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Not that the Manchester beat scene was sterile - by 1963, it was next on every London recording manager's hit list after the cream of Liverpool had been pressed into service. Though lacking Merseybeat's organized gig network, bands could still be scrutinised at venues like the Three Coins in Deansgate or the Twisted Wheel in Brazenose Street off Albert Square. Once there was even a 'Manchester Cavern' near the Market. Parlophone hooked the biggest fish, signing the Hollies, though Columbia did well to spot Freddie Garrity. However, there were to be other opportunities a year later with a second wave of Mancunian talent in which the main protagonists were Herman's Hermits, fronted by that noted Cavern dweller, Peter Noone. Born in 1947 to a musical family in the suburb of Davyhulme, Noone formed his first group, the Cyclones, before reaching adolescence. He was to transcend the humble wedding and Bar Mitzvah circuit when some older boys from his Stretford Grammar School invited him to join their band as general factotum, mainly on piano and guitar. Operating as The Heartbeats, the personnel included engraver Karl Green on bass, barber Barry Whitwam on drums, and student Derek Leckenby on lead guitar. Noone, who had taken formal drama lessons, found less mundane employment as a television actor. Using the stage name 'Peter Novack,' one of his more celebrated parts was that of Len Fairclough's son in Granada TV's CORONATION STREET at their nearby studios. The Heartbeats sensibly capitalised on Noone's eminence by allowing him to monopolise the lead vocal spotlight. Peter Novack and The Heartbeats soon became well-known in South Lancashire for their lightweight brand of pop, drawn from current hits, Merseybeat standards, and the songbooks of Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers and other mainly white rock'n'rollers. For all their later fame they never outgrew these musical roots. On several occasions they supported Peter's idols, The Beatles, at the Cavern, eventually topping the bill there when Merseybeat entered it's death throes. As Noone's instrumental offices decreased, another guitarist was required. Though not struck with their technical ability, telegraph engineer Keith Hopwood threw in his lot with the Heartbeats, recognising their easy professionalism. Hopwood's assessment was shared by Mickie Most, who sounded them out at a concert in Bolton. His attention had initially been caught by a publicity photo of the goofy-looking Noone that Most felt betrayed star quality. After vacillating whether or not to sign Peter as a solo artist, he decided that, in keeping with the times, the whole group would prove a better proposition. As no one would know who was on the records anyway, the Heartbeats' shortcomings could be overcome by replacing them in the studio with a phalanx of sessionmen. Onstage, it wouldn't matter so much as, hopefully, their playing would be buried beneath the sound of screaming girls. Most didn't like the name though. Didn't somebody just mention that Peter looked like that cartoon character Sherman? Let's call him Sherman. No? All right, what about Herman and The Hermits? Herman's Hermits! Yeah! With Most in the driving seat, the Hermits - formerly the Heartbeats - were to vanish behind their sixteen-year-old selling point. Though neither Noone nor his group let themselves be computerised to the degree of American ciphers from Fabian to the fictional Archies, it was their submission to Most's masterplan that guided them with mathematical precision to success. With the highest calibre of sessionmen and arrangers at his disposal, Most also procured a rich crop of well-crafted songs suited to Noone's limited but fairly tuneful range, mainly from the pens of jobbing British songwriters like Tony Hazard and Carter-Lewis, as well as from American teams such as Goffin and King, who set the ball rolling with the Hermits' first two singles. Rival artists who were also professional composers such as Ray Davies, Graham Gouldman, and Donovan also contributed. As the group were not expected to donate to this A-side output, Most's demarcation line between composers and performers was a throwback to the Tin Pan Alley policy of an earlier pre-Beatle era. American High School pop was also plundered for apt material. From this source came Sam Cooke's Wonderful World and Silhouettes, a remarkably original beat ballad of mistaken identity which sold a million for The Rays in 1957. The latter represented Herman's Hermits at their most attractive; much of its appeal emanated from Noone's clumsy phrasing and Jimmy Page's galvanising guitar section. Their debut, I'm Into Something Good, toppled the Kinks from Number One in September 1964. But Most regarded this as merely a dry run for the USA, where it entered the Cashbox chart at No. 88 to shift a quarter of a million units within ten days - a sluggish performance by later standards. After all, it was for America that Herman's Hermits were designed. The US music industry had long regarded British pop as merely the furnisher of nine day wonders like Lonnie Donegan or the Tornados. But by the mid-sixties it was virtually unstoppable in the wake of Capitol's promotion of the Beatles. Other record companies likewise yelled 'Klondike!' before fully exploiting the Limey acts on their rosters. However, though there was no serious sign of wavering, the impetus relaxed slightly by late 1964. Even Beatles singles at this time (admittedly only album cuts like Slow Down) fell on comparatively stony ground. Though no writing was on the wall yet, there was a definite slow moment in the UK battle for exports. In this interval after the 1964 spring offensive, |
 The British themselves wouldn't have worn it. Though Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter went down well at the 1964 New Musical Express Pollwinners Concert, Herman's musical flagwaving was seen by his own kind as a sales gimmick for their daft transatlantic cousins to be decently buried on albums. Tellingly, no Hermits L.P. made much of a splash in Britain. The singles weren't guaranteed smashes either, especially if released in a heavy week. At Christmas 1965, Show Me Girl, for instance, swamped by new 45s from the Kinks, Beatles, and Supremes, barely managed the Top 20. As long as they didn't put out any of that 'Old Tyme' drivel though, they just about walked the line in Britain before slumping in mid-1966. Yet even in this, their darkest hour, I knew a vicar's daughter who still swore by them. Britain hardly mattered to Herman anyhow while 'Hermania' filtered across the USA like bubonic plague. Before he left his teens, Herman was rich enough to buy a thousand vicarages. Naturally, he was despised by the blossoming underground. When he reciprocated this dislike, he earned the esteem of middle America where his clean, conservative image was seen as a return to sobriety after the depravities of hairy monsters like the Stones and, even ghastlier, those ugly Pretty Things from whom God temporarily spared America. The vehicle of no scandel, Herman was a regular in 16 - a US teenage magazine which never probed deeper than his conception of a 'Dream Girl' and whether he ever dated fans. Herman's decline in the States around 1967 was not for any tidy reason such as the growth of psychedelic, album-orientated rock.' Storms from that camp could be weathered - after all, the songwriters he used were good enough for the Yardbirds and Hollies. It was simply that Americans were beating him at his own game by taking leaves from Most's book. The hardest blow was dealt by a cabal of California businessmen who hired four amenable youths to play an Anglo-American pop group in a nationwide TV series. These boys also sang on records for which the services of top Hollywood songwriters, sessionmen and producers had been negotiated, as had the fullest producers distribution network and record company backing. Though the project's blueprint was the Hard Day's Night style Beatles, it was noticed that the group heartthrob, Davy Jones, had a Manchester accent and had been a supporting actor in Coronation Street. With the advent of The Monkees, Herman became strictly last year's model overnight. Accepting with the best possible grace that they'd had a good run, Peter and the lads looked homeward. Here, their fortunes took a turn for the better as they racked up a fair number of easy-listening hits until Noone went solo in 1971. This was thanks largely to the new BBC Radio One's middle-of-the-road programming as well as their own renewed omnipresence, which enabled them to recover lost ground. Nevertheless, this re-establishment was only a parochial postscript compared to their howling successes abroad. Minus Karl Green, the Hermits drifted into a cabaret graveyard before boarding the 1960s revival bandwagon, where they felt brave enough to front themselves with a makeshift "Herman", new rhythm guitarist Garth Elliott. The genuine article had been expected to follow in the footsteps of Tommy Steele or, more pertinently, Gerry Marsden and enter showbusiness proper, but it wasn't until 1982 as 'Frederic' in a West End production of The Pirates of Penzance that he showed any inclination in that direction. Before that, his public appearances were mainly confined to a US nostalgia tour with other British Invasion veterans in 1975. Temporarily reunited with his Hermits, he finally managed to pack Madison Square Garden. There was also his new band, the Tremblers, with whom he tried - with a little assistance from his friend, Dave Clark - to re-enter the rock arena on a more contemporary footing far removed from the 'favourite colour' nonsense of 16. In an interview in 1983, punctuated with references to new wave acts like the Pretenders plus the occasional calculated swear word, he seemed to be trying hard to convince those who reviled his previous incarnation that he 'Wasn't Such A Bad Bloke After All'. |
