Terry Huggins (2012) … Not exactly a band, but cast members of the sit com Please Sir outside the pier.
Peter Fairless… Abbott, Duffy and Craven?
Jan Warren… Love this film and Tv series!
Alan Esdaile… Anyone remember a promoter/agent from Eastbourne that we used to called Frankie Abbot?
Colin Bell… Oh yes…..vividly!
Chris Coleman… Chris Islip
Geoff Peckham… Factory’s Laurie Cooksey was (well, still is!) a big fan and Frankie Abbot impersonator! Ask him next time you see him.
Matt Thomas… Then & Now
Iain Cobby… Saw it! big fan of Please sir. In the 70’s , employees got tickets if a show wasn’t selling well………. it was a bit wooden, but a chance to see your TV heroes!
Marianne Zargar… Our local record shop in Guildford Town Centre usually has a selection of them for sale. Probably still quite useful but I got got rid of mine. Otherwise still enjoying my 1974 Ultra stereo with original enormous head phones and various accessories like the record stacker. Awesome
Dave Nattress… My Wife has a box containing her old vinyls in the loft – serious criminal records most of them, which she’s forgotten about. Not playing them on my deck so I keep quiet. Some I think are the old Woollies “Hallmark” was it copies – top of the pops – with nice enough looking girls in bikinis on the cover but pretty poor vocal copies. Am I right that some top artists/musicians eventually broke out and did some good stuff who used to do the vocals? Defo had some cassette boxes like these, one would be in the car (Ford Anglia), back in about 1971 with the first round of pre-recorded cassettes I had – still have. 50 years ago, God!!
They used to play these in lots of shops, remember hearing them in Woolworth and the Wimpy bar.
Geoff Peckham… Before that, does anyone remember the EPs you could buy for about 3/11 that contained four current hits covered by session men? I had one with I Wanna Hold Your Hand, so that dates it to 1964.
Kev Towner… I saw some in a charity shop yesterday actually.
Darren Johnson… Could you get them free with petrol too I recall?
Peter Thomson… I once read that an album existed called something like “Thin Lizzy Sings Deep Purple” but I never found it. I might Google it quickly before some other smartass gets the chance. Found it Funky Junction.
Pete Millington… Many of the Top of the Poppers became Cliff Richard’s backing band in the mid 1970s. Have a listen to the cover of Bohemian Rhapsody created in days not weeks and you’ll realise what a stunning bunch of talent they were.
Pete Fisher… I played on recording sessions in 1976 with Alan Tarney (bass) and Trevor Spencer (drums), who were then also Cliff’s rhythm section, and Alan Tarney wrote and produced “We Don’t Talk Anymore”
Peter Thomson… I saw a Dutch covers band while living in Germany, who performed a note perfect version of Bohemian Rhapsody, including the operatic mid section. Queen, who I’d seen in ’76 in Hyde Park, could never do that live.
Dave Nattress… Well I definitely remember the covers!! – Woolies specials weren’t they? I think my Wife has some of these LP’s stashed away in the loft. If I recall correctly were the copies a bit dodgy on the vocals? i.e. not actually very good copies of the originals. Jaffa (Geoff Peckham) mentioned some cheap EP’s. Don’t recall those but I did buy a couple of single/EP sized (EP’s I suppose – Duh) which were I think on the “Disc-a-Fran” label – I did say I think, it was long ago, in about 1966. These had 6 tracks I think and seemed like a bargain – not original tracks but copies and noticeably different. I can’t recall the tracks other than I think Long John Baldry’s Let the Heartaches Begin was on one of them. God alone knows where they came from.
Tim Moose Bruce… When I left school and started work in 76 the factory i worked at had piped music with covers of the recent chart hits. Prob the same musicians. Eventually got radio 1 .
Alan King… Elton John recorded a few, TOTP albums as did David Bowie and the singer out of Uriah Heap, when they were struggling of course
