Currently Listening Mark II

I was away at the weekend with a load of cousins and a song came up in conversation. It was because someone mentioned that it was their cat's birthday and the cat is called Cindy.

I reminded them of the pop hit from 50 years ago called "Cindy's Birthday" by Shane Fenton and the Fentones (another pop singer that I knew in those days). His real name wasn't Shane Fenton but the original Shane Fenton died at the age of 17 and Bernard William Jewry, from Muswell Hill, took over the name. After some success as a singer he became a stage and film actor as well as a music producer and then went back to singing as Alvin Stardust.

His voice was typical of the rock and ballad singers of the era




As usual, I find that when I remember these singfers they bring to mind a number of links.

Shane Fenton was one of the singers/bands in the Billy Fury film "Play it Cool" which was made by Michael Winner. It looks quite amateurish nowadays but it had good music. It had quite a lot of popular singers of the time.

This is one of the songs with Shane Fenton being joined, briefly, by Billy.



Billy Fury was expected to become the British Elvis but it turned out that he had a heart problem and died young.

Danny Williams (of Moon River fame) sang this song



Here's Billy



Slightly out of context but this is a duo with Billy and Elvis (there's some mystery about the provenance of this recording)




A very young (think she was 15,or younger, at the time) Helen Shapiro (another friend of mine at the time) was, also, in the film

 

Nice ones Shiney..

I heard an oldish favourite of mine that I had forgotten about the other day.. I love her voice & she is still singing today..

 

Zigs, that really brings back memories .

It was Gilbert's first big hit that reached No.1 in the U.S. but not only No.3 here - but it earned him his first 'Gold'.

His first No.1 (and second 'Gold') in the U.K. was 'Claire'. He wrote this song about three year old Claire Mills the daughter of his manager. It became a No.1 in a lot of countries but only got to No.2 in the U.S. Claire is happily married and lives in Surrey.



I only met him once when Mrs Shiney and I were having a meal at a club we belonged to and Gilbert came in as a guest of 'Diddy' David Hamilton (who remembers him? ). We got his, and David's, autograph but haven't the faintest idea where it is now! (It was 40 years ago)

 

He was quite a nice person but small (diddy)

He carried some photos of himself in his pocket to autograph for people.

 

Well, I suppose you need a big ego sometimes