And then Came Agadoo

a book by Terry Dobson

“Black Lace” is the name of a 4-piece band from Wakefield who became a household name following the BBC’s disastrous Song for Europe contest. The Royal Albert Hall London, the venue where the contest would be held on March 8th 1979 but following a lightening strike by the BBC’s technicians, the union called off the TV broadcast only hours before the show would go out live to approximately 20 million viewers...

A panel of hand picked judges patiently waited in local radio stations dotted around the country to adjudicate the selected twelve songs. The panel had to choose one song from the twelve songs performed by a band or artist to represent Great Britain in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest. “Black Lace” won the vote of the Radio Stations with a song called Mary Ann... “Black Lace” became the UK’s entrants for the contest that would to take place in Jerusalem Israel, and following that appearance and through no fluke; “Black Lace” would be a name on everyone’s lips.

Numerous UK and European TV appearances followed in the top UK TV shows of the time, Top of The Pops, Swap Shop, Nationwide, Juke Box Jury, 3.2.1, and GMTV to name a few, also live shows performing in top venues in the UK, Europe and countries behind the former Iron Curtain. “Black Lace” the band had started from humble beginnings, but all the members had a craving for success that would eventually lead them to be signed by the biggest record and publishing companies in the UK, EMI & ATV music... However, even with this success the 4-piece band split in 1981 and became a duo (Alan and Colin).as Black Lace continued into the record books.

They began to record and release some of the naffist songs in the music industry and regularly won ITV’s channel 4’s worst song of the decade with AGADOO... Caricatures of the duo made for a mickey-take in the cult 80’s TV show...Spitting Image... parodying Agadoo / Do the Conga, with the number one hit, The Chicken Song... also a performance with the Green Goddess Diana Moran on breakfast TV... The “Black Lace” duo also became film stars in 1986 when appearing in the film 4 “Rita Sue and Bob Too”...the song “Were Having a Gangbang” written by Alan Barton just for the film…In addition, the famous Agadoo could not be left out, now playing in the background as the lead actors left a social club where filming of the “gang bang” scene had taken place...

The name “Black Lace” on the lips of some of the wealthiest names of pop, comedy and chat shows…a sketch on a Michael Parkinson / Peter Kay interview featured a Karaoke scene where Peter sang Agadoo and Superman, unforgettable songs of “Black Lace”... “Black Lace” videos and related links have amassed over 6.75 million views to date on “YouTube”... AGADOO played regularly in party episodes on TV in some of the UK’s top soaps including Coronation Street, Eastenders and Emmerdale... 40 years in the business and the tunes of “Black Lace” still played in discos all over Europe and promoting products on TV and radio commercials.

This is a very personal story of my time with “Black Lace” the band, “Black Lace” the duo, my other bands, Stormer, Aircrew and Mister Twister, my close family and true friends and also the people I met whilst on my many tour’s... My life, my memories of events, sometimes good and sometimes bad, the happy and of course the sad, including my 15 minutes of fame...

My life now... Some 57 years on…

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