New Faces Winners, Koffee n Kreme, Meet Their Fate The_24 Hour Collapse of The 70s Pop Career New Faces Winners. How they Met Their Fate From Kenny Denton's memoir. Read The Full Story In "There Ain't No Rules In Rock n Roll"

Firstly UK Only? I would like to point out that the following story New Faces Winners, Koffee n Kreme, Meet Their Fate may only hold interest to my UK friends as the act never gained any international notoriety. The mid 70s During the mid 70s I was very busy working as an engineer at De Lane Lea, but in what spare time was left I would spend writing songs and record them with anyone I could. Having gained a few single releases under various fictitious names, my efforts came to the attention of Louis Elman – the managing director of De Lane Lea Studios Wembley. Louis was starting a brand new production arm to the studio to be called Delben Music. It would be headed up by Ben Nesbit who had just retired from his position as the MD of Feldman’s Music Publishing Company. The birth of Delben Music and their new talent scout I was happy to be given the job as a talent scout, being tasked with finding promising new acts for the company, although my engineering work for the studio would always come first. At the end of 1974, Delben music took out a large advert in Melody Maker, the best-selling music weekly paper at the time. The banner headline read “Do you think you have got what it takes to be a star?” This was followed by “contact Kenny Denton,” and a dedicated studio switchboard phone number was added as well as the postal address of the studio. From the moment the ad appeared in the paper the phone lines were jammed solid, followed by an avalanche of mail in the next few days. Buried deep amongst the hundreds of letters that arrived every week, there would occasionally be an act that I believed would be worth bringing in for an audition. Time for Koffee n Kreme I received a very professional package from someone called Christy Lee, who managed a duo called Koffee n Kreme. I wasn’t aware at the time but In 1963 Christy and her band, The Beat Chics, supported The Beatles on the their first tour of Spain. Koffee was Lance Ellington and Kreme, Beth Hannah, they both looked good and both had excellent voices. Lance was the son of Ray Ellington who was a popular singer, drummer and band leader throughout the 50’s and 60’s. The Goons The Ray Ellington Quartet & The Goons had a regular musical segment on The Goon Show from 1951 to 1960, he also had a small speaking role in many episodes. The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960 and starred Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine The Show was a ground-breaking series which revolutionised comedy and has influenced comedians ever since. Audition time I contacted Christy and asked them to come in for an audition. Being pleased with the results, I invited Ben Nesbit down to the studio to listen to the tracks and introduced him to them to the duo and Christy. Ben saw gold with this clean-cut good-looking duo with a positive pushy manager and so quickly offered them a recording contract which they all duly signed. Koffee n Kreme Image © The Stage Media Company Limited We then set about making a single. We chose a Neil Sedaka song called “My World (Keeps Getting Smaller Every Day).” I had Louis Clark, the renowned string arranger for The Electric Light Orchestra, to write the parts for the rhythm section and orchestra track. Enter Don Arden . It’s safe to say Don Arden was a hard-nosed businessman. Ian MacLagan said the Small Faces (who had fourteen hit singles and five hit albums in the UK plus commercial success across mainland Europe, Australia, and New Zealand) were on “£20 a week, that was it. Never got a penny from records, never got a penny from gigs.”