| Georgie
Fame |
| Born |
26
June 1943
Leigh,
Lancashire |
| Occupation |
Singer
Musician |
Georgie Fame (born Clive Powell, 26 June 1943, Leigh, Lancashire)
is a British rhythm
and blues and jazz
singer
and keyboard player.
|
Contents
- 1 Career
- 2 Radio
Caroline
- 3 References
- 4 External
links
|
Career
At sixteen years of age, he entered into a management
agreement with Larry Parnes, who gave artists new
names such as Marty Wilde and Billy
Fury. Fame was already playing piano for Billy Fury in a
backing band called the Blue Flames, which later became billed as
"Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames". The band had great success with
rhythm and blues.
Fame's greatest success was "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde"
in 1968,
which was a number one hit in the United
Kingdom, and No.7 in the United States; Fame also had UK number one hits with "Yeh Yeh" (1965) and "Get Away" (1966).
Although he enjoyed regular chart success with singles in the
late 1960s,
it was a peculiar quirk of chart statistics that his only three Top 10
hits all made number one.
Fame continued playing into the 1970s, having a hit, "Rosetta", in 1971. He recorded the
song with Alan Price, ex-keyboard player
of The
Animals. He has also toured as one of the Rhythm Kings, with
his friend, Bill Wyman, playing bass.
From the late 1980s, until the 1997 album The
Healing Game, Fame was a core member of Van
Morrison's band, as well as his musical producer,
playing keyboards and singing harmony vocals on tracks like "In the
Days before Rock 'n' Roll", whilst still recording and
touring as an artist
in his own right. He frequently plays residences at jazz clubs, such as Ronnie
Scott's. He has also played organ on Starclub's
album.
Radio Caroline
Accoding to Ronan O'Rahilly, Fame attained a
place in broadcasting history when he managed
Fame and ended up with his first record, which he could not get played
by the BBC.
As the fable goes, O'Rahilly took the Fame's record to Radio
Luxembourg, which also turned him down, followed by (O'Rahilly claims)
his stating that he would start his own radio
station, in order to promote the record.
The station supposedly became the offshore pirate
radio station, Radio Caroline.
References
External links
