The Barron Knights
 The Barron Knights formed in 1959 in Leyton Buzzard, and their
first brush with fame came in 1963 when they appeared as a support
act at The Beatles' Christmas shows in
London.
Although they would ultimately find fame as a comedy
parody cabaret act, they actually started off as a straight beat
combo playing the same Reeperbahn clubs as The Beatles in
1962.
But ex-choirboy and lead singer Duke D'Mond proved a talented
mimic.
Chart success followed in 1964 with Call Up The Groups
(a medley of parodies of popular hits of the day) which reached
Number 3 in the British charts.
The Barron Knights went on to release a number of singles, EPs
and LPs, all parodying groups such as The Beatles, The
Rolling Stones, and even The Bachelors,
whose hit I Wouldn't Trade You For The World became I
Don't Want To Go To Work (On Me Bike In The Rain) on the
Barrons' 1965 EP Pop Go The Workers.
Not content with mimicking the top groups, they also had quite
a line in impersonating female singers. D'Mond's high-pitched
squeal - his approximation of The
Supremes and Sandie Shaw -
helped send Pop Go The Workers into the Top 10 in
1965.
The Barron Knights were ultimately destined to tour the cabaret
circuit, which they still do (successfully) to this day. 1977's Leo
Sayer pastiche Live In Trouble was followed
by their biggest hit, the million selling A Taste Of
Aggro, which took aim at Boney M and
The Smurfs.
Duke D'Mond died in 2009. The band's sole surviving
founder member, Peter Langford, said of D'Mond: "He was the
guy who sang all the serious stuff".
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