Leslie Sebastian Charles, known professionally as Billy Ocean, is a Trinidadian-born British singer and songwriter. Between 1976 and 1988, he had a series of hit songs in the UK and internationally.
Factory Records was a Manchester-based British independent record label founded in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus.
The United Kingdom held a national preselection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1977, which was held in Wembley, London following the United Kingdom's victory in the previous year's contest.
Showaddywaddy are a rock and roll group from Leicester, England. They specialise in revivals of hit songs from the 1950s and early 1960s, while also issuing original material. They have spent 209 weeks on the UK Singles Chart, and have had 10 Top Ten singles, one reaching number one.
The Fivepenny Piece were a five-piece band, originally formed in 1967 in the area of East Lancashire around Ashton-under-Lyne and nearby Stalybridge in Tameside. The band met and performed on Wednesday nights at Ashton's Broadoak Hotel, which gave them their original name The Wednesday Folk.
The Searchers are an English Merseybeat group who emerged during the British Invasion of the 1960s. The band's hits include a remake of the Drifters' 1961 hit, "Sweets for My Sweet"; "Sugar and Spice" ; remakes of Jackie DeShannon's "Needles and Pins" and "When You Walk in the Room"; a cover of the Orlons' "Don't Throw Your Love Away"; and a cover of the Clovers' "Love Potion No. 9". With the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Searchers tied for being the second group from Liverpool, after the Beatles, to have a hit in the US when their "Needles and Pins" and the Swinging Blue Jeans' "Hippy Hippy Shake" both reached the Hot 100 on 7 March 1964.
52nd Street were a British jazz-funk and R&B band formed in Manchester in late 1980. Throughout the 1980s the group enjoyed success not only in the UK but also on the Billboard chart in the United States. Their biggest and best-known hit single was "Tell Me ", released in 1985 by the 10 Records subsidiary of Virgin Records in the UK, and then months later on in 1986 on MCA Records in the US.
Kenneth Daniel Ball was an English jazz musician, best known as the bandleader, lead trumpet player and vocalist in Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.
Northside are an English alternative rock band from Blackley and Moston in north Manchester, England. Formed in 1989, they released their only album, Chicken Rhythms, on Factory Records in 1991. The band became part of the 1990s Madchester/baggy/indie-rave scene.
Claudja Barry is a Jamaican-born Canadian singer. Her successful songs were "Down and Counting", "Boogie Woogie Dancin' Shoes", "Dancing Fever", and others. As an actress, she is known for appearing in the European versions of stage musicals AC/DC and Catch My Soul.
Barry Blue is an English singer, producer, and songwriter. As an artist, he is best known for his hit songs "Dancin' " and "Do You Wanna Dance".
The Paper Dolls were a late 1960s British female vocal trio from Northampton, comprising lead vocalist Susie 'Tiger' Mathis, Pauline 'Spyder' Bennett and Sue 'Copper' Marshall. They were one of the few British girl groups of the late sixties.
Sad Café are an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1976, who achieved their peak of popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They are best known for the UK top 40 singles "Every Day Hurts", "Strange Little Girl", "My Oh My" and "I'm in Love Again", the first of which was their biggest hit, reaching number 3 on the UK Singles Chart in 1979. The band also had two US Billboard Hot 100 hits with "Run Home Girl" and "La-Di-Da".
Quando Quango were a British electronic music group, formed by The Haçienda DJ and Factory Records A&R man Mike Pickering, Hillegonda Rietveld and Reinier Rietveld. Their unique sound influenced the underground dance music scenes in New York and Chicago in the 1980s. Their first release was the "Go Exciting" twelve-inch single on Factory Records in 1982, and their last release of new music was the 1985 full-length album Pigs + Battleships.
"Sad Sweet Dreamer" is a song by Sweet Sensation, which was a number-one single on the UK Singles Chart for one week in October 1974.
David Parton is an English singer-songwriter and record producer from Newcastle Under Lyme, Staffordshire, England. He is also known as Des Parton, based on the initials of his first three names.
Michael "Jimmy" James was a Jamaican-British soul singer, known for songs like "Come to Me Softly", "Now Is the Time" and "I'll Go Where Your Music Takes Me". Based in Britain, he performed as the lead singer of Jimmy James and the Vagabonds from the mid-1960s.
Together were an English electronic/rave group, best known for their hit single "Hardcore Uproar", which made number 12 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1990.
Marcel Neville King was a British tenor singer, who sang lead vocals for Sweet Sensation.
Everton Hardweare, better known by his stage name Singing Melody, is a reggae artist from Kingston, Jamaica. He is known for his abilities as a vocalist, his production work and for combining aspects of reggae and R&B in his own releases.
