19th Nervous Breakdown? No, just a bad hair day for Mick. Although the Stones had made a magnificant leap of 21 places up the Big L Fab 40, they were still being outdone in the songwriting stakes by Lennon and McCartney. Two versions of 'Girl' jointly held #11, two recordings of 'Michelle' were at #26, 'Woman' – written by Paul McCartney, but credited to 'Bernard Webb' – was new in at #37 and Jan & Dean's cover of 'Norwegian Wood' was Earl Richmond's climber. Even Cilla's #20 'Love's Just A Broken Heart' had her old mates' 'Yesterday' on its B-side!

Climbing 9 places this week, Dusty Springfield's 'Little by Little' is not the 1964 Jagger/Richards B-side of 'Not Fade Away'. Dusty's song was penned by Buddy Kaye and Bea Verdi, who also co-wrote her '65 success, 'In the Middle of Nowhere'.

On February 15th at Wycombe Town Hall, the Knees Club signed up the Fortunes: Rod Allen (member #86), Andy Brown (#87), Barry Pritchard, (#88) Glan Dale, (#89) and Dave Carr, (#90). This Golden Ring was not only on its way up The Fab Forty, but also the Nationals.

The Fortunes' support group, Peter Fenton & the Crowd, was also recruited to the KC. Backing Peter Fenton(#81), were Mike Jones (#82), Mick Maloney (#83), Nick Man (#84) and Ian Green (#85).

Peter Fenton was obliged to wait till October '66 to gain a solo chart entry with Marble Breaks, Iron Bends. The song, with its 'dum dum' chorus, was swiftly adopted as a theme tune by Big L DJ Pete 'Dum Dum' Drummond (#37).

My Knees Club notes indicate that the Crowd released a single called Last Taxi to Brooklyn which failed to chart. Where I obtained this information, I do not know and I can find no more information about it. A search of 45 Cat reveals no recording of that title by anyone!

A singer called Ian Green issued a single in '67 called Last Pink Rose (credited to Ian Green & the Silver Lining) and made recordings as Ian Green Revelation with (wife) Rosetta Hightower and Madeline Bell. However, so little information is available that it's impossible to tell if this was the same Ian Green as our Knees Club member.

Those who are familiar with my witterings on the Radio London site will know that I am a huge fan of the rich source of comedy that is automatic computer translations from foreign languages. Below is a French-to-English computer-generated translation of a review of the Revelation album.

One calls that of l' easy listening tinted jazz and of drunk person Brazilian. A whole program. Some will prefer speech of marsh mallow out of pie crust for evening, doubtful, anaesthetic n' import which Che Guevara out of grass. Jazz lines all, barded pompeux coppers, served on a pleasant voice, so appreciable qu' it destroys you the least second of your time of brain available! Ideal for the dinners lick bottom, with your beautiful-doche or your puffiness of owner. That runs all alone, not only one wrong note, never a too acute sound, nor too serious. Not, perfection of total annihilation. The kind of trick that our good old protective company of our dear goods interests likes to sell to us, in background music in the corridors of the overconsumption of our large surfaces, or on the quays, or in short anywhere. To listen after three beer cases, or to smash. To note the presence of the singer drunk person Rosetta Hightower, raising sauce a little, and of the medley torchant the bottom of the Traffic or Beatles. You will have been warned!

We have indeed!

Mary Payne

Bert Berns's A Little Bit of Soap, was much recorded on both sides of the pond and had been a Top Twenty hit in the States for The Jarmels, in 1961. Unfortunately, Birmingham band Craig could not repeat that success, but their two 1966 Fontana singles are highly collectable. A copy of A Little Bit of Soap sold on ebay in 2010 for £98, while the Record Collector Price Guide values mint copies of the second release, I Must Be Mad, at a staggering £340 or more.

The main reason for the band's collectability, is its drummer, Carl Palmer, later of prog-rock superstars, Emerson, Lake & Palmer. According to Carl's official website, the band was called the King Bees (previously the Castaways) when he joined at the age of 15, in 1965. The other 'Craigs' were Geoff Brown, lead vocal, guitar, Len Cox bass and Richard Pannell guitar. Geoff Brown wrote Ready Steady Let's Go, the B-side of the first single, and both sides of the £340 follow-up. Adding to its mega-value, on B-side Suspense, is a guitar solo by one of the Troggs – in the studio that day to record Wild Thing.

Larry Page is credited with coming up with the Craig moniker, because he felt that too many other groups were calling themselves 'King Bees' (culled from the much-covered blues favourite, I'm A King Bee). Page wanted something outstanding for his latest Page One protégées, but they had built a loyal local following and were not over-enamoured with the name change. They disbanded mid-1967.

Carl shifted his sticks to Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds then The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster, before joining Keith Emerson and Greg Lake as ELP.

In 1968, Geoff Brown and Richard Pannell formed prog-rock outfit Galliard. They released two albums, Strange Pleasure and New Dawn, on the Deram Nova label. Both were produced by another Fab Forty artist, Phil Wainman. Geoff went on to successfully found computer games companies and Richard became a sound engineer with ELO.

Ian Cox posted a note on Youtube saying that his bass-player dad Len had entered the priesthood and still lived in Birmingham.

Returning to computer translations, my favourite source of information on the net concerning Craig, is a page from a Spanish website, which Google has kindly translated into 'English' for our edification. The title of the single I Must Be Mad translates poetically into, 'I must sees airborne magnetic detection'. (expensive b 'Suspense'). It's certainly right about the 'expensive' part and Airborne Magnetic Detection sounds like a very good name for a heavy metal outfit!

The Brumbeat website houses features on both Craig and Galliard.

Our friend Martin Kinch interviewed Richard Pannell for his Cherryblossom Clinic site from which we have borrowed the image on the right.