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 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 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 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 centre in Australia which
was wonderful though 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.
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