Wayne Fontana
Singer
BORN OCTOBER 28, 1945 – DIED AUGUST 6, 2020, AGED 74
MUSICIAN Wayne Fontana was best known for his hit The Game Of Love with The Mindbenders in 1965.
It saw him become one of the “British invasion” acts to take the United States by storm.
The year before, the Mancunian band had scored a No.5 UK hit with Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um.
A fruitful career looked promising but after successive singles flopped, Fontana stormed off stage one night to go solo.
Speaking about his abrupt departure to the Daily Express in 2017, he said: “We had disagreements about the music we were recording. It happens when you’re young.
“One night, I decided to sing Save The Last Dance For Me and I could hear the band mumbling, ‘Why are we always doing the slow ones’.”
He enjoyed success with singles Come On Home and Pamela, which reached number 11 in the UK charts.
But he also had to watch as his former bandmates shot to No.2 on both sides of the Atlantic with A Groovy Kind Of Love. It became a bigger hit for Phil Collins in 1988.
Fontana began struggling in his career, after working on cruise liners and then returning to England to write new songs. He told the Daily Express: “I went into self-retirement, drank too much and didn’t know where I was half the time.”
He said he gave up drinking after being asked to join The Solid Silver 60s Show in 1977. He was sentenced to 11 months in jail in 2007 for pouring petrol over a bailiff’s car and setting it alight.
He died at a hospital in Stockport of undisclosed causes.
Married and divorced, he is survived by an unnamed partner and three children.