Freddie & the Dreamers

This Manchester-born and raised group was briefly renowned for its mixture of beat music and comedy. Former milkman Freddie Garrity joined the group in 1960 and the band remained semi-professional until passing a BBC audition in 1963. Although their debut, If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody, was an R&B favorite, subsequent releases were tailored to the quintet's effervescent insouciant image.

I'm Telling You Now and You Were Made For Me also reached the UK Top 3, establishing the group at the height of the beat boom. Although Garrity displayed his song writing skill with strong ballads such as Send A Letter To Me, his work was not used for A-side recordings.

Further hits followed in 1964 with Over You, I Love You Baby, Just For You, and the Christmas season favorite I Understand (cleverly intertwined with Auld Lang Syne). The band enjoyed great success, headlining concert tours all over the world, and early in 1965, they made a startling breakthrough in America where I'm Telling You Now topped the charts, reaching Number 1 on April 10.

American audiences were entranced by Garrity's zany stage antics (which resulted in frequent twisted ankles) and eagerly demanded the name of his unusual dance routine. "It's called the Freddie", he innocently replied. A US Top 20 hit rapidly followed with Do The Freddie.

1964 also saw the boys playing the parts of the kitchen staff at a holiday camp in the movie Every Day's A Holiday (released as Seaside Swingers in the USA). Although the group appeared in a couple of other films -Just For You and Cuckoo Patrol - their main audience was in pantomime and cabaret.

They broke up at the end of the decade, but Garrity and Birrell remained together in the children's TV show Little Big Time (featuring a truly drug-induced segment called "Oliver in the Overworld").

During the mid-70s the group was reformed by Freddie Garrity, with new personnel, for revival concerts at home and abroad (I actually saw them perform in a shopping center in Australia which was bizarre). In 1988, Garrity began performing in cabaret and a parallel acting career. He eventually retired due to pulmonary hypertension, and sadly died on May 19th 2006. Bernie Dwyer died of lung cancer on December 4th 2002.