Billy Fury – Britain’s answer to Elvis
As we mark what would have been Billy Fury’s 80th birthday, we remember how the shy boy from Liverpool became Britain’s answer to Elvis
In the Essoldo Theatre, Birkenhead, a terrified 18-yearold stood behind a curtain, shaking. Just minutes before, this young man had talked his way into a backstage meeting with Larry Parnes, the most important manager in British pop. Larry discovered a lad with a voice to make big bucks and a face to make girls weak at the knees and suggested the boy get ready to make his debut performance – in just eight minutes’ time!
Stunned by the idea of joining the evening’s show alongside Marty Wilde and Jimmy Tarbuck, Billy hesitated to open the curtain. Behind him, a hand reached forward to push him blinking into the spotlight and clutching the microphone, he began to sing Maybe Tomorrow. By the time the song was finished, the room was in raptures. The timid boy whose real name was Ronald Wycherley was about to become Billy Fury, the star!
Born in Dingle, Liverpool, Billy had a challenging childhood, suffering with a bout of rheumatic fever at the age of six, leaving him with a weakened heart. Nevertheless, Billy threw himself into a great passion for music, teaching himself to play the guitar that was kept safe in a humble pillowcase. Only able to fathom three chords, Billy found it hard to play the songs he enjoyed listening to so decided to make up his own.
Leaving school at 15, he worked on a tugboat on the Mersey estuary, but continued to make music in his free time, eventually taking the step to further his career by cutting a record of him playing Elvis, which he sent to the impresario Larry Parnes, who invited him to the Essoldo on that fateful night.
Just one day after that first performance sealed his fate as a singer, Billy joined Larry on a punishingly hectic tour that would make him a household name. Not long after he’d also sign a seven-year deal with Decca and release his first album, The Sound of Fury. A collection of self-penned numbers, Billy was that unique species of a singer-songwriter, something even his American ‘twin’ Elvis couldn’t claim. Billy’s songs captured the burgeoning rock ’n’ roll spirit but also had a moody tenderness, with Billy claiming it was often when he felt most depressed, maybe after a girl left him, that he would scribble down a lyric and sing it straight into a tape recorder.
A naturally introverted person behind closed doors, on stage he created this morose, seductive character with just the slightest hint of his natural vulnerability showing through. With his lip-curling diagonal smile, quiffed hair, and effortless James Dean kind of sexuality, he became just irresistible to fans – although his suggestive hip swivelling didn’t always go down well with guardians of morality who claimed he was corrupting Britain’s youth!
With his lip-curling smile, quiffed hair and James Dean kind of sexuality, Billy became irresistible to fans
There was no question that there were two sides to Billy Fury – the rocker who would leave the screaming girls wanting more and the meek man who would leave the stage asking his team anxiously, “Was that alright?” after each performance.
As Billy’s star ascended, his manager Larry started pushing Billy to sing songs other than his own. Billy didn’t like it, but it did earn him some huge hits including Halfway to Paradise, Jealousy, and I’d Never Find Another
You. Over the course of the Sixties he had more Top 20 hits than anyone except The Beatles, Cliff and Elvis, although he never did reach the elusive No.1 spot.
As well as music, Billy’s good looks made him a natural for television and he made appearances in Oh Boy! and Wham! as well as films such as I’ve Gotta Horse and That’ll Be the Day. Billy couldn’t have been more famous, but cracks were beginning to show. Larry was working him too hard and Billy’s health was faltering. Following major heart surgery in 1971, Billy retreated to a farm in the Welsh mountains where he settled down with his girlfriend Lisa Rosen, who gave him emotional support and financial stability following his bankruptcy that Billy blamed on Larry Parnes’ poor management. Here he could also indulge his love for animals, caring for a flock of 300 sheep, horses and a group of badgers. Eventually, though, Billy missed the music too much and so he enjoyed a short revival in the early Eighties touring with Marty Wilde. But he was not a well man. On January 27, 1983, he collapsed at home with a heart attack. At the age of 42, he found he could no longer outrun the heart problems that had chased him since he was a child. The original British rock ‘n’ roller had, sadly, finally made it all the way to paradise.