Random Music Theme 5: Same Old Brand New You

[vastar iner]

OK. A logical extension of the last theme, of legal problems…

The music industry prides itself on originality. It’s one of the main arguments against unlawful downloading; creators need to be rewarded for their creativity. Yet somehow these creatives are so often derivative. The legal thread shows some elements of copying songs. You would think however that finding a distinctive name would not be a problem…yet despite there being over 800,000 different words in English, and an infinity of possibilities for made up names, sometimes two charting acts share a name.

Normally it’s not a problem. An act can change their name before becoming well established, or tweak it a little; The Charlatans became Charlatans UK, Yazoo became Yaz (not Yazz) and The Beat The English Beat for American consumption; vice versa, The Spinners became The Detroit Spinners, in case anyone thought a Motown vocal group could be confused with folkies. Sometimes the change is more radical. The Drifters becoming The Shadows, albeit after they’d already become famous for backing Cliff, so that one didn’t cause confusion. But sometimes a few slip through the net and we get two charting acts with the same name. This is a look at a few of those.


Kokomo

And in a way that links these threads together, let’s go back to That’s Not My Name. Remember Kokomo was the nom de disque of Jimmy Wisner. Had a hit with Asia Minor.

Well, there was a second Kokomo. This time a British band whose floruit was the 1970s. Arrival's keyboardist Tony O'Malley was jamming with session drummer Terry Stallard and were coming up with such decent sounds they decided that they needed to get a band together. They rang up a few mates - three others from Arrival itself, and those from some other groups, including two from Joe Cocker’s Grease Band and one from King Crimson, inter alia. They didn't have a name when they planned their first gig, so legendary roadie Frankie Blackwell came up with Kokomo in the pub, which everyone went with.

After a highly rated debut album, their next couple were less successful, and the group broke up in 1977. The members headed for session work, with the likes of Roxy Music, Ian Dury and – in one odd coincidence – Gloria Gaynor; odd because Kokomo-ist Frank Collins had written “I Will Survive” for Arrival, but that wasn’t Gloria’s big hit…

Nevertheless, the name refused to go away, and 80% of the original members got back together in the early 1980s to record an album – which provided them with their one singles chart hit – and again in the late 1980s. Sadly, founding bassist Alan Spenner (who was in the Grease Band, and whose son was drummer for underrated Anglo-Icelandic band fields) died of a heart attack in 1991 and that saw Kokomo finish up. They came back in 2008 for nostalgia tours, still with half of the original 1970s line-up.

To add to the Kokomo confusion, it’s also the name of a spin-off project of The Grateful Dead that toured for a few months in 1986 when Jerry Garcia was ill, as well as The Beach Boys’ last US number one…

[vastar iner]

Goldie

The name of the Blue Peter dog, following Shep (the subject of a hit from The Barron Knights). But also the name of three prominent musicians.



The first was the eponymous singer of Goldie & The Gingerbreads. Chicks with licks, they were the first girl band, as opposed to girl group, to have any degree of success. In 1962, Genya Ravan, student and part-time singer with The Escorts, went to a nightclub and was astonished to see a female drummer. She approached said drummer with the idea of forming a rock & roll group made up of girls playing the instruments. The drummer’s name was Ginger Panabianco, and her nickname gave the group name; Ravan’s childhood nickname was revived for herself.

Trouble with the Gingerbreads is that they were looked on as a novelty for being women in a male environment; The Applejacks (female bassist) and The Honeycombs (female drummer) had the same problem, so they were seen as one-trick ponies. Even despite the Andy Warhol stamp of approval (they were featured band at one of his parties) – or perhaps this cemented their commoditisation? They were certainly not helped by Herman’s Hermits covering their one UK chart hit for the American market just before the Gingerbreads were to be launched on US soil. A lack of success saw the band split in the late sixties, although all the members stayed in the music industry in some way (Panabianco and guitarist Carol MacDonald joining jazz-funk band Isis, Ravan herself forming Ten Wheel Drive and keyboardist Margo Lewis becoming a manager/agent).




At least they were credited as Goldie & The Gingerbreads, so when a second band came along in the 1970s just called Goldie there was little risk of confusion. This band was from the north-east of England rather than the artpots of New York, and had formed out of proggish band Kestrel. Dave Black, guitarist of Kestrel (and a Spider from Mars), came up with the name after the tiny gold-crested bird, perhaps a deliberate diminution of the previous preyer. They had some success, including a top ten hit, before breaking up. Singer Peter McDonald still does the pubs and clubs tours.



Now, even if Clifford Price – who would have been just before his teens when Goldie hit the top ten – could not remember that, surely it would not be too much to ask to have a quick glance in the Guinness Book Of Hit Singles when coming up with his own nickname? Evidently not. It seems slightly ironic that this Goldie is more famous than the group, when the group had the bigger hit single. Although to be fair Goldie the man has done lots of other things as well (Bond villain’s henchman, Strictly Come Dancing, son in clink for murder). Incidentally, everything is linked to everything else; Goldie’s top ten album, “Timeless”, featured Diane Charlemagne as vocalist; she was, you may remember from “I Fought The Law”, the vocalist for Urban Cookie Collective…

[Earl Purple]

Mr Big, Blue and Space may all come up in this thread. And the first versions all had their hits in 1977. I seem to recall that the Blue of Gonna Capture Your Heart tried to block the 90s boyband too from using that name.

[vastar iner]

They all are. And Blue weren't the only ones to sue their name-stealers.

Indeed, let's do one now.

Space



OK, if Cliff Price might have the slightest excuse for not having heard of a one hit wonder from his youth, there is no excuse for this band. Because the previous Space had had one of the biggest hits of the 1970s…

To me, disco was one of the great musical disasters of all time. Before its emergence, most black music from the States was made up of the close harmonies of Motown, the soul of Stax, the funk of the Famous Flames. All of it performed by masters of their art, the Motown model of piling them high meant that singers had to nail their tunes pretty much at the first time of asking in order to keep the costs down, and live shows were often incendiary. But it was all about the music. And that music was becoming more and more interesting. Gil Scott-Heron developing a nascent form of rap; those nice boys The Temptations moving into radical politics; Marvin Gaye pouring out his tortures in “What’s Going On”. Yet it ground to a halt with disco. Then it became more about the production. The energy was diverted into dancing rather than performing; the message became bald rather than bold. Give me George Clinton over Michael Jackson ANY day of the week.

Nevertheless, some innovations emerged from disco. The key being the best use of the synthesizer. Giorgio Moroder had pioneered its use in pop – first number one in the UK using the synth being the soon-to-be football anthem “Son Of My Father” by Chicory Tip – and it was taken on further by some other acts. Despite the Johnny Hallidays of this world France has always been a centre of musical experimentalism, be it Debussy or FFF, and Jean-Jacques Perrey had been perhaps the first artist to be creative with synth; the extraordinary “EVA” sounds like it comes from 1998, not 1968. It’s no wonder that electrodisco found a fertile home in France, Jean-Michelle Jarre creating symphonies with synths and Didier Marouani forming Space.

Truth be told, Space did not last very long, really only three years, but they sold over ten million in that time. “Magic Fly” would have been that rare bird, a French UK number one, but for idiots deciding the way to commemorate Elvis Presley was to buy records when he was dead that they couldn’t be bothered with when he was alive. It nearly reached number one 25 years later, covered by S Club Juniors under the name “New Direction”, but peaked at number 2 again, this time kept off by the far more worthy, er, Ketchup Song.

Marouani recorded under his own name after the split of Space, and had huge success behind the Iron Curtain – playing for over 600,000 in Moscow in 1983 – but has very recently revived the name for a new album called “From Earth To Mars” (not M/A/R/R/S). And Marouani’s music has made some progress on that, a specially recorded “Space Opera” in 1987 was taken on board Mir.


So what was the excuse for the Liverpool band not to come up with something different? None, as far as I can see…no point in going through them in any detail, they are surely far too well known, but suffice it to pay tribute to their drummer Andy Parle, who died in August 2009 when he collapsed whilst crossing the road in Toxteth. Parle had left the band in 1998, fed up with the commercial success they had had. Although once he left Space’s success left with him.

[vastar iner]

The Firm



Ahh, rock supergroups. Where would Rock Family Trees be without them? Two of the rock greats, Jimmy Page (Zep, of course) and Paul Rodgers (Free) teamed up in the early eighties to form The Firm, with drummer Chris Slade (Uriah Heep) and bassist Tony Franklin, who, although a newcomer, was impressing with his fretless session work. The name itself seems to have suggested itself; powerful, definitive, corporate. As if their business was music and their music was their business.

Just a shame the name had been nicked by a couple of Cockney chancers.



Guitarist John O’Connor had his own small studio, Bark, specializing in producing demo tapes for musicians; he also sessioned for fairly undemanding acts like Bucks Fizz. He wrote a novelty song with one of the other guitarists he had met, Grahame Lister, based on the character of Arthur Daley in Minder (which spawned two hits itself – Dennis Waterman’s theme tune, which he didn’t actually write, pace Little Britain, and Waterman & George Cole’s Christmas novelty about ‘er indoors), and recorded it at Bark for touting around. Only Stiff Records took a chance and it became a minor hit under the name The Firm, an obvious nod to Daley Enterprises and the whole semi-villainous nature of the series. Perhaps not surprising that Page et al chose the name The Firm for their act; it would surely galumph all over the one-hit wonders who would vanish without trace.

Which indeed happened; one The Firm had chart success with albums, the other The Firm lay dormant for years. Until O’Connor and Lister came up with another novelty tune. Based on Star Trek. This time nobody would touch it – Stiff going bust at the time – so they released it themselves, under the Bark imprint. And the song gave me a reputation for being a chart seer. I heard it at some garden festival or some other borefest that my dad had dragged me to, and told everyone at school that it would be a massive hit. It took about six weeks to be released, and went 74, 13, 1…

The soundalike follow-up “Superheroes”, with similar stop-motion video, barely nudged the top 100, so The Firm are one of the few acts who signed off their chart career with a chart-topper.

O’Connor now (co-)writes all the music for King Of The Hill. Bizarre career twist. Lister is also in demand as a recording artist, splitting his time between London and Nashville.

And later on there was another Firm, a hip-hop collective featuring Dre, Nas and Foxy Brown, who have a 100% success rate with their albums – one release, one US number one – but split into their soloships before having any impact on the UK.

[Earl Purple]

The Liverpudlian version of Space also made dance music. Unless you'd actually bought their music you probably wouldn't have known that, as they weren't hit singles, although they did make appearances on B-sides. The last track of Tin Planet is one such dance track too.

I did actually like their dance music too. I think one of their members was called Fran Griffiths and he was behind most of their dance output.

[andrew07]

I read long ago that when the liverpudlian Space toured in France, they changed their name to The Avenging Angels to avoid confusion with the french namesake band.

[vastar iner]

See, that would have been a better name. And easier to google.

I think it's only fitting to include this next one, given the recent death of Roy Skelton:

Rainbow



Another rock supergroup, initially styled Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow. The Deep Purple guitarist changed line-ups seemingly at will, the one remaining constant being Mr Blackmore himself. The reason for Rainbow was Blackmore’s dissatisfaction with DP’s drift away from pure rawk, and tried an experimental single with singer Ronnie James Dio and musicians from ELO and Procol Harum. He was so pleased with the result that he dragged them away to Germany for a month and blasted out an entire album; instead of it being counted as a solo product, he decided on a group name, in honour of the Rainbow Bar & Grill in Hollywood.

Nevertheless, Blackmore wasn’t entirely happy with the end result; too funky. So he got rid of all his musicians and brought in fresh ones (including the late Cozy Powell on drums) and then ended up sacking most of those in search of even more rock. Vocalist Dio had also been the chief lyricist, and seeing that Blackmore was becoming a bit fed up with the Tolkienesque themes he wrote, quit and formed Dio. For the next vocalist, Blackmore took a surprising turn; he left the rock industry and brought in a soul singer, Graham Bonnet. Perhaps to show that a good soul man could be a better rock man? Whatever, it worked; the chemistry clicked and Rainbow secured a number of huge hit singles. And then Blackmore sacked everyone again, bit by bit, to recruit Americans and attack the US market. Which was partly successful, but a reunion of Deep Purple caused Blackmore to put Rainbow on hiatus; he revived the band with an all-new line-up in the early 1990s, before forming Blackmore’s Night. The ultimate rockist had gone back to renaissance (not Renaissance) themes.

If you want Rainbow now, you might enjoy Son Of Rainbow. Featuring Richie’s son Juergen and some of the myriad previous Rainbow singers.



What you must NOT do is confuse Rainbow with the children’s programme of the same name. Unusually, despite the musical line-up of Rod Jane & Freddy (originally Rod Matt & Jane, then Matt (Corbett) left to take over the family firm of Sooty so they became Rod Jane & Roger, then Roger left, and Jane, formerly married to Rod, then married Freddy), the show never spawned a hit until long after it was gone. A dance version of the theme performed by Nico Dean and the late Roy Skelton, voice of the Daleks and Cybermen, but more crucially for chart history, the voice of Zippy and George, and for this theme even more crucially released under the name Rainbow. (Oddly, for an ITV programme, on BBC Records.)

Which brings me on to…

[vastar iner]

Solo

Solo is a very, very common name, I can find at least eight different Solos (not the commonest, though, there's one later in the list that had something like 14 different versions that got as far as making records). However only two have hit the chart (not Sal Solo, ex of Classix Nouveau, who adds a Sal to his name). However only two have hit the UK charts.



The first was a Scottish techno outfit comprising of singer Mary Kiani and producer Stuart Crichton, who in 1992 hit the charts for the first time with a re-recording of the Rainbow theme. They had one other hit single shortly afterwards (“Come On!”) but then split. Kiani hit the top ten with The Time Frequency and had a number of solo (!) hits in the mid-nineties, before the hits, if not the music, dried up; Kiani still performs today.

Crichton had to wait a number of years for more commercial success. He was the in-house producer for Limbo Records and became a name on the trance scene, but in 2004, recording under the name Narcotic Thrust (an anagram of his name), he had an unexpected number one in the US dance charts. On the back of this he hit the top ten in the UK, making Solo a top ten act vicariously twelve years after a chart debut. Still produces.




The other Solo to make the charts did so in 1996. How daft is it though that neither Solo act was a solo act? Indeed the second Solo even recorded an album showing that they were “4 Bruthas And A Bass”. The classic overnight discovery, the three vocalists (Eunique Mack (a great-nephew of Sam Cooke), Darnell Chavis and Daniele Stokes) performed a capella on the streets of New York where they were discovered by Jimmy Jam. Jam & Lewis added a bassist (Robert Anderson) to make them a foursome and they recorded a critically acclaimed eponymous debut album, which gave them a couple of R&B top tens and their only UK hits. The follow-up album, which namechecked a friend who died before they had success, lacked Jam & Lewis, and perhaps not coincidentally lacked success. When their label folded they called it a day, but they have now reunited and a new release is imminent.

[vastar iner]

Bobby Valentino

Sometimes you can get lucky, or unlucky, with names. The American soul singer Robert Wilson must have thought he was on safe ground by changing his performing nickname in honour of a 1920s silent screen idol. He had had some US R&B chart success under his real name, as part of the group Mista, but Bobby Wilson wouldn’t stand out in the crowd in the same way as Bobby Valentino would.

After Mista broke up, Valentino went to university and recorded three albums’ worth of demos, which found their way to P Diddy (or whatever he was called at the time), and Valentino was invited to contribute backing vocals to various hip-hop albums. A contribution to Ludacris’ top ten hit “Pimpin’ All Over The World” (what progress we have made from "Fight The Power", evidently) got him noticed and a record deal with Def Jam, and his 2005 debut solo single was a gigantic smash; number one on the R&B charts and a top five album. His second album was similarly successful, but he ended up leaving Def Jam in disappointment at its promotion and he hasn’t had the same level of success since (although his most recent album earlier this year did reach the US top ten).

Thing is, those last two albums have been released under a different name. Because there was already a Bobby Valentino. And that Bobby Valentino is no stranger to lawsuits.



The original Bobby Valentino is a violinist, who has been performing under that name since the 1970s. Born Robert Beckingham (and incidentally sister of Art Of Noise’s Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley), Valentino has fronted his own band The Pistoleros in recent years, but is more known as a session performer, especially on The Bluebells’ number one above. The distinctive violin stings were improvised by Valentino at the recording session for the song, and were sufficiently distinctive and contributory to provide him with a songwriter credit. Want to hear the song without it? Singer Bobby Bluebell co-wrote it with his then-girlfriend Siobhan Fahey, and Bananarama had the first go at it.

The song of course was a decent enough hit originally, reaching number eight; Bobby Bluebell was quoted as saying in 1984 that he didn’t mind if people forgot them, because they had their songs, and in ten years maybe they’d listen to them again. Which is what VW did, using the song on which Mr Valentino made such a noteworthy contribution. Thing is, Valentino’s reward for his work was £75, and although he didn’t bother the first time (suing for royalties as a 23 year old session musician might have been a backward career step), when it was apparent that the song was going to be a gigantic seller he suggested he be rewarded as a songwriter and not just a performer. In the TOTP studios Bobby Bluebell said he would “see you alright” but when that didn’t happen Valentino went to solicitors. In the end it went to the Court of Appeal, which decided that it was fair enough that he should be given the full credit – his contribution was distinctive enough to amount to a material part of the song (and, let’s face it, when you think of the song the violin probably comes to the fore, unless you’re me, when it’s Clare Grogan in the video – the Bluebells were formed at an Altered Images concert) and he cleared six figures.

And, having had one success in Court, Valentino sued Valentino. And won. So the American’s last couple of albums have been under the name of Bobby V.

Which makes me wonder if he'll get sued by Bobby Vee...

[suedehead]

And this is the time to point out that Lawrence Donegan of The Bluebells is now golf correspondent for The Guardian. Just as well he didn't shorten his name to Lonnie.

That Bananarama version of Young At Heart is totally non-descript isn't it? The violin really does make it the classic pop song it became.

[vastar iner]

The Maisonettes



One of the odd ones, this. Remember the Tight Fit fiasco? When it was largely City Boy who provided the hit for the Fit? Well, this derives from a little bit more of City Boy. Lol Mason, vocalist and Birmingham City (yay) fan (and twin of Crossroads star Jeremy, you can see him in the brass section here), wanted to recreate a more 1960s soul sound; he teamed up with bassist Mark Tibbenham to co-write this and recorded a demo, with his mate Nick Parry on drums and some friendly backing vocalists; sent to various labels, it was picked up by David Virr of Graduate Records, who got into the spirit of the thing and created the Ready Steady Go! imprint on which to release the standout track “Heartache Avenue”.

The only problem was that of the backing singers; Cathy Evans, Sue Smythe and Kim Pickett, of the band Proper Little Madams, were unavailable for the proper touring band, so a couple of teenage models (Denise Ward and Elaine Williams) were hired to lipsync. The band was named The Maisonettes, a nod to the sixties group suffix (similar to The Pipettes more recently) as well as Mason’s surname, and they had a somewhat unexpected top ten hit with their cheaply produced track.

Problem was that Ward and Williams were not the greatest singers, so some more backing singers were introduced; the change in look put off the media, and the nature of music shifted from actual songs in 1982 to hype in 1983, so the Maisonettes were never able to follow up successfully. After their album was released in Canada they faded away. Although Mason and Parry are still friends and occasionally perform together.



And that would be that, were it not for Belle & Sebastian inviting a couple of friends to participate on their single “Legal Man”. Jonny Quinn is better known as the drummer for Snow Patrol, and Rozanne Suarez as a backing vocalist for Isobel Campbell’s solo project The Gentle Waves, and for some reason their presence on the single meant they were credited as “The Maisonettes” – and thus making a second chart entry for the name.

[vastar iner]

Blue

There are so many acts with Blue in their title. Blues Band, Blue Zoo, Blue Mercedes, Blue Pearl, The Blue Flames, The Moody Blues and so on. Perhaps some record plugger used doublethink. So many Blues, which means that Blue is surely unused. Hence him attributing it to one of the trillions of boybands whose existence is worse than pointless, unless perhaps their CDs are laced with slow-acting strychnine and therefore eliminating a useless proportion of the population.



Except there had already been a Blue. One that had had a top twenty hit. To be fair, only the one, but what is it about manufactured groups and names? Boyzone’s was made up in a competition, ditto Liberty X, and W***life had to change their name pre-release from the overused Westside (incidentally a name of one of Goldie’s previous groups – the teeth bloke, not the Gingerbread or Geordie bands). But even so the industry bods ought to have been aware of the earlier Blue.

This Blue was a Scottish band, formed by Hughie Nicholson, ex-The Marmalade (the first Scottish band to have a number one, incidentally, albeit before Nicholson joined). Nicholson had written a couple of top ten hits and when The Marmalade melted in 1973 he formed a new band. It had a fluctuating membership – one of the guitarists was Jimmy McCulloch, of Thunderclap Newman (see “That’s Not My Name”) – and after signing up to Elton John’s Rocket Records they scored their only chart hit in 1977. Despite many other attempts, and a move to California for three years to try to crack the US market, Blue never hit the charts again.

Nicholson himself did, however; in 1984 he collaborated with Gary Numan on a number of singles and was credited on a couple of chart hits under the name Radio Heart. Blue continued under the radar, and unsurprisingly sued the fake Blue for stealing their name in 2001. The case was settled with both groups being allowed to continue using the name; no news of any payoffs…

And I'm not going to go through the other Blue...life's too short.

[vastar iner]

Peter Shelley

You've tried it just the once, found it alright for kicks
And now you're finding out that it's a habit that sticks
And you're an orgasm addict...

You might have been a bit surprised to hear this opening, the major debut (and second release) from Manchester band The Buzzcocks. You might have been intrigued by such an interesting take on punk. You might have been encouraged to do a bit of research, finding that the group took their name from a Rock Follies review (see "I Fought The Law" thread) and that their singer was Pete Shelley.

Pete Shelley?



This was a bit of a departure for the Littlest Hobo Theme soundalike, surely?

Well, it would have been had it been the same person. The Peter Shelley who unfathomably bothered the top of the charts in 1975 was a former record plugger who had graduated from a talent scout (Amen Corner and King Crimson inter alia) into the talent itself. Started writing songs and in 1973 left his home at Decca to start Magnet Records with the then Michael, now Lord, Levy.

Then Shelley had an unexpected break. His Elvis soundalike track "My Coo-Ca-Choo" took off. The problem was Shelley did not want to be a pop star - at least not yet - and so recruited another singer to do the promo work. The record press was into overdrive as to the identity of the mysterious Alvin Stardust; teaser adverts and promos led even hardened and cynical DJs into wondering who it was.

Eventually, when Stardust made his debut appearance, at a pop festival, via helicopter, a black-clad figure was rushed by security through the expectant fans, and one onlooking plugger turned to another and said "f**k me, it's Shane Fenton." (And even that had had a macabre twist; Bernard Jewry, for 'tis himself all right, was a roadie for the band pressganged into service as lead vocalist after the original Fenton, John Theakston, sadly died of a fever.)

Fenton/Jewry/Stardust continued in the role and sang for real on "Jealous Mind", an unjustly forgotten chart-topper, and one written by Shelley. Only after then did Shelley write some more, well, frankly, rubbish stuff for himself to sing, and after a couple of hits fell out with Levy. He left Magnet and went independent, and now lives (and writes) in Canada.

Needless to say, this was not the same Shelley that appeared in Buzzcocks...



Technically he was known as Pete Shelley; Pete, because it was (is) short for real name Peter (duh), and Shelley because that's what his name would have been had he been born a girl. Buzzcocks were inspired by the early Sex Pistols missionary tour to the north and Shelley and collaborator Howard Devoto formed a tight, musically aware outfit whose first single "Boredom" exemplified the title with a lengthy, parodial two-note guitar solo.

As it was, Devoto was already bored, and formed the seminal Magazine, whereas Shelley continued with Steve Diggle and John Maher under the Buzzcocks name. Despite a number of most intelligent takes on new wave they never scored a top ten hit, at least until Fine Young Cannibals anaemically covered "Ever Fallen In Love".

Nevertheless, Buzzcocks are just about the last survivors of the punk scene; I saw them in concert a few years ago (introduced by Jimmy Pursey, a hero of my childhood), and whereas Shelley had matured into a somewhat rounded figure reminiscent of Frank Black, Diggle was still the wild thing, throwing aggressive punk shapes with the best of them. Buzzcocks were on hiatus for most of the eighties, in which time Shelley came up with his solo work, including the above "Homosapien" (his finest few solo minutes) and his one chart hit, "Telephone Operator".

[vastar iner]

Mr Big

I’m not aware of this particular name having given rise to any lawsuits. Although given the quality of the second act’s output I’m amazed the first didn’t sue for libel.



The first were British. Set up by singer Jeff Dicken – known professionally as Jeff Pain, very punk avant l’heure – in 1969 under the name Burnt Oak. Legend has it a mix-up saw them headline at the Marquee in place of another band – and as “Mr Big” was the name up in lights, and the manager refused to change it, they ended up adopting that monicker. More prosaically it may have been a planned change after a newspaper headline caught Dicken’s eye.

They gradually developed a reputation as a sound support act, and even appeared as a fictional band in an episode of a police drama (albeit with Paul Nicholas, a more regular actor, as their lead singer),and ended up with a top five hit in 1977, despite – because of? – it being banned on the radio. They never managed to follow it up substantially and split the next year. Dicken and bassist Pete Crowther formed Broken Home, and later Dicken got back together with original guitarist Eddie Carter to re-tour as Mr Big; they continue to do so to this day.

For a while, though, they were called Mr Big UK. Because of some other lot that had usurped the name.



Bassist Billy Sheehan left David Lee Roth’s band in 1988 and formed a new band. Poodle perm rock was a big thing in the States at the time and his Mr Big was firmly within that mould. So much so that they did the Poison/Extreme/Nelson thing of recording a token ballad with the blatant aim of having a hit single. Which they did; “To Be With You” was a US number one, which makes me eternally glad that I’m not American as it is simply one of the worst creations ever released. Sadly it came surprisingly close in Britain. Eventually the Americans saw sense and Mr Big dropped off the radar, but they remained popular in Japan, all the way until the group sacked Sheehan in 2002 – only for the tour manager to drop the tour on the basis that Sheehan was the main draw. Sheehan rejoined just to get it out of the way, and then they split for good – or nine years, as they reunited in 2010 to record an album and prepare for a tour.

[vastar iner]

Enigma



You are probably all aware of Romania’s most successful musical act. No, not the Cheeky Girls, I mentioned “music”. Michel Cretu is the man behind Enigma, whose blend of ambient and techno-lite has been vastly successful over the years, including, in “Sadeness”, the only number one single devoted to sadism (although Adam & the Ants had the odd masochistic b-side).

I could have had Cretu’s Enigma (that sounds a better name, incidentally) in the “I Fought The Law” thread; he has been sued repeatedly for sampling, on “Sadeness” by the Capella Antiqua choir of Munich and on “Return To Innocence” by Kuo Ying-nan and Kuo Hsiu-chu, who provided the aboriginal-sounding chant (they are members of a tribe from Taiwan). But those were settled amicably. No, Cretu is better under this thread, because his Enigma was the second Enigma to hit the chart.



The first was a British disco act that hit the chart during the medley craze of 1981; their key vocalist, Jill Saward, went on to be Shakatak’s lead singer, and she was joined at varying times there by fellow Enigmatics Tracey Lee Ackerman (vox) and Steve Underwood (bass). The main motive force behind Enigma was singer Martin Jay, who retained the band name and formed a new group under it, which still does the chicken-in-a-basket tours and party entertainments.

As for Cretu’s Enigma, he had already been around the industry for a while (and was married to German popstrel Sandra) when he came up with the idea of Gregorian chants to an ethereal background. And Sandra’s susurrations. It proved massively popular, “Sadeness” being number one in two score countries, and the parent album being a number one in the UK. Cretu’s blend retained a decent level of success throughout the 1990s, but in 2003 Cretu rebooted Enigma with a very different sound. Which put off many traditional fans…nevertheless Cretu still records (well, not so much records, more assembles) under the name Enigma to this day.

[vastar iner]

Mel & Kim



And sometimes the repeated name is deliberate. Melanie and Kim Appleby were streetwise sirens from Hackney (Mel having modelled for Mayfair) who were picked up in a nightclub by that music murderer Pete Waterman. Despite his ministrations they came up with a couple of catchy tunes that gave them big hits in 1987. And gave Comic Relief a brilliant idea. Why not create a new Mel & Kim? No problemo, they just put Mel Smith and Kim Wilde together on a cover version of “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” that peaked at number three, in one of the strongest Christmas top fives ever.



Wilde’s chart career is well known, Mel Smith’s less so; four years later he returned to the Christmas charts with a semi-spoken word “Another Blooming Christmas”, taken from the animated Father Christmas, Raymond Briggs’ forgotten Snowman follow-up (by the way, for those pub quizzers out there, Peter Auty). And Smith had hit the album charts in the early eighties. In those pre-video days the best way to recall your favourite television programme was via LP, and many comedians in particular had album chart hits (Max Boyce even scoring a number one). Smith was a cornerstone of Not The Nine O’Clock News, which featured a parody song per episode (Lufthansa Terminal being a particular favourite), and twice NTNOCN albums hit the top five.

Still, the borrowing of the name was deliberate, temporary and would cause no confusion. It was time for the originals to take back the charts. Only they couldn’t. Mel injured her back whilst touring Japan; when examined, it was found that the injury was a manifestation of paraganglioma. This meant that the video for “F.L.M.” could not feature any new footage of her, and the track “That’s The Way It Is” was recorded with Mel temporarily out of hospital. 97% of paragangliomas are non-malignant and can easily be operated on. Mel, tragically, was part of the 3%...

She was treated with aggressive chemotherapy but did emerge to perform a capella on the Wogan talkshow to promote a cancer awareness week. However the treatment was too little, too late. In 1990 an attack of pneumonia was too much for her weakened state and she died. She was just 23.

Kim had spent the time looking after her sister and co-writing songs with her, and proceeded to record them as a soloist, with boyfriend Craig “the Bros who wasn’t a brother” Logan’s production assistant; “Don’t Worry” was a hugely strong pop tune and gave her her second biggest hit. However subsequent singles were less successful and Appleby moved more into acting. She has also been on the panel of judges for the Ivor Novello awards.

[vastar iner]

Sylvia

I’ve never understood the obsession with just first names. Everyone has a surname, surely? (Other than some Mongolians.) It’s at least understandable if you’ve got an unusual one, like Syreeta, or even Madonna, but if you’re an Annie it just gets confusing with other Annies. Not least making it difficult to google.

Sylvia as a name probably falls between the two somewhere. It’s not common, but not that uncommon. And so Sylvia Robinson has forever been eclipsed by Sylvia Vrethammar through the simple error of not ensuring her full name appeared on the credits. And yet Robinson’s influence on music is enormous.



You see, although glancing at her 1973 one-hit chart career entry in the Guinness book would lead you to believe that Sylvia Robinson was some stochastic singer-by-numbers allocated to a track to be forgotten about, she had already made her mark as a music executive; with her husband Joe she had founded All Platinum Records in 1968 and had even bought out Chess when it became bankrupt. She wrote the sumptuously seductive “Pillow Talk” with Al Green in mind and only recorded it herself when he turned it down for being too risqué. It was a US R&B number one and gave her a hit in Britain.

Following on from that, she and Joe founded Sugar Hill Records, and put together the Sugarhill Gang, who had the first-ever rap hit. The rest is history…



And yet you may confuse her with a Swedish singer of one of the most annoying hits in history. Vrethammar has been recording fairly constantly since the 1960s; her debut album caught the ear of a Swedish television host, who invited her to join him on his programme as a hostess. The rest is, er, history. Her big hit coming with a song written by a Belgian and originally performed – in French – by another Belgian, Samantha (yes, she had no surname); Vrethammer was the first person who grabbed hold of an English version and sold a million. Sadly. Less sadly her career ended after the soundalike follow-up.

So don’t confuse the two.

And then there’s Sylvia Kirby, who didn’t learn the lessons of either predecessor and insisted on using just her first name. Fortunately, this 1980s country singer never bothered the British charts…

[vastar iner]

Nirvana



A less confusable duo are the British and American Nirvana. Songwriters Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Alex Spyropoulos formed a duo in 1967 to showcase their music, with the actual musicians being an ever-shifting set of session performers (one of whom was called Sylvia – cellist Sylvia Schuster); very much in the sixties hippy style, this Nirvana produced an early blend of fusion music that gradually, Led Zep-like, evolved into rock.

They only had the one UK hit, the single “Rainbow Chaser”, but as with a lot of unknown sixties bands they had more influence than their sales would suggest. Debut album “The Story Of Simon Simopath” was arguably the first concept album, with a series of songs going through the titular hero’s life, and beating The Pretty Things to the punch by a year. Some of their collaborators, such as Tony Visconti, moved on to better things; indeed even Sylvia Schuster became chief cellist for the BBC Symphony Orchestra. After a couple more albums, Spyropoulos left to pursue television work, and Campbell-Lyons continued using the Nirvana name until the 1980s, when Spyropoulos returned. They have toured on and off ever since.



Their career took an unexpected jump in 1991, when the “other” Nirvana broke through into global fame. Not least because they were able to sue for copyright infringement – which in turn created some interest in their past works and a re-issue of a couple of albums, as well as new material being released. In the end the lawsuit settled on amicable terms allowing both bands to use the name. Like Mike Batt’s suit with the Cage Estate, the oxygen of publicity was heavily inhaled. Original Nirvana even covered copy Nirvana...

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Mash



I’ve already covered M*A*S*H in the “That’s Not My Name” thread. Strange to say there was another group of a very similar name – Mash!. The exclamation mark is a clue; the person behind it was the manager of Wham!, Simon Napier-Bell, who in 1994 put together a kid from Notting Hill called MC Valentino with ex-SAWmill hopeful Katherine “Taffy” Quaye (“I Love My Radio” - note standard SAWmill video of star walking through random scenes singing, q.v. Reynolds Girls, Damian) and the singer Merrit Crawford, who had been with fellow Napier-Bell managed band Blue Mercedes. Not instantly successful, so they were dropped sharpish…Valentino is part of the Rapattack crew, no idea what’s happened to the others.

Napier-Bell however had more faith in the name; he topped and tailed it slightly to Smash!! and applied it to a Russian boyband in 2001. Now, there was another band called S*M*A*S*H in the 1990s, but that’s going a bit too far now…