Chicory Tip
Encyclopedia
Chicory Tip is a British pop
group
from Maidstone
, Kent
, originally comprising; vocalist Peter Hewson (born 1 September 1945, in Gillingham
); guitarist
Rick Foster (born Richard Foster 7 July 1946); bass guitar
ist Barry Mayger (born 1 June 1946, Maidstone); drum
mer Brian Shearer (born 4 May 1951, Lewisham
, South East London
); and guitarist and keyboard player
Rod Cloutt (born Roderick Cloutt, 26 January 1949, Gillingham).
Chicory Tip only released a few records in the US
, and their name was shortened to just Chicory for the US market.
) that reminded him of chicory
, and they were signed to CBS Records
. The first few singles
flopped, although "Excuse Me Baby" in 1971 secured the band its first appearance on the BBC Television
pop music
programme, Top of the Pops
.
The group's finest moment came after studio
manager
Roger Easterby came across an advance copy of "Son of my Father
", a song
written
by Giorgio Moroder
and Pete Bellotte
. Convinced of its potential, he secured the option to rush record the group's own cover version
in competition with the original. The result was a Number One
hit
in the UK Singles Chart
for three weeks in February 1972. It was one of the first hit single
s to prominently feature a Moog synthesizer
(in this case played by studio engineer and record producer
, Chris Thomas
). It sold over one million copies by July 1972, and was awarded a gold disc
.
Two further Top 20 hits in similar vein followed, "What's Your Name", and "Good Grief Christina" which also managed number 4 in Norway. Another release, "Cigarettes, Women and Wine" was heavily played on Radio Luxembourg
but failed to chart, in the UK probably owing to a BBC Radio 1
ban because of its references to smoking, however it did make the Norwegian charts at number 8.
The group released one album
, also entitled Son Of My Father.
Although it brought success, the band resented its image as a pure pop band and on stage its sound was much closer to heavy rock
and the group claimed it was more like Deep Purple
. However, it never succeeded in broadening its appeal to an older audience. The group disbanded in 1975, but later reformed to play gigs on the 1970s revival nostalgia circuit. A later band was formed under Peter Hewsen, with John Wilson, and Trevor Price, but they split, and Chicory Tip is still on the circuit with three original members.
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
group
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
from Maidstone
Maidstone
Maidstone is the county town of Kent, England, south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town linking Maidstone to Rochester and the Thames Estuary. Historically, the river was a source and route for much of the town's trade. Maidstone was the centre of the agricultural...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, originally comprising; vocalist Peter Hewson (born 1 September 1945, in Gillingham
Gillingham, Kent
Gillingham is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in South East England. It is part of the ceremonial county of Kent. The town includes the settlements of Brompton, Hempstead, Rainham, Rainham Mark and Twydall....
); guitarist
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
Rick Foster (born Richard Foster 7 July 1946); bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
ist Barry Mayger (born 1 June 1946, Maidstone); drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
mer Brian Shearer (born 4 May 1951, Lewisham
Lewisham
Lewisham is a district in South London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
, South East London
South East (London sub region)
The South East is a sub-region of the London Plan corresponding to the London Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark. The sub region was established in 2008. The south east has a population of 1,300,000 and is the location of 500,000 jobs...
); and guitarist and keyboard player
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
Rod Cloutt (born Roderick Cloutt, 26 January 1949, Gillingham).
Chicory Tip only released a few records in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and their name was shortened to just Chicory for the US market.
Career
The band formed in 1967, their name having been chosen by Barry Mayger who saw a coffee bottle (probably Camp CoffeeCamp Coffee
Camp Coffee is a Scottish food product, which began production in 1876 by Paterson & Sons Ltd. in a plant on Charlotte St, Glasgow. Almost one-hundred years later in 1974 businessman Daniel Jenks merged with Paterson to form Paterson Jenks plc. In 1984, Paterson Jenks plc was bought by McCormick &...
) that reminded him of chicory
Chicory
Common chicory, Cichorium intybus, is a somewhat woody, perennial herbaceous plant usually with bright blue flowers, rarely white or pink. Various varieties are cultivated for salad leaves, chicons , or for roots , which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute and additive. It is also...
, and they were signed to CBS Records
CBS Records
CBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...
. The first few singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
flopped, although "Excuse Me Baby" in 1971 secured the band its first appearance on the BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
programme, Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
.
The group's finest moment came after studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
manager
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
Roger Easterby came across an advance copy of "Son of my Father
Son of my Father
"Son Of My Father" is a song popularised by Chicory Tip. Giorgio Moroder, the co-writer, also recorded it and had a minor hit.Originally written by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte in Italian as Tu sei mio padre and recorded under the moniker Giorgio. A copy found its way to studio manager Roger...
", a song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
written
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
by Giorgio Moroder
Giorgio Moroder
Hansjörg "Giorgio" Moroder is an Italian record producer, songwriter and performer based in Los Angeles. When in Munich in the 1970s, he started his own record label called Oasis Records, which several years later became a subdivision of Casablanca Records...
and Pete Bellotte
Pete Bellotte
Peter J. Bellotte is a British songwriter and record producer, most famous for hismain body of work with Donna Summer alongside his partner Giorgio Moroder...
. Convinced of its potential, he secured the option to rush record the group's own cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
in competition with the original. The result was a Number One
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
for three weeks in February 1972. It was one of the first hit single
Hit single
A hit single is a recorded song or instrumental released as a single that has become very popular. Although it is sometimes used to describe any widely-played or big-selling song, the term "hit" is usually reserved for a single that has appeared in an official music chart through repeated radio...
s to prominently feature a Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
(in this case played by studio engineer and record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, Chris Thomas
Chris Thomas (record producer)
Chris Thomas is an English record producer who has worked extensively with The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Roxy Music, Badfinger, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Pulp and The Pretenders. He has also produced breakthrough albums for The Sex Pistols and INXS.Thomas is quoted as saying -Early life:Thomas was...
). It sold over one million copies by July 1972, and was awarded a gold disc
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
.
Two further Top 20 hits in similar vein followed, "What's Your Name", and "Good Grief Christina" which also managed number 4 in Norway. Another release, "Cigarettes, Women and Wine" was heavily played on Radio Luxembourg
Radio Luxembourg (English)
Radio Luxembourg is a commercial broadcaster in many languages from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is nowadays known in most non-English languages as RTL ....
but failed to chart, in the UK probably owing to a BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
ban because of its references to smoking, however it did make the Norwegian charts at number 8.
The group released one album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
, also entitled Son Of My Father.
Although it brought success, the band resented its image as a pure pop band and on stage its sound was much closer to heavy rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
and the group claimed it was more like Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
. However, it never succeeded in broadening its appeal to an older audience. The group disbanded in 1975, but later reformed to play gigs on the 1970s revival nostalgia circuit. A later band was formed under Peter Hewsen, with John Wilson, and Trevor Price, but they split, and Chicory Tip is still on the circuit with three original members.