Herman's Hermits

In the 1960s, Herman's Hermits emerged as one of those peculiar bands that attracted enormous crowds of admirers while earning almost no critical esteem. Their situation closely paralleled the Monkees, which is understandable since both acts shaped their material to attract younger teenagers. The Monkees, however, started earning respect from informed listeners by 1976, whereas Herman's Hermits required many additional years before their recordings received comparable reevaluation. This absence of critical approval never impeded their commercial results: twenty singles reached the Top 40 in both Britain and the United States between 1964 and 1970, sixteen of them climbed into the Top 20, and most of those also entered the Top 10. Reviewers ranked them well beneath the Hollies, the Searchers, and Gerry & the Pacemakers on artistic grounds, yet their sales placed them only slightly behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Their rapid rise to fame looked unlikely given their unassuming start. Guitarist and singer Keith Hopwood, born October 26, 1946, bassist and singer Karl Green, born July 31, 1947, guitarist and singer Derek "Lek" Leckenby, born May 14, 1945, and drummer Barry Whitwam, born July 21, 1946, ranked among the younger players on the Manchester circuit when they formed the Heartbeats in 1963. The city already supported dozens of promising groups, including the Hollies, the Mockingbirds, and Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders. Later that year, sixteen-year-old Peter Noone, born November 5, 1947, joined after their regular singer missed a performance; Noone had already trained at the Manchester School of Music and Drama and appeared as a child actor on the television series Coronation Street in the late 1950s. He initially performed with the Heartbeats under the name Peter Novak. The five musicians followed the usual route of local club and dance engagements while managers Harvey Lisberg and Charlie Silverman took them on.

Stories differ about how the final name arose: some trace it to Lisberg and Silverman noticing Noone's likeness to the character Sherman from the Jay Ward cartoon "Mr. Peabody & Sherman," while others credit Karl Green with the suggestion. Whatever the source, "Sherman" became "Herman," and the band evolved from Herman & His Hermits into Herman's Hermits. They performed melodic rock & roll drawn mostly from late-1950s and early-1960s standards, with Noone's vocals leading the way. Their breakthrough arrived in 1964 when producer Mickie Most attended a Manchester show at the invitation of Lisberg and Silverman. Most responded to their wholesome image, Noone's singing, and his friendly stage manner, then secured a contract with EMI-Columbia in Britain and arranged for MGM Records to handle American releases.

Their first single, the Carole King and Gerry Goffin composition "I'm Into Something Good," appeared in summer 1964 and reached number one in Britain and number 13 in the United States. The track carried a smooth, transatlantic quality rather than a distinctly British one. In keeping with Most's usual approach, the Hermits themselves played on few of their recordings; the producer preferred polished results over extended rehearsal time, so long as Noone's voice appeared and the backing could be recreated live. Session musicians, among them Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, supplied most instrumental work, while the other members contributed only background vocals when needed. The band members themselves had limited say over song selection, especially on singles.

They welcomed the hits, the income, and the bookings that followed. Six Top 20 singles appeared each year in 1965 and 1966, and the group headlined package tours across both countries. Their releases offered polished pop and rock that resembled easy-listening versions of British Invasion sounds, setting them apart from many contemporaries. Covers such as Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World," which reached number four in America, and the Rays' "Silhouettes" typified their singles, while their EPs and early albums included older rock & roll numbers like Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise." They delivered romantic material just as the Beatles absorbed Bob Dylan influences and as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Who shifted toward louder, more complex sounds.

Most understood that many listeners still preferred the simpler style of 1964 and earlier. The extent of this appeal became clear after the American release of Introducing Herman's Hermits on MGM in 1965, which coincided with their first U.S. tour. A disc jockey played "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter" and persuaded the label to issue it as a single. The group had recorded the song almost as a joke, with guitar and banjo accompaniment and Noone delivering a Mancunian-accented vocal deliberately styled after 1930s and 1940s music-hall performer George Formby. In Britain the track would never have been considered for release, but American listeners treated it as another piece of British Invasion pop; it reached number one and earned a gold record. Worldwide sales eventually totaled fourteen million copies. The same tour led to the band's first film appearance in When the Boys Meet the Girls. Britain never released "Mrs. Brown" as a single.

Thereafter Most guided the group toward additional period pieces for the American market, including the Edwardian music-hall song "I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am." The members reportedly disliked the choice for its potential effect on their image at home, yet it also topped the U.S. charts and received gold certification. While novelty tracks and albums succeeded in America, often reaching the Top 30, British releases followed a different path. The Hermits continued issuing romantic pop and rock that maintained their standing, though only their debut album charted there, at number 16. The British edition of their second album, Both Sides of Herman's Hermits, contained harder-edged tracks such as "Little Boy Sad," "Story of My Life," and "My Reservation's Been Confirmed," along with a straightforward version of Graham Gouldman's "Bus Stop" and one period piece, "Leaning on a Lamp Post." Later LPs, There's a Kind of Hush All Over the World and Blaze, which never appeared in Britain, further illustrated the group's range across hard rock, psychedelia, and pop, and included original material by Green, Hopwood, and Leckenby.

Record sales stayed strong in America into 1966, but British singles sales declined until Graham Gouldman's "No Milk Today" returned them to the U.K. Top 10; in America the song appeared as a double-sided hit with a cover of the Kinks' "Dandy." The band starred in the 1966 comedy Hold On!, which placed them in a story involving space flight. By the end of that year, however, their fortunes began to wane. Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, working with NBC and Columbia Pictures Television, created The Monkees, a series built around a fictional pop group aimed at the same young audience the Hermits had reached. The show debuted in late 1966, and the Monkees soon sold millions of records to those listeners. English actor and singer Davy Jones served as the Monkees' lead vocalist and heartthrob, reinforcing the parallel between the two acts. In 1967 the Monkees scored a major hit with "Daydream Believer," a song that might earlier have gone to Herman's Hermits.

The bright pop number "There's a Kind of Hush (All Over the World)" returned the Hermits to number seven in Britain and number four in America. An attempt to capture folk-rock and psychedelic interest with Donovan's "Museum" failed to chart in Britain and peaked at number 37 in the United States. They reached the American Top 20 once more with "Don't Go out Into the Rain." Their final feature film, Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter, used the earlier hit as its title and centered on dog racing, giving Noone a starring role; it performed well at the box office in 1968. During this time Noone co-produced an album for songwriter and singer Graham Gouldman, with whom he later formed a partnership. After "Museum," the Hermits stayed closer to pop material and secured two more years of British hits before Noone departed in 1970. The remaining members continued for three additional years, releasing singles on RCA in America that received little attention. Noone rejoined briefly in 1973 to take part in the rock & roll revival, and he hosted an episode of NBC's The Midnight Special devoted to British Invasion music. In 1980 he fronted a new band, the Tremblers, with limited success. He later appeared in a successful West End production of The Pirates of Penzance in the mid-1980s. Both Noone and later versions of Herman's Hermits have performed on oldies tours celebrating the British Invasion era. Derek Leckenby died in 1994 at age 48, while Barry Whitwam continued to lead a version of the group into the twenty-first century. Noone resumed regular performing and worked as a VJ on VH1. In 2000, Repertoire Records issued expanded CD editions of the Hermits' albums with bonus tracks that highlighted the full scope of their recordings, finally granting them a level of recognition long afforded to the Monkees.