Guilty Pleasures: Tony Burrows

Not one, not two, but FOUR Guilty Pleasures for you today (and a couple of few clips as well!)... and they all have one thing in common: Mr. Tony Burrows. You may have noticed that a lot of what gets posted here are by so-called 'one-hit wonders' and perhaps Tony, a session singer in the 60s & 70s, was the king of them all. You see, a lot of these songs were created in a studio by songwriters and producers and performed by session musicians. If the song became a hit, the record label would scramble for musicians to represent the 'group' in music videos and performances. According to this Wikipedia article, Tony has been credited with singing lead on hit singles for more groups than any other recording artist, both on the UK singles charts and the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

We'll begin with Edison Lighthouse 'Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)' the only No. 1 Tony was involved in.

Next up, Brotherhood Of Man 'United We Stand'. Although this is the same group who went on to Eurovision glory with 'Save All Your Kisses For Me' and other chart hits, not one of the group members on 'United We Stand' were involved in the later incarnation. Here's a dubbed TV performance from 1970.

White Plains 'My Baby Loves Lovin'. This and the preceding 2 songs were all in the UK charts at the same time, February 1970. Tony Burrows actually sang with all 3 groups on one edition of Top Of The Pops. The producers of the show then told him he was unofficially banned, but then had to invite him back a few weeks later as part of the group The Pipkins, who had charted with 'Gimme Dat Ding' (a song so awful I cannot possibly post it as a guilty pleasure)! Note: there is some dispute as to whether Tony Burrows or Ricky Wolff actually sang lead on this track. In this clip, Roger Greenway (the co-writer) is actually miming the lead with Tony being on our far-left)

Lastly here's The First Class 'Beach Baby' from 1974, which I believe was the last hit Tony Burrows was involved in. Note: although Tony sang lead on this and several other First Class tracks, the band were another of those created by the studio and thus new members had to be recruited for TV and live performances. I believe the guy miming to Tony's vocals is called Del John.

Please enjoy and raise a glass to the wonderful vocal talents of Mr. Tony Burrows...

Bonus Clips: I lied! Here's 'Gimme Dat Ding' by The Pipkins

... and 'Bobby Dazzler' by the First Class, an appalling song which I'm only posting due to each member dressing as if they were in a different band!

... and 'Let's Go to San Francisco' by The Flower Pot Men, which not only had participation from Tony Burrows but were created by John Carter, who was also behind White Plains, First Class and The Pipkins!