Wayne Gibson was the stage name of Edward William "Bill" Allen. He was an English pop singer who had two hits on the UK Singles Chart, "Kelly" in 1964 and "Under My Thumb" in 1974.
Career
In the early 1960s, he was lead singer in a South London-based band, the Tornadoes, who then changed their name to Wayne Gibson & the Dynamic Sounds. Other band members included Mick Todman, Ray Rogers, Pete Gillies and Larry Cole. In 1961-62, they performed at The Top Ten Club in Hamburg, Germany. In 1963 they won a recording deal with Decca Records, where their records were produced by American-born Shel Talmy, at that time the producer of The Bachelors. However, the group's first two singles, cover versions of Ray Sharpe's "Linda Lu" and Ritchie Valens' "Come On Let's Go", were not successful, and they moved on to the Pye label. Their next record, a version of Del Shannon's "Kelly" which featured session musicianJimmy Page on guitar, reached No. 48 on the UKSingles Chart in March 1964, but the follow-up, "Portland Town", was not a hit. The group moved on again, to the Columbia label and then Parlophone, where they released a version of "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. In 1964-65, they also appeared regularly as the backing-band on the BBC TV programme The Beat Room. Among artists back by Gibson and his group were Millie Small, Long John Baldry, the Kinks, Herman's Hermits, Chris Farlowe, Manfred Mann, the Pretty Things, the Animals and Lulu and the Luvvers. Gibson's later recordings were as a solo singer. In May 1966 he released a version of The Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb", produced by Terry King. Again, however, it was not immediately a hit, and nor was his next record, a version of The Beatles' "For No One". Gibson did not record after 1966 and seems to have left the professional entertainment business at that time. However, in 1972, the small Kingdom label reissued "For No One" in the UK. By 1974, "Under My Thumb" had become well known on the Northern soulclub scene, and it was reissued on the Pye Disco Demand label. It rose to No. 17 on the UK chart in late 1974, and Gibson briefly re-emerged to promote it on Top of the Pops. His version of the song was described by journalist, Stuart Maconie as an "embarrassing novelty Northern soul hit".
