Emile Ford

When Ricky stole Emile's thunder...

It was Thursday, February 11, 1960, when Emile Ford and The Checkmates made their first Halifax appearance as support act to Adam Faith. I remember he wore a shiny bright orange shirt with his large burnt gold Hofner guitar slung across his chest. New Musical Express had voted him the best new act for 1960 and his return to Halifax could not come soon enough. But it was to be a wait of over nine months before we were treated to more of the same. Strangely, the price of the best seats – again at The Odeon – had come down from 8/6d to 7/6d. This time Emile was jointly billed with Ricky Valance. On his first visit Emile had outshone Adam Faith but this time it was his turn to take a back seat.

It was more recent chart-topper Valance who stole the headlines. His controversial hit Tell Laura I Love Her had been Number One for three weeks from the end of September 1960 after being banned by the BBC because it mentioned a fatal car race.

It was Wednesday, March 20, 1963, when Rolf Harris paid his first visit to Halifax in support of Joe Brown. I didn't meet him then but was fortunate enough to be granted an interview with him in 1981 when he was the headliner at The Victoria Theatre. He was an unlikely pop star in the 60s and the write-up in the programme from the concert didn't really do him justice. He was known to the audience because of two hit records on the Columbia label, the first of which was Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport. More recently he had released Sun Arise, which was in the charts up to six weeks before the concert, having peaked at number two on December 22, 1962 and only being denied the top spot by Elvis Presley with Return To Sender.

The singing career of Hull- born Adrian Hill took off after he was demobilised from the Highland Light Infantry in 1947. He changed his name to Ronnie Hilton in 1954 and from then until his last chart entry in 1965 he spent 128 weeks on the charts. His first entry was I Still Believe on November 26, 1954. Ronnie appeared at the Victoria Hall with Bert Weedon, on Sunday September 20, 1964 in the first of a series of concerts supported by Halifax Council as Sunday Night With The Stars. I later found he had been good friends with Halifax vocalist Margaret Rose Johnson (nee Hardaker) since the time she had signed a contract to sing with Geraldo and His Orchestra. Under the name of Margaret Rose, she forged a singing career that is still going strong today.

Trevor Hubert Stanford was born in Bristol on September 2, 1925, and having played the piano as a young boy, won a scholarship to sing in the choir at Bristol Cathedral School. After changing his name to Russ Conway he worked as accompanist for Dennis Lotis, Gracie Fields and Joan Regan. It would be 1959 before he had two Number One singles and three other top 10 records.
Side Saddle occupied the top spot for four weeks from March 27 and in the charts from June 19 Roulette hit the top spot for two weeks. It knocked Elvis off the top with his double-sided RCA release A Fool Such As I/I Need Your Love Tonight. His only concert appearance in Halifax was at the Victoria Hall, on Sunday, October 4, 1964, where he gave two shows...although he did open a new car park at the Grove Inn, Mytholmroyd.

Emile Ford