David Essex

391. The Real Thing – You to Me Are Everything (1976)

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The Intro

Number 1 throughout the most memorable heatwave of the past 50 years, Liverpool soul quartet The Real Thing stepped out of David Essex’s shadow in style with the disco stylings of You to Me Are Everything.

Before

They formed in 1970 with Chris Amoo as lead singer, along with Dave Smith, Kenny Davis and Ray Lake. Originally they were The Sophisticated Soul Brothers and then Vocal Perfection. Pretty cheesy names. Fortunately manager Tony Hall saw a Coca-Cola billboard while waiting at traffic lights in Piccadilly Circus with their famous slogan ‘The Real Thing’ in huge letters.

Initially they performed soul covers of US hits, and landed a contract with EMI, releasing debut single Vicious Circle in 1972. They struggled to break through and David left. Even an appearance on Opportunity Knocks couldn’t turn their fortunes around.

What did make a difference was signing with Pye Records in 1975. Essex produced their initial sessions, resulting in the single Watch Out Carolina. They joined him on tour as his support act but it wasn’t just famous friends that opened doors for The Real Thing. Amoo’s brother Eddie, who had sung with 60s soul group The Chants, joined the band and the Amoos began writing together.

However, You to Me Are Everything was written by Ken Gold and Michael Denne. They were British but most of the material they had spent the last few years writing was sold to US musicians, such was the lack of UK soul groups.

Review

I’ve always had a soft spot for You to Me Are Everything. It has a infectious groove thanks to that wah-guitar, uplifting piano and luscious strings. The lyrics on the whole are a little too cliched to impress, though Gold and Denne get round this by explicitly saying ‘Words cannot express how much you mean to me’. One line that is great though is ‘So now you’ve got the best of me/Come on and take the rest of me’, implying they’ve already got on very well in the bedroom and although it won’t get better than that, perhaps they can get to know each other too? You to Me Are Everything is a great track for romancing down the disco, and in a year where quality number 1s are very thin on the ground, it stands out even more now. Great to see that Liverpool could do soul and disco, too.

After

The Real Thing nearly made it two in a row that year when Can’t Get By Without You stopped short at two. They finally released their eponymous debut LP and a third single from it, You’ll Never Know What You’re Missing, took them to 16 in 1977. Over the next few years they had several hits and misses, including Whenever You Want My Love, which reached 18 in 1977. Most successful was Can You Feel the Force?, a decent disco floorfiller, which may have caught on in part due to Star Wars. It reached five in 1979, but the follow-up Boogie Down (Get Funk Now) was their last hit for seven years, only reaching 33.

The Real Thing returned to working with David Essex in 1982, performing backing vocals, which they also did on his hit Me and My Girl (Nightclubbing). Then 10 years after their number 1, The Real Thing were back in the charts, courtesy of DJ Froggy, Simon Harris and KC. You to Me Are Everything (The Decade Remix 76-86) shot to five and Can’t Get By Without You (The Decade Remix II) went to six. Can You Feel the Force? (’86 Remix) was their final chart entry at 24.

In 2002 Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk and DJ Falcon released a single under the name Together called So Much Love to Give. It sampled The Real Thing’s Love’s Such a Wonderful Thing from 1977 and became a big club hit. Although they didn’t credit The Real Thing, N-Trance’s Kevin O’Toole and Dale Longworth did when they released their version of So Much Love to Give as The Freeloaders. It was a number nine hit.

The Outro

Lake died in 2000, and Eddie Amoo in 2018 during the making of a BBC Four documentary about the band. Everything – The Real Thing Story was shown in 2020.

The Info

Written by

Ken Gold & Michael Denne

Producer

Ken Gold

Weeks at number 1

3 (26 June-16 July)

Trivia

Births

28 June: Actress Lorraine Stanley
1 July: Actress Kellie Bright
7July: Actress Natasha Collins
8 July: Yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur
12 July: Actress Anna Friel
13 July: Actress Lisa Riley
14 July: Cricketer Geraint Jones

Deaths:

28 June: Actor Sir Stanley Baker
5 July: Comics artist Frank Bellamy

Meanwhile…

26 June–16 July: The legendary 1976 heatwave reaches its peak with a temperature of 26.7C every day of this period. For 15 consecutive days, (23 June-7 July), it reaches 32.2 C in London. For five consecutive days – the first being 26 June the temperature exceeded 35C. On 28 June, the temperature reaches 35.6C (96.1 °F) in Southampton, the highest recorded for June in the UK. And then on 3 July, thermometers recroded 35.9C in Cheltenham.

29 June: The Seychelles become independent of the UK.

7 July: David Steel is elected as the leader of the Liberal Party.

14 July: Ford launches the Fiesta, a small three-door hatchback.

378. David Essex – Hold Me Close (1975)

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The Intro

Since David Essex’s first number 1, Gonna Make You a Star, he had, with the help of producer Jeff Wayne, remained a top 10 mainstay. His next single Stardust was the theme to the sequel to the film That’ll Be the Day (1973). In Stardust, as before, Essex was the lead, playing wannabe pop star Jim MacLaine. This time his rise and fall took place through the 60s and early-70s. It’s not a bad song, but tries too hard to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of Rock On. Stardust reached seven in the singles chart, and the film, released in October 1974, did well, but Essex felt it was inferior to That’ll Be the Day.

Before

Next, Essex and Wayne set to work on a concept album of sorts. All the Fun of the Fair was a schizophrenic collection which touched upon Essex’s fascination with fairs as a child. Among the album’s personnel was session guitarist extraordinaire Chris Spedding, who had featured on the number 1 Barbados, and soul group The Real Thing, who would soon go from supporting Essex to having a number 1 in their own right with You to Me Are Everything. First single Rolling Stone went to five.

Ironically, Hold Me Close, which became Essex’s second and last number 1, was almost an afterthought in production. With record label executives waiting in the studio reception to hear the album in full, Essex banged out two vocal takes, and the mix was made in only half an hour.

Review

This information perhaps explains one of the problems with Hold Me Close. Now, Essex was a proper bona fide working-class Londoner, but he definitely played up to stereotypes and laid on the friendly cockney schtick too much at times on this vocal. And that, combined with Wayne’s cheesy production, makes this number 1 seem light years away from the edginess of Rock On. Essex’s transformation to light entertainment star was complete. Which, knowing now that the LP this comes from was all over the place stylistically, is a shame. Mind you, Essex, still popular all these years later, is probably fine with that. He’s very likeable, and despite my criticism, I can’t dislike Hold Me Close too much, it’s good at what it is.

Soon after this, Essex’s chart sales tailed off somewhat, although Oh What a Circus reached three in 1978. But he did take on a role in the original theatre run of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. It was also the year he appeared as the Artilleryman on Wayne’s huge concept double album, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, an idea the producer had been working on for years. Now a star in his own right, Wayne went on to be a prolific writer of music for TV, including the TV-AM and Good Morning Britain themes of the 80s. The War of the Worlds has spawned a remake and a theatre show.

After

The 80s started off well for Essex with a lead role in motor-racing film Silver Dream Racer (1980) and a song from it, Silver Dream Racer (Part 1) motoring to number four. In 1982 his seasonal single A Winter’s Tale did very well, reaching two in January. It’s been a festive favourite ever since. Tahiti, in 1983, is his last hit to date, reaching eight. As his music slowed, his theatre and TV roles were increasing, and Tahiti came from the West End show Mutiny!, which he co-wrote and starred in. He was the lead in BBC One’s gentle 1988 sitcom The River, which I enjoyed as a nine-year-old but I dare say it won’t have aged well.

Essex was still releasing albums to mixed degrees of success throughout the 90s, and rounded off the millennium with an OBE in 1999. He played a kind-hearted nomad in an episode of Heartbeat in 2000, a subject close to his heart due to his gypsy roots. He had been Patron of Britain’s National Gypsy Council before moving to the US.

The Outro

In 2005 he was a guest vocalist on dance group St Etienne’s album Tales from the Turnpike House, and was due to join the cast of EastEnders in 2006 but couldn’t fit the time needed into his schedule. He eventually joined the soap in 2011 as Eddie Moon for several months. 2008 was a big year for Essex, with the stage debut of his jukebox musical All the fun of the Fair, based on his back catalogue. It had a West End run two years later. In 2013 he starred in and wrote the score for Traveller, a film in which his real-life son Billy Cook played a half-gypsy searching for his true identity. Now aged 73, Essex still has that boyish smile that charmed so many in the 70s and beyond. Rock on.

The Info

Written by

David Essex

Producer

Jeff Wayne

Weeks at number 1

3 (4-24 October)

Trivia

Births

5 October: Actress Kate Winslet
9 October: Actor Joe McFadden

Deaths

22 October: Historian Arnold J Toynbee

Meanwhile…

9 October: The IRA strike again. An explosion outside Green Park tube station near Piccadilly in London kills one person and injures 20.

13 October: Motorcycle producer Norton Villers in Wolverhampton closes down due to bankruptcy. 

23 October: Another IRA bomb, this time intended for Conservative MP Sir Hugh Fraser, kills oncologist Gordon Hamilton Fairley.

360. David Essex – Gonna Make You a Star (1974)

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The Intro

With bucketloads of charisma and good looks to melt the heart of his fans, singer-songwriter and actor David Essex was a star in the making in the early 70s and finally hit the big time playing… a star in the making. And his first number 1 was about, yep, a star in the making.

Before

Born David Albert Cook on 23 July 1947 in Plaistow, Essex, his father Albert was an East End docker and his mother Olive was an Irish traveller and a pianist. Albert contracted TB and underwent hospital treatment, so Olive and David lived with Olive’s sister in the early years. When Albert was finally better and David was two, the Cooks moved to Canning Town.

As a schoolboy, Cook was obsessed with football and played for West Ham Juniors, but that all that changed when he visited an R’n’B club called The Flamingo in Soho at the age of 13, and he learnt to play the drums, driving his neighbour mad to the point where he had a fight with Albert and was knocked out.

By the time he was living in Romford, Cook had played with a handful of blues bands, but manager Derek Bowman encouraged him to become a singer. He changed his name to ‘David Essex’ and recorded a single for Fontana in 1965, And the Tears Came Tumbling Down. For the next two years he toured nightclubs with a band as David Essex and the Mood Indigo, while also cutting his teeth as an actor in repertory theatre.

As the 70s began he built up momentum, at least in his acting, with small roles in the thriller Assault (1971) and drama All Coppers Are… in 1972. But it was getting the lead role in the stage musical Godspell in 1971 that really took things up a notch. Also among the cast was Jeremy Irons.

In 1973 Essex really struck gold when he was cast as the lead in the coming-of-age drama That’ll Be the Day. Set in the late-50s and early-60s, the film told the story of hedonistic teenager Jim MacLaine, and Essex was picked due to his inherent charm in an attempt to make the character more likable. Set to a nostalgic rock’n’roll soundtrack, it also starred musicians including Ringo Starr, Billy Fury and Keith Moon.

As the film was in production, Essex was also working on his debut album with Jeff Wayne. The son of actor and theatre producer Jerry, Wayne had composed the music for his father’s musical Two Cities in the late-60s. Inspired by his role in That’ll Be the Day, Essex wrote eventual title track Rock On, which name-checked James Dean, Summertime Blues and Blue Suede Shoes. Entering the studio for a vocal demo, Essex banged on a bin for the rhythm, and with echo applied, they liked the groove that formed. When it came to recording the song proper, they stuck to the sparse approach, with only three session musicians, and the bass played by Herbie Flowers brought to the forefront. Rock On was a slinky, sexy, edgy tune, and it deservedly became a big hit.

A year later, Essex was working on his eponymous second album and also filming Stardust, the sequel to That’ll Be the Day, marking MacLaine’s rise to fame later in the 60s. Once again inspired by his second job, he wrote Gonna Make You a Star, which became the opening track on David Essex.

Review

Had Essex carried on down the path Rock On set out, he may be considered a more credible artist than he is. Instead, his two number 1s widened his fanbase by taking him down the family-friendly, lovable entertainer route, and to be fair, it certainly worked for him.

Although Gonna Make You a Star is inferior to Rock On, it’s an enjoyable commercial pop tune, which is partly down to Wayne’s colourful synthesiser work, which adds a nice bounce and sprightliness to proceedings. That line ‘Oh is he more, too much more than a pretty face’ shows a witty touch of irony from Essex, as does the retort ‘I don’t think so’. Pretty decent 70s pop-rock with a wink and a cheeky smile. Shaun Ryder, mentioned in my previous blog, was clearly a fan, as he quotes the chorus in the Happy Mondays track Lazyitis (One Armed Boxer), melding Essex’s song with The Beatles’ Ticket to Ride.

The Info

Written by

David Essex

Producer

Jeff Wayne

Weeks at number 1

3 (16 November-6 December)

Trivia

Births

24 November: Comedy writer Stephen Merchant
27 November: Welsh racing cyclist Wendy Houvenaghel

Deaths

25 November: Folk singer-songwriter Nick Drake

Meanwhile…

21 November: The Birmingham pub bombings became one of the worst atrocities in the Troubles, when 21 people were killed and 182 injured by Provisional IRA explosions at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town. It was the worst terrorist act on English soil between the Second World War and the 2005 London bombings.

24 November: The Birmingham Six were charged with the pub bombings. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975, they protested their innocence and claimed they were coerced into signing confessions through severe psychological and physical abuse. They weren’t released until 1991 after their convictions were declared unsafe. It’s one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history

25 November: Home Secretary Roy Jenkins announced the government’s intention to outlaw the IRA in the UK.

27 November: The Prevention of Terrorism Act was passed.

5 December: The final episode of Monty Python was broadcast on BBC Two. The last series of the classic surreal sketch comedy had shortened its title and lost a member, when John Cleese declined to take part other than the penning of a few sketches.