Freddie and the Dreamers
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Freddie and the Dreamers |
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| Freddie and the Dreamers | |
|---|---|
c 1963 Freddie And The Dreamers, left to right
Pete Birrell, Bernie Dwyer, Freddie Garrity, Derek Quinn, Roy Crewsdon |
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| Origin | Manchester, England |
| Years active | 1963–1978 |
| Genres | Beat, Pop, Rock and roll |
| Labels | Columbia (EMI) (UK); |
| Past members | Freddie Garrity Peter Birrell |
Freddie and the Dreamers were a British musical band who had a number of hit records between May 1963 and November 1965. Their act was based around the comic antics of the 5-foot-3-inch-tall (1.60m) Freddie Garrity, who was famous for bouncing around the stage with arms and legs flying.
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The band consisted of Freddie Garrity (born Manchester, Lancashire 14 November 1936 died –19 May 2006), vocals, Roy Crewsdon (often misspelled "Crewdson") (born Manchester May 29, 1941 ), guitar, Derek Quinn (born Manchester May 24, 1942, ), guitar and harmonica, Peter Birrell (born Manchester May 9, 1941, ), bass, and Bernie Dwyer (born Manchester December 4, 1940, died – December 4, 2002), drums.
Although the band were grouped as a part of the Merseybeat
sound phenomenon that The Beatles exploded around
the world in the wake of Beatlemania, they came from Manchester,
and were the first such non-Liverpool, non-Brian
Epstein-managed band to break through in the UK. Prior to becoming a
singer, Garrity worked as a milkman in Manchester.
They had 4 Top Ten UK hits: a cover of James
Ray's hit "If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody", which reached number
3 in the charts in mid-1963,
"
Super session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan played on a majority of the records most notably on "Over You", "I Understand", "A Little You", "Thou Shalt Not Steal", "Just For You" and best of all, a cover version of Paul Anka's "I Love You Baby".
The group would appear on stage and perform pre-rehearsed, synchronised wacky dance routines. While it is refreshing to have a band that does not take itself seriously, their show was probably more suited for the seaside show at the end of the pier than for a rock festival. Their success was more down to image than music, with Freddie's Buddy Holly-on-speed stage persona, Pete's dropped jaw and Derek's sinister dark glasses. Freddie and the Dreamers could make hit records of songs that other "serious" bands had turned down as "unsuitable for beat groups" by infusing even the slightest of songs with pep-charged performances filled with their trademark humour and zest. "You Were Made for Me", which was turned down by The Searchers is an example of this. It would probably sound unberably twee if delivered by a more 'earnest' singer or band, but it became a memorable and likeable hit in the unpretentious hands of Freddie & co.
Some of their Merseybeat styled records like "I Just Don't Understand" (a cover of Ann-Margret) compare well with the best of Merseybeat. The band did have musical ability, and at their peak of popularity were probably second only to the Beatles so far as fame is concerned. Although they did not play on all the records, The Dreamers showed themselves to be quite competent instrumentally and their vocal harmonies were quite clever.
Anecdotally, their EMI A&R man, John Burgess noted when reviewing their audition of "If You Gotta...Somebody", he was considering rejecting them for one fault or another but ultimately discovered he couldn't get their rendition out of his head-the whole being greater then the sum of its parts.
In the end success for the group was limited. Neither their music nor their stage act moved with the times, and they faded along with merseybeat. Although Freddie Garrity or Derek Quinn might contribute the the odd co-written song, their inability to write their own material severely hobbled them. Despite Freddie's innocent novelty appeal, the Dreamers had a "wrong-side-of-the-law" look, a similar mix to that of their Merseybeat rivals Gerry & the Pacemakers, which made both groups looked older, "square" and past their sell-by date. This "mums and dads" appeal was a big contrast to image of The Beatles and the young and trendy beat combos starting to emerge, such as The Dave Clark Five, The Who, The Small Faces or The Kinks. Television shows such as Ready Steady Go! subtly stressed the point. Freddie and the Dreamers were also happy to appear on the popular BBC children's show Blue Peter. They did have the sense to move from mainstream rock and roll into children's entertainment, and were working in cabaret until their split up in 1968, thus extending their career a little longer than most other merseybeat groups.
They appeared in 4 British films: "What a Crazy World" with singer Joe Brown, "Seaside Swingers", "Just for You" and "The Cuckoo Patrol".
Between 1971
and 1973
Garrity and Birrell appeared in the UK ITV children's show
As their popularity declined in the UK, Freddie and the Dreamers enjoyed a brief spell of fame in America, riding the wave of the British Invasion when the American teen public was hungry for any British pop music. As happened with many British EMI groups at that time their recordings were refused by EMI's American arm Capitol Records, and the Dreamers' 1965 releases and re-releases appeared on assorted labels. They recorded on Capitol's new subsidiary Tower, and Philips' Mercury Records label.
"I'm Telling You Now", which had been co-written by Garrity and Mitch Murray, reached Number 1 on the US charts in Spring 1965. They were the first of 3 consecuitve groups from Manchester to have Number 1 hits that spring, the others being Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders and Herman's Hermits. Their next biggest US hit was "Do the Freddie" at number 18, intended to inspire "The Freddie" (sic) as a dance craze. (The band's late 1965 album, Do the Freddie, even included diagrams from legendary dance instructor Arthur Murray on how to perform the routines exactly.)
At their US peak, a TV series featuring the band and British actor Terry-Thomas was bruited but never came to fruition.
In the 1980 Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll, writer Lester Bangs paid tribute of a kind to the group:
Freddie and the Dreamers had an unwitting role to play in rock history. In an interview, Paul McCartney said that the Freddie and the Dreamers's version of "If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody" was a Beatles arrangement. The Beatles played it one night in Manchester. Next thing, Freddie and Co had copied it, and were performing this arrangement themselves. Because of this incident, The Beatles decided to concentrate on their own compositions instead. And the rest is History. The Beatles forgave Freddie and the Dreamers, and invited them to do a guest appearance in their 1964 Christmas Special.
Freddie and the Dreamers, with a few different line-ups of newer Dreamers, remained a touring band into the 1990s. They appeared with other artists from the same era such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, The Troggs and Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits.
Garrity retired due to pulmonary hypertension, and
died on 19
May 2006
. Drummer Dwyer died on 4 December 2002 of lung cancer; Birrell became a taxi
driver. Crewsdon now runs a bar in Tenerife, while Quinn lives in Cheshire and
is in
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