David Essex biography

 

Born David Cook in London in 1947, he grew up in Canning Town, loved playing soccer and was a member of the West Ham Juniors for a time. He reached his teens just as British rock & roll's first wave was approaching its crest, and came of age as Merseybeat gave way to the more diverse sounds of folk-rock and psychedelic rock.

Essex's attraction to performing and entertaining, however, had its roots outside of music - as a boy in his early teens, before he'd ever thought of making music for a living, he spent his holidays working at a fun fair; in his memoir A Charmed Life, he remembered being drawn to the mix of amusements and violence juxtaposed with one another. That might account for some of the ease with which he mixed music and theatre in his own career during subsequent decades.

 

Initially, however, he did try for a career in music, working by day in a factory in his teens, and playing drums in a band called the Everons during the mid-'60s. He later left the group, switched to singing, and took on the name David Essex, and recorded for England's Decca Records, among other labels. Essex went through ten flop singles, and decided to try acting instead; by then, he was juggling appearances in small productions and the responsibilities of a marriage (and a pregnant wife), and earning his living driving trucks and cleaning windows.

Essex's career took a decided upswing after theatre writer Derek Bowman became his manager. With Bowman's guidance, he worked to refine his singing and acting techniques and took up dance. This led to his selection in 1971 for the role of Jesus in the theatrical musical Godspell, for which he won the Variety Club of Great Britain's award for "Most Promising Newcomer." He became a stage star at age 24 and, two years later, was chosen for his first film role, in Claude Whatham's That'll Be the Day (1974), produced by David Puttnam - based in part on the producer's boyhood and set in the early '60s, principally at a holiday camp, the movie (which co-starred Ringo Starr, then still basking in the glow of post-Beatles stardom, the Who's Keith Moon, and one-time rock & roll legend Billy Fury) became a major hit in England and a cult favorite in the United States. It also heralded a huge year for Essex, for in addition to starring in the movie, he wrote the song "Rock On" which was used in the film and went on to top the charts in England and reach the Top Five in the United States. A dark, brooding song "Rock On" made him into an overnight pop star in England.

Essex never charted another hit in America, although the Grammy nomination he got for "Rock On" was enough to give him a cult following among an audience not limited exclusively to Anglophiles, and get his subsequent records released in the United States. He enjoyed follow-up hits in England with "Lamplight," "Gonna Make You a Star," and "Hold Me Close," among other songs.

Essex's music career slowed due to two events, the advent of the punk era and the gradual aging of his youthful audience. They moved on to other pop/rock idols, while the next wave of young listeners didn't take to his music in the same way, and his more ambitious records, such as Out on the Street (1976) - a loud, edgy record engineered by post-punk star producer Martin Rushent - failed to find large audiences, despite some worthy ambitions. By 1977, Essex was producing himself for the Gold & Ivory album.

The War of the Worlds which became one of the top-selling "soundtracks" ever released in England became a vehicle not only for Essex's singing, but his acting, as well. That seemed to presage the transformation that would take place in Essex's career - he closed out the '70s in the role of Che Guevara in the original studio recording of Evita (1978), appearing in the legitimate stage play Childe Byron, and starring in the movie Silver Dream Racer (1980), for which he also wrote the score (including the hit "Silver Dream Machine").

By the mid-'80s, he was concentrating on theatre work, including Mutiny (an adaptation of Mutiny on the Bounty), while in movies he appeared in Shogun Warrior with Toshiro Mifune. By the '90s, with his success in Sir Peter Hall's production of She Stoops to Conquer, Essex was a fully established, legitimate stage actor who was recognized as being able to carry a whole show - seemingly in recognition of his continued presence in British popular culture, a new hits compilation emerged that year on CD from Polygram in England.

In 1999, Essex was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his stage, screen, and music career and his charitable work. In 2004, Edsel Records began releasing Essex's classic British CBS albums on CD, in carefully annotated and beautifully remastered editions.