The Phantoms was formed in the early 1960s as a skiffle-group called the
Scramblers by three Cambridge-lads Kenneth 'Ken Levy' Leverington, Cliff Gentle
and Dave Cooke. The drummer Robin Bailey was found from another local band the
Red Caps, and the line-up was completed when the vocalist Johnny Culham joined
them. Although the Phantoms was basicly an instrumental-group, strongly
influenced by the Shadows, they also did some vocal-numbers.
For some
reason, the Phantoms released only one single in their homeland (and probably
one mysterious promotional-only LP). However in Scandinavia, the Cupol label
(subsidiary of Palette Records) got intrested of the band, and asked them to
back-up the Norwegian rock'n'roll hero Per-Elvis (Granberg) for his 14-days tour
in Norway in 1963. Culham didn't participate, and soon after he had left the
group for good, Levy replaced him as a lead vocalist and the groups' front man.
At a time, their style changed more and more towards to straight rock'n'roll and
r'n'b, recording for instance songs like "Honey Don't", "Baby Let's Play House",
"Shakin' All Over", "Move It" etc. The Phantoms toured at least once in Finland,
and several times in Sweden, where they finally settled down for years, enjoying
of quite fruitful success at the local chart-lists.
Scramblers by three Cambridge-lads Kenneth 'Ken Levy' Leverington, Cliff Gentle
and Dave Cooke. The drummer Robin Bailey was found from another local band the
Red Caps, and the line-up was completed when the vocalist Johnny Culham joined
them. Although the Phantoms was basicly an instrumental-group, strongly
influenced by the Shadows, they also did some vocal-numbers.
For some
reason, the Phantoms released only one single in their homeland (and probably
one mysterious promotional-only LP). However in Scandinavia, the Cupol label
(subsidiary of Palette Records) got intrested of the band, and asked them to
back-up the Norwegian rock'n'roll hero Per-Elvis (Granberg) for his 14-days tour
in Norway in 1963. Culham didn't participate, and soon after he had left the
group for good, Levy replaced him as a lead vocalist and the groups' front man.
At a time, their style changed more and more towards to straight rock'n'roll and
r'n'b, recording for instance songs like "Honey Don't", "Baby Let's Play House",
"Shakin' All Over", "Move It" etc. The Phantoms toured at least once in Finland,
and several times in Sweden, where they finally settled down for years, enjoying
of quite fruitful success at the local chart-lists.
Ken Levy & The Phantoms (UK) 1961: Kenneth Leverington:vcl/gtr, Cliff Gentle:vcl/gtr, Johnny Culham:vcl, Dave
Cooke:bs, Robin Bailey:dms.
Cooke:bs, Robin Bailey:dms.
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