The Ferris Wheel were a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
and
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest atte ...
band, who have been described as "one of England's great lost musical treasures of the mid- to late '60s" and as "one of the most popular club acts" of the time.
[ Biography by Jim Dunn at Allmusic.com]
/ref> They released two album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...
s, ''Can't Break the Habit'' (1967) and ''Ferris Wheel'' (1970), the latter featuring singer Linda Lewis
Linda Ann Fredericks (born 27 September 1950), better known as Linda Lewis, is an English vocalist, songwriter and guitarist. She is the eldest of six children, three of whom also had singing careers. She is best known for the singles "Rock-a- ...
.
Career
The group formed in late 1966. Original singer Diane Ferraz, born in Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
, had previously performed in a duo with singer Nicky Scott. They had been paired together and promoted by manager and record producer Simon Napier-Bell
Simon Robert Napier-Bell (born 22 April 1939) is an English record producer, music manager, author and journalist. At different times, he has managed artists as diverse as the Yardbirds, John's Children, Marc Bolan, Japan, London, Ultravox, Bon ...
, who gained substantial publicity for the duo through his contacts in the London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
music business and because a pairing of white male and black female singers was unusual at the time. Ferraz and Scott released three singles on the Columbia label in 1966, and toured with a backing band, Simon's Triangle.[ Top Twenty Club: Diane Ferraz & Nicky Scott]
/ref> The group included keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
player Mike Liston, also known as Michael Snow, who had previously been a member of the group West Five and backed The She Trinity
The She Trinity was a Canadian/British pop group of the 1960s. The band was assembled as an all-female group who played their own instruments, a rarity in the period. The original members, Robyn Yorke, Shelley Gillespie and Sue Kirby, were Canad ...
.[ Michael Snow biography]
/ref> Ferraz and Scott had little commercial success together, although Napier-Bell's promotional skills on their behalf allowed him to move on to become manager of The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds are an English rock band, formed in London in 1963. The band's core lineup featured vocalist and harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist and later bassist Chris Dreja and bassist/producer Paul Samwell ...
. After Scott left, the group were briefly billed as Diane Ferraz and Simon's Triangle.
Ferraz and Liston then formed The Ferris Wheel with Dave Sweetnam (saxophone), George Sweetnam (bass, vocals), and Barry Reeves (drums), who had been members of singer Emile Ford
Michael Emile Telford Miller (16 October 1937 – 11 April 2016), known professionally as Emile Ford, was a musician and singer born in Saint Lucia, British Windward Islands. He was popular in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and early ...
's backing group, The Checkmates. The Sweetnam brothers (the name is sometimes incorrectly spelled Sweetman, and the brothers also used the surname Ford) were half-brothers of Emile Ford. The line-up of the Ferris Wheel - who took their name from that of Ferraz - was completed by guitarist Mike Anthony, later replaced by Keith Field. Vocals in the group were shared between Ferraz, Liston, and George Sweetnam.[
The Ferris Wheel quickly became a popular club act in London, and toured more widely. They were signed to ]Pye Records
Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherho ...
by producer John Schroeder, who recorded an LP with them, ''Can't Break the Habit'', in 1967. The record drew on both psychedelic pop
Psychedelic pop (or acid pop) is pop music that contains musical characteristics associated with psychedelic music. Developing in the late 1960s, elements included "trippy" features such as fuzz guitars, tape manipulation, backwards recording, ...
and soul influences, with some of their songs and arrangements being likened to those of The Fifth Dimension
The 5th Dimension is an American popular music vocal group, whose repertoire includes pop, R&B, soul, jazz, light opera, and Broadway.
Formed as the Versatiles in late 1965, the group changed its name to "the 5th Dimension" by 1966. Between ...
while others were described as a Motown-influenced "gently trippy, soaring, and occasionally searing brand of soul music".[ Three singles were released from the LP: "I Can't Break the Habit" (1967), "Let It Be Me" and "The Na Na Song" (both 1968), but none reached the ]UK singles chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
.
The group continued to tour before Ferraz decided to leave the music business to raise a family. She was briefly replaced, in 1968, by Marsha Hunt, before she in turn left to be replaced by Linda Lewis
Linda Ann Fredericks (born 27 September 1950), better known as Linda Lewis, is an English vocalist, songwriter and guitarist. She is the eldest of six children, three of whom also had singing careers. She is best known for the singles "Rock-a- ...
. Among other personnel changes, Reeves was replaced by drummer Dennis Elliott
Dennis Leslie Elliott (born 18 August 1950, in Peckham, London) is a British musician and artist, who was the original drummer for the rock band, Foreigner. He played with the band from 1976 until leaving between 1991 and 1993. He went on to ...
, and in 1969 Field left, to be replaced by guitarist Terry Edmunds, who was in turn replaced towards the end of the group's career, first by Bernie Holland and finally Jim Cregan
James Cregan (born 9 March 1946) is an English rock guitarist and bassist, best known for his associations with Family, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel and Rod Stewart. Cregan is a former husband of the singer Linda Lewis and worked with her as a ...
. Featuring Lewis as lead singer, the group signed a recording contract with the Polydor
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States ...
label, who issued a single, "Can't Stop Now" produced by Ian Samwell
Ian Ralph Samwell (19 January 1937 – 13 March 2003) was an English musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the writer of Cliff Richard's debut single " Move It", and his association with the rock band America, wit ...
, at the start of 1970, followed by an album, ''Ferris Wheel''. The album was released on the Uni
Uni or UNI may refer to:
Entertainment
*Uni Records, a division of MCA, formally called Universal City Records
*"U.N.I.", a song by Ed Sheeran from ''+'' (''Plus'')
*Uni, a species in the Neopets Trading Card Game
*Uni, a character in the anim ...
label in the US, but was not successful. The group separated in 1970.[
]
Later activities
Although Ferraz took no further part in the music business, several other band members continued their musical careers.
Michael Snow ( aka Liston) wrote Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame (born Clive Powell; 26 June 1943) is an English R&B and jazz musician. Fame, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still performing, often working with contemporaries such as Alan Price, Van Morrison and Bill Wyman. Fame is the on ...
and Alan Price's UK hit single "Rosetta", and performed with Colin Blunstone
Colin Edward Michael Blunstone (born 24 June 1945) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. In a career spanning more than 60 years, Blunstone came to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the English rock band the Zombies, wh ...
and Doris Troy
Doris Troy (born Doris Elaine Higginsen; January 6, 1937 – February 16, 2004) was an American R&B singer and songwriter, known to her many fans as "Mama Soul". Her biggest hit was " Just One Look", a top 10 hit in 1963.
Life and career
She ...
among others, before moving to Nashville in 1973 to work as a songwriter and producer. He recorded with Dennis Locorriere
Dennis Michael Locorriere (born June 13, 1949; Union City, New Jersey, United States) is the American lead vocalist and guitarist of the country rock group Dr. Hook (formerly Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show).Bonitto, Brian (2014)Hooking up with ...
and released three Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
-influenced albums, ''Here Comes the Skelly'' (1998), ''The Rats and the Rosary'' (2001) and ''Never Say No to a Jar'' (2003).[
Bass player George Ford (aka Sweetnam, Sweetman, or Sweetnam-Ford) became a session musician, and worked with Welsh singer-songwriter ]Meic Stevens
Meic Stevens (born 13 March 1942) is a Welsh singer-songwriter. Stevens's songs have a mystical, faintly psychedelic flavour, and are mostly sung in his native Welsh language. Still largely unknown outside Wales, he was discovered by DJ Ji ...
, Doris Troy, Medicine Head
Medicine Head were a British blues rock band – initially a duo – active in the 1970s. Their biggest single success was in 1973 with " One and One Is One", which reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart. The group recorded six original albums ...
, Peter Skellern
Peter Skellern (14 March 1947 – 17 February 2017) was an English singer-songwriter and pianist who rose to fame in the 1970s. He had two top twenty hits on the UK Singles Chart - " You're a Lady" (1972), which typifies his signature use of b ...
, and Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel are a British glam rock band from the early 1970s from London. Their music covers a range of styles from pop to progressive rock. Over the years they have had five albums in the UK Albums Chart and twelve singles in ...
among others in the 1970s. He featured on Al Stewart's album '' Year of the Cat'' and played with Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is an Indian-born British musican, singer, producer, entrepreneur and philanthropist who holds both British and Barbadian citizenship. He has total sales of over 21.5 million s ...
and The Shadows
The Shadows (originally known as the Drifters) were an English instrumental rock group, who dominated the British popular music charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in the pre- Beatles era. They served as the backing band for Cliff Richard ...
, before moving to Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
in the 1980s. There, he worked with Long John Baldry
John William "Long John" Baldry (12 January 1941 – 21 July 2005) was an English musician and actor. In the 1960s, he was one of the first British vocalists to sing the blues in clubs and shared the stage with many British musicians including ...
among others. According to Snow, Ford died in Canada in 2007.
Barry Reeves became a member of Blossom Toes before moving to Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, where he worked as a percussionist and songwriter with the James Last
James Last (, ; born Hans Last; 17 April 1929 – 9 June 2015), also known as Hansi, was a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. Initially a jazz bassist (Last won the award for "best bassist" in Germany in each of ...
Orchestra. He married singer Madeline Bell
Madeline Bell (born July 23, 1942) is an American soul singer, who became famous as a performer in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s with pop group Blue Mink, having arrived from America in the gospel show ''Black Nativity'' in 1962, with the ...
in 1988, and died of pneumonia in 2010.
Linda Lewis and Jim Cregan later married, and subsequently divorced. Lewis worked as a solo artist from 1970, recording almost 20 albums and having several UK hit singles including "Rock-A-Doodle-Doo" (1973) and "It's In His Kiss
"It's in His Kiss" is a song written and composed by Rudy Clark. It was first released as a single in 1963 by Merry Clayton that did not chart. The song was made a hit a year later when recorded by Betty Everett, who hit No. 1 on the ''Cashbox' ...
" (1975). Biography of Linda Lewis by Amy Hanson at Allmusic.com
/ref> Cregan worked with Family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel and Rod Stewart, among many others. Marsha Hunt appeared in the musical '' Hair'' in London, and worked as a model, actress, and as a solo singer in the 1970s, before becoming a noted writer and novelist. Dennis Elliott later played in the bands If and Foreigner.
Sequel Records issued an expanded CD edition of ''Can't Break the Habit'' in 2000, with reminiscences by Diane Ferraz.[ Review of ''Can't Break the Habit'' by Bruce Eder at Allmusic.com]
/ref>
Discography
Albums
* ''Can't Break the Habit'' ( Pye, 1967)
* ''Ferris Wheel'' (Polydor
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States ...
, 1970)
Singles
* "I Can't Break the Habit" / "Number One Guy" (Pye, 1967)
* "Let It Be Me" / "You Look at You" (Pye, 1968)
* "The Na Na Song" / "Three Cool Cats
"Three Cool Cats" is a 1958 song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It was originally recorded by the Coasters and released as the B-side of their hit single, "Charlie Brown".The Beatles BiblThree Cool Cats/ref>
"Three Cool Cats" was on ...
" (Pye, 1968)
* "Can't Stop Now" / "I Know You Well" (Polydor, 1970)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferris Wheel, The
English rock music groups
Musical groups established in 1966
1966 establishments in England