Biography
Anyone familiar with Liverpool's girl-group legacy immediately thinks of the Liverbirds, that hard-edged all-female rock & roll unit capable of trading blows with the toughest acts on the Hamburg circuit. Yet the same port city produced another, more conventionally styled vocal trio that left a modest footprint: the ravishing blond Three Bells. Because the members were sisters, the group had already been functioning as a unit well before they first entered a studio for Pye in 1961. Carol and Sue Bell were identical twins, while their sibling Jean so closely resembled them that outsiders frequently mistook the three for identical triplets—an impression confirmed by their appearance in the film The Ghost Goes Gear, issued on DVD by Anchor Bay in spring 2000. Their initial 1961 sessions yielded little commercial traction, the era’s musical climate still running ahead of their particular style. The act resurfaced in late 1964 on the EMI/Columbia roster, now working with Dusty Springfield’s arranger Ivor Raymonde; the result was the U.K. hit “Softly in the Night,” a soulful girl-group standout. Subsequent moves to English Decca and then Pye prompted a name change to the Satin Bells. Their vocal approach blended European and American reference points—France Gall on one side, Brenda & the Tabulations on the other—through soaring harmonies and intricate voice-weaving that recalled the most sophisticated doo-wop ensembles of the late 1950s.