FURYS TORNADOS - THEIR BILLY FURY STORY
The first contact with Billy was in 1970 when he was auditioning for a new backing band. John Miles had been with him up to that point, but with Billy’s blessing had gone on to have his own hits (“Music”, ”Highfly” etc.).So it was that the newly formed Nottingham band “Milky Way”, walked into The Pied Bull in Islington.
The musician on the Hammond organ, Stuart “Charlie” Elston, the bands leader, caught Billy and his manager Hal Carter’s attention immediately. Although only 19 years of age he had already served his dues playing the American bases in Germany and Spain, a long tour in Morocco and a residency at the famous “Star Club” in Hamburg. The band were hired.
On the 5th.August 1972, Billy played the London Rock & Roll show at the Wembley Stadium, along with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Bill Haley & the Comets. This was the last gig with the old line up. Drummer John “Rags” Raynor joins.(“I missed Wembley by one week !”) very quickly followed by guitarist Chris Raynor. This line up remained untitled until they released the Billy Fury/Hal Carter produced single “Telstar ‘74” to coincide with the Derek Block national theatre tour of “The 1974 Rock and Roll Show” starring Billy, along with Marty Wilde, Heinz, Tommy Bruce and others. During this period they were augmented by bass guitarist/vocalist Bobby Caple from Derby. (Prior to this Charlie had been playing Billy’s very complicated bass lines on his Hammond foot pedals).
At the beginning of 1975 Furys Tornados went in different directions and Billy briefly took on a band from Leeds. Charlie went into very diverse musical directions (he played for 60’s group the Casuals(“Jesamine”), American vocal group The Tymes (“Ms. Grace”, ”So much in love”, ”You little trustmaker”),and the cult progressive/classical outfit The Enid. Chris and John went on joined by bassist John Chambers to play for Marty Wilde but by July of 1975 they were back playing for Billy. Charlie would come back for the odd television and radio appearance. So it stayed until 1977 when Billy was forced to retire through ill health.
They were asked to re- form for Billy’s 1982 comeback, but reluctantly declined on being informed by Billy’s long term partner Lisa that he wasn’t well enough. Her concerns proved justified. Billy died of a heart attack at their London home on 28th. January 1983.
His funeral was at 1pm at the Saint John’s Wood church NW8 on Friday 4th. February 1983.Charlie,Chris and Bobby attended.
Furys Tornados remain Billys longest serving band.
In the summer of 1996 Chris & John spotted Londoner Colin Gould on Granada Televisions “Stars In Their Eyes” as Billy. Rehearsals soon began in Nottingham for a new show about Billy Fury’s life & music, and on the 14th. February 1997 “The Billy Fury Experience” played its first show at the Beck Theatre in Hayes, Middlesex to a capacity crowd. By 1999 the show had changed beyond all recognition and had morphed into “Halfway To Paradise - The Billy Fury Story”. Charlie Elston re-joined the line up in late 2000.The show continues to perform with -
- Charlie Elston - Grand piano/keyboards/vocals - Born 2/7/51 Nottingham
- John Raynor - Drums/percussion/vocals - Born 29/1/51 Nottingham
- Chris Raynor - Lead guitar/vocals - Born 19/7/48 Nottingham
- Graham Wyvill - Bass guitar/double bass/vocals - Born 26/4/50 Cleethorpes, Lincs.
- Colin Gold - Vocals - Born 17/5/62 Ashford, Middlesex
Don’t forget of course - iTunes is free to download!
Here’s a direct link to the page….
‘50 Years of Fury’ on iTunes Vol 1
1 Forget Him - View In iTunes
2 A Thousand Stars - View In iTunes
3 Like I’ve Never Been Gone - View In iTunes
4 Colette - View In iTunes
5 Wondrous Place - View In iTunes
6 That’s Love - View In iTunes
7 Maybe Tomorrow - View In iTunes
8 Last Night Was Made for Love - View In iTunes
9 I Will - View In iTunes
10 That’s Alright Mama - View In iTunes
11 Jealousy - View In iTunes
12 In Thoughts of You - View In iTunes
13 Do You Really Love Me Too (Fool’s Errand) - View In iTunes
14 I’d Never Find Another You - View In iTunes
15 When Will You Say I Love You - View In iTunes
16 Once Upon a Dream - View In iTunes
17 It’s Only Make Believe - View In iTunes
18 Halfway to Paradise -View In iTunes
‘50 Years of Fury’ on iTunes Vol 2
1 Halfway to Paradise - View In iTunes
2 Cross My Heart - View In iTunes
3 Nobody’s Child - View In iTunes
4 Don’t Knock Upon My Door - View In iTunes
5 Because of Love - View In iTunes
6 Diamonds / Scarlett O’Hara / Hoots Mon - View In iTunes
7 In Summer - View In iTunes
8 Gonna Type a Letter - View In iTunes
9 Somebody Else’s Girl - View In iTunes
10 Margo / I’m Lost Without You - View In iTunes
11 Devil or Angel - View In iTunes
12 Walk, Don’t Run / Perfidia / Just Like Eddie / Hit & Miss - View In iTunes
13 Nothin’ Shakin’ (But the Leaves On the Trees) - View In iTunes
14 Billisa (Piano Solo) Colin Gold, Fury’s Tornados & Charlie Elston - View In iTunes
15 Play It Cool - View In iTunes
16 All the Way to Paradise (Song for Billy) - View In iTunes
17 Run to My Lovin’ Arms - View In iTunes
18 Halfway to Paradise - View in iTunes
March 2010.
Many Thanks yet again to Jac and Gonnie and their family - came again to Dudley and sent us this pic in - Good to see you all, and thanks for your continued support!
8th October 2009
Many thanks to Deborah Spencer and her mum Jillian Pateman who came to see us at Grimsby on Oct 2nd this year. She kindly sent us the four pics below to post up on this page. Thanks to you both!… we hope to see you again soon, and thanks for your kind comments on the show - we’re please you enjoyed yourselves!
29 Aug 2009.
The first one to make it here onto the page is a lovely couple from Holland who have flown into the UK twice - just to see the show! We’d like to express our appreciation to Jac and Gonnie for their dedication in following our production - and here’s two pictures of this fabulous couple. The top one was taken at our Llandudno show, the second at Liverpool - as you can see from the iconic Billy statue commanding the view across the magnificent Mersey. Make sure if you visit Liverpool you pay it a visit - it captures Billy’s stage presence perfectly.
On the 8th of June the technical crew embarked on a 3 day mission: Objection - To make all gear safe, but most importantly of all, to make things look pretty!
11:00 am. We took the truck down to our storage place, and completely emptied it, front to back, floor to ceiling. We laid all the Racks, Drums, Amplifiers, P.A. across the floor all neat and tidy ready to be PAT tested by our electrical man Dave. But it didn’t stay tidy for long! (see photos)
When your on the road, it doesn’t take much before gear starts to let you down, and that’s exactly what you don’t want. So it’s always best to make a set period and give it a ‘Service’ so its safe to use, reliable, and most of all Roadie Friendly! So this is what we did, striped things out of racks, condensed a lot of stuff to make things lighter, a lick of paint here and there, added a few more gadgets to make the running of the show smoother and generally give everything the once over. Its just a shame we couldn’tget the band in, they could do with a lick of paint too!
So this went on for a good 3 days, we even had the help of the beat man himself ‘Johnny boy Raynor’.
A few old faces popped in to see how things were going, Ex roadie Ryan and the bass maestro Mr Graham Wyvill (Old Faces, get It!)
At the end of the 3 days we had a lot less gear to cart around with us, a lot less weight to move and a much slicker running show. So i think you can say . . . Mission Successful ! ! !
Here’s a few snaps we took along the way, Enjoy!
Danny & Ricky G
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Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
Danny G - Drum/Lighting Technician
10 O’clock. . Beep Beep Beep (that’s the Alarm) Yawn . . Stumble out of bed into the shower.
Once Clean and smelling like roses, run down stairs to swallow a nice hot cup of tea, ready to be picked up by the truck.
Come 11 O’clock, the truck arrives with the driver and Ryan (Projection Engineer). So I open the front door and I’m greeted with “Get The Kettle On!”, and we proceed to drink more tea. Once we decide we can’t drink any more, we make tracks and head down the road to the Concert Hall. As it’s a nice local gig we take it easy and see the sights, (we got lost and hit every one way system in the whole of Nottingham city centre!). Half an hour later we arrive at the dock doors and are greeted by the lads from the Concert Hall, minus one of our own (Ricky - Sound Engineer) who is still on the M1 Motorway about half an hour away. We have a chat for a while and talk about stuff, then get down to business. Prep the lighting rigger with our set and lamps we require, colour’s etc. We set the stage with their risers then head to the truck to unload all the gear.
20 minutes later we have an empty truck and a stage full of flight cases ready to be emptied. Then Ricky turns up 30 min’s late, after all the hard work had been done. So no longer had we started setting up gear, Ryan stops for one of many ‘fag breaks!’ Anyhow, today we had Dave our Electrical man (Sparky) in the theatre with us testing all the equipment, this is to ensure its all safe when we turn the power on, and it doesn’t go bang.. Or even worse We don’t go bang!
A few of hours later and the stage is recognizable, Drums and Pianos on risers, all the Vintage Vox amplifiers set to position, all Guitars are out and on stands, Projection Screen up, monitors and Amps set, blah blah blah. All that’s left to do is turn the P.A on and do a Line Check (this is to ensure everything is plugged into its right holes and going where it should do) before the band arrive. So I jump up on the drums and do a quick line check, and because I can, do a soundcheck while I’m there. Once the drums are done I move onto the bass guitar, piano’s, all the Vocal mic’s etc. (Mic Testing 1,2 ) and Ricky makes sure it’s all sounding right for show time.
Andy Lockwood (Our media Mogul) turns up, catching the day’s full events on camera for some new shiny videos and such like for your viewing pleasure and the band arrives at the same time, jumping on the stage like monkeys making noise. Once all the instruments are fine-tuned, restrung, checked and double-checked we go for a sound check. This enables the sound man to get a feel for the venue and the band sound for this day, also eliminate any other problems there may be with Monitors, Amps, Mic’s ect. But my job isn’t done yet, I have to go and check the lighting board to make sure it’s all programmed and as easy to operate during the show. Yep all was good. The lads at the concert hall really know what they’re about!
Soon we’re all done and it’s time for the PUB! (To eat a nice pub lunch of course!)
7:00pm soon comes around and that’s my time to head back to the Concert Hall, as it’s my little job to sell the merchandise. So I head back grab the boxes of DVD’s, programmes and CD’s, and head for the stall. I sell the merchandise for about 20 minutes as this gives me time to head back stage, round up the lads to go on stage, grab a drink and run up to the lighting desk.
7:30pm - We wait anxiously for a little message over the intercom system from stage manager/front of house manager. “We now have Front Of House Clearance” Ok Then, Go with the music, Go with the house lights, Go with the preset . . . and Roll VT (Video Projection Screen).
The show runs without any hitches and get’s a very good reception from the 1,300 strong crowd, and soon it’s time to pack up and go home. If only it was that easy! As you can imagine there is quite a lot of equipment on the stage and front of house, but none of this would work without Cables, and let me tell you, there are hundreds of the bleeding things! From fibrotic cables as thin as human hair, to multi-core cables as thick as your leg. It takes a while for all these to be wrapped up and put away, but once this is done we can crack on with the big stuff. As I’m the Drum Tech I jump straight on the kit, Un-mic, take all the cymbals off, pack the stands away and load them into their flight case. Pedals and other gadgetry gets put in the necessary cases, and finally the drums are put in their hadcases and the mat is wrapped up and loaded in the truck. As we had 3 guys from the concert hall and the ever trusty Stevie Nelson (Ex-roadie/driver and all round diamond geezer) helping on the ‘Out’, we were loaded and out in record time, 11 O’clock. Just in time for the pub, Nice!
So there you go, a little insight into the day of a Roadie. Just as they say Rock ’n’ Roll!
Danny G