Entertainment Biography, Music Biography, Biography Reference, Rock & Roll

The Sensational Alex Harvey

Name: The Sensational Alex Harvey
Author: Munro, John Neil
ISBN: 9781846970887

by Munro, John Neil

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Overview

Glasgow-born Alex Harvey's career began in the 1950s when he won a competition to become Scotland's answer to Tommy Steele (he dubbed himself Last of the Teenage Idols). He was a devoted family man but in front of an audience he became an unforgettable entertainer charismatic, provocative and intense. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band eventually became one of the most exciting live acts of the 1970s taking in Jacques Brel, rock and vaudeville. But Harvey's life offstage was beset by tragedy and his own alcoholism: his younger brother, Les, was electrocuted on stage; his manager and friend Billy Fehilly was killed in a plane crash. Eventually with his band in tatters, Alex sank into a sea of alcohol, finally succumbing to a fatal heart attack whilst waiting for a ferry home from a gig in Belgium in 1982, the day before his 47th birthday.

About the Author, Munro, John Neil

John Neil Munro was born in Campbeltown and raised in Stornoway. He studied modern and economic history at Glasgow University then completed a postgraduate journalism course in Cardiff during the late 1980s. Other publications include Some People are Crazy: The John Martyn Story.