Dave Sampson

In the early 1960s Dave Sampson & the Hunters issued five singles and an EP whose style closely mirrored that of Cliff Richard & the Shadows. Their approach drew on the milder traits of Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson while featuring the bright, reverberant guitar tones that evoked surf and Hawaiian music. The resemblance to Richard was unsurprising, given that he helped Sampson obtain an EMI recording contract. Although the artist's opening release, "Sweet Dreams," reached the British Top 30 in 1960, none of the follow-up tracks entered the charts. Sampson showed modest strengths by writing two of his own singles, one of which was "Sweet Dreams," and by occasionally reaching a refined rockabilly feel, yet his gifts were only average and most of the songs supplied to him proved too bland to leave any lasting mark before his final single appeared in 1962.