Showaddywaddy was formed in 1973 by the amalgamation of two groups, ‘Choise’ and ‘The Hammers’. This led onto to an eight-member band. They both played at the Fosse Way pub in Leicester and soon discovered shared musical tastes. After playing together in jamming sessions, they joined together permanently and Showaddywaddy was born.
Their first single, “Hey Rock and Rollers” released in April 1974. It reached #2 in the UK Singles Chart. Showaddywaddy then went on to have a further 22 UK hits until late summer 1982. They had most of their biggest hits with covers of songs from the 1950s and the early 1960s. These cover versions included “Three Steps to Heaven” “Heartbeat” “Under the Moon of Love” “When “You Got What It Takes and “Dancin’ Party”.
On the South African charts, “Three Steps to Heaven” reached number 6 in 1975 and “Under the Moon of Love” number 6 in 1977.
From “Dancin’ Party” (1977), the band produced their own records with more cover versions including: “I Wonder Why” (originally by Dion and the Belmonts), “Blue Moon” (based on the Marcels’ interpretation) and Another Curtis Lee original, “Pretty Little Angel Eyes”, again co-written by Tommy Boyce.
Their most recent chart single was “Who Put the Bomp (In the Bomp-A-Bomp-A-Bomp)”, a number 37 hit in 1982, which they also promoted in their final Top of the Pops performance.
In total, they had ten Top Ten singles, a solitary number one (“Under the Moon of Love” in 1976), and spent 209 weeks in the UK Singles Chart. At the peak of their popularity, this tally included having seven successive Top Five entries. Their biggest-selling single was the aforementioned “Under the Moon of Love”, which sold 985,000 copies.
Early in 2008, the band finished recording their album, The Sun Album released on Voiceprint Records. In September 2011, lead singer Dave Bartram released his long-lost solo recordings from 1982-85 on Invisible Hands Music. The original tapes had been in his loft for 25 years. The seventeen track album was entitled Lost and Found.
Despite the hits drying up three decades ago, Showaddywaddy have continued to tour and still do around 100 dates a year in the UK and Europe.
