KINCADE was the brain-child of songwriter/producer John Carter, who wrote all of the songs with lyrics by his wife Gill. As Carter put it: "We wrote loads of Kincade stuff, we wrote the album in a week!".

All recordings were made with session musicians (with Carter singing lead) for his own production company Sunny Records and the records were leased to Larry Page's Penny Farthing Records. In 1973 the single "Dreams Are Ten a Penny" came out and a singer called John Knowles was sent out to promote the record as "Kincade". The song wasn't a hit in the UK, but got to number 2 in Germany and number 5 in Sweden. Carter: "Larry kept saying 'an album, another single' and he found this group". This group was Octopus, for after a disagreement John Knowles was replaced by Paul & Nigel Griggs and Rick Williams, who were part of a band called Octopus that had been signed to Penny Farthing Records. They were now sent off to promote Kincade records, although neither they nor John Knowles had taken part in any of the recordings. This caused much confusion especially when John Knowles re-emerged as John Kincade for a solo career.

Following the success of "Dreams Are Ten a Penny", Kincade scored a few minor hits in Germany in 1973 and 1974, including "Do You Remember Marilyn", "Big Hand for Annie" and "How Can I Fly". In the meantime Carter was already busy with his new project, First Class, who would have a huge hit with Beach Baby in the summer of 1974.

www.paulgriggs.com (The Complete Story of KIncade)

www.diaryofamusician.com (includes the kincade story)

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