Steve Harley

Steve Harley (born Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice; 27 February 1951 ) is an English singer and songwriter, best known as frontman of the rock group Cockney Rebel, with whom he still tours, albeit with frequent and significant personnel changes.

Harley was born in 1951 in Deptford, London, the second of five children.

His father was a milkman and his mother a semi-professional jazz singer.

During the summer of 1953, Harley contracted polio, causing him to spend four years in hospital between the ages of three and 16.

He underwent two major surgeries in 1963 and 1966.

After recovering from the first operation at the age of 12, Harley was introduced to the poetry of T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence, the prose of John Steinbeck, Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, and the music of Bob Dylan, which inspired him to a career of words and music.

From the age of nine, Harley began taking classical violin lessons and would later play as part of his grammar school orchestra.

Aged 10, he began learning the guitar after receiving a Spanish nylon-strung guitar from his parents at Christmas.

Harley was a pupil at Edmund Waller Primary School in New Cross, London.

He then attended Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Boys' Grammar School until he was 17.

He left school without completing his advanced level exams.

In 1968, at the age of 17, Harley began his first full-time job, working as a trainee accountant with the Daily Express – despite having gained only 24% in his mock O-level maths exam.

From there he progressed to become a reporter.

After being interviewed by several newspaper editors, Harley signed to train with Essex County Newspapers.

Over three years, Harley worked at the Essex County Standard, the Braintree and Witham Times, the Maldon and Burnham Standard and the Colchester Evening Gazette.

He later returned to London to work for the East London Advertiser (ELA).

Unwilling to write up a story about a woman who had inadvertently taken two tins of food from a shop, Harley determined to get sacked - an objective he achieved by not wearing a tie and growing his hair long.

Harley started his musical career playing in bars and clubs in 1971, mainly at folk venues on open-mike nights.

He sang at Les Cousins, Bunjies and The Troubadour on nights featuring John Martyn, Ralph McTell, Martin Carthy and Julie Felix, who were all popular musicians within the London folk movement of the time.

In 1971, he auditioned for the folk band Odin as rhythm guitarist and co-singer, which was where he met Jean-Paul Crocker, who would become the first Cockney Rebel violinist.

Among many of Harley's peers who went on to gain successful careers in national journalism were John Blake and Richard Madeley; the latter took over Harley's desk at the ELA in 1972.

Harley began busking around London in 1972, including on the Underground and in Portobello Road, whilst also writing songs.

After the folk scene proved not to be his preference, he formed the band Cockney Rebel in late 1972 as a vehicle for his own work.

The original Cockney Rebel consisted of Harley, Crocker, drummer Stuart Elliott, bassist Paul Jeffreys and guitarist Nick Jones.

Jones was soon replaced by Pete Newnham; however, Harley felt the band did not need electric guitar, particularly with the arrival of keyboardist Milton Reame-James.

They settled on the combination of Crocker's electric violin and Reame-James' Fender Rhodes piano.

During 1972, representatives of Cockney Rebel began to send demo tapes to various labels.

Mickie Most discovered the band at a London nightclub known as The Speakeasy Club and offered them their first contract with his RAK Publishing.

In turn this influenced the A&R personnel at EMI Records, who then offered the band a three-album deal.

With producer Neil Harrison, Cockney Rebel recorded their debut album, The Human Menagerie, during June and July 1973.

Their debut single "Sebastian" became a hit across Europe, but failed to chart in the UK.

When released in November 1973, The Human Menagerie suffered a similar fate.

Despite the lack of commercial success, the album was critically well-received and soon gained cult status.

The Human Menagerie's lack of success led EMI to feel that the band had yet to record a potential hit single.

In response, Harley went away to re-work the unrecorded song "Judy Teen", with the objective of making it single material.

"Judy Teen" was released in March 1974 and peaked at No. 5 in the UK.

During February and March 1974, the band recorded their second album The Psychomodo, which was produced by Harley and Alan Parsons.

Released in June, the album peaked at No. 8 in the UK.

From May until July the band embarked on a major UK tour to promote the album; tensions grew among them as the tour progressed.

On 18 July they received a 'Gold Award' for outstanding new act of 1974; a week later, with the tour finished, several members left over the disagreements.