Freddie Garrity
November 14th 1940 ~ May 19th 2006
65 year old Mantunian, Freddie Garrity, the lead singer of the 1960's pop band Freddie and the Dreamers, sadly died on Friday in Ysbyty Gwynedd, Wales, UK. from blood circulation problems. He had been suffering from systemic sclerosis and emphersemia for a few of years, spending much of his time in a wheelchair. He leaves his wife Christine, three daughters and a son.

Freddie is remembered most for his very happy, wacky stage shows with his band The Dreamers, and for being able to come up with a some light-hearted top hits at the height of Beatlemania. Freddie Garrity worked as a shoe salesman, a brush salesman, a milkman and he was an engineer also had played in a series of local Manchester skiffle groups - The Red Sox, the John Norman Four and finally The Kingfishers, which evolved into Freddie and The Dreamers in 1959. The band itself consisted of Garrity on vocals, Roy Crewsdon, guitar, Derek Quinn, guitar, Pete Birrell, bass and Bernie Dwyer, on drums. They stayed semi-professional until they passed a BBC audition in 1963. Their first release, a cover version of James Ray's, "If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody" reached to No 3 in the UK charts and led to a series of TV appearances, where audiences quickly remembered the band for their off beat humour and stage antics. After Freddie's U.S. No.1 with 'I'm Telling You Now', American audiences were amused by Freddie's zany stage antics and wanted to know more about the dance he seemed to do, swinging his arms and legs out to his sides, and all sorts of trouser splitting angles!! "It's called the Freddie", he innocently replied. A song of the same name was quickly written and released, it became a U.S. Top 20 hit called "Do The Freddie", even Chubby Checker recorded a cover version. Despite the success of the song in the US, it was never issued in Great Britain. In 1976, Garrity put the band back on the road with a new line-up. It was short-lived, but they did oldies tours in England, the US and in Australia. Twelve years later, in 1988, he got his first serious acting role in a production of 'The Tempest'. Since then, Freddie has also appeared in several British theatre productions and continued to work with different versions of The Dreamers. The original members of the band have all retired from the music business. Pete Birrell became a Taxi driver, Roy Crewsdon bought a bar in the Canary Isles, Derek Quinn went to work for a soft drink company and Bernie Dwyer died on December 4th 2002 at the age of 62. Sadly, by 2004, Freddie Garrity's health began to fail and following an American tour, he had a heart attack, which forced his retirement. He also suffered from systemic sclerosis and enthersemia, spending much of his time in a wheelchair.


(sent to me by someone in the BBC)