Fact #116411

Alvin Stardust - by Johnny Black. (This feature was first published in Music Week in 2010)

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention, and no-one knows that better than Alvin Stardust.

The night before he exploded onto the mid-70s glitter scene via a mesmerizing first appearance on Top Of The Pops he almost destroyed his chances of appearing at all. Staring at himself in a mirror above the sink in a b+b in London's Sussex Gardens, he realized with shock that, "there was no way I could go on tv looking like that."

The Alvin Stardust story is, without question, one of the most extraordinary tales in British music biz history, filled with twists and turns that no-one would believe if not for the fact that they're all true.

The man who was born Bernard Jewry in London's Mile End Road has, for example, twice found fame by inheriting a name that was never intended for him, jammed with Buddy Holly when he was thirteen, turned down a Beatles-penned song that subsequently launched another artist to stardom and created the foundation for an indie label that later became the UK's No1 singles company, but that's just scratching the surface.

Little wonder then that no less an authority than Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones once dubbed him “The Godfather Of British Rock n’ Roll”.

That unforgettable Top Of The Pops moment, for example, came on November 15, 1973. Just one month earlier, the Alvin Stardust who had made his first tv appearance on the pop show Lift Off, was an entirely different person – he was songwriter and producer Peter Shelley.

Shelley, now living and working in Canada, had started Magnet Records earlier that year with former accountant Michael Levy, now Lord Levy. "To get the ball rolling," reveals Shelley, "I decided to invent an artiste and record a one-off single. I wrote, produced and sang My Coo-Ca-Choo."

To Shelley's surprise, Magnet's promotions person Ann Bishop, secured a tv appearance for the imaginary Alvin, leaving Shelley with no option but to go on tv and bluff it out. "I dressed the part – a glitter-suited recluse who had been living in Spain – and to my surprise it went on the charts the next week."

Shelley, however, had no wish to carry on as Alvin so it became necessary to find someone who could bring this extraordinary character to life in time for a fast-approaching Top Of The Pops.

"Peter had asked Marty Wilde if he wanted to sing My Coo-Ca-Choo," remembers Alvin, "but Marty wasn't interested. So then my agent Hal Carter suggested to Michael Levy that I should do it."
There was however, the small matter of the image. The man we now know and love as Alvin Stardust had already enjoyed one successful career, as pop idol Shane Fenton in the early 1960s. His moodily chiseled features and striking blonde hair were known throughout the business and to many thousands of fans.

So Shane Fenton set about re-inventing himself. Instead of Shelley's glitter-look, he devised a black leather image, modeled on a combination of elements from Gene Vincent and movie star Jack Palance.

"I also had some old Mexican Aztec silver rings with some black onyx, and I passed a shop in Soho called The Great Frog and noticed some very similar rings in the window," he remembers. "Black and silver, I realized, would look great."

Levy and Shelley loved the new look but, on that fateful night before Top Of The Pops, Alvin decided to go one step further. "I went to Woolworths and bought some black dye to change my hair colour."

It was only when he raised his head up from the sink that he saw the black streaks all down the side of his face and stains all over his hands. "My fingernails had gone purple," he laughs. "I couldn't wash it off."

The next morning found him at Wig Creations, the company that had made Sean Connery's toupee for his role as James Bond. "They had these long black sideburns which were perfect for covering up the stains on my face, so they fitted them right then and there."

Across the street was a lady's outfitters where Alvin purchased a pair of tight-fitting black leather gloves to cover up the stains on his hands. "When I got to the Top Of The Pops studio, I realized my chunky rings wouldn't go under the gloves, so I slipped them on over the top." Et voila, the ensemble was complete and an image was born.

There was one further moment of anxiety at Top Of The Pops when presenter Tony Blackburn came towards Alvin. "Tony knew me from the old days," grins Alvin. "So I knew he was going to say, 'Aren't you Shane Fenton?' Luckily, we had anticipated that sort of thing so I'd gone to the studio with four burly minders to enhance the man of mystery image, and they hustled me away before Tony could reach me."

The new Alvin Stardust proved a sensation. Peter Shelley's imaginary pop star was now re-incarnated as the enigmatic man in black, and My Coo-Ca-Choo rocketed to No2, in the UK and charted worldwide, eventually becoming Australia's best-selling single of the year.

"After My Coo-Ca-Choo it was simply a matter of ensuring he got great songs with great production, which was down to Peter Shelley," recalls Lord Levy. "Alvin was a great self-publicist, he looked terrific on television, and we made him a major star worldwide."

His next single, Jealous Mind, did even better, reaching the coveted No1 slot in March 1974. "By then, I'd won a Music Week Award as best male live act," he remembers, "and Peter was writing songs based on how I performed on stage."

Inevitably, of course, Alvin's former incarnation as Shane Fenton was teased out by the media. Although erasing Shane Fenton had been essential to the creation of Alvin Stardust, it's clear that Alvin remains extremely proud of his early 60s achievements.

"My family moved from London up to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire when I was young," he explains, "and I became a huge music fan as a teenager. I took my guitar along to gigs with me and, on a couple of occasions, it helped me get backstage to meet legendary rockers like Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent."

The Buddy Holly encounter was at the Doncaster Gaumont on March 17, 1958, where Alvin not only got Buddy to sign his guitar, but was allowed to sing Peggy Sue with his idol in the backstage dressing room. He later met Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent at The Palace, Manchester, and had the foresight to get them to sign his guitar as well.

With subsequent additions of autographs from Bill Haley, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Alvin's £1.10/- guitar is now valued at over £1m.

His devotion to rock'n'roll, of course, led to young Bernard Jewry's involvement with a Mansfield band called Johnny Theakston and The Tremolos. Tragically, Johnny Theakston died from rheumatic fever just as the band received an invitation to appear on the influential BBC radio show Saturday Club. "The band was devastated and decided to split up but that show was getting 25m listeners a week," points out Alvin.

To the band's amazement, Johnny Theakston's parents intervened. "They came and told us Johnny wouldn't have wanted the band to miss out on that opportunity, so would we carry on with me singing." Not only that, but they requested that Bernard should adopt the name Shane Fenton which was what Johnny had planned to call himself if the band took off.

As Shane Fenton and The Fentones they carved out a considerable career on Parlophone Records, with hits including I'm A Moody Guy and Cindy's Birthday recorded at Abbey Road.

Alvin still vividly remembers the day producer George Martin played him a demo of a track called Love Me Do. "Right away I recognized it as The Beatles because we played in lots of the same clubs," remembers Alvin. "I told him not to sign them because there was a much better Liverpool group called The Big Three but luckily he didn't take my advice."

Some months later, The Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, approached Shane and offered to manage him. "He said he had a song, Do You Want To Know A Secret, which would be ideal for me. I turned him down because I already had a great manager, Tommy Sanderson, who I was very loyal to." Just weeks later, Do you Want To Know A Secret launched Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas to the kind of international success that unfortunately eluded Shane Fenton and the Fentones.

It didn't, however, elude Alvin Stardust. "By the time I started at Magnet Records in 1976," remembers PR consultant Judy Totton, "Alvin was a star everywhere and Magnet Records had become the No1 singles label in the UK which, of course, might never have happened if My Coo-Ca-Choo hadn't been a hit."

When his run of hits at Magnet ended, Alvin was ready to say farewell to stardom. "I'd had two very fair cracks of the whip," he points out, "so I couldn't grumble, and people were laughing at the glam acts. It was all over."

That's when a call from a former Magnet promotions man, Pete Waterman, put Alvin back on the map. "Pete rang up my manager at the time, Roy Massey, and said, 'I've got a fabulous song here, it's a number one. We should do it with Alvin.'"

The song, Pretend, was a golden oldie which had first provided a hit for Nat King Cole in 1953, but it was a rockabilly version by Carl Mann which Waterman realized would be perfect for Alvin. "We also thought it was a hit," notes Alvin, "but we didn't think we had any hope of getting a record deal."

They reckoned, however, without Dave Robinson at Stiff Records. After being turned down by several labels, Waterman and producer Peter Collins took it to Robinson who immediately saw the potential. "So I agreed to meet up with Alvin," recalls Robinson. "Of course, I could remember him as Shane Fenton, and I'd always liked him then, the image was good and his delivery of the songs was great. I'd grown up listening to rockabilly so I could see where he was coming from with Pretend."

The result was another comeback, peaking at No4 in 1981, but Pretend proved difficult to follow up until, as songwriter Mike Batt remembers, "I had written a song, I Feel Like Buddy Holly, inspired by watching planes come in on the early morning flights. My girlfriend was supposed to be on one of those flights but she was an Australian soap actress and her series got renewed, so she never made it. It was raining, which gave me idea for the line, 'I feel like Buddy Holly, cause it's raining in my heart.'"

When Batt was dining one night with Alvin and his actress wife, Lisa Goddard, he played the song to them and Alvin immediately loved it. "We recorded it in a day," says Batt. "I gave myself four hours to mix it, which I sometimes do to keep things fresh. It just sounded like a hit from the start."

Once more, this time on Chrysalis Records, Alvin was off and running up the charts, peaking at No7 with it and with the follow-up I Won't Run Away, in 1984.

in the 90s, Alvin was drawn away from music as he pursued a rewarding acting career, with prominent roles in tv series including Hollyoaks, Doctors and The Grimleys, as well as West End stage successes in Godspell, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and David Copperfield.

"But I eventually realized how much I was missing my music," he says. "I particularly wanted to get back to making music the way I'd done it in the early days, live and fresh in the studio."

This heartfelt ambition was realized via a liaison with former General Manager of Hansa Records and Divisional MD of Pinnacle Records, Paul Lynton who, like Alvin, had found himself increasingly removed from the nitty gritty of music making and was keen to get back in harness. "I went round his house with my guitar and a little recorder," says Alvin. "He sat at the piano, and we'd written a song in about half an hour. A couple of days later we got together again and wrote another one. It felt really easy because we were enjoying it so much."

The end result is the new album, I Love Rock 'N' Roll, which, he feels, finally presents the real Alvin Stardust to the world. "At last, no-one is telling me what to wear, what to write, what to sing," he declares with evident relish. "I feel like I'm being me for the first time in ages." He pauses for just a heartbeat, then adds, "In fact, since I was a teenager."