Covered: John Carter & Ken Lewis: 1963-1977

A couple of months ago (writing this in March 2025), I posted an album of BBC sessions by the British band the Ivy League. They're not that well remembered today, probably because they only stayed together a couple of years, but they had a few good hits. It turns out that the Ivy League was just one of many bands led by the songwriting team of John Carter and Ken Lewis. Here's another installment in my "Covered Series" that highlights the best song written by them.

John Carter and Ken Lewis first met each other when they were going to school together in Birmingham in the 1950s. They soon began writing songs together. In 1960, they moved to London and began trying to sell their songs, but didn't have much success at first. It turns out their vocals blended really well together, so they began focusing on singing harmony vocals. They found a lot of work doing backing vocals for other musical acts in Britain. For instance, that's them singing most of the backing vocals on "I Can't Explain" by the Who. They formed the band the Ivy League with a third person, Perry Ford, as another way to get their music to the public.

They had their first really big break in 1964, when the Herman's Hermits took their song "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" all the way to Number Two in the U.S. In 1965, their own band the Ivy League had two Top Ten hits in Britain with "Funny How Love Can Be" and "Tossing and Turning." 

However, Carter and Lewis were mainly interested in songwriting and recording in the studio. Carter left the Ivy League in early 1966 and Lewis left in early 1967. In addition to giving songs to existing musical acts, they started making up their own groups. For instance, they created the band the Flower Pot Men, and had a big hit with their song "Let's Go to San Francisco." Suddenly, they needed an actual band to go on the road to promote the song, so they picked out a bunch of other studio musicians to perform in concerts. The same thing happened with the song "White Collar Worker," supposedly by the band the Ministry of Sound. In fact, the song was sung by Carter, and backed by studio musicians.

This process repeated itself a lot. Other supposed bands like Stamford Bridge, Scarecrow, and Stormy Petrel were really just Carter and/or Lewis plus backing musicians. Carter also sang lead vocals on "Winchester Cathedral," by the New Vaudeville Band, which hit Number One in the U.S. in 1966. That isn't included here, however, since it was written by someone else (Geoff Stephens). Once again, the supposed band for that song didn't actually exist, and a band was quickly put together to promote the song once it became a huge hit.

The hits became less frequent as the 1960s turned into the 1970s and musical styles were changing. Lewis broke up the songwriting partnership in 1971. Suffering from depression, he quit the music business entirely.

However, "Beach Baby" was a big hit for Carter in 1974, reaching Number Four on the singles chart in the U.S., and doing similarly well in other countries. Carter cowrote that with his wife Jill Shakespeare. Once again, the supposed group behind the song, First Class, didn't actually exist at first, but a band was created once there was demand for concert appearances.

To be honest, I don't even know how many of the songs here are actually sung by Carter and/or Lewis, since they used so many pseudonyms. But a bunch of them are like that, for sure. For instance, "Starbreaker" could be another fake band. They probably sing some backing vocals on some others as well.

Lewis spent the rest of his life in a very low key way in the English countryside. Apparently, he lived simply off songwriting royalties and traveled the world a lot. He died in 2015 at the age of 74. 

Carter, by contrast, never really left the music business. As the hits dried up in the mid-1970s, he morphed into writing jingles for commercials. He also concentrated more on producing and business aspects for the music industry. He is still alive as I write this in 2025.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 That's What I Want (Marauders)
02 Is It True (Brenda Lee)
03 Sweet and Tender Romance (McKinleys)
04 Funny How Love Can Be (Ivy League)
05 Can't You Hear My Heartbeat (Herman's Hermits)
06 That's Why I'm Crying (Ivy League)
07 White Collar Worker (Ministry of Sound)
08 Tossing and Turning (Ivy League)
09 Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James (Manfred Mann)
10 Little Bit O'Soul (Music Explosion)
11 Let's Go to San Francisco (Flower Pot Men)
12 Time and Motion Man (Episode Six)
13 My World Fell Down (Sagittarius with Glen Campbell)
14 Sunshine Girl (Herman's Hermits)
15 Letter to Josephine (Haystack)
16 My Sentimental Friend (Herman's Hermits)
17 Knock, Knock, Who's There (Mary Hopkin)
18 I Want to Be Where You Are (Scarecrow)
19 Hello Hello Hello (Stormy Petrel)
20 Dreams Are Ten a Penny (Kincade)
21 Beach Baby (First Class)
22 Sound of Summer (Starbreaker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qhYRW65o

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/EbujOmzWfP5R1J9/file

There are very few good photos of Carter or Lewis. Most of what I could find were from the Ivy League era, and even then they were almost always wearing sunglasses. I found separate black and white photos of them and put them together. Then I colorized them using the Palette program. After that, I used the Krea AI program to improve the image quality. Carter is the one wearing sunglasses.