Ray Edwards (lead vocals)

Ian Miller (lead guitar) 

Dennis Lascelles (Hammond organ) 

Steve Fields (bass) 

Del Coverley (drums) 

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Pete Hicks (lead vocals) 

Phil Hearn (bass/vocals) 

Mike Reed (drums) 

Formed around March/April 1969, this group from the Bexleyheath area of southeast London included some notable individuals in its ranks during its short tenure together.

Del Coverley had started out with school band The Millionaires in 1963 and then progressed on to The Scimitars before joining The Big Wheel in late 1965. After working in Switzerland with The Big Wheel, Coverley joined Carl Douglas & The Big Stampede in October 1966 but left in late July 1967 to join the final incarnation of The Fenmen, who gigged as Kindness (reuniting with keyboard player/singer Andy Clark from The Big Wheel).

When Kindness split in late 1967, Coverley reformed The Big Wheel with original members, Del Grace (guitar), Barry Nicholls (bass) and Mike Manners (keyboards) plus new singer Pete Hicks.

In late 1968, Coverley left The Big Wheel to reunite with Andy Clark and his new collaborator guitarist Mick Hutchinson (both ex-Sam Gopal Dream and Vamp) in the short-lived Dogs Blues. Barry Nicholls who’d recently worked briefly with Pete Hicks in Promise joined the outfit but in January 1969 he was replaced by American Jerome Arnold (ex-Paul Butterfield’s Blues Band) and guest tabla player Sam Gopal.

However, the group split in early February when Arnold formed his own group and Andy Clark and Mick Hutchinson decided to continue as a duo and record their debut LP.

Coverley then joined a reformed version of The Royalists with guitarist Ian Miller, keyboard player Dennis Lascelles (who had briefly played with Del Grace in The Rifle) and bass player Steve Fields, who had previously worked with local bands The Kinetics and The Abstracts. The band’s singer was Lascelles’ cousin Ray Edwards.

As Miller explains, The Royalists had started out as a soul band around 1966 with singer Herbie Hunte from Barbados. Originally known as Herbie & The Royalists, the group also included Dennis Lascelles, Steve Fields and drummer Brian Cooper. The band’s equipment was supplied by South Eastern Entertainments in Catford.

Herbie & The Royalists released a rare LP Soul Of The Matter on Saga Records in 1968, which Miller says was recorded on four-track over two Sundays in a studio in Finchley. However, by the time the LP was released, Lascelles and Miller were pushing for a more progressive rock sound and so Herbie Hunte departed around December 1968. Lascelles brought in his cousin Ray Edwards as a replacement but by February 1969 Brian Cooper had also departed.

With Del Coverley taking Cooper’s place, the band gigged as The Royalists before adopting the name Fat Daughter. However, not long after the band’s singer departed.

In Ray Edwards’s place, Del Coverley brought in singer Pete Hicks who had started out in 1965 fronting The Down & Outs. In 1966, he joined The South East London Blues Band who played a few times at Happening 44 in central London.

When that group split in 1968, Hicks worked with Coverley in Big Wheel (bringing in Alan Fuller from The Down and Outs to replace Mike Manners during the year) and then joined the band Promise.

During this period Miller remembers the band playing alongside Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum at Erith Polytechnic.

Around early June 1969, Del Coverley and Steve Fields departed Fat Daughter and subsequently joined forces with Andy Clark and Mick Hutchinson in Clark-Hutchinson after they had cut their debut LP.

Before he hooked up with Clark-Hutchinson, Coverley briefly worked with Rust who had just recorded an LP in Germany called Come With Me. The only surviving member from the LP was John Thomas and other new members were guitarist Eric Lindsey and bass player Alex Alexander.

Miller remembers Coverley leaving Fat Daughter to help Carl Douglas on a tour, so this would have been his first job before playing with Rust.

Fields, who changed his name to Stephen Amazing, also spent a brief time with The Skatalites, which may have been just before Clark-Hutchinson. Amazing played in Upp (who featured Jeff Beck as guest guitarist on their LPs) in the Seventies but later died.

Bass player Phil Hearn, who had worked with Coverley in his early 1960s bands The Millionaires and The Scimitars, and drummer Mike Reed both joined at this point and their first gig was opening for Fleetwood Mac.

Later that year, the group opened for Alexis Korner (at Eel Pie Island) and Free (most likely Dartford Grammar School) among others.

Miller says the band played at Eel Pie Island a few times. He also remembers gigs at the Scotch of St James in Mayfair, the Marquee on Wardour Street, central London and the Black Prince Hotel in Bexley.

He also recalls playing at Mildenhall USAF Airforce base with Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen, Avery Hill Teachers Training College with The Peddlers and Bromley College of Technology with Pink Floyd (most likely 26 April) where Syd Barrett joined his former band.

When Hicks and Lascelles departed in early 1970, Hearn brought in a singer called John and a Hammond organist called Alan from his previous group Isis.

However, the new band didn’t last long and Phil Hearn and Mike Reed reunited with Pete Hicks in a new version of southeast London band Justin Thyme alongside guitarist Tony Pearman and organist Geoff Hurrell. That band’s original drummer Dave Neal went on to join Suzie Quatro.

Phil Hearn, who later moved to guitar, remained with Justin Thyme throughout the Seventies. He then became a sound engineer and worked with The Who, Aerosmith, Captain Beefheart, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Michael Jackson among many others.

Original keyboard player Dennis Lascelles later became a noted artist and lives in Brighton. Mike Reed later ran his own entertainment agency named Mike Reed Promotions.

Thanks to Phil Hearn, Pete Hicks, Ian Miller and Del Coverley for information