his three singles for them ,"Have You Had A Little Happiness Lately" which is pretty good but a little dated for 1974.
He chalked up his last hit in 1974 through doing the lead vocal for former Flowerpot Man John Carter's new outfit, First Class's first single "Beach Baby" an enjoyable Beach Boys pastiche which reached number 13 here and got to number 4 in the US.
After that Tony's own recordings became sporadic although he was busy with session work. In May 1975 he got back together with Roger for a last Pipkins single, a glam rock cover of the bubblegum classic "Yummy Yummy" which is entertaining for one play. Later in the year he turned up on RAK in a duo Jan and Joey covering David Geddas's teen melodrama "Run Joey Run" as a one-off single. In February 1976 he was featured vocalist on a single by a group called Magic , a cover of Eric Carmen's "Never Gonna Fall In Love Again" which is pretty good with some great female harmonies. He released two more single "Oh My Jo" and "When My Little Girl Is Smiling " later that year. He disappeared for the next 8 years before popping up up in a duo Heart To Heart with Stephanie De Sykes doing an awful synth-pop medley of sixties hits for John Carter called "Three Chord Trick ".
That was Tony's last record. He disappeared into session work, mainly for commercials, but in recent years has finally got back on the road to perform his hits and looks in pretty good shape.
Roger's career as a performer ended when he quit BoM but he remained a massively successful songwriter and producer with White Plains, New Seekers, The Drifters and Crystal Gayle. After his main partner Roger Cook emigrated to the States in 1975, Roger was less active as a pop writer, moving into advertising jingles while becoming more involved with the Performing Rights Society. In 1983 he became its chairman then in 1995 he started running the European office of the American equivalent, ASCAP . In 1998 he got an OBE.
Big John Goodison was less prominent after the original line up broke up. He re-emerged in March 1974 fronting a glam outfit Big John's Rock n Roll Circus which included Sweet producer Phil Wainman. They co-wrote the material and the first single "Lady ( Put The Light On Me )" sounds remarkably like Meat Loaf. They went down like a lead balloon in the UK but the next single the Glitter-esque "Rockin in the USA" took off in Southern Africa reaching 11 in South Africa and number one in Rhodesia. At the same time as he was rocking the Transvaal, he enjoyed a UK number one as a writer with the Bay City Rollers' gloopy Give A Little Love .
John and Phil were also recording as a studio outfit 2nd Tyme Around with MOR ballads like "Romeo And Juliet" in January 1975 which manages to sound like both The Walker Brothers and The Stylistics. By 1976 the Circus had folded its tent and he recorded a couple of singles as Johnny Goodison , a version of "Summertime Blues " and a pop disco number "I'm Goin' Down" co-composed with Hiller. After his last attempt at writing a Eurovision entry in 1980 he retreated into James Last's Orchestra and was pretty obscure by the time he died in 1995.
The sisters Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie went back to work as the session duo Sue and Sunny. They were going to be in the girl band The Pearls but after recording the vocals for their first minor hit "Third Finger Left Hand" they found they were contractually prevented from joining the band who went on to moderate fame without them. After one more single as a duo , an undistinguished cover of The Supremes' "I'm Gonna Make You love Me" the disillusioned duo were persuaded to try their luck as solo artists.
Sunny signed with CBS and had instant success with "Doctor's Orders" , a top 10 hit in the spring of 1974. Composed by Cook and Greenaway and someone called Stephens it's something of a Supremes pastiche although Sunny actually sounds more like Dionne Warwick than Diana Ross. It was catchy enough to reach number 7 here but a different singer Carol Douglas made it a US hit six months later. Alas that was as good as it got for Sunny. The follow-up "A Warm and Tender Romance" written by Roger and Tony Macaulay was even more Supremes-y but lacked the hooks to crack the Top 50. The same pairing wrote her third single "Headline News " which is more Philly-sounding and became a Northern Soul favourite. She recorded two more singles for CBS " We Gave Our Love A Second Chance " and " Lonely, Neglected and Unprotected" in 1975 , neither of which I've heard. That same year she reunited with Sue to back German singer Joy Fleming at the 1975 Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm. She then went to Germany to work with Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer. She made a final single "We Got Love" for DJM in 1979 produced by Tony. The sisters are said to have backed Vikki Watson ( for the UK ) at the Eurovision final in Gothenberg in 1985 but if so they were not on the stage with her. After that she continued doing session work and backing singers on TV variety shows.
Sue's solo career on DJM ,started a bit later in 1975 but she did get to record a full album "Solo" . I've only got to hear one track, her own composition "Three Days And A Little Rain " - not one of her three singles - which is lightly jazzy MOR and very snoozy. She dabbled a little in acting with an appearance in a Victoria Wood play in 1979. In 1981 , by which time she'd had three kids she tried for Eurovision as Unity which was basically her and five schoolgirls dressed in Victorian clothes. The song "Only for One Day" was an absolute dog and came last in the British heat so it never got recorded; Terry Wogan struggled to mask his derision after her performance. In 1988 she did some work on the ill-fated childrens TV series Tugs.
Later in the decade both women joined John and Tony in working for James Last. In recent years Sue - now a grandmother living in Berkshire - has produced a children's book Twelve Little Angels and in promotional interviews has stated her satisfaction with her career.
And what of the man who started it all - Tony Hiller ? He was already 55 when Lightning Flash exited the charts and wrote little of note afterwards, just a few football records and one of Sonia's hits. He's still alive at 88 and maintains an active website and YouTube channel.
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