From left, Don Dale, Peter Bernard Noone and his entourage. (1968 photo)
Peter Bernard Noone, the "Herman" of Herman's Hermits, was riding the height of his short career as a British Invasion pop star in 1968 when he stopped in Wiesbaden on a concert tour. Herman's Hermits had hit it big in 1964 with "I'm Into Something Good" and twice in 1965 with "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" and "I'm Henry VIII, I Am." But the group's most recent hit, "There's a Kind of Hush," had dropped off the charts more than a year earlier. The song would be the last to get any significant airplay for the group, and Noone would leave Herman's Hermits in two years.
Nobody knew that the group was on its way down when the Wiesbaden concert was announced, and we considered the band's frontman to be a prime candidate for a "Catch 22" interview. Once again Chuck Minx and I loaded the bulky Auricon sound camera into the back of a motor-pool station wagon and hit the road.
The band's staff had arranged for a late-morning interview over coffee at a hotel bar. Almost nothing is less attractive before lunch than the smell of stale beer and the sight of gaudy surroundings in the glare of full daylight.
We showed up on time, and so, surprisingly, did the band. Chuck and I lit up a two-shot area for the interview, but Noone insisted that several female members of his entourage join us. There they are in the picture above, with the light falling off significantly on the right, where they sat. Chuck grabbed a few opening wide shots that included Noone's companions, but once we began in earnest he kept a two-shot on me and Noone. (Moral: Never try to outwit the cameraman.)
Noone was an okay interview. He was a pop star. There didn't seem to be much else at that stage of his career that he could talk about. But he photographed well and appeared to be at ease as we talked about his career so far and the plans for the rest of his tour.
A sizeable portion of our audience were Herman's Hermits fans, and the interview played well when we aired it on "Catch 22."
The wide shots of Noone's entourage wound up on the cutting room floor.
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OMG! Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone! I had such a crush on him - for maybe two weeks. It's easy to dismiss Herman's Hermits, but it was perfect pop for the time Along with the ones you mentioned, there was also Leaning on a Lamp Post, Can't You hear My Heartbeat, Just a Little Bit Better and my favorite, Listen People. And let's not forget This Door Swings Both Ways. Hmmm, I wonder.
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