The Kursaal Flyers
 Named
after a seaside amusement arcade at Southend in Essex, and fronted
by Paul Shuttleworth (who could out-spiv Arthur Daley on a
charabanc trip), The Kursaal Flyers brought all the fun of the
fair to Pub Rock.
With a banjo-playing bass player and a pedal-steel guitarist,
they wore their country rock hearts on their brightly coloured
sleeves, but they hit the stage like comic book heroes.
Their songs (mostly written by drummer Will Birch and guitarist
Graeme Douglas) tapped into a rich seam of postcard humour which
set them apart from their contemporaries.
Signed to Jonathan King's UK
label as successors to 10cc, they were soon
a big draw nationally and the subject of a BBC fly-on-the-wall TV
documentary (So You Wanna Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star?).
But nothing on either of their two UK albums matched the
sparkle of their live performances.
It was only after moving to CBS to record The Golden Mile
with Head-Womble Mike Batt that they
got the production (and the hit) they deserved when Little
Does She Know reached Number 14 in November 1976.
Douglas left soon after to join Eddie
& The Hot Rods (for whom he wrote the classic Do
Anything You Wanna Do) and after several line-up changes the
band folded late in 1977, leaving Birch to form Powerpop
pioneers The Records, before undertaking
a successful career as a record producer and rock writer.
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