darren burn. 1974. quick joey small

darren burn. 1974.7''. quick joey small. side-b [EMI 2173].

In the summer of 1973, EMI plucked eleven-years-old choirboy Darren Burn from obscurity and tried, at great expense, to turn him into the British equivelant of the American pre-pubescent pop stars then dominating the Top Twenty. EMI believed they were on to a good thing. Certainly Darren, from Southgate, north London, had a lot going for him. He was pretty; he could really sing and father Colin, for instance, was an executive with EMI

Category:

Music

Tags:

• darren burn
• quick joey small
• glam
• fueraenlascalles

[darrenburnfan]

@ZLUGGO It's been recorded by many artistes over the years. The version by Darren Burn was one of the earlier cover versions.

[ZLUGGO]

I thought this was a Slaughter & The Dogs tune...

[onceaboy1947]

Sorry to disagree with fatpizzaman, but I think this was Darren's worst record. In fact, EMI's decision to make him sound like a glam rock cross between Gary Glitter and Ricky Wilde was very beneath him and a complete waste of his unique singing talent. It's almost as though they had Darren make records like this, that they knew would never sell, so that it would give them an excuse to cancel his contract for not becoming the weenybopper superstar of 1973 that they predicted he would be.

[michelst14]

superb bublegum glam !!

[PurplePillEater]

Post-glam, pre-punk !

[onceaboy1947]

@fatpizzaman You'll find some of Darren's records on eBay at the moment. EMI only released four singles from him, two in 1973 and two in 1974. I have all of them.

[fatpizzaman]

Fantastic song! Do you have "Somethings Gotten Hold Of My Heart" as well? His stuff is soooo hard to come by. This is a fantastic bubblegum glam rock number which deserved to chart.

[onceaboy1947]

Thanks for uploading this, even if it was his last single and was nowhere near the high quality of his first two singles in 1973, Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart and Is It Love. Darren's story was a terribly tragic one, carried along on a satin cushion while EMI thought they could make a lot of money out of him, then callously got rid of by them when their huge investment in him failed to produce the desired results. For Darren's full story, see my Facebook tribute pages to him.