British singer Steve Harley has died. He scored hits with Cockney Rebel in the 1970s Sebastian in Make Me Smile, still mainstays on classic rock stations. Harley was 73 and died of cancer.
Martin Bone’s photo
Steve Harley started his career in bars and clubs in his hometown of London, where he also entertained tourists as a busker. Blessed with the right combination of courage, talent and luck, he managed to get a contract with record label EMI, which he immediately had a hit with the meeblèrt topper Sebastian.
Although the debut album Human Menagerie (1973) did not contain more classics, Harley turned out to be no one-hit wonder. The infectious Judy Teen quickly achieved the second hit and the pop songs of Cockney Rebel, based on folk and vaudeville, turned out to fit perfectly into the glam rock era.
After successor The Psychomodo (1974) more or less flopped, Harley fired the rest of the band and set up a new Cockney Rebel, which had a slightly more mundane sound. With the album The Best Years Of Our Lives (1975) a they hit (Come Up And See Me) Make Me Smile the band grew into an international top act.
Although that fame was short-lived and the songwriter increasingly fell into ready-made pop. After a radio silence in the eighties, Steve Harley returned to the stage in 1992 with the reasonably convincing sounding album Yes You Can. Since then he has toured on a small scale and released the occasional record.
Last year Harley made a lap of honor through the Low Countries under the name 50 Years A Rebel. In December he announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He died on Sunday in his hometown of Suffolk.