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| The Breakaways | |
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| Also known as | The Fordettes |
| Past members | Vicki Brown Margot Quantrell Eleanor Russell Betty Prescott Barbara Moore |
The Breakaways were an English female vocal trio, formed in 1962. Britain's premier session vocalists throughout the 1960s, The Breakaways also recorded a handful of little-known girl group singles. [1]
The original members were Vicki Haseman (Vicki Brown after marriage to Joe Brown), Margot Quantrell, Barbara Moore (who was also a member of another vocal trio, The Ladybirds), and Betty Prescott. The girls were originally members of the Liverpool vocal group The Vernons Girls. Prescott was replaced by Jean Ryder in 1963. [1]
They started out as the Fordettes, backing Emile Ford. The line-up consisted of Margot Quantrell, Eleanor Russell, Vicki Haseman and Betty Prescott. They spent a year on tour with Ford in 1960, playing one-nighters. Back in London they left Ford to sing backup for Joe Brown who Vicki Haseman had been engaged to for a year. [2] Having broken away from Ford, they were then known as The Breakaways. [3]
Haseman was later replaced by the original member Betty Prescott. In addition to recording their own songs, they did session work with many artists, including the background vocals on The Jimi Hendrix Experience's version of "Hey Joe", and work on the 1968 album The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp .
Having signed with the Pye label, their background vocal activities included collaborations with Petula Clark. Most notably this was on Clark's international hit, "Downtown" (not only the original English version, but also in French, Italian and German). There followed "I Know a Place", "Round Every Corner", and "A Sign of the Times", and on several of Clark's most successful French recordings, among them "Je me sens bien auprès de toi", "Mon bonheur danse" (a vocal version of The Shadows' "Foot Tapper") and "Tu perds ton temps".
They worked with Dusty Springfield on her first solo recordings for Philips, [1] and went on to sing on hundreds of sessions supporting Springfield, Cilla Black, Normie Rowe and Lulu. Their work with Cilla Black included being credited as backing vocalists on Black's 1964 single, "You're My World", and were backing singers on her BBC television series Cilla . They backed Cliff Richard's performance of Congratulations in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which placed second in the competition. In 1971, they returned to Eurovision, backing Clodagh Rodgers in her performance of Jack in the Box, joined by Clodagh's sister Lavinia. That time the song placed fourth. In 1977, at the Eurovision contest staged at the Wembley Conference Centre, the trio sang backing vocals for the Israeli entry Ahava Hi Shir Lishnayim performed by Ilanit. The song was performed in Hebrew and The Breakaways learnt their lyrics phonetically as none of them spoke the language. The song placed 11th of the 18 entries. They toured behind American stars such as Little Richard and Sam Cooke, and regularly appeared on Ready Steady Go! .
The Breakaways first single for Pye Records was "That Boy of Mine" (1964), written by Tony Hatch. Although the single was a minor hit, the follow-ups, including "He Doesn't Love Me" and "That's How It Goes", flopped. Their 1965 work on the Burt Bacharach song "Trains and Boats and Planes" and his 1965 album Hit Maker! was uncredited. [1] They sang the uncredited vocals on "Someone to Talk To" from the 1965 movie, Darling. They continued to do session work. Their last single was the Mike Leander song "Sacred Love" (1968). [1]
Vicki Brown died of breast cancer on 16 June 1991, in Henley-on-Thames at the age of 50. [4]
Margot Quantrell died on 24 June 2016 at the age of 74. [5]
Betty Prescott died on 10 May 2023 at the age of 86 her funeral was at the West Herts Crematorium on 5 June 2023
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.
Clodagh Rodgers is a retired singer from Northern Ireland, best known for her hit singles including "Come Back and Shake Me", "Goodnight Midnight", and "Jack in the Box".
Samantha Brown is an English singer, songwriter and musician.
Madeline Bell is an American soul singer, who became famous as a performer in the UK during the 1960s and 1970s with pop group Blue Mink, having arrived from the United States in the gospel show Black Nativity in 1962, with the vocal group Bradford Singers.
Eurovision: You Decide is the most recent name of a BBC television programme that was broadcast annually to select the United Kingdom's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The show had previously gone under several other names, including Festival of British Popular Songs (1957), Eurovision Song Contest British Final (1959–1960), The Great British Song Contest (1996–1999), Eurovision: Making Your Mind Up (2004–2007), Eurovision: Your Decision (2008), and Eurovision: Your Country Needs You (2009–2010), but was known, for most of its history, as A Song for Europe.
The Vernons Girls were an English musical ensemble of female vocalists. They were formed at the Vernons football pools company in the 1950s in Liverpool, settling down to a sixteen strong choir and recording an album of standards.
The Carefrees were a British group formed in 1964, most known for their song "We Love You Beatles". Although often referred to as a girl group, the Carefrees can be considered a pop band, as the group consisted of Lynn Cornell, Barbara Kay and Betty Prescott (vocals), along with Don Ridell, Johnny Evans and John Stevens (drums).
"Anyone Who Had a Heart" is a song written by Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics) for Dionne Warwick in 1963. In January 1964, Warwick's original recording hit the Top Ten in the United States, Canada, Spain, Netherlands, South Africa, Belgium and Australia.
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.
Sam Blue is an English hard rock singer, who has been part of the bands Emerson, Axis, L. A. Secrets, Paul Samson's Empire, Ya Ya, Ultravox, GTS, and Burns Blue. He works in the UK and Europe as a session singer, performing and collaborating with many artists including The Streets, Dizzee Rascal, Braund Reynolds, The Young Punx, Phonat, Urban Myth, Avicci, Otto Knows, Madness. Had Top 40 single in 2006 with Baywatch theme – I'll be Ready Also worked an artist manager at Plan C Management with Christian Ulf-Hansen. The company's artists included the singer-songwriter, Tobias Fröberg (Sweden); & Kathryn Williams.
Debi Doss is an American-born photographer and singer.
Caravan and the New Symphonia is a record by Caravan recorded on 28 October 1973 at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane and originally released in 1974 on UK Decca's subsidiary Deram. Bringing the band and The New Symphonia Orchestra together for this recording was the work of Martyn Ford, conductor of the New Symphonia, and John G. Perry, who played bass with Caravan at the time. An expanded and re-ordered version was published in 2001. This version claims to have the tracks in the order as played.
Miracle is an album by Willy DeVille. Recorded in 1987, it was the first album that Willy DeVille recorded under his own name. Prior to Miracle, DeVille recorded six albums with the band Mink DeVille, the last four of which were really solo albums by Willy DeVille in that no members of the original band played on the four albums.
Sue and Sunny were a British vocal duo and session singers operating in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Although sisters, their stage names were Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie. For three years (1969-1972) they were members of British pop group The Brotherhood of Man.
In My Life is the title of Cilla Black's eighth solo studio album released in 1974 by EMI. The album was her first to be produced by Australian producer David Mackay who had notched up chart hits for Cliff Richard and The New Seekers.
Vicki Brown was an English pop, rock and contemporary classical singer. She was a member of both The Vernons Girls and The Breakaways and was the first wife of fellow singer and musician Joe Brown and mother of the singer Sam Brown.
Sweet Dreams were an English studio group who scored a hit single in 1974 with a cover of the ABBA song "Honey Honey".
The Ladybirds were a British female vocal harmony trio, most famous for their appearances on The Benny Hill Show. They participated in over 60 episodes between 1968 and 1991. In addition, they were long-standing backing singers to many established artists, and perennial television performers.
Meet The Searchers is the 1963 debut and most successful album by British rock band The Searchers. The album featured their first single released in June 1963, a version of the Drifters' "Sweets for My Sweet", which was a UK No.1 for the band, as well as their version of the Clovers "Love Potion No.9", which was released as a single in the U.S. the following year. "Love Potion No.9" peaked on the US charts at No. 3 on 19 December 1964. The album was also released in Canada, Germany and South Africa, often with track listing changes.
The Ferris Wheel were a British rock and soul band, who have been described as "one of England's great lost musical treasures of the mid- to late '60s" and as "one of the most popular club acts" of the time. They released two albums, Can't Break the Habit (1967) and Ferris Wheel (1970), the latter featuring singer Linda Lewis.
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