Billy Howard is an English comedian and impressionist, [1] who appeared on the ITV series Who Do You Do? in the early 1970s, alongside other impressionists such as Faith Brown. [2]
Howard was born in Edgware, London, England. [3] He commenced his musical career as a jazz trumpeter and guitarist, playing in jazz combos in the early 1960s. [3] In 1976, his single "King of the Cops", a comic version of the hit "King of the Road", reached No. 6 in the UK Singles Chart; it featured his impressions of TV cops including Kojak , Columbo , Steve McGarrett in Hawaii Five-O , McCloud , Ironside and Cannon . Several months later, a follow-up, "The Disco Cops", was also released, but did not chart. Another comic record by Howard, "Frantic Frog (Parts 1 and 2)", was released in 1977 and also failed to chart.
Chart (1976) | Peak position |
---|---|
UK Singles (OCC) [4] | No. 6 |
Australian (Kent Music Report) | No. 24 [5] |
The Seekers were an Australian folk-influenced pop group originally formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States. They were especially popular during the 1960s, with their best-known configuration of Judith Durham on vocals, piano and tambourine; Athol Guy on double bass and vocals; Keith Potger on twelve-string guitar, banjo and vocals; and Bruce Woodley on guitar, mandolin, banjo and vocals.
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Sir Lenny Henry in response to the famine in Ethiopia. The concept of Comic Relief was to get British comedians to make the public laugh, while raising money to help people around the world and in the United Kingdom. A new CEO, Samir Patel, was announced in January 2021.
Richard Lewis Springthorpe, known professionally as Rick Springfield, is an Australian-American musician and actor. He was a member of the pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971, then started his solo career with his debut single, "Speak to the Sky", which reached the top 10 in Australia in mid-1972. When he moved to the United States, he had a No. 1 hit with "Jessie's Girl" in 1981 in both Australia and the US, for which he received the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. He followed with four more top 10 US hits: "I've Done Everything for You", "Don't Talk to Strangers", "Affair of the Heart" and "Love Somebody". Springfield's two US top 10 albums are Working Class Dog (1981) and Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet (1982).
The Fatback Band is an American funk and disco band that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s. The Fatback Band is most known for their R&B hits, "(Do the) Spanish Hustle", "I Like Girls", "Gotta Get My Hands on Some (Money)", "Backstrokin'" and "I Found Lovin'". Their 1979 single "King Tim III " is generally considered the first commercially released hip hop single.
"What's Love Got to Do with It" is a song written by Graham Lyle and Terry Britten, and recorded by Tina Turner for her fifth studio album, Private Dancer (1984). Capitol Records released it as a single from Private Dancer in May 1984 and it eventually became Turner's biggest-selling single.
"Suicide Is Painless" is a song written by Johnny Mandel (music) and Michael Altman (lyrics) for the 1970 film M*A*S*H. In addition to being performed by characters in the film, it plays during the title sequence as sung by The Ron Hicklin Singers. An instrumental version was used as the theme music for the TV series based on the film, playing over the opening and closing credits.
Breathe were an English pop band formed in London in 1984. The band enjoyed chart success in the late 1980s and early 1990s with hit singles "Don't Tell Me Lies", "How Can I Fall?", and "Say a Prayer". The group's biggest hit was "Hands to Heaven", which reached #2 in the United States in August 1988.
"You've Got a Friend" is a 1971 song written by American singer-songwriter Carole King. It was first recorded by King and included on her second studio album, Tapestry (1971). Another well-known version is by James Taylor from his album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. His was released as a single in 1971, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number four on the UK Singles Chart. The two versions were recorded simultaneously in 1971 with shared musicians.
Eurogliders are a band formed in 1980 in Perth, Western Australia, which included Grace Knight on vocals, Bernie Lynch on guitar and vocals, and Amanda Vincent on keyboards. In 1984, Eurogliders released an Australian top ten album, This Island, which spawned their No. 2 hit single, "Heaven ". "Heaven" also peaked at No. 21 on the United States Billboard Mainstream Rock charts and appeared on the Hot 100. Another Australian top ten album, Absolutely, followed in 1985, which provided two further local top ten singles, "We Will Together" and "Can't Wait to See You". They disbanded in 1989, with Knight having a successful career as a jazz singer. Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane described Eurogliders as "the accessible face of post-punk new wave music. The band's sophisticated brand of pop was traditional in its structure, but displayed the decidedly 'modern veneer' ". The band reformed in 2005 releasing two new albums followed in 2014 by their seventh album.
Anthony Fitzgerald, known professionally as Tony Christie, is an English musician and singer. He is best known for his recording of "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo", a double UK chart success.
Evelyn "Champagne" King is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. She is best known for her hit disco single "Shame", which was released in 1977 during the height of disco's popularity. King had other hits from the early through the mid–1980s including; "I'm in Love" (1981), "Love Come Down" (1982) and "Your Personal Touch" (1985).
"Wuthering Heights" is a song by English singer Kate Bush, released as her debut single on 20 January 1978 through EMI Records. Inspired by the 1847 Emily Brontë novel of the same name, the song was released as the lead single from Bush's debut studio album, The Kick Inside (1978). It peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks, making Bush the first female artist to achieve a number-one single with an entirely self-penned song. It also reached the top of the charts in Australia, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, and Portugal.
Alicia Michelle "Miki" Howard is an American R&B singer who had a string of top 10 hit songs in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, including "Baby, Be Mine" (1987), "Come Share My Love" (1986) and "Love Under New Management" (1990). "Ain't Nobody Like You" (1992) and "Ain't Nuthin' in the World" (1989) both peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard Top R&B Singles chart.
James Michael Nugent Reyne OAM is an Australian musician. He achieved fame as the lead singer of Australian Crawl, and subsequently went on to a successful solo career.
Colleen Hewett is an Australian singer and actress.
"Love Hurts" is a song written and composed by the American songwriter Boudleaux Bryant. First recorded by the Everly Brothers in July 1960, the song is most well known in two hit versions by UK artists; by Scottish hard rock band Nazareth in 1974 and by English singer-songwriter Jim Capaldi in 1975.
"Living Doll" is a song written by Lionel Bart made popular by Cliff Richard and the Shadows in 1959. It was the top selling single in the UK in 1959. It has topped the UK charts twice: in its original version in 1959 and a new version recorded in 1986 in aid of Comic Relief. It is one of the few songs released by an English singer to chart on the American Billboard charts before the British Invasion occurred.
"(Is This the Way to) Amarillo" is a song written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield. It is about a man traveling to Amarillo, Texas, to find his girlfriend Marie.
"I Think It's Going to Rain Today" is a song by American singer-songwriter Randy Newman. It appears on Julius La Rosa's 1966 album You're Gonna Hear from Me, Eric Burdon's 1967 album Eric Is Here, on Newman's 1968 debut album Randy Newman, in The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1 (2003), and in Newman's official and bootleg live albums. It is one of his most covered songs. Also covered by Jazz/ Adult Contemporary singer Curtis Stigers in 2005 on his album "I Think It's Going to Rain Today". Stigers has covered other Newman songs in his career and credits him respectfully as an influence to his own song writing.
Grace Ethel Knight is an English-born Australian vocalist and songwriter. During the 1980s she was a mainstay of pop group Eurogliders which formed in Perth, Western Australia. Knight later became a solo jazz singer and musician based in Sydney. In 1984, Eurogliders released an Australian top ten album, This Island, which spawned their No. 2 hit single, "Heaven ". "Heaven" also peaked at No. 21 on the United States' Billboard Mainstream Rock charts and appeared on the Hot 100. The song, written by Eurogliders' guitarist, Bernie Lynch, and vocals by Knight, was their only hit in United States. Knight and Lynch married in 1985 but separated soon after. Another Australian top ten album, Absolutely, followed for Eurogliders in 1985, which provided three further local top ten singles, "We Will Together", "The City of Soul" and "Can't Wait to See You".