Stavely Makepeace didn't happen overnight. In fact it was an evolution.
Back in the mid 1960s Rob Woodward and Nigel Fletcher got together a
group of musicians and hired studio time to try out several songs they'd
written together. Amongst those musicians were the late great Don Ker
and Pete Fisher. Many other musicians and singers were used over the
next few years as this ambitious duo sought to break into the recording
business. At this time no name had even been mooted but by the time a
recording contract was eventually secured with Pyramid Records, Rob had
thought up the name Stavely Makepeace.
The first single, "I wanna Love You Like A Mad Dog", was released by
Pyramid on August 29th 1969, by which time Don Ker and Pete Fisher had
officially become part of the unit and Stavely Makepeace was born!
"Mad Dog" wasn't a hit, despite it being featured on both Pick of
the Pops and the Radio One Roadshow but it put SM firmly on the map.
More singles followed and by the summer of 1970 the group were on Top of
the Pops with their single, "Edna". By this time Steve Johnson had
replaced Pete Fisher and another musician, the very talented Steve
Tayton had joined the fray.
"Edna" again failed to chart but this time it wasn't due to lack
of radio plays but the fact that Stavely had joined a smaller label,
Concord Records, who simply didn't have adequate distribution to get the
single on to the retailer's shelves.
At the end of 1970 the band were 'discovered' by Muriel Young of
Granada TV and she booked them to play their next single, "Smokey
Mountain Rhythm Revue", in December of that year. Muriel was to go on
booking Stavely for TV shows for the next seven years!
Meanwhile Rob and Nigel had written some novelty and instrumental
songs which didn't fit the 'Stavely' image so they formed an offshoot
band with Steve Johnson and Rob's mother Hilda and called themselves
"Lieutenant Pigeon" to record this more 'fun' type of music.
By this time Steve Tayton had left Stavely and been replaced by
Owen John. As the history books will tell, the Lieutenant Pigeon
'offshoot band' achieved great success during the next few years but
Stavely Makepeace was not forgotten and in fact released vinyl singles
until 1983. The last of these being "Just Tell Her Fred Said Goodbye".
The final line up for Stavely was Rob W, Nigel, Steve J and Mike Rayns.
After 1983 little happened with Stavely Makepeace but with the
advent of the digital age Rob and Nigel discovered they could record
tracks without the use of lots of other musicians and carried on
producing CDs under the names of both Stavely M and Lieutenant Pigeon.
When the internet came along, a new friend called Bill Boswell came
into the picture and created a web site for the boys. This meant another
'can of worms' was opened and many of the old tracks came alive again
both as downloads and also on other "retro" record labels.
So the story continues.......
|