Brian Poole of the Tremeloes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNoEImXfNbQ
Did this which was done first by the Four Seasons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYgniftVxQ8
I think the Tremeloes also, there's something about that song Yellow River, not sure if they had a hit with it but...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onZsayOx4KM
"Yellow River" by Christie, there is some sort of history here, I've read prior:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMnosX5oQ2k
Maybe Christie's was a hit here while the Tremeloes version was not in the US.
The Tremeloes didn't have the hit with "Yellow River," but they managed a rare feat starting in 1966: they outshone
their original lead singer after he left the group. Brian Poole, like Wayne Fontana of the Mindbenders, got ideas
about a solo career and went for it with no success; by 1970 he was working in his family's butcher shop and
relegated to the land of trivia contests.
The Tremeloes didn't replace him but did replace bassist Alan Howard---first with Mike Clark,
then with Chip Hawkes, who became, concurrently, their new lead singer, though the group began
to focus on harmony singing even more---and changed their image, dumping the stage suits and
going Carnaby Street. The new quartet alignment did the trick: after two flop singles, they hit
covering the Cat Stevens song "Here Comes My Baby," charting it in England and the United
States, then hit the jackpot covering the Four Seasons' "Silence is Golden." ("Silence is Golden" wasn't
exactly a failure for the Seasons---it was the B-side of "Rag Doll" and got some radio play on its own in
1964.) They reeled off a few more British hits (though none were quite so successful in the U.S.) and looked
like stayers until they attempted to shake up their music with a "heavier" style---alienating the audience
they built for the smooth harmonies. Their hitmaking days were over, but they stayed attractive on the live
club and cabaret circuit for years to come.
Trivia: It's said that one of the reasons why British Decca rejected the Beatles was Brian Poole & the Tremeloes:
the label auditioned both groups, and label chief Dick Rowe gave his subordinate Mike Smith the choice. Smith
loved both groups but picked the Tremeloes because they were from London and more easily
accessible, not bargaining that the Beatles might re-locate (which they eventually did). It was Rowe's
unfortunate mistake to give the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein the news by way of the infamous "We don't
like your boys' sound, groups of guitars are on the way out" rejection letter. It was Decca, too, that insisted
---since British rock and pop was still dominated with groups whose names put their lead singers in the
front of the names---the group be re-named Brian Poole & the Tremeloes.
(They didn't make the same mistake with a signing Dick Rowe engineered in mid-1963, when the
Beatles' success and the story of Decca rejecting them began becoming a legend in British show
business---Rowe signed the Rolling Stones and didn't insist on pushing
their lead singer's
name to the front of the group's name.)
Which ended up hurting in the long run: the group revamped its music to more of an R&B orientation
and became hitmakers (they even sent their own version of "Twist & Shout" to number four at a time
the Beatles' version of the song was a best-seller on an EP single), but being pushed to the front of
the group's name helped give Poole the same star mentality that eventually brought Wayne Fontana
down, leading to his exit and the Tremeloes' revamp, since they realised they had at least three solid
singers in the lineup without him. Mike Smith played a hand in their second life, too: he'd left Decca
and was hired by England's new CBS label---set up to handle American Columbia Records releases
in the U.K. directly, rather than leasing them to other labels---where one of his first orders of business
was signing the remade Tremeloes.
