1970-ші жылдардағы «Fox» тобының тарихы

British pop band
the Australian band

Fox were a British based pop band popular in the mid 1970s. Led by American songwriter and record producer Kenny Young, the band was perhaps best known for its charismatic Australian lead singer Noosha Fox. They had three top 20 hits on the UK Singles Chart "Only You Can" and "Imagine Me, Imagine You" in 1975 and "S S S Single Bed" in 1976, and Noosha Fox had a solo hit in 1977 with "Georgina Bailey".

The band was founded by Young, who had composed the song "Under the Boardwalk" for the Drifters in 1964. Young had worked off and on with the Australian singer Susan Traynor on one of his solo albums, Last Stage For Silverworld, where she was listed as 'Amanda' after Young had written Reparata and the Delrons' "Captain of Your Ship", which had been a UK hit. Young then discovered Northern Irish singer Clodagh Rodgers on a television show, who had recently released the single, "Play The Drama till The End". The partnership produced hit singles over a three year period, beginning with "Come Back and Shake Me". With this, Rodgers became something of a showcase for the group, as she recorded demos of some of the songs which would eventually surface on the first Fox album in 1975, as well as earlier Young tunes. Rodgers' husband John Morris was the first manager of the group. Meanwhile, Traynor was in a folk group called Wooden Horse, which released two albums before breaking up. After his success with Rogers, Young founded Fox with Irish singer Herbie Armstrong, recruiting Traynor as lead singer. She adopted the stage name 'Noosha', a scrambled version of her own name, and a glamorous image inspired by Marlene Dietrich, wearing elegant dresses to contrast with the scruffy look of the rest of the group. The band's self titled debut album was released on GTO Records in 1975 to critical acclaim. The track "Love Ship" was played extensively on Radio Caroline, and was subsequently adopted as one of their theme tunes in the 1970s. Shortly after the release of their first album, Fox made a cameo appearance in the film Side by Side. However, Noosha shared vocals with other members of the band in 1975 follow up album, Tails of Illusion, with the songs sung by Noosha, Young, Frank, and Armstrong. The album enjoyed some cult critical acclaim but not the sales success of its predecessor; without Noosha's distinctive voice, casual listeners did not associate the songs with the band that had recorded "Only You Can". Roger Taylor of Queen added backing vocals to the song "Survival". The band returned to the charts in April 1976 when "S S S Single Bed" was a Top 5 UK hit, The band considered a reunion in the early 1990s, but the tracks recorded at this time were unreleased until 2004, when they appeared as bonus tracks on the Tails of Illusion CD.

In 2007, it was reported, on BBC Radio 4's The Music Group, that Noosha Fox was working on new material. An unreleased track from that time called "Judy Blue" is available via YouTube Music. In April 2011, her son Ben Goldacre confirmed that she is actively making music but no more new material has been released. Herbie Armstrong recently tried to find solo success, appearing on the 2011 series of Britain's Got Talent. He made it through to the live semi finals but did not make it through to the final. In his semi final, he appeared singing a version of Barry Manilow's hit, "Mandy".

Year Title Format Label Catalogue ref Chart position 1975 Fox 12 inch LP GTO GTLP 001 No. 7 UK 1975 Tails of Illusion 12 inch LP GTO GTLP 006 1975 Pop Power – The Fantastic Fox 12 inch LP POLYDOR 2459 302 compilation 1976 S S S Single Bed (European version) 12 inch LP GTO GTLP 011 compilation 1976 S S S Single Bed (Australian version) 12 inch LP GTO 2321 111 No. 22 AUS 1977 Blue Hotel 12 inch LP GTO GTLP 020 1996 Only You Can CD WISE BUY WB 866 702 compilation, including unreleased material 1997 The Very Best of Fox CD THE HIT LABEL AHLCD 51 compilation 2002 Fox (plus four bonus tracks) CD CHERRY RED CDMRED 222 2004 Tails of Illusion (plus two bonus tracks) CD CHERRY RED CDMRED 263 2006 Blue Hotel (plus one bonus track) CD CHERRY RED CDMRED 272 2014 Images '74 '84 Deluxe Edition 2×CD CHERRY RED CDBRED 605 35 tracks including all 7 singles A and B sides 2017 The Fox Box 4CD CHERRY RED CRCDMBOX 28 Fox (+4) + Tails of Illusion (+2) + Blue Hotel (+1) + Images A Collection (from "Images '74 '84")