First, he was one of The Dominoes, a Sheffield duo of Everly Brothers persuasion, and then victor of a holiday camp jiving contest before his absorption into The Chuck Fowler Rhythm And Blues Band.
This combo had mutated into Dave Berry and the Cruisers by 1960, when the nation at large first saw Dave via a non-story (with attendant photograph) about his big feet in the Daily Mirror. Neither this nor a concert at the Shepherd’s Bush Gaumont, which brought Dave and further Sheffield talent to the capital, stoked up much record company interest until a demo recording supervised by Mickie Most facilitated a signing to Decca in the summer of 1963.
A cover of Chuck Berry’s Memphis Tennessee then made the Top 20s in both Britain and Australia – and Dave was up and running.
