The Barron Knights
| The Barron Knights | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, England |
| Genres | Pop, rock, comedy, novelty song |
| Years active | 1960–present |
| Labels | Columbia, Epic |
| Website | Official website |
| Members | Peter Langford Len Crawley Lloyd Courtenay Micky Groome |
| Past members | Duke D'Mond Barron Anthony Butch Baker Dave Ballinger Don Ringsell Bill Sharky |
The Barron Knights are a British humorous pop group, originally formed in 1959 in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, as the Knights of the Round Table.
They started out as a straight pop group, and spent a couple of years touring and playing in English dance halls before making their way to Hamburg, Germany. Bill Wyman, later of the Rolling Stones, has written that the Barron Knights were the first group he saw with an electric bass, at a performance in Aylesbury in July 1961, inspiring him to take up the instrument. In 1963, at the invitation of Brian Epstein, they were one of the support acts on The Beatles' Christmas shows at the Finsbury Park Astoria in London, and later became one of the few acts to tour with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Their debut single was "Let's Face It" / "Never Miss Chris" released in 1962 by Fontana Records (H.368).
They first came to fame in 1964 with the number "Call Up the Groups" (Parts 1 and 2). It overcame copyright restrictions and parodied a number of the leading pop groups of the time including the Searchers, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Dave Clark Five, the Bachelors, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. The song imagined the various artists singing about being conscripted, or "called up" into the British Army, although actual conscription had ended in 1960. The single climbed to number 3 in the UK Singles Chart. As an example, the song "Bits and Pieces" by The Dave Clark Five was parodied as "Boots and Blisters". They then followed this parody theme with two more hit singles "Pop Go the Workers" (1965) and "Merrie Gentle Pops" (1966), while continuing to work the cabaret circuit, as they do internationally to this day.
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