Rich and Famous

My sister over at Vintage Vicki bought me an album from a local charity shop last week for 50p, by a band whose frontman came from our little town on the Suffolk coast:

Blue Mercedes - Rich and Famous (1988)

Dance-pop duo Blue Mercedes were Duncan Millar and local boy David Titlow (left of pic).  They formed in London in 1984 and released just one album; Rich & Famous, in 1988.

I remember seeing them on TOTP at the time of their UK hit 'I Want To Be Your Property' and the general fuss at school at the fact that David was from our town.  This single was their best success in the UK, reaching no.23 in October 1987.  They had more success in the US than here, with three hits (including a no.1) in the Hot Dance Play chart.

Rich & Famous is typical late 80s hooky chart fayre, with a strong Stock/ Aitken/Waterman sound to it (unsurprisingly it was produced for Pete Waterman's PWL production company) with a fruity Martin Fry/Tony Hadleigh vocal from David.

Here they are on TOTP with their biggest single:



While 'I Want...' got to no.1 in the US Hot Dance Play chart, 'Love Is The Gun' reached no.5 and 'See Want Must Have' got as far as no.18.  The album only reached 165 in the US and didn't chart at all in the UK, although I'm sure several copies were bought round here at least.

Duncan later released dance records under various names including Exoterix and now makes albums of "smooth jazz".  David is now a successful fashion/music photographer.