Dec 14

Freddie and the Dreamers

FREDDIE AND THE DREAMERS
 
 
Freddie and the Dreamers  were an English band who had a number of hit records between May 1963 and November 1965.  Their stage act was enlivened by the comic antics of the 5-foot–3-inch tall (1.60m) Freddie Garrity, who would bounce around the stage with arms and legs flying.  The group remained active until December 2000 when they played their final gig at Margate Winter Gardens.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
American teenagers (mostly white suburban kids) were also invigorated by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and all the rest; and they responded by launching a counter-assault, when seemingly every kid in America wanted to be in a band.  This era is now known as the garage rock era (that was the most available practice space for most of these would-be rock stars, hence the name); this time period also saw the beginnings of the psychedelic rock movement on both sides of the Atlantic.  I didn’t know exactly what I was hearing at the time, but the music by bands like the Seeds, Blues Magoos, the Electric Prunes, Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Standells, Count Five, and Strawberry Alarm Clock (among many other bands) was grabbing me almost immediately.  I don’t know that I even realized immediately how bizarre many of these American band names were, as compared to those of British Invasion bands like the Animals, Freddie and the Dreamers, and the Dave Clark Five. 
 
Thankfully, in 1972 (though if I’m not mistaken, the album was actually not released in the US until 1976), Lenny Kaye – later the guitarist for the seminal Patti Smith Group – helped assemble hit songs by all of these diverse bands plus plenty more into what is now regarded as one of the greatest compilation albums of all times:  Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968.  It remains one of my favorite records, and I have spoken of it several times before in these posts. 
 
(January 2013)
 
*       *       *
 

The extravagant glasses that Elton John has worn throughout his decades-long career all started when young Reg Dwight began wearing glasses in his teens “not because he needed them, but in homage to Buddy Holly”, as Philip Norman wrote in his biography of the English legend.  Lead singer Freddie Garrity of Freddie and the Dreamers is another British star who wore Buddy Holly glasses on stage; in the 1970’s, pub-music star Elvis Costello was doing the same.  Allmusic describes Freddie and the Dreamers as “the clowns of the British Invasion” due to their outlandish hits like “Do the Freddie”, but there is a lot more to them than that (though I will have to get into that another time). 

 

(June 2013/1)

 

*       *       *

 

Kris Kristofferson also co-wrote another major gospel hit song in the 1970’s, “One Day at a Time” (also the motto of Alcoholics Anonymous and other similar organizations).  He co-wrote the song with a Nashville songwriting legend, Marijohn Wilkin.  With Danny Dill, Wilkin co-wrote “The Long Black Veil” for Lefty Frizzell – this standard is such a cultural touchstone that it was even mentioned in an opinion by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1979.  Other songs that Marijohn Wilkin wrote or co-wrote include “Waterloo”, a #1 hit for Stonewall Jackson; “Cut Across Shorty”, which was recorded by Eddie Cochran, Rod Stewart, Faces, and Freddie and the Dreamers; and “I Just Don’t Understand” that was covered by Ann-Margret and the Beatles. 

 

(July 2014)

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021