(The hits of) Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

After writing on Manfred Mann a while back, Wo. focuses on another, almost forgotten hitmachine from the 60s.

A while back I bought a greatest hits album by this band with the fairly absurd name second hand. The album looked old, maybe from the early 70s. It is not music that comes by on the radio a lot any more, despite the fact that the band scored a lot of hits between 1966 and 1969. Many of which I have an active memory of and not songs that I got to know later. The singles I did not know that are on the album, I truly did not know until I bought the album and played it.

This is something I wrote before but have to do again. I was extremely early in passively-actively following music. My parents did not have a device whether radio or record player (let alone a tv) in the home for three or four years, after I broke the arm of my mother's record player as a three year old. The act itself I cannot remember but certainly the effect it had as there wasn't any music in the home any longer. The effect of music on me was there from the pre toddler phase. Apparently some of my first words were there to ask for my favourite songs. My first single was given to me as a one year old.

So whenever I visited people that had a gramophone I always wanted to hear music. Especially if there were older, usually girls, children in the home as they had the latest singles of pop bands or the radio tuned to Radio Veronica. The pirate station laying off the coast of Scheveningen sending out all the latest pop singles and golden oldies. What a relative term that has become by the way. What I heard is what I got to know. The strange thing is I knew nothing of The Rolling Stones or The Who and everything by The Beatles, The Kinks and among many others Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich.

Listening back to the band's greatest hits record I can't but marvel at the songs the band released. Not so much in quality but in the kind of songs. With perhaps one or two exceptions they were all novelty hits, always leaning on some kind of gimmick. Where nearly all other artists leaning on a gimmick disappear after the first, often giant, hit, Dave Dee c.s. were in the charts for four consecutive years. The band still exists, a Tich II or a Mick III may be involved, but only the original Beaky remains of the original members after Tich retired in 2015 and Dozy died in the same year. There's no new record since 1983.

Let's take a look, hit by hit.
The first hitsingle in the U.K. and several other countries was 'Hold Tight'!'. This is one of the exceptions I mentioned. With the fuzzed guitar (solo) it is a fairly solid song. The staccato way of singing by Dave Dee is characteristic for the band, something that only changes in 1968 when the band started to flash out again. 'Hold Tight!' is one of the songs I did not know, but is easy to like. It holds ideals moments to sing along to.

'Hideaway' is up next in the U.K. Again it is a mix of toughness and soft harmonies. There's no predicting what will happen next listening to this song. It is a normal pop song, with again a fierce guitar solo for a pop song. It gives the song a garagy atmosphere. The guitar aims to please the boys, the singing is definitely after the girls.

'Bend It!', again an exclamation mark in the title, is the first hit in NL. A song I also remember as one I heard as a little kid. Gone is the guitar. Enter a Greek influence. This is 'Zorba the Greek' the whole of the way. The whole rhythm and the bouzouki/mandolin effect is a gimmick if I ever heard one. Also the melody fits the singing better than the previous two songs. Dave Dee seems to be more in his element with this lighter song. For the U.S. the lyric may have been too controversial, for the rest of the world this spelled major hit single. Compared to the first two I have to say I like it less in 2020. Nothing but a nostalgic memory is left, so o.k. but not more than that.

The next hit in NL, I'm skipping the U.K. from here on, is 'Save Me', but there are no recollections here. It is a song that has a fast played bell as a gimmick. A bit irritating, but the song as a whole is, though not outstanding, but certainly okay. The melody works, a guitar has a prominent part, which I almost always like and most of all it is upbeat.

The word okay has been used twice in the above and that is the title of the next, big hit. 'Okay'. The success of 'Bend It!' in mind, another gimmick comes in, being a Russian 'Kalinka' influence. I remember the song from the day but certainly had nothing to compare it to at the time. We had 'Russian Spy And I' by The Hunters in 1966, but I did not know the song at the time (talking of gimmicks that worked only once). Then 'Okay' was just a funny song probably. What did I know of Russia or Russian music then? Nothing. Listening to it now, it is a bit cheesy, isn't it?

The next hit single may be the strangest one of them all. Who ever thought up a song like 'Zabadak'? It must have involved a lot of smoking. I distinctly remember liking it at the time as it was easy to sing along to for someone not understanding the English language. Especially the "kale kak" part we could sing in Dutch. Listening to it now, I can only wonder what made people buy this record? It is so extremely weird. Off all edges. The music has an eastern flavour to it. The percussion is all over the place. I can only imagine what the five band members thought when they entered the studio and  songwriter duo Howard and Blaikley presented this song to them.

But wait, that's only half of the story. At the same time listen to the real tune and the way it is sung and the attraction is divulged. It is about discarding the Zabadak part and listen behind it. There's a golden melody hidden behind the psychedelic weirdness. In hindsight it seems like the stepping stone to what was to come in 1968. Listening closer things are explained. There's more to 'Zabadak' than I thought.

Also the whole oeuvre of the Dutch band The Buffoons is explained by the second melody in 'Zabadak'.

Next up is another clear gimmick. The whips, thunder and Spanish guitars of 'The Legend Of Xanadu'. Now that is an effect that impressed me at the time. It is also a song where the band was allowed to sing truly again. There's a sound melody, scores of ah-ah in the background. The mariachi trumpets give the song its own Mexican flavour. It starts to explain why the score of hits ended soon after. There wasn't a musical gimmick to explore any more. The whole world had been covered. But no, it is not the lack of quality of the hitsingles that are to follow from here. It is totally correct that this is the song that still comes by occasionally on the radio.

The next hit I do not remember. The summer of 1968 passed me by. My guess is that the weather was too good and we were playing outside the whole day and do what boys do, explore places where we were not supposed to go, from the roof of our apartment building to the railway and the city as a whole. 'Last Night In Soho'. The loud guitar returns in the intro. This is a song again and not a gimmick, although the musical influence is U.S.. The song sounds like American Breed and a few hits like that from early 1968. Coming to think of it, I could easily argue that 'Bend Me Shape Me' was influenced by Dave Dee, etc. 'Last Night In SoHo' is a great pop single, with a dark edge that makes it different from other songs of the time and a link to the earlier singles of the band.

'The Wreck of the Antoinette' was not a hit here but a nice song now I'm at it.

The next hit always was my favourite of the band and the last hit with Dave Dee as front man, the only one without his (a?) nickname in the band name. 'Don Juan' is of course the über gimmick hit of Dave Dee, etc. But one that is totally serving a strong song song and melody. The mariachi trumpets are there to underscore the passion of the toreador Don Juan who is about to die. This song still works for me 51 years down the road. The singing is strong, all the counter melodies are just great and fun. In my opinion this is not just another hit song but a mature and complex song that still held star quality to make it a huge hit. The proficiency in song writing is incredible. This is what passion should sound like. This is, was and probably will stay my all-time favourite of this band, that, by the way, was a real band. The four nick named lads all played their instruments and sang all these harmonies.

The career of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich ended here. Dave Dee left the band to pursue a solo career, with one small hit in 1971 if I remember correctly. D, B, M & T had one more top 5 hit though late in 1969 and another of my favourites. This probably had to do with the fact that by 1969 I had become an avid listener of Radio Veronica and friends who brought singles over to play together. Passive - active had become active. Not so much in buying, far too expensive, although my first self-bought singles are from 1968 and 1969. 'Tonight, Today', a song not on Spotify to check out while writing. It may be the only single I have of the band though. It also has that driving force, with a bit of a country flavour I notice. Again the band manages to incorporate a few overlapping melodies over the same chords. The dark one starting is the gimmick but just listen to what happens next. This is just very well done. The three voices come together for a strong chorus. The only thing left to write is: this was a hitsingle.

Four years of straight hits came to an end here. Perhaps because Dave Dee had left the band or simply because the magic was gone. Not much later the band called it quits, to return to the 60s hits tours later. Listening back the band fits in with other 60s hit machines like The Hollies and The Tremeloes and not with the more serious bands starting with The Beatles. It makes it all the more distinctive that the band scored so many hits with totally different songs of which most are based on a gimmick. The band must have done something right, starting with working with the duo that wrote all the hits for them, Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley.

There remains one small thing to mention. On the greatest hits album I own is a song called 'Help Me'. Listening to it I mused 'I know this melody' and thought of The Family Dogg. It turns out the song was written by Steve Rowland, so that figures. Having written that, listen back to the true melody in 'Zabadak', I'd say it spells 'The Way Of Life' fully, completely.

To finish, let me give you their real names:

Dave Dee - David John Harman (vocals)
Dozy        - Trevor Ward - Davies (bass)
Beaky      - John Dymond (rhythm guitar)
Mick        - Michael Wilson (drums)
Tich         - Ian Amey (lead guitar)

Wo.


Listen to our Spotify Playlist to find out what we are writing about:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glazu53/playlist/6R9FgPd2btrMuMaIrYeCh6?si=KI6LzLaAS5K-wsez5oSO2g