RHYTHM AND BRUCE 40 years ago tonight, The Nashville Teens were playing Garstang’s Punchbowl Inn just up the road from Morecambe where Tommy Bruce and The Bruisers were appearing at the Winter Gardens. Tommy was an old mate of our lead singer Ray Phillips so we dropped over between sets to meet up. Tommy was an unlikely singing success. He was encouraged to record by Barry Mason, a neighbour and singer/songwriter who subsequently established himself with Tom Jones’ “Delilah”, Engelbert Hunmperdinck’s “The Last Waltz” and a string of chart hits by Gene Pitney, The Drifters, The Fortunes, The Merseybeats and many others. Using Mason’s connections, Tommy recorded Fats Waller’s “Ain’t’ Misbehavin’” in the style of “Chantilly Lace”, the late Big Bopper’s only UK hit. It wasn’t to everyone’s taste. A panellist on BBC TV’s “Juke Box Jury” described Bruce’s voice as ‘gravel in a bucket’ - in fact, Tommy’s biography was self-deprecatingly entitled “Have Gravel, Will Travel”! Nonetheless, the song took him to Number Three in the charts, followed by several less major hits and a lifelong career in cabaret. Tommy Bruce died from prostate cancer in 2006 at the age of 68. https://youtube/watch?v=GW4m4otEZrs
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:32:52 +0000
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