Rock Bottom (7)

British female glam vocal trio signed to RCA Records. The idea for Rock Bottom was conceived by Annabel Leventon, Diane Langton and Gaye Brown in association with Leventon’s then boyfriend, composer Don Fraser, who wrote a lot of their music. As the women were all actors as well as singers, they also consulted a writer friend, Howard Schuman, about the possibility of making a spin-off TV series. “The band is a heightened version of ourselves,” writes Leventon, who uses the present tense throughout, making it more in-the-moment. “Raunchy, confident, rude, funny, bold, off-the-wall outrageous, it’s never been done before. We’re on the road.” Their first gig, in the same theatre on the King’s Road, Chelsea, where The Rocky Horror Show played, was sold out and they had no difficulty securing a record deal with RCA. Thames TV expressed an interest in making a series based on their success. Everything appeared to be coming up roses. The problem was they had nothing in writing to prove that the idea was theirs and theirs alone. “We were naive,” says Leventon 40 years on. “I never wrote anything down, which was a mistake.” So certain was Leventon about the future success of Rock Bottom that in 1974 she turned down the lucrative female lead in Billy, the West End stage musical version of Billy Liar, starring Michael Crawford, because it clashed with the release of Rock Bottom’s first single. The decision cost Leventon her agent. She had absolute belief in the onstage chemistry of the three women. “We were like greyhounds being released from their traps,” she explains. “As soon as we came on stage the audience couldn’t help but respond to us.” But it wasn’t long before storm clouds were gathering above Leventon’s showbiz dream. Having discussed the TV project further with Schuman and producer Verity Lambert, she heard that it was proceeding without the original trio.