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10-11-2019, 01:48 PM
1

The Girls From Ember

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ember_Records_(UK_label)

Ember Records was a British independent record label established by Jeffrey Kruger.

By 1963, Ember had built up a roster of UK artists such as Matt Monro, the Dale Sisters, Grant Tracy and the Sunsets, and the duo John Shakespeare and Ken Hawker (recording as Carter, Lewis & the Southerners). The next big break came when composer, producer and arranger John Barry left EMI to join Kruger. During his time with Ember, he scored hits with pioneering folk duo Chad & Jeremy, and "Christine" by "Miss X" (Joyce Blair), a song which referred to the Profumo scandal.

As the decade wore on, the label continued to release records from across the musical spectrum, from film and TV themes such as the Liars (which established a young Nyree Dawn Porter) through to the soul 45s for which the label became renowned. These featured acts such as The Casinos, the Checkmates and Lou Lawton, Stax hitmakers the Bar-Kays, King Curtis and the Pac-keys.

On the recommendation of John Abbey, who set up the subsidiary soul label Speciality where some of those previous releases first appeared, Kruger gave a debut to the man who would go on to become Ember’s biggest hit: Glen Campbell. Despite a considerable investment from Kruger, however, they struggled to achieve success, at least initially.

"Glen seemed to specialise in songs about unfashionable American Towns”, recalls Kruger. “So it was no surprise that his next 45, and Ember’s first release of 1969, was called ‘Wichita Lineman’. What was a surprise was that this time we hit the jackpot. The record was unstoppable, hitting the Top Ten and sparking off a string of hit singles and LP’s for Glen.

It was around this time that the label became the first British independent label to have three of its singles at the top of the American charts.
The company had some "interesting" female artistes on their books - examples to follow .....
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10-11-2019, 01:59 PM
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Re: The Girls From Ember

The Dale Sisters - My Sunday Baby (1961)



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dale_Sisters

The Dale Sisters were an English vocal trio, who had limited chart success in the early 1960s. They are best remembered for their recordings of "Heartbeat" and "My Sunday Baby", both of which became minor hits in the UK Singles Chart. Other songs they sang included "Billy Boy, Billy Boy", "Road to Love" and "All My Life". Their work, when they were billed by their alternative name of The England Sisters, was arranged by John Barry.

They were born in Goole, Yorkshire, as Betty, Hazel and Julie Dunderdale, a name they later shortened to become the Dale Sisters. In July 1959, they won a talent contest which was organised by The People, at Butlins, Filey. Later that year they made their first London appearance at the Lyceum Theatre. They were on the bill with Helen Shapiro and The Brook Brothers at the Odeon Theatre, Halifax on 7 April 1962, as part of a national tour. In January 1963, they played the Two Red Shoes Ballroom, Elgin, Scotland, just a week after The Beatles appeared there. Their UK television show appearances included Thank Your Lucky Stars with Adam Faith, John Leyton, The Brooks Brothers, Geoff Goddard and Dion in 1961.
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10-11-2019, 02:24 PM
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Re: The Girls From Ember

Susan Maughan - I'm Just Wild About Harry (1963)



Susan Maughan was born in Consett, County Durham. The sleeve notes on her 1963 album, written by John Franz, stated that

"Susan's family moved to Birmingham (in 1953) when Susan was 15. She started work there as a shorthand typist, but all the time she scanned the musical press to see if any band leaders needed a girl singer. Her luck was in as the well known Midlands leader Ronnie Hancock was advertising for that very thing! An immediate audition was arranged, and Susan joined this fine band and sang happily with them for three years. In September 1961 Susan decided to try her luck in London, and during her brief 36-hour visit she won not only a recording contract but also a year's contract as featured singer with the Ray Ellington Quartet. Her biggest break came in September 1962 when she recorded 'Bobby's Girl'; her success brought so many offers that in November 1963 Susan decided to branch out as a solo artist."

In early 1963, following the success of "Bobby's Girl", Maughan had further minor UK hits entitled "Hand A Handkerchief To Helen" and "She's New To You".

She appeared at the 1963 Royal Variety Performance, and in the 1963 film What a Crazy World. Maughan also appeared in the film Pop Gear (1965) and sang the title song for the second Charles Vine low-budget superspy film, Where the Bullets Fly (1966). In 1971 she appeared in series five of the Morecambe & Wise BBC television series, having previously appeared on their 1962 ATV series.

A "one-hit wonder" but I'll bet lots of forum members remember the song .....
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10-11-2019, 02:48 PM
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Re: The Girls From Ember

Miss X - Christine (1963)



Joyce Blair was born, in 1932, in London, as the daughter of Myer Ogus, a Lithuanian Jewish barber, who changed the family name to Blair, and Debora "Della" Greenbaum. Blair was educated at Cone's School in London, and started her show-business career by singing and tap-dancing in front of captive audiences in London air raid shelters during the Second World War.

She and her brother, Lionel, took up showbusiness as professionals to support their mother after their father's death in 1944. She made her first professional stage appearance in the J.M. Barrie play Quality Street at the Embassy Theatre in 1945, aged 13.

She appeared in minor roles in the original London productions of South Pacific in 1951 and Guys and Dolls in 1953, and also appeared in off-Broadway musicals and pantomimes. She appeared in several films, but became well known for her appearances on television in the 1950s and 1960s, in shows such as Morecambe and WiseShow, The Benny Hill Show, The Adventures of Robin Hood, New Look, The Saint and Z-Cars.

In 1963, credited as "Miss X", she recorded "Christine", a song referencing a certain Miss Keeler, written by John Barry (under an assumed name) and Leslie Bricusse, which was banned by the BBC at the height of the Profumo scandal but reached no.37 on the UK singles chart.



Yes, that's Sammy Davis Jr. .....
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10-11-2019, 03:15 PM
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Re: The Girls From Ember

Mandy Rice-Davies - Close Your Eyes (1964)



Yes, THAT Mandy Rice-Davies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Rice-Davies

Marilyn Davies, known as Mandy Rice-Davies (21 October 1944 – 18 December 2014), was a Welsh model and showgirl best known for her association with Christine Keeler and her role in the Profumo affair, which discredited the Conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963.

Marilyn Davies was born near Llanelli, Wales, and, during her childhood, moved to Solihull, Warwickshire. At 16 she went to London as 'Miss Austin' at the Earls Court Motor Show, and then worked as a dancer at Murray's Cabaret Club in Soho.

It was at Murray's Cabaret Club that she met Christine Keeler, who introduced her to her friend, the well-connected osteopath Stephen Ward, and to an ex-lover, the slum landlord Peter Rachman. Rice-Davies became Rachman's mistress and was set up in the same house where he had previously kept Keeler, 1 Bryanston Mews West, Marylebone. Rice-Davies often visited Keeler at the house she shared with Ward at Wimpole Mews, Marylebone, and, after Keeler had moved elsewhere, lived there herself, between September and December 1962. On 14 December 1962, while Keeler was visiting Rice-Davies at Wimpole Mews, one of Keeler's boyfriends, John Edgecombe, attempted to enter and fired a gun several times at the door. His trial brought attention to the girls' involvement with Ward's social set, and intimacy with many powerful people, including the then Viscount Astor at whose stately home of Cliveden Keeler met the War Minister John Profumo. Profumo's brief relationship with Keeler was at the centre of the affair that caused him to resign from the government in June 1963, though Rice-Davies herself never met him.

Unlike Christine Keeler, Mandy Rice-Davies used her notoriety to become a "respectable", wealthy woman. Fortunately, she never made any more records .....
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10-11-2019, 03:30 PM
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Re: The Girls From Ember

Twiggy - When I Think of You (1967)



Well, we all know who Twiggy is .....

Perhaps surprisingly, she recorded another half a dozen albums and a dozen or more singles .....
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10-11-2019, 03:53 PM
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Re: The Girls From Ember

Linda Thorson - Here I am (1968)



You remember, surely .....

She was the Canadian actress who took over from Diana Rigg in The Avengers .....

TBH, I lost interest at that point - Tara was no match for the lovely Diana .....
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10-11-2019, 04:09 PM
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Re: The Girls From Ember

Julie Rogers - 'Children of My Mind' (1970)



Julie Rogers, born in Bermondsay in 1943, is best known for her multi-million selling song, "The Wedding".

She had worked as a dancer in Spain, as a secretary in Britain and as a stewardess on a Union-Castle Line ship, before singing with the Teddy Foster Orchestra, with which she toured the UK and America. A&R man Johnny Franz signed her to a recording contract with Philips Records in 1964, and released her debut single, "It's Magic". Julie's next song was the 1964 hit "The Wedding" went to No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart, No. 1 in Australia and peaked at No. 10 in January 1965 in the US, in addition to topping the US Adult Contemporary chart. "The Wedding" was estimated by 1972 to have sold over seven million copies.

Rogers continued to tour the world on the strength of her 1960s hits for several decades.

Another "one-hit wonder" that many forum members will remember .....
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10-11-2019, 11:43 PM
9

Re: The Girls From Ember

I remember all of those.
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11-11-2019, 12:03 AM
10

Re: The Girls From Ember

I remember the girls but not most of their music,fortunately.

I didn't know that Susan Maughan was with Ray Ellington.He used to be on the Goon Show.
 

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