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Herman's Hermits are an
English beat (or pop) band, formed in
Manchester in
1963.
Originally called
Herman & The Hermits, they were discovered by
Harvey Lisberg, who signed them up to management. Lisberg sent a return plane ticket to
Mickie Most so that he could come up from
London to see the band play in
Bolton. Most became the group's record producer, controlling the band's output. He emphasised a simple, non-threatening, clean-cut image, although the band originally played
R&B; numbers. This helped Herman's Hermits become hugely successful in the mid-1960s but dampened the band's songwriting; Noone,
Hopwood, Leckenby and
Green's songs were relegated to
B-sides and
album cuts.
Their first hit was a cover of Earl-Jean's "
I'm into Something Good" (written by
Gerry Goffin and
Carole King), which reached
No. 1 in the
UK Singles Chart and No. 13 in the US in late 1964. They never topped the
British charts again, but had two
US Billboard Hot 100 No.1s with "
Mrs. Brown,
You've Got a
Lovely Daughter" (originally sung by
Tom Courtenay in a 1963
British TV play) and "I'm
Henry the Eighth,
I Am" (a British music hall song by
Harry Champion dating from
1911, which
Peter Noone's
Irish grandfather had been in the habit of singing when Noone was young). These songs were aimed at a US fan base, with Peter Noone exaggerating his Mancunian accent
.
In the US, their records were released on the
MGM label, a company which often featured musical performers they had signed to record deals in films. The Hermits appeared in several MGM movies, including When the
Boys Meet the Girls (
1965) and
Hold On! (1966). They also starred in the film Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter (
1968) and appeared in the 1965 anthology film
Pop Gear.
Herman's Hermits had three Top 3 hits in the US in 1965, with the aforementioned No. 1 hits and "Can't You
Hear My Heartbeat" (US
No. 2). They recorded The
Rays' "
Silhouettes" (US
No. 5),
Sam Cooke's "
Wonderful World" (US
No. 4), "
Just A Little Bit Better" (US
No. 7), and "
A Must to Avoid" (US No. 8) in 1965; "
Listen People" (US
No. 3),
George Formby, Jr.'s "
Leaning on a Lamp Post," from
Me and My Girl (US No. 9), and the
Ray Davies song "
Dandy" (US No. 5) in 1966; and "There's a Kind of
Hush" (US No. 4) in 1967. On
WLS "Mrs. Brown" and "Silhouettes" were
1–2 on 14 May 1965 and exchanged positions the next week, a distinction matched only by
The Beatles' "
I Want To Hold Your
Hand" and "
She Loves You" during
14 February – 6
March 1964. They appeared on
The Ed Sullivan Show,
The Dean Martin Show and
The Jackie Gleason Show.
Continued success in the US proved elusive beyond 1967, although they had as many Top Ten hits in
Britain (five) in the period 1967 through
1970 as they had had there in the years of the mid-'sixties when the band were wowing
American audiences and
British audiences seemed more diffident. By the time the group recorded their final album of the
1960s,
Rock 'n' Roll Party, the band's success in the US was history and the album was not released by MGM there. Peter Noone and
Keith Hopwood left the band in
1971. Herman's Hermits reunited in
1973 to headline a successful
British invasion tour of the US culminating with a standing-room-only performance at
Madison Square Garden and an appearance on
The Midnight Special (without Hopwood).
Later, a version of the band featuring Leckenby and Whitwam opened for
The Monkees on reunion tours of the US. Noone declined an offer from tour organizers to appear, but later appeared with
Davy Jones on a successful teen-idols tour.
- published: 05 Oct 2014
- views: 17072