Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Move: Night of Fear



Not that I entirely approve, but here is something for Halloween.

The original line up of The Move - Ace Kefford, Carl Wayne, Roy Wood, Trevor Burton and Bev Bevan - playing on the German TV show Beat, Beat, Beat.

The Move Information Station describes the band's prehistory:
The five original members of the group had all played with local bands during the years of the beat boom of the early Sixties. Despite the successes of other provincial groups in the early Sixties, Birmingham's bands seemed to lag behind in the race to become national stars.

According to Roy Wood, the reason was that Birmingham audiences - at the time, considerably wealthier than their cousins in Liverpool or Newcastle - were mainly to be found on the supper-club circuit where they expected to hear note-for-note copies of the chart hits of the day rather than original new material or versions of old or obscure rock'n'roll or R&B numbers.

By 1965, only the Rockin' Berries, the Spencer Davis Group and the Moody Blues had broken out of the Midlands into the national circuit - groups like the Redcaps, Carl Wayne and the Vikings and Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders remained in the shadows.

Despite appearing regularly on a children's TV show called 'Five O'Clock Club', by late 1965 singer Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders' guitarist, Roy Wood, both felt that the group was in a rut. Sheridan left to go solo on the cabaret circuit, while Roy Wood joined forces with a number of musicians from other small-time Birmingham groups in a general reshuffle which earned the newly-emerging ensemble their name - the Move.

Carl Wayne brought Chris ('Ace') Kefford with him from Carl Wayne and the Vikings. Kefford - known as 'the singing skull' because of his gaunt looks - played bass. The pedigree of drummer Bev Bevan included a stint with Denny Laine and the Diplomats (Laine's gig prior to joining the Moody Blues) and guitarist Trevor Burton came over from Danny King's Mayfair Set.
And Television Heaven had more on The Five O'clock Club.

Later. The first video I posted has gone from Youtube, so here is one with groovy dancers.

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