Middle Of the Road

My favourite group is an old one, "Middle Of the Road". Its members are originating from Scottish town of Glasgow. The story of the group begins with the Lewis' brothers -Ian and Eric-, which started playing music together when they were al school in a group called "The Dominoes". Later, they came across drummer Ken Andrew, a graduate of the Glasgow University, where he studied Electrical Engineering. Together, they began to play as a semi-professional group. The fourth member, the girl vocalist Sally Carr, worked in hairdressing before joining up with Ian, Eric and Ken.

After about nine months of playing together under the name of "Part Four", they decided to adopt Latin American music and called themselves "Los Caracas". Under this name they worked in different Clubs, turning in early 1970 professional and adopting the name "Middle of the Road".

Their first job under this new title was in Italy, where a producer of the record company "RCA Italiana" discovered them, arranging to have a recording test in Rome. In October 1970 they made their first professional recording with "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep". Shortly afterwards, they where invited to collaborate for a promotional film advertising "FIAT" 's cars. During this film they recorded their second single "Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum".

In March 1971 they got the news that "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" has taken off in Spain and Belgium, as well as in Great Britain, from where it went as number one all over the world.

Oana Dumitrache
"D. Zamfirescu" School, Focsani, Romania
Teacher: Petru Dumitru <petrudumitru@netscape.net>