Les Vandyke (born Yani Panakos Paraskeva
Skoradalides, 21
June 1931, Battersea, South
London, England)
was a popular singer-songwriter in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also
known as Johnny Worth, and John Worsley.
Career
In his youth
he was usually known as John Skoradalides. After schooling, he began
work as a draughtsman
prior to his compulsory two years national
service. Returning to civilian life, he determined to become a singer, changing
his name for the purpose to Johnny Worth.
He worked in pubs as a semi-professional until he
managed to secure a television appearance. Watching was the
wife of well-known leader of the Oscar
Rabin Band, and Worth was signed to the band,
with whom he remained for five years, making a number of recordings for
Oriole
Records and Columbia Records. He also recorded
for the Embassy Records label,
which produced cheap covers of popular hits,
usually sold through Woolworth's stores. He then joined The
Raindrops vocal
trio
(together with Jackie Lee and Vince
Hill), which appeared on the television programme (and subsequent LP)
Drumbeat. It was on this show that he met Oscar-winning
composer
John Barry, with
whom he was soon to work, and the singer Adam
Faith.
Worth had aspirations to be a songwriter,
and though initial attempts had failed, he asked pianist Les
Reed to arrange a demo of his song "What Do You Want". Faith and Barry liked
it, and with Barry's arrangements, Faith took the song to Number
one in the UK Singles Chart in November 1959,
within which it remained for 19 weeks. Worth's concern was that as he
was still signed to Oriole, he should adopt a pseudonym,
and combined Reed's first name with his own telephone
exchange, to become Les Vandyke.
He provided Faith with his follow-up number one "Poor Me", in
January 1960, and for the next two years penned a further six Top
Ten British
chart hits for Faith: "Someone Else's Baby"; "How About That"; "Who Am
I"; "The Time Has Come"; "As You Like It" and "Don't That Beat All".
Worth also wrote another chart-topper "Well I Ask You" for Eden
Kane, a pseudonym for Richard, the eldest of the three
Sarsted brothers.
By 1965 Vandyke was working in Australia,
writing songs such as "Doin' The Mod" for The Flies, and "Dance Puppet
Dance" for Little Pattie, which reached number
twelve in the Sydney
based pop
charts. He
also wrote music
and songs for a number of low-budget movies during the sixties and seventies,
including What a Whopper (1961 as Johnny Worth); The
Kitchen (1961); Mix Me a Person (1962, as
Johnny Worth); Some People (1962 as Johnny Worth - lyricist); Johnny
Cool (1963 as Les Vandyke); Psychomania
(1971); and The Playbirds (1978).
Over the years Vandyke has penned songs that were recorded by
various artists,
including Petula Clark, Vince
Hill, Engelbert Humperdinck,
Anthony
Newley, Bobby Vee, Marty
Wilde, Bobby Rydell, Jimmy Justice, John
Leyton and many more.
Vandyke penned more big hit records in the early 1970s. These
included co-writing (as John Worsley) the 1971 British Eurovision Song Contest
entry for singer Clodagh Rodgers. That song
"Jack in the Box", reached number 4 in the UK chart in March of that
year. In addition, he wrote "Gonna Make You An Offer You Can't Refuse",
a number 8 UK hit in 1973 for the American singer, and one-hit
wonder, Jimmy Helms.
In 1986 Vandyke married Catherine Stock, sister of the songwriter,
Mike
Stock. Later that year Vandyke penned her a Top 20 UK hit, entitled "To
Have and To Hold". However, it proved to be another one-hit wonder.
References
External link
