Blogosphere to the rescue

In a fit of communitarian sharing, I not only Flickred my own childish autograph book, I also created a Pool to sustain it (not that it has, but give it time). And I confessed that I had mostly forgotten who on earth The Honeycombs were. To my rescue rides Neddie, from whose email I quote (without permission):

Being of the sort that holds Swinging London to be the High-Water-Mark of European Culture, I was goaded by a friend who was there to shell out the simoleons for a magnificent book by Terry Rawlings called "British Beat 1960-1969: Then, Now & Rare," in which the Honeycombs are listed:

"Like the Applejacks, the Honeycombs were another group that enjoyed the novelty of a woman playing a predominantly male role, this time the drummer. Her name was Ann "Honey" Lantree and she joined her fellow hairdressing friend Martin Murray in a group venture they called the Sherabones in 1963. Honey's brother John came and played bass along with gutarist John Ward and singer Denis D'ell. [Fascinatingly, Rawlings gets the orthography of "D'ell" exactly right -- exactly the same apostrophe and unconventional capitalization as in your autograph book. Extra points for that!]

"Once they changed their name to the Honeycombs (in order to highlight Honey's involvement) the group's ride to fame was instantaneous. They were spotted playing a North London pub by the team of Alan Howard and Ken Blaikley, who snapped them up and signed them to Pye. Having secured the services of producer Joe Meek [!!!], the pair wrote the Honeycombs' debut single "Have I the Right." This was a UK number one in August 1964 and an instant breakthrough hit in the US. The group graced the Top 20 once more in 1965 with the Honey-sung "That's the Way," but singles like "Is It Because?" the Ray Davies-composed "Something Better Beginning" and the dramatic "Eyes" weren't nearly as popular and failed to make the Top 30. Murray fell offstage breaking his leg and arm, and the group toured Australia in January 1965 with Manfred Mann and the Kinks using an unknown Peter Pye as his replacement. The group lasted another year before Pye let them go and the Honeycombs slipped quietly into obscurity. Denis D'ell attempted a solo career in the Seventies but no one knew about it."

Neddie then goes on to exercise his fetish for mod clothes, which he is welcome to do on his own site, but not while I'm just using him as blog-fodder here on my site.

Two asides: I was going to open this post "We can fact check your ass ... and we can plug the holes in your leaky memory" but I realized that some things have to be written in American -- like that phrase -- and would sound perfectly poncy coming from a Brit, no matter how cosmopolitan, urbane, worldly, well-traveled etc. etc. Why would anyone want to fact check my equid?

Bugger! I've forgotten the second.