Biography
The Bo Street Runners earned their slender notoriety chiefly through the brief membership of a teenage Mick Fleetwood. One among the numerous R&B-rooted London combos that surfaced amid the British Invasion, the group never approached the charts yet still issued roughly an album’s worth of recordings between 1964 and 1966: four singles on Decca and Columbia plus a scarce, limited-run EP. Although their style remained largely imitative and unexceptional beside the era’s leading R&B-inclined British bands, most of the tracks proved at least competent, and a pair of stronger cuts continue to attract British Invasion enthusiasts.
Residency at the Railway Hotel first brought the band attention; the same club where the early Who honed their reputation through repeated appearances. In spring 1964 the Runners entered a talent contest staged by the pop television program Ready Steady Go, a requirement of which was submission of a demo recording. The resulting four-song, self-titled EP appeared in an edition of roughly one hundred copies that were sold directly to concertgoers. While the set stayed within conventional R&B parameters, it contained one standout number, “Bo Street Runner,” executed in the manner of the early Rolling Stones and Pretty Things. Victory in the October 1964 contest brought, among its prizes, a Decca recording contract. The band produced only a single Decca release—a marginally subdued reading of “Bo Street Runner”—before switching to Columbia, where three additional 45s were cut in 1965 and 1966.
On those later sides the group adopted a more soul-jazz orientation. The strongest selection, “Baby Never Gonna Say Goodbye,” featured a choked organ timbre and bossa-nova rhythm that lent it a resemblance to a tauter Georgie Fame; the song had been supplied by Tommy Moeller of Unit Four Plus Two, who shared management with the Runners and had previously written that act’s hit “Concrete and Clay.” Mick Fleetwood, lately of the Cheynes, played drums on the single. It failed to register commercially. After Fleetwood departed for Peter B’s Looners, the Runners attempted one final outing: a soul-styled treatment of the Beatles’ “Drive My Car” coupled with the eccentric, minor-key waltz “So Very Woman,” now fronted by new vocalist Mike Patto. The ensemble disbanded soon afterward. Patto pursued a short solo career before stints with the Chicago Line Blues Band, Timebox, Patto, and Spooky Tooth.
Residency at the Railway Hotel first brought the band attention; the same club where the early Who honed their reputation through repeated appearances. In spring 1964 the Runners entered a talent contest staged by the pop television program Ready Steady Go, a requirement of which was submission of a demo recording. The resulting four-song, self-titled EP appeared in an edition of roughly one hundred copies that were sold directly to concertgoers. While the set stayed within conventional R&B parameters, it contained one standout number, “Bo Street Runner,” executed in the manner of the early Rolling Stones and Pretty Things. Victory in the October 1964 contest brought, among its prizes, a Decca recording contract. The band produced only a single Decca release—a marginally subdued reading of “Bo Street Runner”—before switching to Columbia, where three additional 45s were cut in 1965 and 1966.
On those later sides the group adopted a more soul-jazz orientation. The strongest selection, “Baby Never Gonna Say Goodbye,” featured a choked organ timbre and bossa-nova rhythm that lent it a resemblance to a tauter Georgie Fame; the song had been supplied by Tommy Moeller of Unit Four Plus Two, who shared management with the Runners and had previously written that act’s hit “Concrete and Clay.” Mick Fleetwood, lately of the Cheynes, played drums on the single. It failed to register commercially. After Fleetwood departed for Peter B’s Looners, the Runners attempted one final outing: a soul-styled treatment of the Beatles’ “Drive My Car” coupled with the eccentric, minor-key waltz “So Very Woman,” now fronted by new vocalist Mike Patto. The ensemble disbanded soon afterward. Patto pursued a short solo career before stints with the Chicago Line Blues Band, Timebox, Patto, and Spooky Tooth.