Johnny Kidd & The Pirates
Originally a Rock & Roll band, The Pirates' greatest days
were perhaps behind them when the beat boom began.
Formed in 1958
when Rock & Roll was still in its first flush of youth in
Britain, they enjoyed several hit records including the classic Shakin'
All Over, which was co-written by Kidd and was a British
Number 1 in 1960. They managed to sustain a seven-year career
without ever releasing an album.
Kidd was a fine R&B singer and one of the few credible
British pre-Beatles answers to American rock singers and in The
Pirates he had one of the toughest-sounding groups in
England.
Born Fred Heath, Kidd was an uncompromising rocker
from Willesden who avoided covering US hits and scored with
original material.
By the late 50's his skiffle group (at one
time called The Five Nutters) had evolved into a Gene
Vincent-inspired rock group.
Kidd's stage act saw him wearing an eye-patch and wielding a
cutlass, while his Pirates sported colourful swashbuckling gear
and played in front of a galleon backdrop.
The band endured a
couple of barren years between 1960 - 1962 when the music they
played was at odds with the public taste for teen ballads, but had
something of an Indian summer in 1963 as beat music was gaining in
popularity.
In 1964 Green left to join Billy J Kramer & The
Dakotas and was replaced by John Weider.
After the hits dried up the band continued working -
predominantly on the Northern cabaret circuit - with various
line-up changes.
Kidd was in fact on his seventh group of Pirates
when he was killed in a car accident on the M1 just outside Bury,
Lancashire on 7 October 1966. He was only 27.
During the late 70s Pub Rock explosion, The Pirates made a
brief comeback without their famed frontman. Bassist Nick Simper
went on to join Deep Purple.
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