Billy Fury

Before the Beatles, Billy Fury was Liverpool's most successful pop export. Billy had a distinctive voice and a face that his fans described as a cross between James Dean and Elvis.  He became Decca's biggest-selling artist of the time, with 26 hits between 1961 and 1966, spending 268 weeks on the charts.  

Born Ronald Wycherley on 17 April 1940 in Garston, Liverpool, his parents were Albert and Jean and he also had a brother, Albert, three years younger than himself.  After leaving school at the age of fifteen, he as a rivet thrower in an engineering factory and as a deckhand on a tugboat in the Mersey estuary.  Fury had suffered intermittent health problems following a bout of rheumatic fever at the age of six which damaged his heart valves.  He spent a great deal of his early life in hospital. Billy later recalled: 'I was always sick, I was always in hospital, lying in bed somewhere and I missed a hell of a lot of my schooling. And every time I got back to school, I didn't know the kids - I was always the stranger'.

He had become obsessed by rock'n'roll music and taught himself to play guitar and to write songs.  He recalled later: ‘I started listening to Hank Williams first, because pop songs then, the lyrics weren't very deep; they weren't the broken-hearted type of lyrics I enjoyed.  Hank Williams and some of the country and western singers were singing about real life and how it feels when you get let down, so I kind of tagged on to their stuff.’

In 1958 Ronald sent a tape of six compositions to the rock'n'roll impresario Larry Parnes, who invited him to play them backstage at the Birkenhead Essoldo to the singer Marty Wilde Ron took his guitar and sang five of his songs to Marty Wilde and Parnes, hoping that Marty would record some of them.  Instead, Parnes took Billy on stage during the interval, and when the curtains opened, a terrified eighteen-year old made his public debut as a singer. He sang Margo, Don't Knock Upon My Door and Maybe Tomorrow.

Next day, he and his guitar joined the tour and Billy made his professional debut that night in Stretford.  Parnes signed him and gave him the stage name Billy Fury after band leader Billy Cotton, and, with a touch of irony, Fury, on account of the singers obvious shyness.

His early hits were his own compositions including ‘Maybe tomorrow’, ‘Margo’, ‘Colette’, and ‘That's love’. But the most acclaimed of his early recordings was The Sound of Fury (1960), a long-playing album that featured Fury's singing and Joe Brown's guitar playing help make it, in the words of Keith Richards, 'one of the greatest rock'n'roll albums of its era. Producer Jack Good later said: 'I'm proud of the album, 'The Sound of Fury', which was done in two sessions and was remarkable.  Some of Billy's early records were over-produced and a bit too Bobby Rydell-campy, but this was fine.  I was supposed to get my small royalty from Parnes' cut, but guess what? I never did'.

He was on the Jack Good shows Oh Boy!, Boy Meets Girls, and Wham!  Billy fought his shyness and became a real presence on stage, with his ironic hunched-shoulder stance.  Fury’s concerts were enormously popular and by the early 1960s he had swapped his bomber jacket and cowboy boots for a gold lamé suit and smart shoes. Joe Brown later recalled 'Jack Good used to spend a lot of time with Billy Fury, rehearsing his moves and everything.  He knew that Billy had a great presence on stage, which was something I didn't appreciate until I turned up late at a theatre and there wasn't a stage door.  I had to go in through the front and because I was later, Billy had taken my spot.  I'd know Billy for some time, listened to his records and played on some of them, but I'd never seen him from the point of view of an audience. I walked into the theatre and I felt the tremendous power that Billy had on stage.  It was a feeling that I never knew he had.  I didn't know why people used to scream at Billy Fury until then',

In May 1960 Larry Parnes held an audition in Liverpool to find a backing band for Fury.  Both The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers attende, but neither got the job.  John Lennon had to content himself with Billy's autograph.  Instead, Parnes formed the Blue Flames, led by pianist and organist Georgie Fame. Fury's later supporting groups were the Tornados and the Gamblers.

From 1960 Decca decided that Fury should record versions of American hits rather than his own compositions. Among these were ‘A thousand stars’ (1961), ‘Halfway to paradise’ (1961), ‘Jealousy’ (1961), and ‘It's only make believe’ (1964).  Fury also made his film debut in 1962 in Michael Winner's Play it Cool and also starred in I've Gotta Horse in 1965. His heart problems continued to plague him, however,  from the end of 1961. On some tour dates, he had to cut short his act, and on others he would be replaced at the last minute. At the time, fans were told that he was suffering from exhaustion or flu.

Meanwhile the music business was changing under the influence of a new generation of Liverpool bands led by The Beatles.  Fury’s popularity, and that of many of his contemporaries, began to wane. His last major hit was the romantic ballad ‘In thoughts of you’.   He signed a new recording contract with EMI's Parlophone label and issued eleven singles between 1966 and 1968. Most were undistinguished.

He briefly re-emerged in 1972 when he played the role of a rock star named Stormy Tempest alongside David Essex and Ringo Starr in the movie That'll Be the Day.  In 1978 he re-recorded his early hits for the K-Tel company in order to raise money after being declared bankrupt. He returned to recording in 1981 and his final album, The One and Only, was released posthumously.

In the latter part of his life he spent much of his time on his farm on the Surrey–Sussex border, turning a swimming pool into a bird sanctuary. In the 1970s he purchased a 100 acre farm near Llandovery in north Wales, where he bred horses and sheep and indulged his interest in ornithology. During the 1970s Fury twice underwent major heart surgery, and in March 1982 he collapsed, suffering from paralysis and temporary blindness. He recovered, but died of a heart attack in St Mary's Hospital, London, on 28 January 1983 and was buried at Paddington new cemetery, Mill Hill, London.

To see Billy sing I Will