The Herald - The Herald Magazine
‘Nostalgic? Yes – but 1960s songwriting was powerful’
After almost 60 years, Scots band Marmalade is still touring. Singer Sandy Newman explains its longevity
FOR a group that had its first hit single back in 1968 – a cover of an upbeat song, Lovin’ Things, coupled with an adventurous cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Hey Joe – Marmalade has survived the rigours of time rather well.
Nearly 60 years after the band first came together in Glasgow as Dean Ford and the Gaylords (named after a gang in Chicago), Marmalade are still touring. Currently they’re on a “Sixties Gold” tour that also includes Herman’s Hermits, Love Affair’s Steve Ellis and Gerry’s Pacemakers. Marmalade’s founding members have all, of course, long since moved on; the line-up’s longest-serving member is Sandy Newman, the lead singer and lead guitarist, who joined 50 years ago this year.
Marmalade have had an interesting history. Having been a success in Scotland, they ventured down to London in the mid-1960s in search of wider acclaim, and gradually changed their name, firstly becoming The Gaylords and finally Marmalade.
Graham Nash took an interest in their psychedelia-flavoured 1967 single, I See The Rain.
Junior Campbell, who wrote or co-wrote many of Marmalade’s finest songs, told author Brian Hogg in his book, All That Ever Mattered, that Hendrix voted it his favourite single of the year in Melody Maker.
“That was like an Oscar to us,” Campbell added.
At one point Marmalade were offered the song Everlasting Love, the work of Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden, but turned it down as they wanted to concentrate on their own material. Love Affair, and Steve Ellis, took it to number one.
In November 1968 they released a spirited cover of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, from the Beatles’ White Album. It topped the charts in January 1969 – it was the first such feat achieved by a Scottish group – and Paul McCartney himself approved of their version.
They played lots of London venues such as the Marquee. One fan who enjoyed them there had recalled their “fabulous repertoire of soul/Motown standards”.
A 1970 Granada TV show, viewable on YouTube, shows Marmalade covering such songs as The Band’s Up on Cripple Creek, Crosby, Stills & Nash’s Suite: Judy Blues Eyes, as well as Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair and The Sound of Silence, all complete with gorgeous harmonies.
They were more than just a pop band.
They had other chart hits: Baby Make It Soon, Rainbow, Reflections of
My Life, Cousin Norman, Back on the Road, Radancer, and, in 1976, Falling Apart at the Seams (which featured Sandy Newman). Junior Campbell had left the band in 1971, going on to have a notable solo career; Dean Ford (real name, Thomas McAleese) died in Los Angeles, aged 72, in December 2018.
The thing about the current 1960s tour, it is pointed out, is that Marmalade and the other acts were responsible for so many notable chart hits. “That’s kind of what it’s all about,” says Sandy Newman, who’s a youthful 72.
“Of course it’s nostalgic. It ain’t kids who’re coming to see the show, although we do get quite a crosssection – we get people who were brought up on 1960s music because they were kids at the time.
“The songwriting in these days was powerful music. Obviously you had the Beatles’ influence on the whole world, which still carries through.
“Dean Ford and the Gaylords were the first Scottish group to really venture across the Border, to take on the English,” Newman adds with a laugh.
“That was how it was looked upon in these days. It was a real big deal. Marmalade were a totally different band before some of the hit records. I wouldn’t call it ‘heavy’, but it was a really interesting line-up, and much of that was generated by Junior Campbell.
“You had Pat Fairley, who played rhythm guitar traditionally, but then Hendrix came along, and it changed. People’s perceptions changed. Marmalade had effectively two bass guitars.
One was a really trebly thing that Junior had designed, with a really deep, heavy sound, and you also had the traditional bass guitar. They were unique in that sense.
I guess if you’re sitting in a ditch in Vietnam, about to be shot at, Reflections of My Life would hit the senses
“Marmalade were revered, and the early band’s actual harmony structure was superb.
“I was a fan myself, and I followed their career, having been pointed their way before they went to London by a drummer, Alan Kelly. I ended up with him in a band called Candy Floss when I was still at school.
“When I was sent down to London to buy stage-gear from John Stevens [a noted, Glasgow-born designer, who died in 2004], I went to see Marmalade at the Marquee, in the week they released I See the Rain.
“I got that song live in the sticky, sweaty, soaking-wet carpet of the Marquee Club. Of course, in those days, everybody smoked, and everybody who went to a club came out smelling like an ashtray.”
Marmalade’s finest song was Reflections of My Life, a bestselling hit penned by Campbell and McAleese. Over the years, it has enjoyed millions of views on YouTube, and is still of considerable comfort to many people who have lost loved ones.
A couple of Americans who served in, or faced being drafted for, Vietnam, have said that the song is seared in their memory.
“Hearing it now,” says one, “it seemed to be the perfect soundtrack to my life in those uncertain days.” Writes another: “This song was popular when I was drafted. Amazingly, it brought tears to the eyes of even the most battle-hardened guys. RIP to those guys who didn’t make it home and RIP to Dean Ford who brought us this amazing song.”
“It is a very esoteric lyric,” says Newman, “and I guess if you’re sitting in a ditch [in Vietnam] in sweltering heat, about to be shot at, it would certainly hit the senses. I’ve experienced it a couple of times over the years; guys coming up and telling me the story, tearful about their ordeal. It’s a powerful song.”
Newman’s colleagues in the modernday Marmalade are Alex Holmes (vocals, guitars, keyboards, who joined in 1980), Newman’s son, John James Newman (vocals, acoustic guitar, 2011), Jan Robinson (vocals, bass, 2016) and Oliver Richmond Jones (drums, percussion, 2019). The Sixties Gold event is a night of pleasing nostalgia, with Marmalade, fittingly given their run of hits, closing the show.
Their forthcoming concerts in Scotland Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on October 25, Perth Concert Hall on October 26, Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall on October 27 will be a homecoming for one of Scotland’s pioneering pop groups. Beyond that, in January and February, they will be playing dates in some holiday parks in England.
The audiences, by and large, want to hear the hits – Reflections of My Life, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Falling Apart at the Seams – and not newer Marmalade material.
Sandy Newman, a lifelong veteran of the music scene, has learned to be philosophical about it all.
“But obviously things have moved so much throughout the whole period, and we’ve managed to survive,” he acknowledges. “Musical tastes have changed, media formats have changed.” For all that, the charttopping band that began life all those years ago as Dean Ford and the Gaylords are still here, still gigging, still pulling in the crowds.