Years active:

1959-1997

Location:

Redruth

Band Members:

Various line-ups (see below)

Line Up 1.  Dave Lee and the Staggerlees Group -1960
Amph Grigg (lead guitar), Redruth; Terry Venton (tea chest/bass guitar), Reduth; Morv Munday (drums), Redruth; Dave Lee (vocals), Redruth. Eddie Harris, (rhythm guitarist), Redruth missing from photograph.  Terry died not long after this photograph was taken.

Line Up 2.  Dave Lee and the Staggerlees 1962
John Chapman (bass guitar), Redruth;  Amph Grigg (lead guitar), Redruth;  Pete Bawden (rhythm guitar), Truro;  Merv Charleston (drums), Hayle; Dave Lee (vocals), Redruth.

Line Up 3.  Dave Lee and the Staggerlees 1962
Front - ,Amph Grigg (lead guitar), Redruth;  Pete Bawden, (rhythm guitar), Truro;
Back – John Chapman (bass guitar), Redruth;  Morv Munday* (drums), Redruth;  David Penprase (vocals) Redruth.   This is the group that won the 1962 Rock and Rhythm Championship.
*Morv Munday was the regular drummer but sometimes Merv Charleston would stand in

Line Up 4.  Dave Lee and the Staggerlees 1963
Front: David Penprase (vocals), Redruth;  Mick Partridge (pianist), Birmingham;  Stan Brown (drums), Plymouth.
Back:  John Chapman (bass), Redruth; Dereck Stentaford (rhythm guitar), Plymouth; Amph Grigg (lead guitar), Redruth – Group Recorded “Dance, Dance, Dance” and “Love Me”.

Line up 5. Dave Lee and the Staggerlees 1963

  left – right:  Mike Partridge (pianist), Birmingham; Lance Fortune (bass guitar), Liverpool; Stan Brown (drums), Plymouth; Amph Grigg (lead guitar), Redruth; David Penprase (vocals), Redruth.

Line Up 6.  Dave Lee and the Staggerlees 1964
Left to right: Lance Fortune (bass guitarist), Liverpool; Amph Grigg (lead guitarist), Redruth: Dave Lee (vocals), Redruth;  Tony Lee (drums), Hayle;  Clive Gunn (rhythm guitar), Camborne – Group Recorded,  “Sweet and Lovely” and  “Forever and Always”.

Line Up 7.  The Staggerlees 1965
Front – back: Tony Lee (drums and vocal), Hayle;  Amph Grigg (lead guitar and vocal), Redruth;  Lance Fortune (Bass and vocal), Liverpool;  Clive Gunn (rhythm guitar and vocal), Camborne. 

Line Up 8.  The Staggerlees January 1966 – October 1966
                         Back: Lance  Fortune (bass guitar – vocal)
Front left – right: Tony Lee (drums and vocal), Hayle; Amph Grigg (lead guitar and vocal), Redruth. 

Line Up 9.   The Staggerlees November 1966 - 1974
Left – right:  Bill Covington (drums and vocal), Plymouth; Lance Fortune (bass guitar and vocal), Liverpool; Amph  Grigg (lead guitar and vocal), Redruth.

2008 Dodworth, Yorkshire - First meeting in twenty-eight years of Eric Langman (ex-manager1962-1966), Lance Fortune (ex vocalist – ex bass guitarist), Amph Grigg (ex lead guitarist – ex vocalist).  Oh! And what stories were told. Their next manager was Michael Grade of the Grade Organisation

The Staggerlees were well known around the South West during the early-mid sixties. As the "Staggerlees Rock Unit" they competed in, and won, Truro's annual Rock and Rhythm contest in 1962.

Rock and Rhythm Contest 1962

The band were regulars at the Friday night “Beat Night” at Penzance’s Winter Garden. These teen dances were jointly promoted by the band and Teen Promotions, with the venue being hired from John Adams. They were soon also playing at the Saturday night ‘bops’ at the Drill Hall, at Chy-an-Dour. The band also promoted dances at Redruth’s Thornton Hall.

Thornton Hall, 1960

(With thanks to Morven & Craig Munday)

The band soon built up an extensive following within Cornwall & Devon and became one of the first professional Cornish beat bands. Thanks to manager Louey Instance they were packing out venues up and down Cornwall, including Tuesday night at Carbis Bay Memorial Hall, Wednesday night at Lane Village Hall. They were also bringing in the crowds at the many larger venues such as The Blue Lagoon and The Flamingo, while also supporting many of the big name touring bands.

1963

They supported Paul Raven (aka Gary Glitter) at a newly opened High-Fi Club. At St Johns Hall they supported  Jimmy Crawford, who was riding the top of the charts at the time with “I Love How You Love Me”, so many fans turned up the police had to take charge!

On another occasion they backed up a visiting Vernon Girls on at the Pavilion on the sea front. The band nearly didn’t make the gig, on the way back from a gig at Plymouth’s Black Cat Club they narrowly avoided a nasty crash in the Glyn Valley. Guitarist Anthony Grigg sustained a broken leg, but still managed to play the gig sitting in a wheel chair. None of the band could read music, so when presented with music from the Vernon Girls hits told the girls “you sing it and we’ll play it”. The band’s manager was horrified, but the gig still went down extremely well.

Dave Lee (aka Dave Penprase)

During the mid-60s the band starting to make the transistion from beat group to club/entertainment act. In 1965 they played the summer season in Cornwall. Monday-Saturday would see the band playing around all the holiday records, including a two night residency at Newquay's Blue Lagoon.

On Sunday the band would head to Torquay to play the Princess Theatre, where they could be found in the same bill as Morecambe & Wise, Tommy Cooper, The Kinks and The Seekers. These Sunday night dates were in fact a series of auditions for Michael Grade of The Grade Organisation. The organisation decided to take the band on, which would result in the Staggerlees performing less in their native Cornwall. In July 1967 the band started a five month engagement at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

Through a contact they moved even further afield, playing around the more lucrative Northern Working Men's Club circuit and basing themselves in Sheffield. This also lead to gigs around Germany were they share the bill at the Top Ten Club with Dave Dee and The Bostons (who became DDDBMT) and Jimmy Powell & The Jumping Jacks amongst many others.

At Dover prior to leaving for a stint at the Star Club, Hamburg

Through the bands involvement with an agent in Sheffield they scored a deal with Oriole records, where they recorded two great beat singles. Unfortunately neither singles received much airplay and failed to take off.

By Summer 1964 Dave Lee was no longer in the band, which continued as The Staggerlees. The three piece continued playing the club circuit until fairly recently. Dave set up a folk club back in his native Redruth in the early 70s before embarking in a successful 25 year long career in photography.

Lance Fortune Biography

Chris Morris, better known by the stage name Lance Fortune (b. 1940, Birkenhead) was an English pop singer.

Morris was classically trained on piano. He signed to Pye Records as a solo artist under the name Lance Fortune, and released four singles, two of which became hits in the UK Singles Chart in 1960. “Be Mine” that went to No 4 was Joe Meek’s first chart success. While signed to Pye, he was managed by Larry Parnes, who had come up with the name Lance Fortune. In April 1960, Fortune replaced Eddie Cochran on Gene Vincent/Eddie Cochran UK tour when Cochran was killed in a car crash.  After Fortune's popularity waned in 1963 he joined a group that had backed him and he had worked with both in the UK and Germany called The Staggerlees.

View Lance on Youtube by clicking here

thanks to Dave Stone

Apache - Crigglestone Working Men's Club. 7th Jan 1984  

This Old House - Crigglestone Working Men's Club. 7th Jan 1984  

The Wonder of You - Crigglestone Working Men's Club. 7th Jan 1984  

I Believe

Yank my doodle it's a dandy

Finale

Lance Fortune

 

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