The Glitter Band, ‘The Tears I Cried’: Gilt By Association

The Glitter Band
‘The Tears I Cried’

Highest UK Top 40 position:
Number 8 on April 27, 1975

1. It’s only love girl

It’s always been common in rock’n’roll for the lead singer to have a slightly separate identity from their band. This is just how stardom works, from Bill Haley & His Comets up to Amyl & The Sniffers. There can only be one star in the act. Everyone else is consigned to a semi-anonymous existence on the wrong side of the ampersand.

When the star goes solo or otherwise moves on, it’s traditional for the band to vanish or drift onto other projects. There are some notable exceptions—The Band started out as Bob Dylan’s band—but overall it’s rare for an “And The…” band to continue without their lead performer.

Which is why the UK Top 40 of April 1975 is so unusual. This chart features not one, but two bands that first tasted success while standing behind someone who became famous (or infamous) as a solo act.

Highest in the charts were The Shadows, who were best known as Cliff Richard’s backing band and movie co-stars throughout the 60s. But they were always more than just the weaker half of “Cliff Richard & The Shadows”. The Shadows managed several notable hits without Cliff, including the sublime ‘Apache‘.

In 1975, The Shadows were representing the UK in Eurovision, something Cliff Richard had done as a solo artist in 1968. ‘Let Me Be The One‘ finished second on the night, but it gave the band their first chart success in years and helped reestablish them as one of Britain’s most beloved musical acts.

Things didn’t work out so well for The Glitter Band. The Shadows had been close to Cliff Richard; The Glitter Band had mostly disliked their former frontman. Cliff was a beloved pop culture icon who enhanced The Shadows’ reputation; The Glitter Band were linked to a guy who had always been regarded as a bit of a clown. And, in later years, The Glitter Band’s former frontman would turn out to be something much, much worse.

2. You broke my heart and just threw it away

Sometime in the Spring of 1972, John Rossall was invited to have a drink with Paul Gadd.

Rossall and Gadd had played together in a group called The Boston Showband, playing covers on the cabaret circuit in England and Germany. Gadd wasn’t known as Gadd back in those days. He’d been chasing fame and adopting new identities for years. Rossall had known him as Paul Raven; years later he became Paul Monday and got a spot on the surprise mega-hit record Jesus Christ Superstar.

Gadd/Raven/Monday’s time with The Boston Showband had been mostly unhappy. The band were down-to-earth journeymen, content to earn their spurs and wait for a chance to one day record their own songs. Gadd was the opposite, a diva with little interest in anything except hogging the spotlight. He treated the rest of the band like his staff, and he stayed in hotels while they squatted in digs. When he finally left, Rossall and the others let out a sigh of relief.

Why did Rossall agree to have a drink with this unpleasant guy, all those years later? Possibly because Gadd was still involved with Mike Leander, the person who had originally put them together in a band. Leander was a major industry figure, best-known for having arranged the strings on ‘She’s Leaving Home’ at Paul McCartney’s personal request. He had a blank cheque with his record label, and he was cashing it in to launch Paul Gadd’s latest persona: Gary Glitter.

After several failed experiments in the studio, Leander had hit on something promising, a weird mashup of fuzzed guitar sounds and samples of Burundian drummers. Leander played almost all of it himself—Gadd was barely on the record. Nevertheless, Gadd was buzzing with excitement. This was going to be the hit of all hits, the record that would launch Gary Glitter into the superstardom. And, when he was rocking on Top Of The Pops, he would need a convincing-looking band to mime along to Mike Leander’s music.

Rossall said… sure, why not? His instincts told him that this would come to nothing, so he’d lose nothing by saying yes.

The record was called ‘Rock & Roll (Part 1)‘ and it appeared in March of 1972. Back then, you could give a song about six weeks to become a hit. Longer than that and it wasn’t going anywhere. Rossall watched the charts for six weeks and, when ‘Rock & Roll (Part 1)’ failed to appear, he assumed the project was dead.

But then, something strange happened. ‘Rock & Roll (Part 1)’ has a prominent Gary Glitter vocal. The B-side, ‘Rock & Roll (Part 2)’, is mostly an instrumental, apart from the occasional shout of “Hey!” Some time in late April, DJs realised that the B-Side was getting a better audience response, so they began playing that one. It took off. Gadd breathlessly called Rossall at the end of April—he was booked for Top Of The Pops in a few days and he desperately needed his backing band. Especially as he was barely on the record.

(Bassist John Springate would later say, “He’s probably the only singer that’s ever made it on an instrumental.”)

The Bostons were on tour but they agreed to cancel everything and become Gary Glitter’s band, on the condition that he and Mike Leander would help them get their own record out. All parties agreed, and on June 22, 1972, Gary Glitter made his Top Of The Pops debut with a band now known as The Glittermen. The band add to the lurid, glam rock excess of the spectacle: Gerry Sheppard mime’s along to the iconic riffs on his (also quite iconic) star-shaped guitar, while drummer Pete Gill is joined by another drummer, Pete Phipps, because you can’t just have one drummer on a track like ‘Rock & Roll (Part 2)’.

Of course, the set is still dominated by Gary Glitter. John Springate also said this:

“Nobody else could have been Gary – I’ve actually thought about all that. I mean, because of the hits, the ego takes over, but it requires an enormous amount of ego to be that character. Nobody else can come near him as far as ego goes, and to match that whole larger-than-lifeness. It had to be him. It couldn’t be anybody else.”

3. Being together just tore us apart

The Glittermen had issues almost immediately, and it wasn’t just the hassle of dragging around two drumkits. Their dynamic with Gary Glitter was still toxic and still very much a star/supporting act relationship, if not employer/employees. Bassist Ray Moxley was quickly fired within weeks for, allegedly, pissing in Gary Glitter’s beer, which must be one of the most noble sackings in history.

Glittermania exploded across Britain from 1972 to 1974. Gary Glitter had eleven consecutive Top 10 hits, including three Number Ones, while ‘Rock & Roll (Part 2)’ gave him something that eluded many of his more acclaimed contemporaries: a hit in America. In 1974, cinemagoers were treated to Remember Me This Way, an hour-long documentary about Glitter. The Glittermen have brief non-speaking roles, but most of the runtime is dominated by Gary Glitter talking about the pressures of fame while he auditions for a role in an action movie.

(Okay, the action movie scene is actually pretty funny.)

Gary Glitter was huge, but he wasn’t respected. Glitter was always something of a novelty act, an end-of-the-pier cabaret turn only taken seriously by those too young to know better. The press relentlessly made fun of him. They disputed his claim to be 28 and agreed he was probably closer to 35. Glitter didn’t help by insisting on squeezing his slightly overweight body into skintight costumes, which often made him look like a sausage wrapped in tin foil.

The songs were also of varying quality. Most of his hits hewed closely to the established stomp-clamp glitter rock formula of ‘Rock & Roll (Part 2)’. Occasionally, he’d experiment with something like the truly dreadful sub-Elvis ballad, ‘Remember Me This Way‘. Few of his records made the case for himself as a legitimate musician.

When Glitter toured America, critic Dave Marsh wrote in Creem magazine:

“[Glitter is] more rock and roll loving than the Beatles. More sincere than Cliff Richard. Less subtle than even the Rolling Stones. It’s just that he’s terrible. Not the worst act I’ve ever seen, not even the worst musician. (I discovered Frut, after all.) He’s just awful.”

This was a strange place from which to launch The Glittermen as a standalone band. They were famous but unknown; successful but reviled. They could play but they rarely appeared on the records. In a way, they were like The Time, the fake band that Prince put together as a front for music he recorded himself. But Gary Glitter was no Prince. 

Rossall claimed that Leander and Glitter tried to back out on the deal to make a Glittermen record, but it’s possible that Leander simply felt they didn’t stand a chance. In 1974, he finally agreed to help them make their debut LP, which was slapped together in a week and contains a few half-arsed cover versions (the opening track is a version of 60s girlband classic, ‘Tell Him‘, as if The Glittermen were likely to become the next Showaddywaddy). The other tracks are stomp-clap glam rock standards.

The Glittermen, now known as The Glitter Band, released their debut single, ‘Angel Face’, in April 1974. A week later, Gary Glitter released ‘Remember Me This Way’, the terrible ballad that was also the title track of his fairly successful film. Glitter’s song achieved a higher chart position (peaking at #3 while ‘Angel Face’ topped out at #4), but it started falling from the charts while ‘Angel Face’ was still climbing.

Also, people generally liked ‘Angel Face’. The same wasn’t true of ‘Remember Me This Way’, which—and this bears repeating—is a really bad song.

Suddenly, The Glitter Band were a success in their own right. Interviewers started asking Gary Glitter questions about his least favourite topic: people other than Gary Glitter. One NME interview crackles with palpable resentment:

Mr. Glitter will be accompanied (as usual) by the Glitter Band – who are doing very nicely for themselves thankyou. One wonders if there isn’t a danger of competition with his spangled back-up boys.

“No, they know who the guv’nor is. Anyhow, I’m glad to see them come out of my shadow. Sure we have exactly the same fans but we’re also equally successful.”

Even though his latest single hasn’t exactly rocketed to the same extent as previous chart certainties?

“Right. Though I can’t go into any detail, there’s something going on in The Business which is keeping records at Number One that shouldn’t, in terms of sales, be there – but anyone who thinks they’ll automatically get to Number One is going to get a kick up the ass.”

Gary Glitter still dominated 1974, but he also spent some of the year recovering from tonsil surgery. By 1975, he’d lost half a yard on the competition. Ambitious sideprojects, including a movie and a Broadway musical, fell by the wayside. Glitter’s first two singles of the year, ‘Love Like You and Me’ and ‘Doing Alright With The Boys’ both made Top 10, but they weren’t big cultural moments. Listening to them now, they sound jaded, the rattle of a machine that’s running on fumes.

His third single of 1975 was a cover of ‘Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow‘ by The Rivingtons (aka the ‘Bird Is The Word’ guys), which was an attempt to lean into the growing disco craze. This would be his first flop as Gary Glitter, peaking at Number 38.  The hot streak was over. He would never be a major chart act again.

Meanwhile, The Glitter Band were going from strength to strength. Their second album, Listen To The Band, shocked everyone by being… actually really good. Some of the reviews are the definition of “through gritted teeth”, such as Melody Maker’s:

“Even considering that the Glitter Band have released some banal material in the past, it’s hard not to approve that the versatility and musicianship displayed on Listen To The Band. And I never thought I’d ever find myself saying THAT.”

In Bob Stanley’s music history book, Yeah Yeah Yeah, he refers to them as Gary Glitter’s  “neanderthal backing group”, but then says that their third LP is one of the half-dozen best albums of the glam rock era. That third album, Rock’ n’ Roll Dudes appeared a mere 18 months after the first LP, but it already showed a huge level of musical evolution. There was no doubt that these guys were credible artists in a way their boss wasn’t.  

Things were looking up for The Glitter Band. They even secured a role in a movie—sans Gary—playing themselves in a fairly terrible jukebox musical called Never Too Young To Rock. By all omens, 1976 would be The Glitter Band’s year.

4. The songs I sing for you, they never end

1976 was one of the stranger years of the decade, in terms of music at least. Glam was ending but disco was struggling to establish itself as the hot new thing. Record sales fell by 9%, and what was selling tended to be quite bland and middle-of-the-road, ‘Dancing Queen’ notwithstanding.

Top Of The Pops, once the heartbeat of British pop music, was becoming tedious for performers and audiences alike. The Glitter Band’s John Springate appeared on the C86 podcast a few years back and told this story:

“Everything was getting very stale, it was really weird. I remember getting a phone call that said, ‘you’ve got Top Of The Pops on Thursday’ and I went, ‘urgh’.  We did it and I remember the producer at the time, Robin Nashville, was talking to the audience, saying, ‘This is your show! You’re supposed to be enjoying yourself!’ They just weren’t. I said to Gerry [Shephard], ‘You know, I think it’s time for another band like The Who to come along.’

“Gerry and I were invited to the Notre Dame Hall in Leicester Square to see a new band called The Pistols. We trotted down there in our best regalia, and we went in but there was not one sign of a flared trouser there. Everyone’s wearing drainpipes and safety pins. The DJ was playing Led Zepplin. He didn’t know what else to play because there were no punk records at the time.

“Janet Street Porter was interviewing people upstairs, but we were down among the audience. We watched as The Sex Pistols came on, we saw them do about four songs, and then I turned to Gerry and said, ‘Well, that’s it then, isn’t it?’

“The writing was on the wall. Within about three months of that, you couldn’t sell us for love nor money. None of us—Sweet, Mud, Suzi Quatro. It was just gone.”

Gary Glitter announced his retirement from music and launched a large farewell tour. It would be the first of many farewell tours (Gary Glitter’s neverending retirement eventually became a running joke) but the tour did mark the end of his relationship with The Glitter Band. Most of the band members say they never spoke to him again after 1976.

Nevertheless, an association with Gary Glitter increasingly became a liability as Punk Year Zero swept all before it. The Glitter Band tried to rebrand as The G Band, releasing two disco singles, neither of which bothered the charts. In 1977, they became Air Traffic Control and released the soft rock song ‘Gotta Get A Message Back To You’, which also flopped.

The band continued in various forms for the next few years, occasionally joining forces with people like Peter Oxendale and Trevor Horn (who was their official bass player for a spell). More and more though, they found themselves back on the cabaret circuit, playing Gary Glitter hits for nostalgic audiences. Any opportunity to be their own band had passed them by. And now they weren’t even Gary Glitter’s backing band. They were a Gary Glitter tribute band.

5. Think of me sometimes

By 1997, Gary Glitter and The Glitter Band had gone down radically different paths.

Gary’s reputation turned around in the 80s, partly because he started leaning into his own ridiculousness. ‘Another Rock’n’Roll Christmas’ was a huge hit in 1984, the kind of overplayed seasonal classic that could provide a lifetime annuity for whoever gets the royalties. He was a good sport when The KLF turned ‘Rock & Roll (Part 2)’ into ‘Doctorin The TARDIS’ (Mike Leander didn’t like it, apparently).

In the 90s, he was a staple of the talkshow and panto circuit. British Rail hired him to make ads for their Young Person’s Travelcard, the joke being that Gary Glitter has always lied about his age. He fully committed to the bit.

Meanwhile, The Glitter Band had split into two entities. Gerry Shephard and Pete Phipps had retained the rights to the name, but John Rossall toured with his own act called The Glitter Band. The official Glitter Band got an injunction in 1983 to force Rossall to stop using the name. He simply ignored it. In 1997, the courts threatened him with a one-year prison sentence if he didn’t stop using the name The Glitter Band.

A few weeks later, nobody would want to use that name. Because, in November 1997, Gary Glitter took his laptop to the local computer repair shop. A few days later, Paul Gadd was arrested and charged with possession of CSAM.

We don’t need to get into the details of Paul Gadd’s criminal record. It is very upsetting, and it’s well-documented elsewhere. Suffice to say he’s a scumbag, one of the worst. At the time of writing, Gadd is rotting in a British prison, which is where he belongs.

And to be absolutely clear, no member of The Glitter Band has (to my knowledge) been accused of any wrongdoing. There’s also no evidence that they knew about Gadd’s crimes—they weren’t particularly friendly with each other, so it’s unlikely he confided his darkest secrets to the band. The Glitter Band were co-workers, not conspirators.

But the stink still hangs over everything he touched. Glitter’s own music is memory-holed, alongside the collected works of R. Kelly and Lostprophets. ‘Rock & Roll (Part 2)’ was last heard in the edgelord Joker movie, and that was in 2019.  You’ll never hear ‘Another Rock’n’Roll Christmas’ played in December. Nobody wants to give their time, money or attention to anything associated with Gary Glitter.

Sometimes, this creates an unusual opportunity for The Glitter Band. They’re occasionally used as a Gary Glitter avatar; the Gary Glitter it’s okay to like. BBC won’t rebroadcast any of their extensive library of Gary Glitter archive material, but they’ll occasionally show an old Top Of The Pops with ‘People Like You and People Like Me‘ or ‘Just For You‘.

In 2013, Universal Music released the excellent Oh Yes We Can Love: A History Of Glam Rock, a 5-CD box set that tells the story of glam from Noel Coward through to The Darkness. It does not feature Gary Glitter. Daryl Easlea, who helped compile the tracks, said, “If we’d included Glitter, it would have overshadowed everybody’s contributions and music.” Instead, it features The Glitter Band’s debut single, ‘Angel Face’—a fine song, but clearly a placeholder for something else.

Could The Glitter Band have been successful if they’d said no to Paul Gadd back in 1972? Possibly. Their three LPs show a smart, talented band, and the individual members did achieve things on their own. Original drummer Pete Gill went on to found Saxon before joining Motörhead, while John Springate wrote the UK’s 2000 Eurovision entry (it finished 16th).

Once The Glitter Band stepped out on stage with Paul Gadd, their fate was permanently tied to that of Gary Glitter. They could record what they liked, change their names as much as they liked, but they would always be remembered as one half of Gary Glitter & The Glittermen, chained to the wrong side of the ampersand forever.

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