The Sensational Alex Harvey

‘The Sensational Alex Harvey Band were one of the craziest, most honest, most creative and most courageous bands of their time . . . [Harvey] would go to any length to enlighten and to entertain.’ NME

‘Alex was cheeky. Special. Very charismatic. A naughty boy who didn’t want to grow up.’ RICHARD O’BRIEN (Rocky Horror Show)

Glasgow-born Alex Harvey’s career began in the 1950s when he won a competition to become Scotland’s answer to Tommy Steele (he dubbed himself ‘Last of the Teenage Idols’). He was a devoted family man but in front of an audience he became an unforgettable entertainer – charismatic, provocative and intense. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band eventually became one of the most exciting live acts of the 1970s – taking in Jacques Brel, rock and vaudeville.

But Harvey’s life offstage was beset by tragedy and his own alcoholism: his younger brother, Les, was electrocuted on stage; his manager and friend Billy Fehilly was killed in a plane crash. Eventually with his band in tatters, Alex sank into a sea of alcohol, finally succumbing to a fatal heart attack whilst waiting for a ferry home from a gig in Belgium in 1982, the day before his 47^th birthday.

Watch a clip of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band!

John Neil Munro lives in Laxdale, Isle of Lewis. He studied Modern and Economic history at Glasgow University then completed a postgraduate journalism course in Cardiff. Other publications include Some People are Crazy: The John Martyn Story (Polygon, 2008). He has a great affection for unfashionable 1970s rock music.