There were several versions of some time Joe Meek and Burt Bacharach collaborator Charles Blackwell's mini Greek tragedy in words and music, but none can match the barely restrained melodrama of the 1965 original by the artist formerly known as Jean Owen. Owen had started out as one of the Vernons Girls, the sixteen-piece female choir founded at the Liverpool-based football pools firm, who appeared on TV rock show, Oh Boy! in the late 1950s, and recorded albums for both Parlophone and Decca in a slimmed-down three-piece version. Some former Vernons Girls went on to form splinter groups such as The Breakaways, The Pearls and The Ladybirds, the latter of whom provided backing vocals on Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe before becoming stalwarts of The Benny Hill Show. Others married into rock and roll aristocracy, with The Breakaways Vicky Haseman wedding Joe Brown, while Joyce Smith got hitched to Marty Wilde, with both partnerships ensuring musical dynasties continued with Sam Brow
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.