by JimN » 15 Apr 2012, 12:38
The Move came to fame in around 1966 on the crest of the first wave of the psychedelia craze, and were clearly initially well-managed and guided. They were marked by exceptional musical facility, a knack for songwriting and a great ability for multi-part harmony. Though they were originally very conventional in image (wearing suits, with non-extravagant hairstyles by the standards of the day, etc), they almost immediately got themselves into some sort of trouble with Prime Minister Harold Wilson (can't remember exactly what it was, but whatever it cost them was worth its weight in gold) and gradually started to move to a more dissolute image.
Not that their looser image of 1967 meant loss of business acumen - they were keen endorsers of Park amplification and of Rotosound strings, for instance. And though the first record ever played on Radio One (autumn 1967) was actually Theme One by the George Martin Orchestra, it has gone down in legend that The Move's I Can Hear The Grass Grow had that honour (it didn't). The Move's hit records were always well-constructed, beautifully-arranged and well-recorded.
The group started to fall apart around 1968, with the loss of second guitarist Trevor Burton after a newspaper revelation which these days, would probably cause a prime minister to leap to his defence. The group continued as a four-piece (singer Carl Wayne also played guitar, meaning that the loss of a rhythm player probably wasn't disastrous) and continued to have hits until the late 60s, when the band split and part of it - with replacement members including Jeff Lynne - evolved into the Electric Light Orchestra (with a later split becoming Roy Wood's Wizzard). Not long before that, it had become clear that drummer Bev Bevan had always been a Shads fan when the group publicly invited Hank to join The Move during one of its transitional personnel phases (early 1969).
Even later, it became clear that lead vocalist Carl (always the most conventional of the band) had a penchant for what early UK r'n'r singers used to call "class material". He became a cabaret singer of standard songs in a sub-Sinatra/Jack Jones sort of way - and had regular appearances on BBC TV's programming from Birmingham (in the days when UK TV took notice of anywhere except London and Manchester). I seem to remember that Carl was married to an actress in ATV Midlands' long-running soap-opera "Crossroads" (Miss Diane?).
The Move were an exceptional group, not to be confused with the dross of the rest of the mid-late-sixties scene.
JN