RIP Shane Fenton - Alvin Stardust

[anniv 63]

Undoubtedly along with Cliff and the Shads, Johnny Kidd &Pirates, Shane Fenton and the Fentones represent
the best of British Beat prior to Mersey beat etc.
I think Shane &Fentones were offered Do You Want To Know A Secret, but Billy J Kramer and his Dakotas took
over their mantle at Parlophone, and they suffered on getting further commercial after this period, which was
a great shame.
I personally never took to the Alvin Glam Rock era, but he was still good at what he did on his new image.

R.I.P.

Mike

[Ryan]

RIP to Shane/Alvin ,
I quite liked a bit of Shane Fenton, this is a picture of my cd i've got of him. I used to have the same album on vinyl years ago but god knows what happened to that.
I always liked the song 'It's Gonna Take Magic', i seem to remember him singing this with Billy Fury in the film 'Play it Cool' i think it was, it looked real good.
I also liked 'Somebody Else Not Me', both of these songs are on this cd, and loved 'My Jealous Mind' in his Alvin years.
Another sad loss of the British Rock n Rollers

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[iefje]

Another one of the greats gone... Rest in peace Shane...

[dave robinson]

goingdownslow wrote

Another loss.....I remember Shane Fenton and the Fentones from the early 60's when they appeared on Saturday Club on the Light programme....Saturday mornings after Children's Favourites. They were a good band and had a clean well arranged sound.....Shane reappeared as Alvin Stardust in the 70's and reinvented himself In the world of Glam Rock.

[Pinner Fan]

Actually he did not sing on Alvin Stardust's first single My Co Ca Choo, that was the writer Peter Shelley who recorded it and had already decided on the name. Shane was then brought in afterwards to 'be' Alvin Stardust.

Also, unbeknown to most, he also was not the original Shane Fenton either, that was also someone else (explained above) before he joined the group !

I saw Shane Fenton & The Fentones at the British Legion Hall South Harrow circa 1961 /62 and I thought he was great but could not understand why all the old "legionnaires" there were throwing pennies at him / them.

He was probably one of the first 'famous' acts I ever saw at that time as I could never afford tickets to these package shows at the cinemas.

I still love I'm A Moody Guy though ................... (and of course The Mexican)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYSlU-QsMog



Below is what I think is possibly the ONLY surviving film of him and The Fentones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAwpt89a ... -gUqSuBPsH

[ash]

There is a bit more film of Shane and The Fentones from Cinebox which was the Italian rival to Scopitone (competing formats of video jukeboxes)- Cindy's Birthday, I Aint Got Nobody and the otherwise unreleased That Old Yeah Yeah Feeling. Haven't watched them in a while but iirc they are colour too. Other than the Play It Cool film i think that is the sum total of surviving Shane Fenton footage. Mind you that's practically an archive compared to surviving footage of Johnny Kidd and The Pirates !

[GoldenStreet]

I always liked the song 'It's Gonna Take Magic', i seem to remember him singing this with Billy Fury in the film 'Play it Cool' i think it was, it looked real good.

The commercial version (without Billy Fury) of the song, composed, as it happens, by Norrie Paramor, was issued as the B-side of Cindy's Birthday.



Apparently, following the recording of My Coo-Ca-Choo, Marty Wilde turned down Peter Shelley's offer to become Alvin!

Bill

[Mikey]

Sad loss of a great artist and, by all accounts, a thoroughly nice man. Gave pleasure to many of us in the 60s and again to the Glam rockers in the 70s. I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure he played a barman in the TV series The Grimleys which also featured Noddy Holder as a school teacher.
I thought the lack of any reference to Shane Fenton in ITV's tribute was either a glaring omission or poor research.
RIP.

[GoldenStreet]

I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure he played a barman in the TV series The Grimleys which also featured Noddy Holder as a school teacher.

Yep...



Bill

[drakula63]

Interesting that Cliff is the godfather of one of his children...