#dickie pride

[zippocreed501]

♫FRIDAY NIGHT SPECIAL♫

Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde (Kim's Dad) Dickie Pride (not an euphemism) and the Vernon Girls - Three Cool Cats (1959)

The problem Cliff had with his top lip was a common ailment that affected most rock n' rollers of that era. The first known case was a young man from Mississippi. Through treatment and the invention of Coldplay the disease has almost been wiped out. In fact, only one case remains in the world today...

[everyrecordtellsastory]

Rock Star Names: Lots Of Roger-ing, Not A Lot of Colins 

We all know that rock stars have a free pass when it comes to choosing the names of their offspring. From Chris Martin naming his child after a technology company to David Bowie wanting to find a name that rhymed with his made up surname, there are plenty of slightly left-field choices.  And good luck to them. Snobbery over names has no place here, and if people want to burden their kids with a…

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[strikethechordmusic]

Το Club των 27

Το Club των 27

Στη μακρόχρονη ιστορία της μουσικής υπάρχουν καλλιτέχνες που έχουν φύγει νωρίς. Υπάρχει όμως μια ξεχωριστή κατηγορία, ένα γκρουπ θα λέγαμε που από μόνο του είναι κάτι το ξεχωριστό και συνάμα περίεργο, Το Club των 27. Θα ρωτήσει κάποιος τι είναι αυτό; Είναι καλλιτέχνες που έφυγαν όλοι κατά ένα παράξενο τρόπο στην ηλικία των 27.

Ας πάμε να δούμε ποιοι είναι αυτοί.

  Robert Leroy Johnson:

Γεννήθηκε…

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Dickie Pride: the first British rock star to die of a drugs overdose

Meet Dickie Pride, the British rock megastar you probably never heard of

Dickie Pride as a teenager

What a name! How did that, ahem, come about?

He was actually born Richard Knellar but persuaded to change his name by showbizz impresario Larry Parnes (a man who turned down the opportunity to manage the Beatles more than once).

Parnes famously groomed for stardom an entire stable of young, male performers including Billy Fury, Georgie Fame and Marty (father of Kim) Wilde. For some reason, he always insisted that his performers change their names. (Although Joe Brown sensibly refused to change his name to Elmer Twitch).

Idiosyncratic impresario Larry Parnes

Working-class Croydon kid Richard was a chorister at the Royal College of Church Music. When his voice broke he was unable to stay and he wound up spending all his spare time playing with a skiffle band, The Semi-Tones.

Pic: Nigel Cox

The Castle pub in Tooting

Two weeks after the singer's 17th birthday, pianist Russ Conway saw Richard's band performing at The Castle pub in Tooting, was blown away and brought Larry Parnes to see him.

Russ Conway, a man who knocked Elvis off #1 in the charts

Thus Dickie Pride was born. He was signed by Columbia records not long after and nicknamed "The Sheik of Shake" because of the way he moved as he belted out his numbers.

Pic: Nigel Cox

The Sheik of Shake

In 1959 there was only ONE show on television for popular music - Jack Good's "Oh Boy!" on ITV, and Dickie Pride was hired to perform every single week.

Here he is shaking and singing his first single, Slippin' and Slidin'

He certainly had something special and it's surprising he's not better-known to this day

The single was a HUGE hit on jukeboxes in coffee shops and the places teenagers hung out, but made next to no impact on the charts. Although he was a popular singer on stage, as the bill of Larry Parnes acts moved from venue to venue, chart success always eluded him.

His behaviour became riotously and mischievously erratic. When Parnes finally dropped him, and his wife had left him, he got more and more interested in jazz (even releasing an unsuccessful album of jazz standards). Unfortunately his involvement with jazz also got him introduced to the heroin scene growing out of early jazz clubs.

His misbehaviour in 1959 got him in trouble with the law and put on probation for stealing a car

Two years later, as his career was floundering, a magistrate told him that he couldn't stay at home and sponge off his Mum.

As reported in the Daily Mirror in September 1961

In the early 60s, as Dickie tried to get off heroin, there were only 600 registered addicts IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY

He was prescribed a daily dose of methadone. His recording career had all but died and, although he still performed occasionally at Jazz clubs, he was driving a van to pay the bills.

Finally things got so bad with his depression and drug addiction he was referred to a doctor who RECOMMENDED HE HAD A LOBOTOMY

The area of the brain affected by lobotomisation

Dickie Pride agreed. It wasn't a full frontal lobotomy and he explained to his family that the procedure involved inserting radioactive particles into the frontal lobe of his brain. As a procedure, it sounds completely barbaric but, according to his friends and family, for almost a year afterwards he returned to his usual self.

Then one night in 1969 he took heroin again at a jazz club.

He came home, drowsy from his high, and ALSO took his prescribed dose of methadone. Family friends believe he woke in the night and then took barbiturates to get him back to sleep. The overdose killed him.

Most of Larry Parnes' stable of performers agreed that Dickie Pride was actually the most talented of them all. Fate was just particularly shitty to him

So let us celebrate his music! An album, The Complete Dickie Pride, is still on sale which contains all of his recordings including the complete jazz standards LP Pride Without Prejudice - track it down and give it a listen!

Spotify has this collection available. Proper British Rock 'n' Roll at it's finest Daddy-O! Stick it on and go ape!

[rockhatunu]

Bazen hayatta kalitelilerin ölmesinin bize karşı bir ceza olduğunu düşünüyorum.

[curse27]

Dickie Pride

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4maXbqeB4Hg