# Paper Lace

Paper Lace is an English pop rock band formed in Nottingham in 1967. They achieved fame and success in 1974 when they had three UK Top 40 hit singles, including the number one hit "Billy Don't Be a Hero". In the United States they are considered a one-hit wonder, having had a lone US number one hit in 1974 with their signature song, "The Night Chicago Died".

## History

The core of the band formed in 1967 as Music Box. Members Cliff Fish, Dave Manders, Roy White, and Phil Wright performed covers by the likes of the Beach Boys. In 1969 they changed their name to Paper Lace. They worked their way through small club gigs, a season at Rochdale club Tiffany's, and in 1971 at The Birdcage in Ashton-Under-Lyne. In 1972 Paper Lace released First Edition, the first of two studio albums.
Despite some TV appearances, the band achieved no mainstream success until 1973 victories on Opportunity Knocks, a talent contest series, broadcasting at that time on ITV. The band had auditioned for the programme in 1970, but they were not called to appear until 1973. According to Phil Wright (then lead singer, now lead singer of Phil Wright's Original 70s Paper Lace), the band initially questioned whether they should go on the show, but with Opportunity Knocks's weekly viewing figures of 7 million, they concluded that going on the programme was a 'no brainer'. Paper Lace won for five consecutive weeks.
On the basis of Opportunity Knocks performances, songwriters Mitch Murray and Peter Callander offered the band "Billy Don't Be a Hero", with the possibility of more songs if it took off. The song spent 14 weeks on the UK Singles Chart, three weeks of them at number one. It was followed by another Murray/Callander composition, the story song "The Night Chicago Died", which reached Number 3 in the UK in its 11 weeks on the chart. In late 1974, Murray and Callander’s third song for the band, "The Black-Eyed Boys", took Paper Lace to Number 37 in Canada and Number 11 during its 10-week UK run.
In the United States, with the subject matter of "Billy Don’t Be a Hero" assumed to be about the Vietnam War, it seemed logical that the song should become a hit there. But Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods were the first to release the song in the US, and Paper Lace's version did not catch on, peaking at number 96. However, their follow-up, "The Night Chicago Died", although a historically inaccurate tale of a violent battle between the forces of gangster Al Capone and Chicago police during the Prohibition era, had no such competition. Despite contractual hassles preventing the band from performing the song in America, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week. Having sold over three million copies, it was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in August 1974.
Also in 1974, the band released its second of two studio albums, Paper Lace and Other Bits of Material (1974). The band line-up covering the three UK hit singles consisted of Philip Wright on drums/lead vocals, Mick Vaughan on lead and rhythm guitar, Cliff Fish on bass guitar, and Chris Morris on guitar and vocals. Later that year, Carlo Paul Santanna joined Paper Lace on the advice of management as a fifth band member. This membership was very short-lived; in fact, it only lasted for six months
Paper Lace were reportedly the most successful band Nottingham ever produced. Among other accolades, they were invited to perform on the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen Mother. However, as musical tastes and styles evolved in the mid-1970s, the band's popularity waned, and by early 1976 Vaughan and Morris had left the band, replaced alongside Wright by Jamie Moses from 1975 to 1978 and Peter Oliver (previously with The New Seekers).
In 1978, the band re-surfaced briefly with a sing-along version of "We've Got the Whole World in Our Hands" with their local football team, Nottingham Forest F.C. (Sendra, 2006). The 7-inch single, with "The Nottingham Forest March" as the B-side, spent six weeks on the UK chart and reached Number 24, but went Top 10 in the Netherlands.
Paper Lace disbanded in 1984, but Phil Wright and Cliff Fish reformed the band in 2009.
In 1990, three original Paper Lace members, Philip Wright, Mick Vaughan, and Chris Morris, received financial backing to re-record "Billy Don't Be a Hero" with an up-to-date sound. However, it was never released because, when the Gulf War began, the BBC banned songs it deemed inappropriate to broadcast during wartime, and "Billy Don't Be A Hero" was among them.
In 1997, Wright joined Sons and Lovers but left in 2008. Phil Wright, the voice on all the 1974 Paper Lace recordings, continues to perform with the reformed Paper Lace, now known as Philip Wright's Paper Lace. The band members are Phil Wright (drums, lead vocal), Dale Corcoran (bass and vocals), Dave Major (keyboards and vocals), and Phil Hendriks (lead guitar and vocals). They released a new album of songs that are recently re-recorded songs from the hit album Paper Lace And Other Bits Of Material. The CD is entitled It's Worth It and is dedicated to the life and memory of original bassist Cliff Fish, who died from cancer on 14 April 2023 at the age of 73.

## Hit era band members

* Phil Wright (born Philip Wright, 9 April 1948, St. Ann's, Nottingham, England) — drums/lead vocals
* Mick Vaughan (born Robert Michael Vaughan, 27 July 1950, Sheffield, Yorkshire) – lead/rhythm guitar/arranger/backing vocals
* Cliff Fish (born Clifford Victor Fish, 13 August 1949, Ripley, Derbyshire, died 14 April 2023) – bass guitar/backing vocals
* Chris Morris (born Christopher Morris, 1 November 1954, Nottingham, England) – rhythm/lead guitar/keyboards/backing vocals

## Discography
### Studio albums

List of albums, with chart positions :
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Peak chart positions | Peak chart positions |
| Title | Album details | AUS | US | CAN |
| First Edition | Released: March 1972 Format: LP Label: PHILIPS (6382 101) | - | – | – |
| Paper Lace And Other Bits of Material | Released: June 1974 Format: LP Label: BUS STOP (BUSLP 8001) | 32 | 124 | 74 |

### Singles

| Year | Single | Peak chart positions | Peak chart positions | Peak chart positions | Peak chart positions | Peak chart positions | Peak chart positions | Label |
| Year | Single | US | UK | IRE | AUS | NZ | CAN | Label |
| 1971 | "You Can't Touch Me" | — | — | — | — | — | — | Concord CON 020 |
| 1972 | "In the Morning (Morning of My Life)" | — | — | — | — | — | — | Concord CON 021 |
| 1973 | "Ragamuffin Man" | — | — | — | — | — | — | Concord CON 027 |
| 1974 | "Billy Don't Be a Hero" | 96 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 51 | Bus Stop Bus 1014 |
| 1974 | "The Night Chicago Died" | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Bus Stop Bus 1016 |
| 1974 | "The Black-Eyed Boys" | 41 | 11 | 7 | 23 | — | 37 | Bus Stop Bus 1019 |
| 1975 | "Hitchin' a Ride '75" | — | 55 | — | — | 16 | — | Bus Stop Bus 1024 |
| 1975 | "So What If I Am" | — | — | — | — | — | 64 | Bus Stop Bus 1026 |
| 1976 | "I Think I'm Gonna Like It" | — | — | — | — | — | — | EMI EMI 2486 |
| 1978 | "We've Got the Whole World in Our Hands" | — | 24 | — | — | — | — | Warner Bros K 171i7 |

### CD releases

* Paper Lace and Other Material / First Edition (Double CD) – Cherry Red / 7t's Label Cat No. Glam Cdd 109; both albums, plus B-sides to all singles released until 1975