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The very first song they recorded was written by Lally Scott, an eccentric English songwriter who was living in Rome. He had already recorded Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and released it in Italy, but Philips, Lally's own record company, refused to release it anywhere else. Enter, Middle of the Road.

It was very lucky that the day they were recording Chirpy, coincided with a meeting of all the RCA A+R managers from all around the world in the studios in Rome and they were invited to listen to the first mixes of the group's recording. Every one of them asked for a copy to be sent to them for release as soon as possible.

Very soon the word got around the studios that there was a vocal group who sang in English under contract to RCA Italiana. There followed a period, just before Chirpy was released when Middle of the Road was in constant demand as backing singers for a wide range of artists on the RCA label. The most famous personality to ask them to back her on a special single was Sophia Loren.

She had just completed a film with Marcello Mastroiani entitled La Moglie del Prete, (The Priest's Wife). In the film she played the part of a singer who falls in love with a priest. RCA, who had recorded the music for the sound track, decided that it would be good publicity for the film and for their new group if they put lyrics to the main love theme and had Sophia and Middle of the Road record it as a single. The record did well in Italy and this was the first of many film themes to be recorded by the group.

Soon Chirpy was released and an extensive tour of TV stations throughout Europe was organised to promote this first single. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Spain and Italy were visited and in each of these countries Chirpy shot to the top of the charts. Later that year, after intensive promotion and numerous personal appearances, there was hardly any country in the world untouched by this catchy little nonsense song. Middle of the Road had arrived!

Naturally, for them, it was the UK market they really wanted to conquer. When they left Scotland on the 20th June 1970, Ken had said that he did not want to step back on British soil until they were a success. Happily, on the 21st June 1971, one year later, Middle of the Road arrived at Heathrow Airport with Chirpy at No.4 in the UK charts and a car waiting to take them to the 'Top of the Pops' studios at the BBC for an immediate appearance on the show. The following week they were No. 1.

Sure enough, during the next few months, telegrams of congratulations were arriving from all round the world to the RCA studios in Rome, signalling a major world wide success for the four bewildered, but happy, Scots. After a short reunion with their friends and families in Scotland, the quartet was welcomed back to Rome to begin a gruelling schedule of recording, concerts and media promotion. It was at this time, the quartet met Mario and Giosy Capuano, two Italian song writers/arrangers, also contracted to RCA Italiana. Together with Giacomo Tosti, they made a formidable and highly successful team.

Their second single, Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum, was already rocketing up the charts following Chirpy's success. A few month before, the group had spent three weeks on location in Italy and Morocco making a promotional film, for release in cinemas throughout Europe, to launch Fiat's new mini car, the Fiat 127. This film featured Tweedle Dee and was now showing with the feature film 'Love Story'. This promotion not only achieved successful market penetration for Fiat, it made sure that Middle of the Road's second single would hit the charts again.

By this time, Chirpy had out-sold most of the summer hits released that year and it went on to remain in the British charts for 35 weeks. It sold more than 8 million records world-wide elevating Middle of the Road to become the third most popular recording artists in the Billboard Charts in 1971.

Tweedle Dee achieved sales of around 5 million records before RCA released the third high flier, Soley Soley. It was written by Fernando Arbex, a Spanish songwriter, and recorded in the studios of RCA in Madrid, using the same now inseparable production team which had made the first two hits. This third hit meant that Middle of the Road was the only group that year to have three singles in the top 40 in the UK, all at the one time.

In 1972, the group went on to achieve even greater things. In Italy, Tweedle won the top award at the Venice Song Festival, the Golden Gondola; in Germany, readers of Bravo magazine voted Middle of the Road Silver Otto winners and in the UK, they were presented with the Carl Alan Award for their musical contribution to the British dance scene.

In all, thirty two gold discs were presented to the band for all their hits and even their Dutch record company presented them with a unique special award, the Golden Windmill, for grossing the largest amount of guilders by any artiste in their catalogue.

Later that year, they released Sacramento, and it reached top ten status in most of Europe, including many of the East European countries like East Germany, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland, where they starred at the SOPOT Song Festival.

Meanwhile, back in the 'west', they released Samson and Delilah, Yellow Boomerang and Talk of all the USA, selling over 2 million copies in Europe alone.

By this time, Chirpy was charting in Japan and the Far East and, as a result, the group toured there extensively. Their first taste of Japanese TV was to appear on a breakfast show in Tokyo. They had to perform live to a studio audience at 6:30am. In spite of suffering severe jet lag, they took the show by storm and had to be smuggled out of the TV studios in an ambulance before the enthusiastic audience of early risers could stop applauding.

Their next hit, Bottoms Up, was their last for RCA and they swapped labels to the Ariola stable where they continued to release songs like Samba D'Amor and Rockin' Soul in 1974.

In 1977, with the group's popularity vaining, Sally and Ken stopped touring.

Sally came back to Scotland after living in Spain for some time. Unfortunately her mother, who had been an invalid for many years, had died and she felt the loss very much. Understandably, the lyrics of Chirpy did not offer her any consolation and she was glad not to have to sing 'Where's your Mama gone?' any more. She married Scottish journalist and TV sports presenter, Chic Young and settled down to raise a family of her own and, in 1980, her son Keith was born.

Ken returned to his first career, film production, and started an audio visual facilities company. After a few years he launched a new TV production company of his own, EPM Production, and provided a production service for the corporate market as well as occasional forays into the world of broadcast TV as a director/cameraman.

But the music industry was not finished with Middle of the Road yet, and Sally and Ken were invited back, in 1981 to record a 'Stars on 45' type single for the European market by CNR Records. Once again the old team were seen and heard on TV and Radio performing their old hits in a medley set to the rhythms of the discos of the day. The record had moderate success round the world but Ken and Sally returned to their commitments in Scotland.

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Site created: November 12, 2006 Last update: Juni 23, 2008