Friday, September 18, 2009

THE EQUALS-BABY COME BACK


The Equals - Baby Come Back - My Beat Club
As one of a few black-and-white integrated beat/ pop bands of the 60s, The Equals went straight # 1 in the charts with their song “Baby Come Back” – but first in Germany and the Netherlands. In 1965 British Guyana born guitar player and vocalist Eddy Grant formed the band with the black twin brothers Dervin (original vocalist) and Lincoln Gordon (guitar) and white rhythm duo Pat Lloyd (bass) and John Hall (drums). One year later their first single release, called “Hold Me Closer”, didn’t enter the charts – until DJs began to flip the single for the B-side “Baby Come Back”. The rest is history: After Germany and Netherlands the song also hit number one in Britain and went into the US charts. In 1968 the group received a gold disc for one million sales of the single. In the early 70s Eddy Grant left the group for a solo career and today is best remembered for his 80s single hits “I Don’t Wanna Dance” (1982), “Electric Avenue” (1983) and the anti-apartheid song “Gimme Hope Jo’anna” in 1988 ("Joanna" stood for Johannesburg, South Africa).



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