Search - Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich :: Best of

Fantastic Musicians, vastly under-rated

Mr. Thomas Thatcher | Salisbury, UK | 01/14/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This great band comes from Salisbury, UK, and I am very proud of them. Dear old Tich came to the Salisbury Blues Club last Wednesday to watch my son Dominic play sax.



It may be a silly name - but it really is their various nicknames. They were really very very good indeed. Anybody who saw them on stage in their heyday will know that very few bands ever wanted to follow them. And before you sneer, oh doubtful ones, remember that Tich was voted World's Best guitarist in the 60s and nobody argued: he was a friend of, and jammed with, Jimi Hendrix: he played some cracking guitar on stage at the Heartbreak Hotel Club on Ibiza (Phil Carson's gaff) when the band backed .... Robert Plant (with a little help from Tony Kaye and Chris Squires of Yes): and that in the sixties the Boys outsold the Beatles in many counties.

This run through of their greatest hits shows that they could sing and play to perfection, with fantastic vocal harmonies, honed by what must be a million gigs over the last 40-plus years. "Hold Tight", "The Wreck of the Antoinette", "Xanadu" and "Bend It" are all great pure pop songs and the only tragedy is that they were all written by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, the Stock Aitken Waterman of the day, and that the Boys' own songs were largely unrecorded until late in the day.



Remember that these lads shared the stage with everybody, and I mean everybody, from the Beatles to the Stones to Hendrix to you name it and never came off second best. A fantastic and overlooked band, with a lot of these songs being recorded in a few hours in one or two takes.



I saw Dave Dee (please get well soon, Dave), D B M and T at Salisbury City Hall in March 2006. This still-gigging band, still huge in Europe, were absolutely superb and played with all the gusto and skill of lifelong musicians. I gather that the 48-gig tour was a complete sell-out. I have had to endure Fall Out Boy this year too, and Dave and the boys are in a different league.



Fascinating fact: Dave, as a cadet police officer, was first on the scene when Eddie Cochran was killed in a carsh near Bath, Somerset, and got his guitar out of the wreck.



PS Note that Mick is Mick Wilson and NOT Mick Talbot as it says on the blurb.



Update 2008 - in honour of the Boys' contribution to music, they have just been awarded a Blue Plaque which was formally presented in Salisbury and mounted on the outside wall of the City Hall. This puts them in the company of Hendrix, Jane Austen, Dr Johnston and the Beatles, to name 4 out of hundreds. It also celebrated 40 years since "Xanadu" was number one in the UK charts and 45 years since they started touring. "Respect" is not strong enough - complete admiration and affection is nearer.



UPDATE - it is with a huge sadness and a great sense of loss that I have to report that Dave Dee died on 9th January 2009 after a long battle with cancer. This funny, talented and lovely man carried out a massive tour last year without missing a gig and gave his all to every performance. RIP Dave, you left the world a nicer place - and you spent more time in the charts from 67 - 69 than the Beatles!"

'Bend It' was hot in Chicago

. | Chicago, IL USA | 05/13/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"'Best British Invasion band to not make it' is correct, but this tune was well liked in the Midwest, if not throughout the US..they seemed like stars at the time."