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Girl Group Chronicles: Blue Orchids

Pamela Jarmen, Georgina Oliver, and Valerie Jones formed one of the most wild sounding British girl groups ever. The Blue Orchids and the Breakaways took the early sound of the Phil Spector girl groups in America, and amplified it. When the Blue Orchids sang, the audience couldn’t help but to listen to those three pre-teen girls with the loud, loud sound!

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The school girls from Coventry, England, (they took their name from a local dance joint called the Orchid Ballroom) first hit the limelight with the Shel Talmy_produced "Gonna Make Him Mine," but really took-off with Talmy’s "Love Hit Me." In the tradition of the Crystals, the Orchids, described the first time they were ever touched by love. The song had just the right feel for Decca to take a chance by releasing it in America. When it crossed the Atlantic and became a mid_sized hit in America, almost a year before the Beatles led the British Invasion, the group’s future looked bright. But, since the U.S. already had a group of Orchids making waves (they were having success with the Barry/Greenwich tune "That Boy Is Messin’ Up My Mind,") the label rechristened the group as the Blue Orchids.

The group were soon all over local television and even in the movies! Their unusual appearance (Georgina was a tad overweight and wore thick black glasses) and their age (they were all just 15 years old) made them a novelty. The group was heavily promoted on the popular live rock show Ready, Steady, Go and appeared in the film Just For you, where they sang a great tune called "Mr. Scrooge." The song, with lyrics that compared the classic Dickens story to a boyfriend who was miserly in his loving.

"Oo-Chang-a-lang," sounded even more like Spector. The song was a little rip_off from "Da Doo Ron Ron," but although the production wasn’t as clear, it was much more intense. The girls with their huge voices, all the while a stumbling back beat shook the dance floors. Starngely, the song was only released Stateside to follow-up "Love Hit Me," and was only released in the United Kingdom many years later, after the group had disbanded. Perhaps running into the same problems Spector had a year latter when his glorious, but muddled "Little Boy" by the Crystals fell on deaf ears, the Blue Orchids didn’t quite have the hit they hoped for. Still, the group led a wave of British girl groups, and especially girl singers which invaded America along with the boy bands.

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A final U.K. release on Decca, the rumbling "I've Got That Feeling," was sent into stores in 1964. Back in the States the group became known as the Exceptions to avoid further confusion with America’s home-grown Orchids. In 1965 the group put out a fab new single, "What more Do You Want," which had lead singer Georgina Oliver’s own composition, "Soldier Boy," as the flip. The single missed radio play as the country was now awash in girl group records, and the group disbanded.

But, apparently, there still might be some long-lost songs by the Orchids in Decca’s vaults. Music historian Ian Chapman, who compiled Decca/Universal’s excellent Girls’ Scene CD caught up with Pamela Jarmen, now a school head-mistress in Scotland, and discovered the group had completed a session with Andrew Oldham of Rolling Stones and Marianne Faithful fame, and Bert Berns who wrote the Exciters’ fiery "Tell Him," in late 1963 and early 1964.

According to Jarmen, the group cut Berns’ "Just Like Mine," and a cover of the Rag Dolls’ "Society Girl," with Oldham. The master tapes are still missing.

Suggested Listening:

The Blue Orchids' material is not available together on a single CD best-of set, but several compilations have collected some of their singles. Decca's The Girls' Scene is your best bet. Currently, collecting original vinyl 45s and using Internet file-sharing programs are the only ways to collect their complete works.