Dickie Pride was born Richard Charles Knellar on October 21 1941 in Thornton Heath, Surrey, England. By the time he was eight, he was winning praise for his singing, and staff at the Royal School of Church Music felt that his voice was potentially operatic. However Dickie took off in a different direction and at 16 formed a skiffle group called the Semi-Tones. He was spotted singing in a Tooting pub by Russ Conway who persuaded Larry Parnes to watch Dickie the next week. Parnes liked what he heard, signed him up to his stable and changed his name. He was soon making regular appearances on the TV programme Oh Boy! However his early records such as Slippin'n' Slidin', Betty Betty and Bye Bye Blackbird all sank without trace and only Primrose Lane dented the charts. His story thereafter was written in drugs and alcohol and he suffered from manic depression. He attempted a comeback in 1969 but in March 1969 he was found dead having taken an overdose of sleepinig pills. The short bright life of Dickie Pride was over. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.