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| TOMMY QUICKLY-The Wild Side Of Life/Forget The Other Guy U.S. Liberty 55753 1964 |
Liverpool's Tommy Quickly (and his uncredited backing band The Remo Four) were one of the more obscure band's that were swept in when the big men in London cast their nets on the "Mersey Sound" or "Merseybeat". Quickly managed quite a prolific career on vinyl in the U.K. with four singles on Piccadilly and two on Pye from July 1963 to December 1964 (even the Beatles didn't release as many singles during that period!). Tommy was originally born as Thomas Quigley. His career was overseen by Brian Epstein who rechristened him as Tommy Quickly in the Larry Parnes style of renaming your charges. Having Epstein as a manager gave him access to an unreleased Beatles composition as his debut in July 1963 ("The Tip Of My Tongue", Piccadilly 7N 35137) which unfortunately failed to chart.
Today's release was his last of two American singles. In the U.K. it was his fifth (and first on the Pye label) where it was launched as Pye 7N 15708 on October 2, 1964. It was issued here the following month. In England it gave him his only hit (#33). The Remo Four are uncredited on the label here despite backing him and being credited on the British release.
"The Wild Side Of Life" dates back to an old US country music performer named Hank Thompson in 1952 and was revived by Ray Price in 1962, which is probably where Quickly heard it. It's an interesting choice of a song to cover but it works surprisingly well as a beat ballad and The Remo Four provide a solid, edgy backing as the number is delivered in an uptempo style. The record did nothing here in the States despite Quickly plugging the number on the "Shindig!" TV show here where he performed it live.
Both tracks were collected on a now out of print CD collection of all his work as well as other beat artists from '64-'65 that The Remo Four backed.
Hear "The Wild Side Of Life":
Hear "Forget The Other Guy":
1 comment:
I like this beat version. Very different to Status Quo’s later hit which I was more familiar with.
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