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Denny spreads his Wings
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| Flying solo - Denny Laine will perform at the Riga Music Bar in Westcliff |
EX-Moody Blues member and co-founder of Wings Denny Laine will be on stage in Westcliff early next month.
The songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is best known for his roles as former guitarist and lead singer of the Moody Blues and, later, co-founder with Paul McCartney of Wings. But the Birmingham-born musician is still going strong and after a colourful career now performs solo.
On Thursday, February 7, Denny will be on stage at the Riga Music Bar alongside Jeff Allen on drums and Jon Mackenzie on bass.
His prolific career began as a boy when influenced by jazz legend Django Reinhardt, Denny took up the guitar.
At 12 years old, he did his first solo performance and went on to front Denny and the Diplomats, which also included future Electric Light Orchestra drummer Bev Bevan.
In 1964, Laine left The Diplomats to join Mike Pinder in the Moody Blues and sang their first big hit, Go Now. Other hits included From The Bottom Of My Heart, Can't Nobody Love You and Bye Bye Bird.
However, he quit the band in 1966 and formed the Electric String Band. They made two singles and in June 1967 shared a bill with the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Procol Harum at the Saville Theatre in London.
But the band soon split up and Denny went on to appear in Balls and Ginger Baker's Air Force before hooking up with Paul McCartney in 1971 to form Wings.
He stayed with the group for ten years until they officially disbanded in 1981. Denny provided lead and rhythm guitars, backing vocals, keyboards, bass, writing and co-writing skills, as well as being a solid solo performer.
Together with Paul and his wife, the late Linda, they formed the nucleus of the band and it was with Wings that Denny enjoyed the biggest commercial and critical successes of his career, including co-writing the smash hit Mull of Kintyre. But by 1981 the group had gone their separate ways and Denny went on to launch a solo career.
Although he produced a large amount of records and received a certain amount of success, by the mid-Eighties Denny had allegedly filed for Bankruptcy after selling his lucrative co-publishing rights to Mull of Kintyre to co-author McCartney.
Today he is still making new music and performing his extensive back catalogue live at venues throughout the country.
10:09am Wednesday 30th January 2008
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CommentPosted by: Neena, USA on 3:14pm Fri 1 Feb 08
Where is Westcliff??
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