The story of RITZI began when Pete Hughes ( b. October 1950 ) met Mick Carroll ( b. May 1951 ) at the Catholic College in Preston, Lancashire in 1962
They shared a mutual love of music and were very much into, and influenced, by all the bands of the early to mid sixties, Beatles, Stones etc and especially, The Kinks. By 1965 they had started to write songs together ( a songwriting partnership that has lasted to the present day ) In around 1967/68 they had their first band on the road, One Step Beyond. This band then had a lineup change and became known as Stoned Rose recording an album on New Years Eve 1968 before actually doing any live gigs. Pete and Mick wrote all the songs for the band. Stoned Rose achieved quite a level of live success playing all the major rock club venues throughout the UK including many appearances at the world famous Cavern Club in Liverpool. ( After Stoned Rose decided to split at the end of 1972 the bands bass guitarist Chris Cross then formed Ultravox with John Foxx ) Pete and Mick decided that they wanted a change of direction and elected to concentrate on their songwriting. A publishing deal was quickly signed in London with April Music who were the publishing division of CBS. Songs were recorded including the original demo of "Too Much Fandango". They decided to get a new band together and met up with bass guitarist and vocalist Phil Free. Phil had recently returned to the UK after living and performing in California and the USA. RITZI was born! A couple of drummers were tried out until they met up with the awesome power of the "Fong", aka Pete Long. Pete at the time was only 17 and a great drummer, and so the lineup of RITZI was complete. A deal was signed with the Warner Bros label and the bands first single "Too Much Fandango" b/w "Wrongly Accused" was released. "Too Much Fandango" became a top five hit in Australia in 1975,but unbelievably, Warners never released a follow up ! In 1978 the band signed to Pye Records. Unfortunately the A & R guy who signed the act almost immediately left the company! RITZI only recorded one single for the label, "Comic Book King" c/w Easy Romance. In early 1980 RITZI became a five piece band with the addition of Nigel Sawyer on keyboards / synthesisers and vocals. Nigel was from Swindon and had previously been associated with XTC. This became what many people thought as the classic RITZI lineup. Around this time Pete met an amazing American girl in London by the name of Roxie Blades. Roxie was a big fan of the band and proved to be a great help and friend. Roxie introduced Pete to her friend Ivor Brecher who became the bands manager and benefactor. The band moved down to London. " We blagged an amazing £1,000,000 Mews house to live in, in Kensington, which is one of the most fashionable areas of London. Actually the house belonged to a wealthy Australian couple who were massive fans of the band, ( untill they got to know us ). In 1982 the band signed a new deal with Andy King at U.K. Records. The sound of the band and style of material changed somewhat around this time and became much more electronic. RITZI recorded some of their finest material in London around this time. Most of the recording was done at Portland Studios which was owned by Chas Chandler, the guy who discovered and managed Jimi Hendrix and was the manager of Slade. Portland was the same studio where all the Slade hits were recorded. After a couple of years of total madness in London things had started to go a bit stale. Deals had run out and RITZI found themselves hired by EMI to back a female punk singer by the name of Honey Bane. RITZI did quite a lot of prestigious concerts in London with Honey Bane including Dingwalls and the Rainbow Theatre and received some very good reviews in the music press,,including the NME. However the band had become somewhat disillusioned. Fong and Phil decided to leave, and the band returned to Preston. At this point Pete decided to go into management and formed a management / agency company called "Ritzi Artiste Management" in partnership with Ivor Brecher, the former RITZI manager. Pete still runs "Ritzi Artiste Management" and has toured bands throughout the UK, Europe, Scandanavia, Bermuda, America and Australia. In 1982 R-A-M signed a band called " Cavern" who were later joined on drums by Pete Long. Cavern had UK chart success in 1983 with a song called "No Reason To Cry" which was wriitten for them by Pete and Mick, c/w "Cry For You "
( which had previously been recorded by RITZI) and" Wont Let You Go", both of which were Carroll / Hughes compositions. Mick set out as a solo artiste arond this time. In around 1990 Pete and Mick got together with ex Hollies bass player Eric Haydock who along with Alan Clarke and Graham Nash was a founder member of one of the greatest sixties bands of all time, The Hollies.
Along with former Cavern guitarist Graham they formed the Eric Haydock Band. The act became known as Eric Haydock Ex Hollies and toured very successfully throughout the world untill 2005. On two tours of Australia with the "Eric Haydock Band", Pete and Mick always performed an acoustic version of "Too Much Fandango" which always got a tremendous response. "We couldn't beleive the reaction to the song, and that so many people remembered Fandango and Ritzi from all those years ago, it was amazing" said Pete. During this period Fong did quite a lot of session work for various people including Decca records and did several recording sessions and live appearances with a variety of name artistes including Wayne Fontana. Phil Free recorded one solo single with his own band named Giant which also included Mark Coleridge and Strang from The Stiffs. More recently Phil has been concentrating on helping the career of his daughter "Hannah- Rose" who is very much in demand as a session vocalist and has toured as a backing singer with some very big name soul, and r 'n b acts. Hannah is about to release her first solo album. ( check out her myspace site,...just click on her photo,..you will be amazed! ) In 2007 RITZI are back together and looking forward to playing some more concerts and recording some new material. "It wasn't contrived or anything, it just sort of fell back together". "We'd always remained friends and we all found ourselves available and looking for something to do, so it just seemed logical and a bit of a laugh" There are plans to release a CD, initially in Australia under the title "RITZI-The Forgotten Years". There are enough quality recordings from the seventies and eighties that have been remastered, to release three or four RITZI albums.The future looks bright!RITZI would like to thank the following people for their help, support and friendship: Roxie Blades, Ivor Brecher, John Worsley, Marlene and Robert, and our road crew, Golly, Mick Mather and Dave Kay. God Bless Ya !Also in 2007 the band would like to say a special thanks to Chris Johnson for all of his help and work with the rehearsals and the remastering of the early recordings. Cheers Chris ! Also a special thank you to John Riley for his work and creative input into the production and remastering, especially on "Midnight On Mars" :............... And so the story continues............
Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / Life is a highway - Image Hosting
