Johnny Hates Jazz

Clark Datchler, a vocalist, had been wanting to become a composer since he was a child, as his father had been a saxophonist of popular jazz group "Star Gazers" in 50's.

When he was 16 years old, his song "You Fooled Him Once Again" was released as gramophone records by Julie Roberts, the female singer of Working Week.

After that, he went to Los Angels with his brother and contracted with Warner Brothers.

While 2 years stay in America, he was fascinated by various kinds of American music, and his talent flowered greatly.Then, he came back to London and entered into a solo contract with RAK record.

In 1986, Johnny Hates Jazz made an official debut as a band, and released single records "Me And My Foolish Heart" from RAK record.

In a band, Clark became a song writer whereas Calvin and Mike performed as producers.

However, the record company didn't take any promotion and their debut singles ended in failure. So when Clark's solo contract expired, they left RAK record and looked for another record company.

But they knew by experience that even if they spent a lot of money on making a demonstration tape, record companies where hundreds of people send their demo tapes every week wouldn't have time to listen their tape carefully.

Therefore, they played at Ronnie Scott's, a famous jazz club in London, and got a chance to make A&R of Virgin Record listen it.

On that live, they only used a grand piano and an acoustic guitar to play, and Clark sang without using a microphone so that A&R could concentrate on songs themselves.

Source: http://www.hi-ho.ne.jp/raindance/bio.html