Spriguns | tr

A Cambridge folk-rock band who started life playing Friday and Saturday nights at the Anchor pub in Silver Street, Cambridge. Their 1974 privately released cassette was sold to students at live performances and less than 50 copies were produced. The cassette format has ensured that their value has not reached the epic proportions of the vinyl follow-up Jack With A Feather, which boasted better sound quality and duplicated some material from the earlier cassette. The playing on the album was good and almost all the material was traditional.

Abbreviating their name to Spriguns they went on to record a couple of further albums for Decca which are also very rare now. By now the band was almost totally the vehicle of talented vocalist Mandy Morton who went on to form The Mandy Morton Band and record for Banshee and Polydor. In the eighties she toured with a rock band and became a presenter on BBC Radio Cambridge.

Of the other members: Mike Morton sadly died. Rick Thomas is married and now lives in Italy. Tom Ling plays in an excellent Cambridge based band call Usual Suspects and Chris Russon has recently returned to the local Cambridge music scene.

After the first The Mandy Morton album Sea Of Storms (Polydor 2382 101), drummer Alex Cooper, Tom Ling and American guitarist Mark Boettcher left the group. Consequently Boettcher introduced Alex Cooper to some American musicians who then, together with ex-Soft Boy Kimberley Rew, formed Katrina and The Waves. The 'Waves later made a big splash with their hit I'm Walking On Sunshine. .