Manchester lads ruled pop charts worldwide
Fellow Mancunian Graham Gouldman, later of 10cc fame, wrote No Milk Today for the group late in 1966. It gave them their first hit in more than a year.
The band’s well-known single There’s a Kind of Hush reached number four in 1967.
Written by Les Reed and Geoff Stephens, it was a hit again in 1976 for the Carpenters.
The Hermits also notched up an American achievement matched only by one other band – The Beatles.
The singles Mrs Brown and Silhouettes were numbers one and two on the Chicago radio station WLS on May 14, 1965 – and swapped positions the next week.
The Beatles did the same with I Want to Hold Your Hand and She Loves You in February 1964.
Herman’s Hermits appeared in a string of MGM movies, including When the Boys Meet the Girls in 1965 and Hold On! in 1966, which starred the band as themselves in a tour across the US.
Our photo shows the band recording tracks for the film in the Kingsway Studios in December 1965.
Mickey Most often used session artists in the studio to help his bands – and the Hermits were no exception. The artists included John Paul Jones, Bobby Graham and even Jimmy Page.
In their heyday, the group appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Jackie Gleason Show and the Dean Martin Show, although their fame in the US faltered after 1967.
Their last album of the 1960s, Rock and Roll Party, was not even released in America.
Noone left the band in 1971, but Herman’s Hermits reunited in 1973 to headline the successful British Invasion tour of the US.
Leckenby and Whitwam also opened for the Monkees on the 1980s reunion tours.
The band still tours today with Whitwam the only original member of a memorable line-up.
Memorable images like these – and many more like them – can be found in Clive Hardy’s brilliant new book Around Manchester in the 1970s. See the panel on this page for details. In the meantime, Clive Hardy’s previous books, the much-acclaimed Around Manchester in the 1950s and Around Manchester in the 1960s, are on sale at all good bookshops. Alternatively you can order the books from the iNostalgia website.