The Housemartins

Paul Heaton and Stan Cullimore started busking together in Hull before a demo tape of theirs came to the attention of the record label Go Discs, prompting the duo to form the band The Housemartins, which eventually settled into their popular line-up featuring Norman Cook, Dave Hemingway and Hugh Whitaker. Championed by BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, their acerbic, left-wing lyrics were wrapped up in bright pop arrangements which found mainstream success in 1986 with the UK Top 3 single Happy Hour. The band's biggest hit, however, came that Christmas when their enlightened, unaccompanied cover of Isley-Jasper-Isley's Caravan Of Love hit Number 1 in the UK. They made a further two albums, London 0 Hull 4 and The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death, before splitting in 1988 when Heaton and Hemingway formed The Beautiful South with Sean Welch, and Norman Cook went on to reinvent himself as influential dance DJ Fatboy Slim.