The Marmalade

Marmalade were a successful Scottish ^Scotland pop rock group ^{Musical ensemble} , from the east end of Glasgow, originally formed in 1961 as "The***lords", later "Dean Ford and The***lords". In 1966, they changed the group name to 'The Marmalade'. The most successful period for the band, in terms of record success, was between 1968 and 1972. A later version of the band (from 1975 with various further personnel changes) exists to this day, although with the departure of Graham Knight, ( reported on the bands "official" website) in September 2010, there are now no original members remaning in the band.

  * 'Dean Ford': born Thomas McAleese, 5 September 1945, Coatbridge, Scotland — lead vocalist ^Singer .
* 'Junior Campbell': born William Campbell, 31 May 1947, Glasgow, Scotland — lead guitarist / instrumentalist ^Musician / vocalist and arranger ^arrangement .
* 'Graham Knight': born John Graham Knight, 8 December 1943, Glasgow — bassist and vocalist.
* 'Pat Fairlie': born Patrick Fairlie, 14 April 1943, Glasgow — 6 string bassist / rhythm guitarist.
* 'Alan Whitehead': born 24 July 1945, Oswestry, Shropshire, England — drummer.
(Whitehead replaced 'Ray Duffy' who left in 1966/7 to return to his trade as a chef - although Duffy later returned to music, drumming on Matthews Southern Comfort ^{Iain Matthews} 's number one "Woodstock ^{Woodstock (song)} " and also most of Gallagher and Lyle's hits. Duffy also teamed up again with Campbell, playing drums on Campbell's solo ^{solo (music)} hits and album)."The***lords", (named after the notorious post war "Chicago***lords" street gang), were originally formed by Pat Fairlie and Billy Johnston in Baillieston, a suburb east of Glasgow, around 1960/61. Their initial line-up included Tommy Frew on drums and lead guitarist Pat McGovern, fronted by vocalist Wattie Rodgers. Junior Campbell joined on his fourteenth birthday on 31 May 1961, replacing McGovern, and Rodgers was then replaced, initially by two new lead vocalists, Billy Reid and Tommy Scott, although Reid soon departed, leaving Scott as the new frontman. Bill Irving then took over from Johnston on bass.
The group gathered notice and, in 1963, Dean Ford replaced Scott as lead singer. They then became known as "Dean Ford and The***lords". Ray Duffy then replaced Frew on drums. and for a few months, they had an organist, Davey Hunter. By 1964 Graham Knight, from the local group The Vampires, had replaced Irving on bass.

(Pictured; left to right: Bill Irving, Junior Campbell, Dean Ford, Ray Duffy and Pat Fairlie (1964))

Becoming popular in Scotland, and under the management of Billy Grainger, in early 1964 they were signed to Columbia (EMI) by Norrie Paramor and recorded four singles, including a cover of the 1963 Chubby Checker US hit,"Twenty Miles" which was a big seller locally, but failed to chart ^{record chart} nationally.
The group were well regarded in Scotland, and despite being crowned 'Scotland's Top Group' decided to try for success in the UK ^{United Kingdom} as a whole. in the week it went to the chart summit they celebrated by appearing on BBC One's music programme Top of the Pops, dressed in kilts. Their version of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" sold around half a million in the |UK, and a million copies globally by April 1969. This was followed by further success with "Baby Make It Soon", (written by Tony Macaulay), which reached #9, in the summer of 1969. featured a backwards ^backmasking guitar solo by Campbell ( see Reflections of My Life).

"Reflections of My Life" has recorded over two million sales and the writers were awarded a Special Citation of Achievement in 1998 by BMI in attaining radio broadcast performances in excess of one million in the US alone. Other UK hits included "Rainbow" (UK #3) and "My Little One" (UK #15). Marmalade suffered adverse publicity from the UK's newspaper, News of the World. They began a series of line-up changes including the loss of drummer Alan Whitehead.

Marmalade recruited a new drummer, Dougie Henderson, and guitarist, Hugh Nicholson, an ex-member of The Poets, another band from Scotland. Then Marmalade released the album, Songs, in 1972, and Nicholson took on most lead vocals and song composition with more direct and less orchestral arrangements, which met with limited success. However, Nicholson penned two of their last hits, "Cousin Norman" and "Radancer", as well as the lesser hit "Back on the Road", on which he sang lead vocal. After the departure of Campbell, Pat Fairlie then left the band to run the groups music publishing company.Nicholson left in 1973 to form Blue ^{Blue (Scottish band)} (not to be confused with a much later boy band of the same name / Blue ^{Blue (boy band)} ), and Ford plus Knight carried on with Marmalade Nicholson was replaced by Mike Japp ^{Mikel Japp} , a rock guitarist from the Welsh ^Wales band 'Thank You'.

Refusing to play most of the band's old hit records on stage, the group slowly came to a standstill. Knight was sacked, but then linked up with the original drummer, Alan Whitehead, to form Vintage Marmalade. They were reunited with their old manager Peter Walsh to play all the hits on stage, and had a full date sheet.

Ford was one of many lead vocalists contributing to The Alan Parsons Project. His last known work in music was in 1991, by which time he was living in the US.

In 1975 Knight and Whitehead took over the name Marmalade again with a new line-up, fronted by vocalist and guitarist Sandy Newman. They signed a deal with Target Records, and in 1976, had what turned out to be their final Top 10 hit with the ominously entitled Tony Macaulay penned song, "Falling Apart at The Seams". Subsequent singles failed to chart.

Knight remained with the band, touring on the nostalgia circuit with Marmalade / the only original left / alongside Newman, Glenn Taylor (drums), and Alan Holmes (guitar), but departed the line-up in July 2010. Whitehead left the band in 1978 to manage other pop groups and singers, which he does to this day. He also appeared in the 2010 TV series ^{television program} , Take Me Out ^{Take Me Out (game show)} .

Ford, having retired from the music industry, settled in Los Angeles (after a brief spell in New York ^{New York City} ), whilst Fairlie has his own bar ^{bar (establishment)} , called Scotland Yard, also situated in Los Angeles.

Campbell became a successful solo recording artist, songwriter, television and film composer, record producer and music arranger, and lives in Sus***.
Dean Ford and the***lords singles




Marmalade singles




Marmalade studio albums

* There's a Lot of It About ^{There's a Lot of It About (album)} (1968)
* Reflections of The Marmalade (1970)
* Songs ^{Songs (Marmalade album)} (1971)
* Our House Is Rocking (1974)
* The Only Light on My Horizon Now (1977)
* ...Doing It All for You (1978)
* Marmalade ^{Marmalade (album)} (US only) (1981)
* Heartbreaker ^{Heartbreaker (Marmalade album)} (1982)