Holy rock’n’roll! – Black Country band with a priest’s seal of approval
Part Two of the story of Wolverhampton band, Giorgio & Marco’s Men
Both Marco and Giorgio later had flirtations with the Glam Rock scene
IN early 1963, the band were just a four-piece.the usual line-up of lead and rhythm guitar – Marco Uccellini and Mike O’dowd, Peter Burns on bass and Podge Burkitt on drums – until they added a sax player called Frank Rudge and Marco’s brother, Giorgio, joined on vocals and keyboards.
Keith Farley, in his book They Rocked, We Rolled, interviewed Giorgio, who explained:
“The name of the group came from the fact that (band mentor) Father Mike Crook was trying to push the Italian angle. In some ways that could prove detrimental to the group because we were linked to a particular group of people and a sound which perhaps we didn’t have, but people who had not seen a group would not know that to be the case.
“We also had a clean-cut image which didn’t really fit the growing move towards a scruffier Rolling Stones type image. We were expected to do some Italian numbers, especially if we were playing at Italian functions. We had to cover the popular numbers and artists from Italy like Gigliola Cinquetti. There were quite a lot of numbers which were popular in this country which originated in Italy at the time. I remember Dusty Springfield covered the hit by Gigliola and we met her and she gave us a donation of 50 quid towards the band.”
Father Crook wasn’t the only member of the church to support the band throughout the 1960s, as he told Keith:
“One person who deserves a lot of credit for the later success of the group was Bishop Cleary, who remained very supportive of the group and actually agreed to loan the money which I used to supply them with their new instruments and amplifiers.”
And there were other parishioners that helped out: “Obviously, my parish commitments meant that I could not always take the group on bookings, so it was fortuitous that a later member of the group, named Rex, was involved in the motor trade and able to get hold of a diesel van which became the group’s vehicle. He drove it as well. Another parishioner, who was a sign writer, put the group’s name on the side of the van.”
Mike Crook also told Keith that his dog-collar gave him an edge!
“My position as a priest worked to the advantage of the group in many cases because I was able to get into some places via the dogcollar which otherwise I would never have got into. It also opened doors with certain performers like Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black, and Dusty Springfield. We never had any links with [leading talent agency] Astra in Wolverhampton. We worked through ADSEL in Birmingham although I can’t remember how the link came about. It was through ADSEL that the boys got to do the Silver Blades Ice Rinks quite often.”
However, when I spoke recently to Giorgio he said that the relationship with ADSEL also had its disadvantages, as the group never played at venues that were managed by the Astra Agency, like the Civic Hall.
However. they often played the ‘Regan Circuit’ – the Plazas in Old Hill and in Handsworth, or the Ritz in King’s Heath. These venues were managed by the formidable Mary (Ma) Regan, best described to Keith by the then Express & Star columnist, John Ogden, who portrayed her as:
“A softly spoken Irish ex-schoolteacher who used the same psychology with the groups as she did with school pupils – discipline and organisation. She ran the circuit with a rod of iron, no-one would argue with her.
“She held auditions and she used to mark the groups’ performance. If the mark was good enough they would get a support job at the Plaza etc. To get on to the Plaza circuit though was quite an accomplishment.”
Giorgio & Marco’s Men made a couple of trips to the recording studio in the 1960s. Their first single, entitled Run, Run was released on Polydor in 1966 but met with little success. If you have a copy in the loft then it isn’t worth a fortune but their second single – Maureen – could be, as a handful of copies have exchanged hands over the past few years at around £60 a time. Its B side – Baby I Need You – written by Marco – is featured on the excellent 3CD set recently released called Once Upon A Time in the West Midlands – The Bostin’ Sounds of Brumrock 1966-1974.
Both Marco and Giorgio had flirtations with the glam-rock scene of the early 1970s – Marco with a band called Dust, releasing an excellent single in 1975 called Rebound, again with a writing credit for Marco, and a few years earlier both brothers were involved a band called The Sad whose single It Ain’t Easy was written by Giorgio. It’s a track that gained some notoriety at the time because of its lyrical content which led to it being banned by the BBC! Even more surprising was that it was then covered by no less than Kevin Keegan, albeit with amended lyrics!! Between 1970 and 1973, Giorgio was with the successful 1960s Liverpool group, The Fourmost, before joining Freddie Garrity as a multi-instrumentalist and musical director for his backing band, the New Dreamers.
Since the 1990s, Giorgio has become one of the UK’S leading airbrush artists, publishing The Art of Airbrushing in 2011. He is best known for his portraits of rock icons, and you can view his work at: www.rock-icons.co.uk.
Giorgio may not have made an impression on the charts, but he is still making his art stand out loud and proud.
Paul Morris is the author of ‘Chasing the Light Fantastic’, available from Waterstones Wolverhampton, and online at amazon. co.uk, where you can also download the novel as a Kindle edition.