Shakin' Stevens

One of the lynchpins of the British rock and roll revival of the 1970s and 1980s, Shakin' Stevens ranks among the most persistent performers ever to ultimately emerge as a superstar. Stevens has no less than 30 UK Top 40 hits to his name, almost all of them racked up during one single five year span of chart invincibility. Yet his recording career predated his first hit by over a decade, struggling through a period that might have forced any less committed artist to simply abandon all hope.







"Shaky" was born Michael Barratt on March 4 1948 in Ely, Wales. The youngest of 11 children, and a keen amateur singer, he was already married and working as a milkman when he formed Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets, his first professional band, in 1968; the band itself had been around in one form or another since the late 1950s (when they formed as the Backbeats, and knew Stevens as one of their most devoted fans; he would often join them onstage to perform a guest vocal or two. With a ferocious live following around South Wales, the band signed to Parlophone in 1970 and recorded their debut album, the optimistically titled A Legend, with producer Dave Edmunds. Reports that they also opened for the Rolling Stones in December 1969 appear to be exaggerated, but the band gigged regularly around Germany and Holland, and scored several European hit singles.

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