A successful Scottish pop/rock group, originally called Dean Ford & the Gaylords, they released several unsuccessful singles between 1964 and 1966 before changing their name. They enjoyed their greatest success up to this point with The Beatles’, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” which topped the UK singles chart in January 1969. Unusually they had two bass players, and were the first Scottish group to top the UK charts. Original band members: Dean Ford (Thomas McAleese), Junior Campbell, Graham Knight, Pat Fairley and Alan Whitehead.
After a change of record label to Decca Records, under a deal allowing them to write and produce their own songs, they recorded what would become their biggest worldwide hit, (a Top 10 in United States, and No. 1 in most of South America, the melancholy “Reflections of My Life”, written by Junior Campbell and Dean Ford, with its distinctive backwards guitar break by Campbell.
There is another group called Marmalade, a pop band based in Brooklyn, that released the album Beautiful Soup in 2003 on March Records. The album featured Sarah Blust, John Wray, along with indiepop luminaries Jeff Baron (Ladybug Transistor), Sasha Bell (The Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor), Steve Salett (The King of France, Deformo), Gary Olson (Ladybug Transistor, Love is All), and others. |
