Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders

Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders

Wayne Fontana were only of the many talented acts to come out of Manchester during the 1960s ‘beat boom’.

Wayne Fontana was born Glyn Geoffrey Ellis on 28 October 1945 in Manchester. He became a telephone engineer after leaving school, though he had long had an interest in music. Wayne Fontana took his name from the drummer D.J.Fontana and not his record label as is sometimes supposed. Originally Wayne Fontana and the Jets, formed in 1963, they played semi-professionally in the clubs and pubs of Manchester. When the group won an audition at the city’s Oasis Club, only Wayne and bass guitarist Bob Lang turned up. Jack Baverstock, A&R manager of Philips’ Fontana lable was there so Wayne asked two other musicians to hep out. They were lead guitarist Eric Stewart and drummer Rick Rothwell. Baverstock offered them a recording contract and when he asked their name, Wayne picked the Mindbenders from a horror movie he had just seen.

In July 1963 their first release Hello Josephine, a cover of a Fats Domino song, reached No 46. Their next two records failed to chart, before their cover of Ben E King’s Stop Look and Listen, made the Top 40. They then released a remake of Um Um Um Um Um, which had been an American hit for Major Lance early in 1964. It was their big breakthrough, reaching No. 5 in the British charts.

Their follow-up, Game of Love, gave them their biggest hit reaching No.2 in the British charts. The record was even more successful in America, where it was the groups’ first hit, reaching No.1.

After Game of Love, there were only two more modest hits before Wayne and the Mindbenders split up at the end of 1965. Wayne Fontana had four more hits, the biggest of which was Pamela Pamela, released in December 1966 which reached No 11. The Mindbenders did even better. They had four hits, keeping them in the British charts to the end of 1967; Their biggest hit was A Groovy Kind of Love which went to No.2 in both Britain and America.

The band finally split in 1968. Eric Stewart recalled: "One night we were booked to appear at a working men's club in Cardiff and when we arrived there we found that the posters outside the club said that starring that night was some Welsh tenor 'plus support group' – which meant us. That really choked me, the fact that we'd reached the stage where they didn't even bother to put our names up on the posters." The band accepted a booking playing cabaret shows for a week, wearing white suits and red silk shirts and telling jokes between the songs. After one particularly disastrous gig the band argued and Stewart angrily declared the Mindbenders were finished. He dropped the other members off at their homes after the gig and said, "That was the end of the Mindbenders. We never saw each other again after that.'

Eric Stewart went on to form Hotlegs and, the even more successful, 10cc with Graham Gouldman.

See Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders perform Game of Love