Leonard Davis was working in EMI’s Hayes
factory when he as spotted by producer and songwriter Norman Newell, the man
who had also given Russ Conway and Shirley Bassey their big breaks at Columbia... and who produced the awful Songs for Swinging Children.
Born in South Wales in 1938, at the tender age of 19 Len was launched on to an unsuspecting public as “Larry Page, the Teenage Rage” but, despite issuing three
singles for Columbia in 1957 and 58, he would never score a chart hit for the
company.
It’s not hard to understand why: he can’t sing! The poor boy was
pushed in to the EMI studios in Abbey Road and given dreadful, anodyne
arrangements of recent US hits to perform, and the results are dreadful. He
explained the process in the in the book The
Restless Generation: "The label saw no future in rock ‘n’ roll. They
had to make all the great American records sound like Worker's Playtime; they Didn't have a clue. Consequently, I made a
Mickey Mouse version of That'll Be The Day
[issued as his second A-side]. I was treated as a junior employee and for
my first record they gave me a copy of Start
Movin' by Sal Mineo and told me to go away and learn it - which I did -
every vocal inflection, every swish of the rhythm. Then you get to the studio
and find they're like a marching band… I had no input, they even picked the key
for me." Start Movin' was issued as the flip side to his cover of the Del Vikings' Cool Shake.
After he was dropped by Columbia he went to Saga, the same
company that was soon to launch Joe Meek’s Triumph label. Page’s singles (and
one EP) for Saga also flopped, and he gave up any pretence of being a singer to
concentrate on orchestrations, arrangements and, later, group management.
Larry
Page would hit the big time a few years later as the manager of the Kinks and
the Troggs, and as the leader of the Larry Page Orchestra, probably best known
for their albums of Kinks and Beatles covers: Page’s Kinky Music album was arranged by Ray Davies and featured future
Led Zep member Jimmy Page. Larry was also the founder of both Page One and
Penny Farthing records, which hit the big time with Venus by Shocking Blue, Daniel Boone’s Beautiful Sunday, and Chelsea F.C.’s Blue is the Colour.
Page now lives in happy retirement in Australia.
Here are both sides of his debut 45, and - courtesy of YouTube - the appalling That'll Be The Day.
Enjoy!
Download Start Movin' HERE
Download Cool Shake HERE
Right on Darryl!! Until the likes of Marty Wilde, Cliff, Vince Taylor (& even Tommy Steele!) came along....UK A & R men & studios just did not 'get' R'n'R at all. Even a 'cleaned up' Sal Mineo exuded a kind of teen Latino sleaze / suggestiveness (just the right side of 'polite') & he had that great USA studios 'punchy' sound behind him...his vocals dripping with echo. Buddy's "That'll Be The Day" is just one of the brilliant all time great recordings. Larry Page did not stand a chance. He just sounds faintly ludicrous - with his backing sounding like the King Brothers on speed allied to the Mudlarks. Oh dear. Yes indeed...pretty dire.
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