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I'm fairly conservative in my likes. I don't go for anything too far-out. So it follows that many of my favourites are long-established stars who've been on the scene for some time. I like Herman's Hermits, for instance. Now there's a group with a handful of million-selling discs to its credit! Herman hit the top with his very first - "I'm Into Something Good", and he just hasn't looked back. What about Herman the person? His real name's pretty grand - Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone, and he was born in Davyhulme, Manchester, on Guy Fawkes day, 1947. Herman (it's easier to keep calling him that) went to Manchester School of Music at the age of eleven, to study drama, speech-training, music and singing. He tells |
me that it was while he was there that he got his first acting parts ... in the television series "Knight Errant" and on "Coronation Street". I was still in the West Indies when Herman was making the scene at Manchester clubs during his evenings off. He reckons he always made the effort to see his particular favourites, a group called The Heartbeats, and it was while their singer happened to be away one night that Herman stepped in and deputised. He stayed permanently, and the name of the group was changed - first to Herman and The Hermits, and then Herman's Hermits. Columbia Records heard them, liked them, and brought them south. The rest you know! |