The Fabs: How a '60s all-girl band (nearly) ruled the world
"You're fabulous, fabulous to be with." So sang 1960s girl group The Fabs of their imagined loves. But in truth, the fabulous ones were the performers on stage. It was a time where not many women played guitar and drums, but band leader Wally "Waldini" Bishop wanted to change that. He formed the quartet who would become The Fabs, whose story is being re-told in the Cardiff Music History: City of Sound exhibition.
One of the four was Sarah Wrigley, nee Johnston, a 19-year-old Cardiff girl whose musician father had taught her to play the guitar. She said Wally Bishop had a show with dancers in Ilfracombe, Devon, but decided in 1963 to form a girl band in a similar vein to the Beatles. Sarah said Wally heard about her through her father and got the other girls, who did not play instruments, the gear and lessons they needed. Sarah said the quartet - her on lead guitar, Linda Mazey from Barry on drums, Margaret Lewis from Bedwas on bass guitar, and Newport's Maria Kitsom on rhythm guitar - were a bit of a "novelty" for those watching them in the summer of 1964. "We did three or four numbers of the day which only required three or four chords… and we were very popular with the audiences."
After the season, an offer came for a contract to perform for US bases in Germany for American GIs. Sarah said the band all had "good figures" and wore "all the gear all the time". "The guys absolutely loved us," she added. "It didn't really matter what we sounded like, to be perfectly honest, however I have to say after four months of playing six nights a week four hours a night, we did rapidly improve." This led to the group going back and forth to Germany as well as playing clubs in south Wales. But the band faced disparaging jokes made by boy bands they performed alongside, including from a future rock star. "We worked with The Who at one point. Roger Daltrey said to me as I came off stage from our spot, 'you're quite good, love, but you won't get anywhere' as pop groups were 'all boys'." She said the band knew they were a "novelty", but also knew they had become good at playing and said they were not put off by Daltrey's comments.
After a year, Wally Bishop died. It did not stop The Fabs. Sarah said: "We'd been back and forth to Germany quite a bit, and we could drive, we could look after ourselves, we kind of knew our way around. So we decided to carry on by ourselves." Sarah said the group, despite being young and female, were treated well, were well paid and "having a great time". The group performed covers of popular songs, but Sarah did write "a few ditties", including their theme tune You're Fabulous. "We could throw [them] into the show so weren't doing totally all covers. We didn't worry about learning new songs all the time. "Linda used to do a drum solo which used to raise the roof and they absolutely loved her doing that." The women also found the attitude abroad towards them quite different, facing less sexism when they travelled to Spain, the Azores and Turkey, proving popular wherever they went.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63313669
