The Sensational Alex Harvey

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 47th birthday. "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) "I would have died to have had Alex Harvey as an uncle." --Robert Smith, The Cure