Early years
The band was formed in 1964 at St. Bede’s Grammar School in Heaton, Bradford as The Yen. The Yen’s first gig was at Birkenshaw School in February 1965. It was composed of Chris Norman (lead vocals, rhythm guitar and piano), Terry Uttley (bass and vocals), Alan Silson (lead guitar and vocals) and Ron Kelly (drums). As Essence, they toured small clubs in Bradford and surrounding communities before they split in 1966. The Black Cats were already a working band when Ron Kelly joined them at Dewsbury College, in September 1966. The Black Cats at this time were Peter Eastwood on guitar/vocals and Arthur Higgins on bass. Kelly replaced the drummer they had at the time. Alan Silson joined the band initially alongside Pete Eastwood but Eastwood soon left and was replaced by Chris Norman. In November 1967, the band changed their name again to The Four Corners.
In April 1968, the group found a manager in Mark Jordan, who advised them to rename themselves, The Elizabethans. The group now became fully professional and the members garnered higher salaries. In June 1968, Terry Uttley joined the group as replacement for Arthur Higgins who had left the band into furtehr on his education. December saw the group having a first TV appearance on Yorkshire Television’s news and magazine show, Calendar.
?
In August 1969, the four performed two songs for the BBC show High Jinx. Enthused with this successful performance Jordan had them record a first demo tape. In January 1970 RCA showed an interest in the band and suggested a name change to Kindness. A single was recorded, the double A-side, ‘Light Of Love’ / Lindy Lou, was released on 3 April 1970. 300 copies of that were sold, but unfortunately no other tracks were released and R.C.A subsequently terminated the record contract. However, an arrangement was made with Ronnie Storm (not to be confused with Rory Storm of the Beatles connection) to back him on a single release, which was called ‘My Desire’ and was released under the pseudonym? Fuzzy and The Barnets due to contractual difficulties encountered by Storm. At the same time, Steve Rowland of Family Dogg fame, heard the band playing live on Radio one club and offered to sign the band to his production company. He arranged for Albert Hammond who was in Family Dogg with him, to write a number for the band, which Hammond duly did. This track was entitled ‘It Never Rains In Southern California’ but before it was released’ Albert decided that he wanted to record it for himself, so he wrote a couple of other tracks for the band and a single ‘You Ring a Bell.’ ‘Have You Met Angela’ was recorded and prepared for release, but due to various problems in Rowland’s organisation, it was never released.
?
In late 1971, the band’s management was taken over by Dave Eager, the Radio One DJ, and Norman suffered a serious infection which affected his vocal chords. After getting over the sickness, his voice sounded much rougher, which other group members considered an interesting addition to their sound. Eager introduced them to Decca, which resulted in recordings in February 1972. Their first single being ‘Oh Julie and ‘I Love You Carolina’. Shortly thereafter their next single was released: ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ which was well liked by the media and was selected as the ‘shows opening theme for Emperor Rosco’s Radio One Saturday show, but this popularity did not translate into record sales. The last single on Decca was ‘Make it Better and Lonely Long Lady’ which unfortunately flopped and led to Decca terminating their contract.
Rise To Fame
During the band’s Decca contract, Eager used his contacts with the Manchester based agency Kennedy Street Enterprises to gain the band an audition to be Peter Noone’s (of Herman’s Hermits fame)backing band. The band as immediately asked to become his permanent band after their audition at Noone’s House in Denham (Bucks) and soon they embarked on a nationwide tour with him. Noone did not bring the boys any luck, but during the tour Bill Hurley offered to manage them. Hurley convinced Eager to release the boys from the contract with him. Ron Kelly left Kindness on 8 August 1973 and the band recruited an old school friend, Pete Spencer (drums/vocals), who had played in various groups, to drum for them. This line-up performed on a sightseeing boat in Frankfurt, Germany. Hurley introduced the band to composers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (aka Chinnichap), who also wrote songs for glam rock contemporaries Sweet, Mud and Suzi Quatro and also for Hot Chocolate. At first,? Chinnichap turned them down but Hurley’s tenacity eventually convinced the composers and producers to give the young group a chance. Hurley and Chinnichap started working intensely with the band and suggested yet another name change to Smokey. Reluctantly, the band agreed. An attempt to dress the band up in leather clothes (similar to Suzi Quatro) was dropped and the four won acceptance for their jeans outfit.
New instruments were bought and in late 1974’ recording sessions for their debut album commenced. On 14 February 1975, ‘Pass It Around’ was released. The album spawned the title song as a single but failed to gain significant attention from the British audience. In April that year Smokie opened for Pilot on tour.
Height Of Popularity
On 22 September 1975, Smokey released their second album ‘Changing All the Time’. This LP sounded much softer than the debut, contained string arrangements on some songs and heavily leaned toward acoustic guitar arrangements with close harmony vocals which became their signature sound. The first single from the new album, ‘If You Think You Know How to Love Me’, quickly became a big hit in many European countries, peaking at No. 3 in Britain and won Smokie a wider audience. It was followed by ‘Don’t Play Your Rock’n’Roll to Me’.
Around this time, the American soul legend, Smokey Robinson threatened to file a law suit, alleging that the band’s name would confuse the audience. In order to avoid legal action it was decided to drop the “ey” and undergo another name change to Smokie. Shortly after the release of the second album, their first tour as headline act commenced.
The next album was partly produced in America, where Nicky Chinn had moved for various reasons (the tax situation being just one of them). Midnight Café built on the popularity of ‘Changing All the Time and established the group as a new pop phenomenon. The following years yielded a string of successful singles: ‘Something’s Been Making Me Blue,’ ‘Wild Wild Angels’? and ‘I’ll Meet You at Midnight’? gained a faithful following among younger listeners. When their single, a cover of Austalian band, New World’s single ‘Living Next Door to Alice’ was released in November 1976, it quickly became the group’s biggest hit, followed by the equally successful? ‘Lay Back in the Arms of Someone’. Smokie now found themselves European superstars with sold-out tours and million-selling albums. The next two albums were to emphasise their stature: ‘Bright Lights & Back Alleys (1977) and ‘The Montreux’ album (1978) were both chart successes.
At the peak of Smokie’s success in 1978 Chris Norman teamed up with Suzi Quatro (who had just decided to return to Chinnichap after looking at separation from them) and released a duet single, Stumblin’ In – another Chinnichap composition. Norman and Quatro were on top of the European charts for some time, and it reached the US Top 10, though no higher than No. 41 in Britain. Smokie’s subsequent 45 was “Mexican Girl”. Composed by Norman and Spencer, the record saw the group actively distance itself from Chinnichap. Smokie’s next act was to produce British football star Kevin Keegan’s first single, Head Over Heels in Love. It charted in many European countries.
In 1979, the album The Other Side Of The Road was released, entirely recorded in Australia. It spawned two more hits for the band, Do To Me and Babe It’s Up to You, but it became clear that their sales were declining. Only a subsequent non-album single release, the melancholic Run To Me became another hit.
Smokie met with a hiatus before Solid Ground was released in 1981 . The advance single was neither a Chinnichap composition nor penned by any Smokie member, but a cover of? Little Town Flirt, the last Smokie single to chart.
The Comeback
Several releases followed over the next years including Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (by Dieter Bohlen), Chasing Shadows and the 1994 album Celebration, which contained old hits in new arrangements accompanied by an orchestra. None had any real success. However, Smokie made a surprise return to the UK singles chart in 1995, with one of the most unlikely hits of the year – a duet with controversial northern comedian Roy Chubby Brown, who knew the band through Steve Pinnel, having taught Steve the rudiments of drumming as payment for being his driver in his early club comedy career, on a re-release of their biggest hit Living Next Door To Alice which reached #3. The band had noticed that, whilst touring in Ireland, whenever they sang the main line For 24 years I’ve been living next door to Alice the audience would shout Alice? Who the f*ck is Alice?”. The resident DJ in Dutch café Gompie first came up with this phrase and, after a local record producer had noted its popularity and organised a recording, had a number 17-hit with Alice? Who the F*ck is Alice?! in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands reaching #1. Smokie decided to cover the Gompie-version of their own song and thought that Brown was the ideal man for the job, with Barton singing the song vocals and Brown providing the additional sworn response.
They now hold the record as the first group to get a record in the Top Ten with the word? f*ck in it, and also the first to have it played on BBC1’s Top of the Pops, although with the offending word replaced due to the show being broadcast before the watershed. The word was not edited out, but Roy shouted the word “bleep” at the appropriate point.
Unfortunately shortly after the song was recorded Smokie’s tour bus careened off of the road during a hailstorm in Germany. Barton, badly injured, died after five days in intensive care. The rest of the band and Brown agreed to donate their royalties from the song to Barton’s first wife.
1990s-Present
The remaining members decided to continue with the band and went about finding their third lead singer. Friend of the band Mike Craft was chosen – allegedly, it only took one song to come to a decision. The World and Elsewhere was released later that year, followed by Light a Candle – The Christmas Album.
In 1996, Silson terminated his membership, saying he intended to pursue a solo career and to work with other acts as well, joining Mickey Finn’s T. Rex; he also no longer wanted to be on the road all the time. Mick McConnell became the group’s new lead guitarist. This formation produced the next album Wild Horses – The Nashville Album (1998), precisely in Nashville, Tennessee. In February 2001, the group released two albums, Uncovered and Uncovered Too, which consist entirely of cover versions, with no original new songs added.
In 2004 Smokie released a studio album with their own material, On the Wire. 11 of the 14 songs on the new album were written by the band themselves. In 2006 Smokie released the album From the Heart. Although mainly a compilation album, it contained three brand new tracks.
2010 has seen Smokie gain new chart success with an album of brand new material Take a Minute. Released initially in Denmark in August the same year, it peaked at number two on the Danish album chart. Releases in the remainder of Scandinavia and Germany took place during October, with the single Sally’s Song, a continuation of the story of the other character in Living Next Door to Alice also being released. UK release dates have yet to be announced for either Take a Minute or Sally’s Song.
?