Thirty years after they disappeared from the charts, Silk Purse are getting the band back together.
Somewhere in the mid-eighties, Silk Purse had a very good year.
Their frontman, Ron Ashcroft, wore velvet jackets and smiled like a man slightly surprised by his own luck. His younger brother Julian played keyboards and took the music rather more seriously. Their cousin Martin Reed was on bass, Pete ‘Piper’ Lawson was behind the drums, and Leo Fontaine completed the line-up on guitar.
And for a while, it worked.
Their biggest hit, Gold in the Gutter, spent six weeks in the Top Ten. Albums followed, along with television appearances, interviews, tours and all the other things that happen when a group of people used to travelling around in a van suddenly become famous.
Eventually, Silk Purse did what many bands do.
They stopped being a band.
There was no farewell tour, no final concert beneath a flurry of confetti. By the early nineties, the band had simply gone their separate ways.
The Song That Wouldn’t Leave
Silk Purse may have disappeared, but Gold in the Gutter didn’t.
Over the years it became one of those songs that turned up when you least expected it. On the radio. At weddings. On eighties compilation albums. In supermarkets. Lift music.
Ron Ashcroft moved on to the nostalgia circuit and occasional television appearances. The others found lives beyond Silk Purse.
The song carried on regardless.
And then someone suggested putting the band back together.
Meet the Band
Ron Ashcroft, lead vocals
The face and voice of Silk Purse. These days Ron is older, happier and a familiar face on celebrity television shows, although music remains his first love.
Julian Ashcroft, keyboards
Ron’s younger brother and the serious musician of the family. After Silk Purse, Julian moved into production and has since worked with artists considerably more famous than the band ever managed to become.
Martin Reed, bass
Ron and Julian’s cousin and the steady presence in the band. Martin left the music business behind and now works as a mechanic in the garage his father once owned.
Pete ‘Piper’ Lawson, drums
Schoolfriend, drummer and practical man of the group. Pete invested his money in property while the rest of the band were still spending theirs and did extremely well out of it. He now lives in Spain.
Leo Fontaine, guitar
Stylish, and the only member who wasn’t family or an old schoolfriend, Leo was brought in by the record label to add a little continental flair to the line-up. He later moved abroad, married, had children and has lived quietly away from the limelight ever since.
The Reunion
More than thirty years after they last played together, Silk Purse are returning.
And because this is the world of Kitty Brookstone’s Fame & Fortune Mysteries, there is every possibility that somebody will end up dead.
Listen
Listen to Silk Purse’s biggest hit, Gold in the Gutter, here: play the track
Gold in the Gutter
Silk Purse
From the Archive
