Beau Brummell (born Mike Bush) & The Noblemen
and The Beau Brummell Orchestra had evolved out of Johnny Devlin & The Detours - a covers band that
hailed from Bognor Regis (south coast of England).
Bass player Bryan Stephens had formed The Detours in February 1960 and had
recruited keyboard player/singer Mike Ketley from another local group,
The Soundtracks, in late 1962. The band had recorded a one-off single,
"Sometimes", for Pye Records in late 1963, and appeared as newcomers on
Granada TV’s Thank Your Lucky Stars alongside Manfred Mann, Matt Munro and
others in February 1964, before meeting South African singer Mike Bush
(aka Beau Brummell).
Brummell, who now owns a naturist valley in Northern Transvaal, had arrived in
England in 1961 and worked under various pseudonyms before adopting the title,
"Beau Brummell", named after the British dandy of the 19th century in late 1963.
Recruiting the Detours (now renamed The Noblemen or The Noble Men) as his support group,
Brummell allegedly toured around the UK, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Italy in a
converted London ambulance, equipped with a cocktail cabinet and other accessories
and is even believed to have performed before the Aga Khan while in Rome!
Not surprisingly, his exploits gained him front-page headlines.
The relationship however, was relatively short-lived and following a string of
singles for Columbia Records, the group parted company with Brummell after
opening the famous Piper Club in Rome on 1 October 1965.
On the way back from Rome, The Noblemen got a gig at the famous Big Apple club
in Munich opening for The Spencer Davis Group.
While the show went down extremely well (Ketley remembers The Noblemen upstaging
the headliners), most of the members decided that the group had run its course
and dropped out, leaving Ketley and Stephens to rebuild the band from scratch in
late 1965/early 1966.
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