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 favourite, 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 Three, 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 favourite 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 One on 10 April.
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 centre 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 19 May 2006. Bernie Dwyer died of lung cancer on 4
December 2002.
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