Christopher Morris, known by the stage name Lance Fortune (born 4 January 1940, Birkenhead, Cheshire, England), [1] is an English pop singer.
Morris was classically trained on piano. [2] He formed a rock and roll group called the Firecrests while a student at Birkenhead School, and served as lead vocalist; they recorded the songs "That'll Be the Day", "I Knew From the Start", and "Party", but were strictly a local attraction. [3] After leaving University early, Morris was discovered by impresario Larry Parnes while working and singing at the 2i's Coffee Bar in London. [1] Parnes gave him the stage name Lance Fortune, a name he had previously considered for another artist he signed in 1959, Georgie Fame. [1] [4] The newly named Fortune signed to Pye Records as a solo artist, [2] and released four singles, two of which became hits in the UK Singles Chart in 1960. "Be Mine" reached No. 4, whilst the follow-up, "This Love I Have For You" was a Top 30 hit. [2] [5]
In April 1960, Fortune and Jerry Keller replaced Eddie Cochran on Gene Vincent's then current UK tour, after Cochran's untimely death in a road accident. [6]
In the 1960s, Fortune joined a group called the Staggerlees. [7]
Vincent Eugene Craddock, known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rockabilly and rock and roll. His 1956 top ten hit with his backing band the Blue Caps, "Be-Bop-a-Lula", is considered a significant early example of rockabilly. His chart career was brief, especially in his home country of the US, where he notched three top 40 hits in 1956 and 1957, and never charted in the top 100 again. In the UK, he was a somewhat bigger star, racking up eight top 40 hits from 1956 to 1961.
Joseph Roger Brown, MBE is an English musician. As a rock and roll singer and guitarist, he has performed for more than six decades. He was a stage and television performer in the late 1950s and has primarily been a recording star since the early 1960s. He has made six films, presented specialist radio series for BBC Radio 2, appeared on the West End stage alongside Dame Anna Neagle and has written an autobiography. In recent years he has again concentrated on recording and performing music, playing two tours of around 100 shows every year and releasing an album almost every year.
Ronald Wycherley, better known by his stage name Billy Fury, was an English musician. An early star of rock and roll, he equalled the Beatles' record of 24 hits in the 1960s and spent 332 weeks on the UK chart. His hit singles include "Wondrous Place", "Halfway to Paradise" and "Jealousy". Fury also maintained a film career, notably playing rock performers in Play It Cool in 1962 and That'll Be the Day in 1973.
Kenneth Daniel Ball was an English jazz musician, best known as the bandleader, lead trumpet player and vocalist in Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.
Jerry Ivan Allison was an American musician. He was best known as the drummer for the Crickets and co-writer of their hits "That'll Be the Day" and "Peggy Sue", recorded with Buddy Holly. His only solo chart entry on the Billboard Hot 100 was "Real Wild Child", issued in 1958 under the name Ivan. Allison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
The Honeycombs were an English beat group, founded in 1963 in North London, best known for their chart-topping, million-selling 1964 hit, "Have I the Right?" The band featured Honey Lantree on drums, one of the few high-profile female drummers at that time. They were unable to replicate the success of their first single and disbanded by 1967.
Richard Graham Sarstedt, known by the stage name Eden Kane, is an English pop/rock singer, musician, record producer and actor best known as a teen idol in the early 1960s, in the pre-Beatles era. He has also recorded under his birth name and with backing group the Downbeats.
Laurence Maurice Parnes was a British pop manager and impresario. He was the first major British rock manager, and his stable of singers included many of the most successful British rock and roll singers of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Mark Wynter is an English singer and actor, who had four Top 20 singles in the 1960s, including "Venus in Blue Jeans" and "Go Away Little Girl". He enjoyed a lengthy career from 1960 to 1968 as a pop singer and teen idol, and developed later into an actor in film, musicals and plays.
Michael Emile Telford Miller, known professionally as Emile Ford, was a musician and singer born in Saint Lucia, British Windward Islands. He was popular in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the leader of Emile Ford & the Checkmates, who had a number one hit in late 1959 with "What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?", which was the Christmas number one that year. He was also a pioneering sound engineer.
Jess Conrad is an English stage and screen actor and singer. As a boy he was nicknamed "Jesse" after American outlaw Jesse James; as there was already an actor named "Gerald James" in Actors' Equity, a drama teacher who was a fan of writer Joseph Conrad suggested the stage name of "Jess Conrad".
The Viscounts were a British pop group from London, England. Its members had formerly been part of a TV ensemble called Morton Fraser's Harmonica Gang. They quit the group and formed The Viscounts in late April 1958, playing local shows and eventually attracting the attention of manager Larry Parnes. He got them billed at better venues and signed them to Pye Records in 1960.
Chris Demetriou born in Paphos, Cyprus, is a British songwriter, musician, and record producer. A cover of a song he co-wrote with John Kongos, "He's Gonna Step On You Again", appears in Q magazine's top hundred singles of all time.
The Brook Brothers were an English pop duo composed of Geoff Brook and Ricky Brook.
The King Brothers were a British pop vocal trio popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They are best remembered for their cover versions of "Standing on the Corner" and "A White Sport Coat ".
Dickie Pride was an English singer. He was one of Larry Parnes' stable of pop music stars, who didn't achieve the same successful career as some of his contemporaries.
Vince Eager is an English pop musician. He was widely promoted by impresario Larry Parnes, but later quarrelled with him over his commercialising of Eddie Cochran's tragic early death. Eager has since appeared in cabaret and on the West End stage.
The Koobas were an English beat group from Liverpool. Their music, and their early history, is similar in some ways to that of fellow Liverpudlians The Beatles, though they never achieved widespread popularity.
Colin Hicks & The Cabin Boys were a British rock and roll band, led by Colin Hicks, the younger brother of singer Tommy Steele.
John Askew, known as Johnny Gentle, is a British pop singer best remembered for having briefly toured Scotland with the Silver Beetles as his backing group in 1960.