Billy Fury - LP's

Billy Fury Memories - The LP's - EP's

The Sound Of Fury was the first album released by Billy Fury in 1960.

Described as "the best rock & roll album to come out of England's original beat boom of the late 1950s", every one of the ten songs was written by Fury, whereas the debut albums of most rock and roll artists (e.g. Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley) commonly contained covers of already-popular songs.

Billy Fury was arguably the first British rock 'n roll artist to write his own songs, sometimes under the pseudonym Wilbur Wilberforce.

1. That's Love (Fury)
2. My Advice (Wilberforce)
3. Phone Call (Wilberforce)
4. You Don't Know (Wilberforce)
5. Turn My Back On You (Wilberforce)
6. Don't Say It's Over (Fury)
7. Since You've Been Gone (Wilberforce)
8. It's You I Need (Fury)
9. Alright, Goodbye (Wilberforce)
10. Don't Leave Me This Way (Fury)

1960 - Billy's second long player of the year hit the stores, simply named Billy Fury. In it's way it was even more significant to the long-term career of Billy than its predecessor. It was a crossroads album, with the introduction of some American covers and more of an emphasis on the big ballad that would soon become his trademark.

The album essentially comprised of earlier singles together with the a-side of his current single, the glorious Wondrous Place which was at the time of release was enjoying a spell in the top 30.

On its release, forty years ago this month, it amazingly failed to dent the charts. When you take a look at the tracks individually, it is hard to explain, especially when you consider that at the time Billy was constantly in the public eye, appearing on TV programmes like Wham! and Boy Meets Girl. After a couple of years of wild stage shows, the public were now being introduced to a milder performer, trying to clean up his act, and the new album was designed to emphasise the point, with seven of the ten songs being ballads.

Side A:

 1) Maybe Tomorrow (Fury)

 2) Gonne Type A Letter (Fury, Robinson)

 3) Margo (Fury)

 4) Don´t Knock Upon My Door (Fury)

 5) Time Has Come (Fury)

 Side B:

 1) Colette (Fury)

 2) Baby How I Cried (Fury)

 3) Angel Face (Pomus, Shuman)

 4) Last Kiss (Fury)

 5) Wondrous Place (Lewis, Giant)

1961 -  - Spent 9 weeks in the Top Twenty LP listings

Side A:

Halway to Paradise

Don't Worry

Your'e having the last dance with me

Push Push

Fury's Time

Talkin' in my sleep

Side B:

Stick Around

A Thousand Stars

Cross my Heart

Comin' Up in the World

He Will Break Your Heart

Would You Stand By me

We Want Billy 1963 - one of the first live albums in UK rock history and featured renditions of his hits and cover versions of several R&B songs such as "Unchain My Heart".

In LP Top 20 for two weeks

Side A:

 1) Sweet Little Sixteen (Berry)

 2) Baby Come On (Dexter)

 3) That´s All Right (Crudup)

 4) Wedding Bells (Boone)

 5) Sticks And Stones (Turner)

 6) I`m Moving On (Snow)

 7) Just Because (B. & J. Sheridan)

 Side B:

 1) Halfway To Paradise (Goffin, King)

 2) I´d Never Find Another You (Goffin, King)

 3) Once Upon A Dream (Paramor, Rowe)  

 4) Last Night Was Made For Love (Fielding)  

 5) Like I´ve Never Been Gone (Hampton, Monte)

 6) When Will You Say I Love You (Fielding)

1963 Billy - 2

1-week run in LP Top 20

Side A:

 1) We Were Meant For Each Other (Feal, Birchall)

 2) How Many Nights, How Many Days (Miller, Carroll)

 3) Willow Weep For Me (Ronell)

 4) Bumble Bee (Fullylook, Baker)

 5) She Cried (Darryll, Richards)

 6) Let Me Know (Jones, Hendricks)

 7) The Chapel On The Hill (Goddard)

 8) Like I´ve Never Been Gone (Hampton, Monte)

 Side B:

 1) A Million Miles From Nowhere (Petty)

 2) I´ll Show You (Perper)  

 3) Our Day Will Come (Garson, Hilliard)  

 4) All My Hopes (Edwards, David)  

 5) One Step From Heaven (Brandon, Simmons)  

 6) One Kiss (Cochran, Russell)  

 7) Hard Times (Charles) 

 8) Here Am I Broken Hearted (DeSylva, Brown, Henderson)

1965 - From the film of the same title

More details

Billy Fury – I´ve Gotta Horse

A2 Billy Fury And the Gamblers - – Stand By Me

A3 Billy Fury And Sheila O´Neill – Do The Old Soft Shoe

A4 TheGamblers – I Cried All Night

A5 Bachelors, The – Far Far Away

A6 Billy Fury – I Like Animals

A7 Billy Fury – Find Your Dream

B1 Sheila O´Neill And Amanda Barrie – Dressed Up For A Man

B2 Bachelors, The – He´s Got The Whole World In His Hands

B3 Billy Fury – Won´t Somebody Tell Me Why

B4 Amanda Barrie And Michael Medwin – Problems

B5 Billy Fury / Amanda Barrie And Jon Pertwee – You´ve Got To Look Right For The Part

B6 Billy Fury – Finale Medley

1972 - The World of Billy Fury

Halfway To Paradise
Because Of Love
In Summer
Nobody's Child
A Thousand Stars
Magic Eyes
I'd Never Find Another You
Last Night Was Made For Love
Like I've Never Been Gone
Once Upon A Dream
Push Push
Letter Full Of Tears

Compilations

1983 - The One And Only Billy Fury - 54 in the LP Top 100

Be Mine Tonight
No Trespassers
Love Or Money
Love Sweet Love
Let Me Go Lover
Devil Or Angel
Don't Tell Me Lies
Deborah
This Little Girl Of Mine
I'm Telling You
Someday

1983 - Billy Fury - The Missing Years 1967-80

Wond(e)rous Place
She Loves Somebody Paper AeroplanesDo My Best For You Spider And The FlySilly Boy Blue Fascinating Candle FlameHalfway To Paradise (version) I Saw The LightBye Bye Hurtin' Is Lovin'One Minute Woman (wrongly listed on sleeve and record as Lady) I Call For My RoseLet Me Go My Way It Just Don't Matter NowBreak My Heart In Two

Billy Fury

1962 Play it Cool

British musical film directed by Michael Winner

Liverpudlian Ronald Wycherley (a.k.a. Billy Fury) stars as Billy Universe, an up-and-coming rock and roll singer. Billy and his group, the Satellites, are travelling to a music competition in Brussels which they're sure they'll win! Their aircraft is grounded, so they give a tour of London to an heiress who is being sent abroad by her father on the same aircraft, to separate her from an unsuitable boyfriend. 

Lots of rock 'n' roll! Billy Fury & the Satellites, Shane Fenton & the Fentones, Bobby Vee, Helen Shapiro, Danny Williams, and Jimmy Crawford. Billy Fury's finest performance! 

Rare Pre- Merseybeat rock and roll. Play It Cool! 

The EP from the film shows some great songs.

Wallow in the music and memories:

Play it Cool - Your Swell - Paint the Town - The Twist Kid

Ah Memories are made of this...!

1966 I Gotta Horse

British musical film directed by Kenneth Hume

Billy Fury is the star of a seaside summer show who pays little attention to rehearsals, but always (of course!) performs on top form.

Instead, he plays with his pet dogs.

When he buys a horse, he goes to Epsom to see it run in the Derby, and returns with little time to spare.

Based on the star's famous love of animals, this musical comedy portrays Billy setting out to add a sheepdog to his vast entourage of animals and coming back with an irresistible horse named Armitage instead. To his manager's horror, Billy smuggles the horse backstage during rehearsals for his big show and the horse proceeds to create havoc. Little do either of them know that Armitage is actually a thoroughbred racehorse. Then Billy's horse contracts pneumonia and Billy must choose between love of his horse and the big show.

Also features The Bachelors.  Although this is not a highly-regarded film, it does reflect Billy's enduring love of animals.  His own horse, Anselmo, did in fact, run in the 1964 Derby.  

Lyrics:

I'm as bright as a jumping beam

Riding high if you see what I mean

Cause I gotta horse

(Yeah) I gotta horse

Yesterday I was feeling low

Now today I’m alive and a glow

Cause I gotta horse

(Yeah) I gotta horse

Don’t need anything

I’ve got everything

Much more than money can buy

I’ve got happiness

And what’s more I guess

I’m just the luckiest guy

Feeling fine in a million ways

This is one of those wonderful days

Cause I gotta horse

(Yeah) I gotta horse

Don’t need anything

I’ve got everything

Much more than money can buy

I’ve got happiness

And what’s more I guess

I’m just the luckiest guy

Feeling fine in a million ways

This is one of those wonderful days

Cause I gotta horse

(Yeah) I gotta horse

I gotta horse

I…………..gotta horse

Listen to I Gotta Horse

Listen to: Stand by me

Listen to: Cross My Heart

One of my favourites

1973 That'll Be the Day

British film starring David Essex and Ringo Starr

The mother of Jim MacLaine (David Essex) was abandoned by his father when he was young. Later, as a suburban school dropout, Jim leaves home and drifts through a succession of dead-end jobs until he finds an outlet for his frustration in rock 'n' roll. Tossing away the chance of a university education much to the consternation of his mother, alienated MacLaine becomes a lowly deckchair attendant before streetwise friend Mike (Ringo Starr) gets him a job firstly as a barman and then with the fun fair. The initially shy MacLaine quickly becomes a heartless fairground Romeo leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. Eventually the prodigal son returns home to run the family store and marry his girlfriend, but despite the birth of a son, restless Jim feels the lure of rock’n’roll again.


Billy's 1973 version of: A Thousand Stars

Hal Carter's memories of Billy

Initially Billy's road manager, Hal worked with him on and off for 24 years. These words were read out at a memorial service at Liverpool Cathedral.


I first met Billy Fury in 1958.


Then in 1959, I joined him as his tour manager, and so started an initial five year relationship that was to continue on and off until his untimely death in 1983.


I doubt if many people know Billy as well as I.


Billy could be a complex character. Off stage and socially he could be a shy recluse, unsure of himself and at times untrusting of everybody. He was a lover of wildlife and all kinds of animals.


But on stage!


On stage Billy Fury was a master at his craft, and entertaining is a craft, and Billy moved and sang with the greatest.


Over 31 years I've met and worked with the greatest, but in my mind, and in my heart, Billy was unequalled in Great Britain.


In America, maybe there were two or three rock 'n' roll singers who trod the same path as Billy. Obviously Elvis, probably Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly...but in Great Britain Billy Fury could walk as tall as the best of them.


Billy left me his photograph album, an album that today is a record of our time together on the road.


At times, I look at it and recall those hazy days which were as exciting as anything you could ever imagine.


They are a record of an era when Billy and Marty Wilde, Joe Brown, Dickie Pride and Cliff, and oh so many other great guys, were spearheading a whole new career for a whole new generation of youngsters.


We had a devil-may-care attitude. The country was still recovering from the aftermath of the war, and attitudes and ideals were changing fast - some of it for the good, some for the worst.


We took our work seriously, and we worked hard. We travelled long distances, and when we'd done our job we played hard....we enjoyed life.


Today it's common for any number of young men and women to one day be out of work, the next be acclaimed a pop music sensation. You can't open a newspaper today without seeing some bright new face grinning at you, announcing a chart-topping record, or jetting off for a holiday in some sundrenched haven of rest.


Billy Fury and his peers helped create that lucrative area of


the entertainment business they instigated the British pop music scene. T they cut the key that opened the door to stardom for a whole bunch of young singers and musicians, something which gave hope of riches and fame, where previously it would've been out of reach to a young boy or girl from a working class background.


Sadly, what they did has been forgotten, or simply taken for granted, certainly never acknowledged as it should've been.


British pop music owes a great debt to Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, Joe Brown and many other tremendous British rock 'n' roll stars of the late fifties. They hung in and got the job done, and it wasn't easy, and it wasn't just for the money I can assure you, as the money then wasn't anywhere near what it is today.


They created a career for themselves, and later created an area of employment for an ongoing crop of youngsters to follow in their footsteps. Their job creation was certainly as good as any job centre.


And when the hit records dried up, as they did for the vast majority of those guys, they found they had created an ongoing career and demand for themselves.


They were the fore-runners of a whole new breed of music business entrepreneurs; they weren't just pop singers, they were showmen of the Barnum class, they were true entertainers, and they were loved and worshipped by thousands.


The youth of today, who spend so much time listening to pop music, probably can't even recall the name Billy Fury, and it's sad when you think that someone who was so talented, and who had that very special asset called charisma, had to die so young and relatively so un-noticed.


We are here today to remember him, and who of us who ever knew him could ever forget him?


Billy Fury's memory is etched into my mind and my soul. To me his memory will never die. I cherish the good times we had together and I accept that there had to be the odd bad times.


Billy Fury was my friend, and I loved him dearly, and I still miss him.


RIP Billy

Now a feast of Fury Songs to enjoy...

1959 Maybe Tomorrow - 1959 Margo - 1959 Angel Face - 1959 My Christmas Prayer

1959 Colette - 1960 That's Love - 1960 Wondrous Place - 1960 A Thousand Stars

1961 Don't Worry - 1961 Halfway to Paradise - 1961 I'd Never Find Another You

1961 Jealousy  - 1962 Letter Full of Tears - 1962 Last Night Was Made for Love

1962 Once Upon a Dream - 1962 Because of Love - 1963 Like I've Never Been Gone

1963 When Will You Say I Love You? - 1963 In Summer - 1963 Somebody Else's Girl

1963 Do You Really Love MeToo - 1964 I Will - 1964 It's Only Make Believe

1965 I'm Lost Without You - 1965 In Thoughts of You - 1965 Run to My Lovin' Arms

1966 I'll Never Quite Get Over You - 1966 Don't Let a Little Pride Stand in Your Way

1966 Give Me Your Word - 1967 Hurtin' is Loving - 1967 Loving You

1967 Suzanne in the Mirror - 1968 Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt

1968 Silly Boy Blue - 1982 Love or Money - 1983 Forget Him

Great 'B' Sides

My personal Favourite King For Tonight - 1963 What Do You Think Your Doing of

1959 Gonna Type A Letter - 1959 Don´t Knock Upon My Door (live)

1960 Baby How I Cried - 1960 You Don´t Know - 1960 Alright, Goodbye - 1961 Push, Push

2nd Fav 1961 Cross My Heart - 3rd Fav 1961 Sleepless Nights

=3rd Fav's 1963 What Do You Think You´re Doing Of - All I Wanna Do Is Cry

Old Chocolate's

Who would have thought that Cadbury's would be bought out eh?

Who would have thought that Roundtree's would be bought out eh?

Who would have thought that Fry's would be bought out eh?

I liked the Punch bars, not that I could afford them often!

Z-Cars

Z-Cars ran from January 1962 and until September 1978.

Since 1955 a policeman's lot had been depicted as a happy one by the BBC's 'community copper' series 'Dixon of Dock Green.' But when 'Z Cars' came along in 1962, television finally got the chance to show the British public a different outlook altogether.

When in 1962 the writer Troy Kennedy Martin was confined to bed with mumps, he decided to pass his time listening in to the police wavelength on his radio. What he heard was a far cry from what was being depicted on television.

As a result he created 'Z Cars,', a series set on Merseyside at a time when Liverpool was on the verge of significant social changes.

To combat the growing crime wave policemen were taken off the beat and placed in fast response vehicles, the 'Z Cars' of the series title (so called because the cars were Ford Zephyrs), and put on patrol around the old district of Seaport and the modern 'high rise' development of Kirkby Newtown.

Developed with the help of documentarists Elwyn Jones and Robert Barr the programme didn't simply concern itself with the cops versus robbers format, but showed the day to day lives of the policemen themselves, depicting them as fallible human beings capable of gambling, drinking, and most controversially of all, wife beating.

Like 'The Sweeney' over a decade later, 'Z-Cars' mirrored the social changes of its era and bravely dared to push the envelope of the dramatic depiction of the police and their role in a rapidly changing society, to starkly realistic new heights. It was a brave move on the part of both Kennedy Martin and the BBC, but one which paid off handsomely.

The Police Federation complained bitterly about the content, but within two months of the show going on air it was attracting an average audience of 14 million viewers.

The stars of the show became household names, Brian Blessed as PC 'Fancy Smith' drove Z-Victor 1, whilst later additions to the regular cast included Colin Welland and Leonard Rossiter. Stratford Johns as the no-nonsense Charlie Barlow, a superior officer not adverse to pounding his suspects into submission, and Frank Windsor as his gentler sidekick John Watt, were given their own series in 1966, 'Softly, Softly,' which saw them head off to form the Regional Crime Squad. Guest stars also went on to successful careers and included John Thaw, Judi Dench, Alison Steadman, Kenneth Cope, George Sewell, Joss Ackland, Ralph Bates and Patrick Troughton.

The series continued until 1978 but by this time it was beginning to face competition from US imports such as 'Kojak,' 'Hawaii Five-0,' and 'Starsky and Hutch.' The new generation of all action, car chasing, door kicking format was in vogue, and in Britain the new kids on the block were 'The Sweeney.

Just like 'Z Cars' had made 'Dixon' look old and dated so 'The Sweeney' had the same effect on a show that had, by the late 1970's, very much outlived what public taste was now demanding, and in 1978 it became a case of 'Z-Victor 1, out'.

Great stuff!

Memories are Made of This