Biography
Originally known as Four Hits & A Miss, the Chester quintet featured Rita Hughes, a teenager whose father ran a local pub, as its lead vocalist for roughly a year. Their early set lists drew on standards such as “Lullaby of Birdland.” The band quickly became Chester’s most popular act and, in 1963, signed with Pye Records while Hughes was still seventeen; the label prompted the name change to Jeannie and the Big Guys. Their lone Pye coupling paired the Shirelles’ “Boys”—a number the group may have encountered through the Beatles—with the Ray Charles staple “Sticks and Stones,” yet neither side registered on the charts. Though the musicians delivered a solid Mersey-inflected brand of rhythm and blues, the lineup dissolved after Hughes departed following a publicized disagreement over backstage etiquette. She next fronted the Liverpool outfit Earl Royce and the Olympics, led by Billy Kally under his stage alias Earl Royce, though she never recorded with them. Adopting the name Cindy Cole, she subsequently issued the solo singles “A Love Like Yours” and “Lonely City Blue Boy.” Hughes later built a thriving cabaret career in Chester and died in 1989.