Biography
Serving as the resident ensemble for the pioneering British television pop program Oh Boy! in the closing years of the 1950s, Lord Rockingham's XI supplied seamless transitions between guest performers while delivering boisterous instrumental support. Jack Good, the show's director, already possessed the ensemble's title—a pun on "rocking 'em"—and enlisted musical director Harry Robinson to assemble the necessary players. Robinson recruited a sizable roster that included Red Price and Rex Morris on tenor saxophone, Benny Greene and Cyril Reubens on baritone saxophone, Ronnie Black on double bass, South African organist Cherry Wainer, guitarists Bernie Taylor and Eric Ford, and percussionists Don Storer and Reg Weller. The resulting eleven-piece unit, counting Robinson himself, generated a thunderous wall of sound and driving beat that soon became indelibly linked with the broadcast.
Although Benny Greene later sustained an extensive career in jazz, late-fifties rock & roll dominated the era. Even with guest spots from vocalists such as Billy Fury and Marty Wilde, the most anticipated segments of Oh Boy! were frequently the Lord Rockingham's XI interludes, whose saxophone-heavy instrumental style would exert considerable influence on acts like Johnny & the Hurricanes and their string of late-fifties and early-sixties successes. Only thirty-eight episodes of the series were produced, with the band appearing in thirty-five, yet almost none of those performances remain preserved on videotape today. Viewers often wondered about the identity of the fictitious Lord Rockingham; a dispute subsequently arose between Jack Good, who had coined the name, and Harry Robinson, who had actually formed the group. Because demand for recordings outstripped the show's output, the two parties reached an accord granting Good continued use of the title for the television program and all related discs, while Robinson retained rights to the late-fifties U.K. concert tours. Record labels accordingly credited the act as Jack Good Presents Lord Rockingham's XI.
Their debut double-sided single, "Fried Onions" backed with "The Squelch," failed to register commercially despite the band's visibility. Success arrived with the follow-up, "Hoots Mon," an instrumental adaptation of the traditional Scottish melody "A Hundred Pipers." The track climbed to number one in November 1958 and sold more than half a million copies, though each musician reportedly earned only six pounds, roughly fifteen dollars at the time. Scottish-inflected grunts and spoken interjections punctuated the choruses. Early in 1959 they issued the modestly received "Wee Tom," and subsequent singles such as "Ra-Ra Rockingham," "Farewell to Rockingham," and the twist-oriented numbers "Newcastle Twist" and "Rockingham Twist" in 1962 likewise failed to reach the charts. With the close of the rock & roll period the ensemble disbanded, its members pursuing separate paths.
In 1968 EMI revived the name for an album supervised by Harry Robinson under the title The Return of Lord Rockingham. The collection revisited the number-one hit "Hoots Mon" alongside renditions of then-current singles including "Lady Madonna," "Yummy Yummy Yummy," "Mony Mony," "Baby Come Back," "Simon Says," and "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp." Marketed as suitable music for parties, dances, or solitary listening, the LP sold poorly and did not chart, leaving Lord Rockingham's XI firmly associated with the exuberance of the earlier rock & roll years.
Although Benny Greene later sustained an extensive career in jazz, late-fifties rock & roll dominated the era. Even with guest spots from vocalists such as Billy Fury and Marty Wilde, the most anticipated segments of Oh Boy! were frequently the Lord Rockingham's XI interludes, whose saxophone-heavy instrumental style would exert considerable influence on acts like Johnny & the Hurricanes and their string of late-fifties and early-sixties successes. Only thirty-eight episodes of the series were produced, with the band appearing in thirty-five, yet almost none of those performances remain preserved on videotape today. Viewers often wondered about the identity of the fictitious Lord Rockingham; a dispute subsequently arose between Jack Good, who had coined the name, and Harry Robinson, who had actually formed the group. Because demand for recordings outstripped the show's output, the two parties reached an accord granting Good continued use of the title for the television program and all related discs, while Robinson retained rights to the late-fifties U.K. concert tours. Record labels accordingly credited the act as Jack Good Presents Lord Rockingham's XI.
Their debut double-sided single, "Fried Onions" backed with "The Squelch," failed to register commercially despite the band's visibility. Success arrived with the follow-up, "Hoots Mon," an instrumental adaptation of the traditional Scottish melody "A Hundred Pipers." The track climbed to number one in November 1958 and sold more than half a million copies, though each musician reportedly earned only six pounds, roughly fifteen dollars at the time. Scottish-inflected grunts and spoken interjections punctuated the choruses. Early in 1959 they issued the modestly received "Wee Tom," and subsequent singles such as "Ra-Ra Rockingham," "Farewell to Rockingham," and the twist-oriented numbers "Newcastle Twist" and "Rockingham Twist" in 1962 likewise failed to reach the charts. With the close of the rock & roll period the ensemble disbanded, its members pursuing separate paths.
In 1968 EMI revived the name for an album supervised by Harry Robinson under the title The Return of Lord Rockingham. The collection revisited the number-one hit "Hoots Mon" alongside renditions of then-current singles including "Lady Madonna," "Yummy Yummy Yummy," "Mony Mony," "Baby Come Back," "Simon Says," and "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp." Marketed as suitable music for parties, dances, or solitary listening, the LP sold poorly and did not chart, leaving Lord Rockingham's XI firmly associated with the exuberance of the earlier rock & roll years.
Albums
