Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders & The Mindbender - It's Wayne Fontana And.... (CD)

Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders

Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders were one of the successful British beat groups to come out of Manchester. Singer Wayne Fontana — born Glyn Ellis — fronted the instrumentalists Eric Stewart (guitar), Bob Lang (bass) and Rick Rothwell (drums). They were looked after by producer Jack Baverstock at the Fontana label, whose name merely happened to match the band's.

In early 1965 the group struck gold with the single 'The Game Of Love', which stormed to the top of the charts, while a US tour went off to everyone's satisfaction. But the pressure to stay on top soon told: follow-ups such as 'It's Just A Little Bit Too Late' and 'She Needs Love' fell short of expectations, and the band steadily ran out of steam.

Behind the scenes, their aims had drifted apart. Wayne wanted to move away from beat towards pop in the style of P.J. Proby or Dusty Springfield, the better to show off his voice; his three Manchester colleagues, by contrast, put their faith in their considerable instrumental skill and a harder approach.

In October 1965 Wayne Fontana walked off stage in the middle of a show, murmuring only "It's all yours!" to Eric Stewart. Stewart took over the microphone and the three of them finished the concert — in that moment one band broke apart and another was born: Fontana went solo, while the Mindbenders carried on independently under Stewart. The album 'Eric Rick Wayne Bob', recorded piece by piece beforehand, appeared in January 1966 and showed once more the group's versatility.

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