Whatever happened to Susan Traynor? It’s a question that despite investigation seems hard to answer, so let me rephrase it. Whatever happened to Noosha Fox? For those of you that listened to the Pop charts pre Punk you would be very familiar with a string of catchy singles sung by a strangely charismatic front person that seemed to come from another time. This was of course Noosha and although the band wa mainly a vehcle for songwriter, guitarist kenny young, Noosha interpreted his seventies Pop tunes perfectly.

Kenny Young was the unlikely writer of The Drifters hit Under The Boardwalk way back in 1964, covered by the Stones and lots of other artists. You wouldn’t imagine that Fox and The Drifters could have the same songwriter. He grew up in Manhattan but how he came to form a band in England with an Australian singer is a little sketchy. But he was a prolific and successful songwriter writing hits for Quincy Jones, Herman’s Hermits, The Shirelles, Ben E. King, Reparata and the Delrons, Kenny Rogers, Nancy Sinatra, and Clodagh Rodgers who he discovered. Perhaps he spent some time in Ireland because Cloagah Rogers was Irish as was Herbie Armstrong, one of the guitar players and singers in Fox.

So somewhere, maybe in Ireland, Young decided to form a band. Noosha had made two albums with Wooden Horse (that I have never seen) and had previously sung on one of Kenny Young’s solo records. Fox was born with Young producing and with the addition of Jim Gannon on guitar, Pete Solley on keys, Gary Taylor on bass and Jm Frank on drums. Image, songs, great lead singer, they were an instant success and Only You Can reached No.3 in the UK, No.3 in denmark, No.16 in Australia and No.53 in the US. With Noosha’s help Kenny ahd done it again. The follow up single Imagine me Imagine You made it to No.15 in the uK, No.7 in Denmark and again, No.53 in the US. The album made it to No.7 in the UK all in 1975.

And yet despite some consistent songwriting the fickle God of Pop music proclaimed that the universe would ignore their second album completely. Tails Of Illusion was released in the same year as their debut, perhaps it was too soon or perhaps the idea of using Armstrong and Young as singers in the band didn’t sit well with an audience that just wanted Noosha – who could blame them. Two years later they released Blue Hotel in 1977 and despite there being little interest in the album it spawned one great hit single with the sexy S-S-S-Single Bed (released in 1976) with Noosha seducing the song into the charts and sending it to No.4 in the UK, No.10 in Holland and hitting the top spot in Australia. How this song was not a massive hit all over Europe remains a mystery. Too racey for America perhaps but where were the Danes this time around?

The band split up and in the same year Noosha released the solo single Georgina Bailey also written by Young but it was banned by the BBC due to its lyrical content (an excuse for you to listen to it) despite or because of this it reached N0.31 in the UK chart. This marked the end of the record deal with GTO records. Noosha released two more singles for Chysalis in 1979 The Heat Is On and Skin Tight and then in 1981 two singles for Earlobe (whoever they were) More Than Molecules, Hot As Sun, nobody cared. Oddly another Fox single Electro People was issued as on BBC records, again nobody cared except Kenny Everett who used it as the theme for his TV show in 1981.

Kenny Young went on to have a hit in 1978 with Just One More Night (Uk No.8) with  his next band Yellow Dog, (Armstrong, Taylor and Gannon joined him). Gentlemen Without Weapon is another totally forgotten Young band. Pete Solley joined Whitesnake and what of Noosha. Well, there have been sightings but we are still waiting fo the solo record, it’s been 27 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_(band)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Young