MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

THE EARLY YEARS

In a fit of madness, they all agreed to take the chance and they left their families in Scotland and made their way by car through France to Italy where they were also promised some work to boost their finances.

When they arrived in Italy with their new found manager, who could speak fluent italian, they discovered that there was no ship going to Argentina and they had no work in Italy. However, they were offered an audition with an italian agent, operating out of Florence. They passed with flying colours and were offered work immediately in one or two night clubs. One, the Helio Caballa, was just outside of Rome, where they learned later that they kept Sophia Loren's new baby awake every night. It was an open air club on a hill just above the Villa Ponti in Marino.

One week in the summer of 1970, they were playing in Forte dei Marmi in a club called 'La Cappannina de Francesci', when an A+R manager from RCA Italiana heared them. He was there on holiday, but he invited the group to Rome for a recording test. They were in fact going back to Marino the following week and they agreed to visit the studios. They actually recorded three songs for the test; Yellow River, I can't tell the bottom from the top and Jesus Christ Superstar. The company liked them so much, they included these recordings later on their first album.

But, in the meantime, they had to wait for RCA to decide if they were a marketable product, so they continued working to a strict schedule of dates up and down Italy. During this period, they had been a little suspicious about their Argentinian manager's honesty and they soon discovered they were right to have doubts. He had been pocketing all the expenses money and had left a trail of unpaid hotel bills. He was sent back to Scotland and for the first time the group had to look after their own affairs. Sally and Ken very quickly picked up the language and began to liaise with the italian agent who, fortunately, was still prepared to act for them. Perhaps the impending record contract had something to do with that.

In October 1970, they were offered the recording contract by RCA and they were allocated a producer, Giacomo Tosti.

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THE SUCCESS

The very first song they recorded was written by Lally Scott, an eccentric English songwriter who was living in Rome. He had already recorded Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and released it in Italy, but Philips, Lally's own record company, refused to release it anywhere else. Enter, Middle of the Road.

It was very lucky that the day they were recording Chirpy, coincided with a meeting of all the RCA A+R managers from all around the world in the studios in Rome and they were invited to listen to the first mixes of the group's recording. Every one of them asked for a copy to be sent to them for release as soon as possible.

Very soon the word got around the studios that there was a vocal group who sang in English under contract to RCA Italiana. There followed a period, just before Chirpy was released when Midlle of the Road was in constant demand as backing singers for a wide range of artists on the RCA label. The most famous personality to ask them to back her on a special single was Sophia Loren.

She had just completed a film with Marcello Mastroiani entitled La Moglie del Prete, (The Priest's Wife). In the film she played the part of a singer who falls in love with a priest. RCA, who had recorded the music for the sound track, decided that it would be good publicity for the film and for their new group if they put lyrics to the main love theme and had Sophia and Middle of the Road record it as a single. The record did well in Italy and this was the first of many film themes to be recorded by the group.

Soon Chirpy was released and an extensive tour of TV stations throughout Europe was organised to promote this first single. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Spain and Italy were visited and in each of these countries Chirpy shot to the top of the charts. Later that year, after intensive promotion and numerous personal appearances, there was hardly any country in the world untouched by this catchy little nonsense song. Middle of the Road had arrived!

Naturally, for them, it was the UK market they really wanted to conquer. When they left Scotland on the 20th June 1970, Ken had said that he did not want to step back on British soil until they were a success. Happily, on the 21st June 1971, one year later, Middle of the Road arrived at Heathrow Airport with Chirpy at No.4 in the UK charts and a car waiting to take them to the 'Top of the Pops' studios at the BBC for an immediate appearance on the show. The following week they were No. 1.

Sure enough, during the next few months, telegrams of congratulations were arriving from all round the world to the RCA studios in Rome, signalling a major world wide success for the four bewildered, but happy, Scots. After a short reunion with their friends and families in Scotland, the quartet was welcomed back to Rome to begin a gruelling schedule of recording, concerts and media promotion. It was at this time, the quartet met Mario and Giosy Capuano, two italian song writers/arrangers, also contracted to RCA Italiana. Together with Giacomo Tosti, they made a formidable and highly successful team.

Their second single, Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum, was already rocketing up the charts following Chirpy's success. A few month before, the group had spent three weeks on location in Italy and Morroco making a promotional film, for release in cinemas throughout Europe, to launch Fiat's new mini car, the Fiat 127. This film featured Tweedle Dee and was now showing with the feature film 'Love Story'. This promotion not only achieved successful market penetration for Fiat, it made sure that Middle of the Road's second single would hit the charts again.

By this time, Chirpy had out-sold most of the summer hits released that year and it went on to remain in the british charts for 35 weeks. It sold more than 8 million records worldwide elevating Middle of the Road to become the third most popular recording artists in the Billboard Charts in 1971.

Tweedle Dee achieved sales of around 5 million records before RCA released the third high flier, Soley Soley. It was written by Fernando Arbex, a spanish songwriter, and recorded in the studios of RCA in Madrid, using the same now inseparable production team which had made the first two hits. This third hit meant that Middle of the Road was the only group that year to have three singles in the top 40 in the UK, all at the one time.

In 1972, the group went on to achieve even greater things. In Italy, Tweedle won the top award at the Venice Song Festival, the Golden Gondola; in Germany, readers of Bravo magazine voted Middle of the Road Silver Otto winners and in the UK, they were presented with the Carl Alan Award for their musical contribution to the British dance scene.

In all, thirty two gold discs were presented to the band for all their hits and even their Dutch record company presented them with a unique special award, the Golden Windmill, for grossing the largest amount of guilders by any artiste in their catalogue.

Later that year, they released Sacramento, and it reached top ten status in most of Europe, including many of the East European countries like East Germany, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland, where they starred at the SOPOT Song Festival.

Meanwhile, back in the 'west', they released Samson and Delilah, Yellow Boomerang and Talk of all the USA, selling over 2 million copies in Europe alone.

By this time, Chirpy was charting in Japan and the Far East and, as a result, the group toured there extensively. Their first taste of Japanese TV was to appear on a breakfast show in Tokyo. They had to perform live to a studio audience at 6:30am. In spite of suffering severe jet lag, they took the show by storm and had to be smuggled out of the TV studios in an ambulance before the enthusiastic audience of early risers could stop applauding.

Their next hit, Bottoms Up, was their last for RCA and they swapped labels to the Ariola stable where they continued to release songs like Samba D'Amor and Rockin' Soul in 1974.

In 1977, with the group's popularity waining, Sally and Ken stopped touring.

Sally came back to Scotland after living in Spain for some time. Unfortunately her mother, who had been an invalid for many years, had died and she felt the loss very much. Understandably, the lyrics of Chirpy did not offer her any consolation and she was glad not to have to sing 'Where's your Mama gone?' any more. She married scottish journalist and TV sports presenter, Chic Young and settled down to raise a family of her own and, in 1980, her son Keith was born.

Ken returned to his first career, film production, and started an audio visual facilities company. After a few years he launched a new TV production company of his own, EPM Production, and provided a production service for the corporate market as well as occasional forays into the world of broadcast TV as a director/cameraman.

But the music industry was not finished with Middle of the Road yet, and Sally and Ken were invited back, in 1981 to record a 'Stars on 45' type single for the European market by CNR Records. Once again the old team were seen and heared on TV and Radio performing their old hits in a medley set to the rhythms of the discos of the day. The record had moderate success round the world but Ken and Sally returned to their commitments in Scotland.

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TODAY

However, once again in 1991, Middle of the Road, with Sally and Ken, were invited to feature in a German TV show comemorating the career of a famous East German TV personality who had appeared with them 20 years before. The agent promoting this show, Rainer Haas, had been a fan of Middle of the Road for many years and was very pleased to welcome the original group back together in Germany. Such was his enthusiasm, he asked if there was any chance of the group performing live at the then very popular 'Oldie Concerts' he was promoting in Germany. It had been 16 years since the original Middle of the Road had performed live on stage (the TV was to play-back) and so it would take considerable rehearsal to have the group perform even a short programme.

As luck would have it, a Dutch TV company was organising a major TV show featuring hit-makers of the 60s, 70s and 80s, and invited the original Middle of the Road to perform, live, six songs for the show. The group agreed to work on six of their hits, and if this was successful, they would consider getting back together for concerts in Germany.

Their appearance was a smash hit and they were finally convinced that they should return for live concerts. Within 6 weeks they had compiled a programme of material, suitable for the 'Oldie Concerts' and Rainer Haas booked them throughout Germany. They continued to be well received at each of their appearances and by 1992, they were one of the most sought after groups on the circuit.

Unfortunately, another group, calling themselves Middle of the Road began to appear at discos and events throughout Germany, usually in towns close to where the original group was appearing or had just appeared. This other group turned out to be Stewart, the son of Ian Lewis, the original guitarist, and Lorraine Fehlberg, the ex girlfriend of the original bass palyer, Eric Lewis. Although the duo had been performing with Ian and Eric as Middle of the Road for some years in the 80s, the work they had enjoyed during that time had run out and as a result they disbanded. Now that all 5 original members were back performing together, the 'copycat couple' were capitalising on the revived success of the group and also, by insinuation, appeared to be claiming to be the original hit makers.

As a result, Sally, Ken, Ian and Eric, raised an action against them and succeded in stopping them performing as Middle of the Road. Unfortunately, just as the writ was issued, Ian had a major disagreement with Eric and left the originals to join his son and Lorraine, who was now married to Stewart, in the other group. This completely upset the legal action since now the other group had one original member in its personnel. This left Sally, Ken and Eric with the majority of original members and the original sound. Sally, Ken and Eric continued to perform successfully, but, two years later, Eric decided to leave for personal reasons, and Sally and Ken, with the original lead guitarist, Neil Henderson, were left with the responsibility of reorganising the personnel to maintain the original sound and fulfil the existing contracts.

The other group continued to perform as Middle of the Road causing confusion for the German public who, by this time, were never sure whether they were paying to see the original hit makers or not.

Nevertheless, the group featuring Sally Carr has been performing regularly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain and Belgium with such household names as The Tremeloes, The Searchers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Mamas and the Papas, The Troggs, Chubby Checker and The Lovin' Spoonful. During these last few years, Middle of the Road much to their delight, have regained their popularity and credibility in Europe.

Today, under the banner of Middle of the Road featuring Sally Carr, Sally Carr, original lead singer, Ken Andrew, original drummer and original lead guitarist, Neil Henderson, are continuing to satisfy the demand of their fans and are developing their act on a scale which is allowing them to reach not only the markets where they are well remembered, but also new territories, previously untouched.

Joined by Shug Devlin on keyboards and Phil Anderson on guitar and vocals, the group has recently recorded and released new material on a Christmas album along with other 70s artistes, in Germany.

Apart from their live work, regular appearances on german TV have given the group a presence in Europe which almost rivals that of 25 years ago. Recent concerts have included performances in Switzerland where they helped launch a new radio station and, quite appropriately, they took part in the celebrations to open a new motorway there. In October 1996 they returned to Bratislava to appear as guest performers at the International Song Festival - an event they last attended in 1972. In March 1997 they completed recording a major TV show in Belgium for transmission in April.

In 1996 Pat Monaghan has joined the group as Guitarist/Vocalist to perform at live concerts since Phil Anderson is unable to travel with the band regularly due to commitments in Orkney. Phil will continue to record with the band and appears occasionally at concerts. Middle of the Road will also be recording their albums with Phil at his studio in Orkney.

In 1998 they had recorded up-to-date versions of new arrangements of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum and these are included on a new CD to be distributed by BMG for release in September.

The album was recorded in Glasgow and in the Orkney Islands where Phil Anderson has a comfortable and well equipped studio. The atmosphere of the Orkneys provides a peaceful environment where Sally and the boys find it easy to work and wonderful to relax between sessions.

Work on a video has finished, and was released later in 1997.

Their original songwriter/producer in Rome is currently writing new songs for an album to be recorded in 1998. Now, in the year 2000, the recordings aren't finished

In the summer of 1999 Pat Monaghan was replaced by left-hander Derek Hall. Around this time the band has slightly changed their stage show. Pat's last big appearance also was a high light in their second career. Middle of the Road featuring Sally Carr performed at the Edinburgh Festival Cavalcade with the theme song in 1999, Get Down to Party Town. Together with another new song, Carry me away, written by Sally, Ken and Neil, these two songs could be the base for a new single or an album with new songs.

Taken from: http://www.middleoftheroad.oldiemusic.de