Rachel Love began her music career in the band ‘Dolly Mixture’ which started when she was still at school in Cambridge. This was back in 1978 and Rachel, who was then Rachel Bor, was in charge of vocals and guitar, with her partners in crime being bassist and vocalist Debsey Wykes and drummer Hester Smith. The trio shared a fondness for the Shangri-Las and the Undertones, and interestingly supported the Undertones on one of their first UK tours. Dolly Mixture also played venues with the Fall and the Transmitters in 1979 and astonishingly they were once supported by U2.
Dolly Mixture went on to have a very colourful six years together, and during that time they signed to Chrysalis Records and in 1980 they released a cover of The Shirelles hit, ‘Baby It’s You’. Their next single, ‘Been Teen’ in 1981 was the first single released on Paul Weller’s Respond label and was followed by ‘Everything And More’ in 1982, also released on Respond. Both singles were produced by Captain Sensible and Paul Gray of the Damned. Rachel, Debsey and Hester then ended up singing backing vocals for Captain Sensible’s hits ‘Wot’, ‘Glad It’s All Over’, and UK No.1 hit ‘Happy Talk’. In 1984, the band released a double album called the ‘Demonstration Tapes’ on their own Dead Good Dolly Platters label and sadly disbanded the same year.
Dolly Mixture also recorded three BBC sessions, one of these being with the legendary John Peel in August 1979 with those tracks being: ‘Dolly Mixture Theme Song’/’Dream Come True’, ‘He’s So Frisky’, ‘New Look Baby’, ‘Ernie Ball’ and ‘The Locomotion’.
Wind the clocks forward and for the past three years Rachel has been playing live again with two of her sons and two of their friends, these being members of the band Telecom. They perform a few Dolly Mixture songs as well as material from Rachel’s solo albums, ‘Picture In Mind’ (2021) and ‘Lyra’ (2024). The boys add great harmonies and a lot of energy to the set.
Rachel has now announced an afternoon matinee concert here in Brighton at The Prince Albert on Sunday 10th November with doors opening at 2:30pm and the first act will be on stage at 2:45pm. The event has been organised by Bizarro Promotions and they have also secured the services of Helen McCookerybook who was a founder member of the bands The Chefs and Helen and the Horns, both of which recorded numerous sessions for John Peel, and released material on independent labels. Now a solo artist, she gigs in the UK, Europe and beyond and features regularly on BBC6 music.
Tickets for this concert are on sale now and can be purchased HERE.
