About The Spinners
The Spinners were a folk group from Liverpool, England, who formed in September 1958.
They variously had four albums in the UK Albums Chart between September 1970 and April 1972. One of them, Spinners Live Performance , spent three months in the listing and peaked at No. 14.
The band began as a skiffle group with a mainly American repertoire, until they were prompted by Redd Sullivan, a seaman, to include sea shanties and English folk songs. They started out as the Gin Mill Skiffle Group, which included guitarist Tony Davis and washboard player Mick Groves. The group played the Cavern Club, Liverpool for the first time on 18 January 1957, with the Muskrat Jazz Band and the Liverpool University Jazz Band. They played there on a number of occasions during that summer. In September 1958, they became the Spinners. They founded a folk club in Liverpool, the 'Triton Club' ), but soon were performing in London at places such as The Troubadour coffee house. Their first album, Songs Spun in Liverpool , was recorded by Bill Leader from live performances. In 1962 Peter Kennedy of the English Folk Dance & Song Society recorded an album with them called Quayside Songs Old & New. In 1963 Philips Records signed them, and they recorded eight more albums over the next eight years. They signed with EMI Records in the early 1970s.
The band became popular by singing folk music and singing new songs in the same vein. Although sounding like traditional English folk songs, some of their material was in fact composed by Jones, such as "The Ellan Vannin Tragedy" and "The Marco Polo". One of their best known songs, particularly in their native Liverpool, was in "My Liverpool Home", written by Peter McGovern in 1962. Cliff Hall also introduced traditional Jamaican songs to their repertoire. One of their albums was called Not Quite Folk.
They produced over 40 albums, and made numerous concerts and TV appearances. In 1965, after seeing the group perform in Liverpool, BBC producer Trevor Hill invited them to appear in a new BBC One series called Dance and Skylark, aboard an old sailing barque owned by presenter, bosun Stan Hugill. In 1970 they were given their own television show on BBC One that ran for seven years. The Spinners Christmas Special attracted large audiences. They also had their own show on BBC Radio 2. They retired in 1988, after thirty years together, although they led the community singing at the 1989 FA Cup final and played some Christmas shows in the early 1990s. Mick Groves and Hughie Jones still occasionally perform, although Cliff Hall retired to Australia, where he died in 2008. Tony Davis returned to playing jazz after retiring and also hosted Tony's Tradtime on Jazz FM. He died in 2017.
Their version of the Ewan MacColl song, "Dirty Old Town", was included in the Terence Davies' 2008 memoir/documentary of Liverpool, Of Time and the City. A biography of the group Fried Bread and Brandy-O was written by Liverpool journalist David Stuckey to coincide with their 25th anniversary. It was published by Robson Books.
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