The Little Angels

This page viewed loads of times since January 7th 1997

Update 27th April 2001

Another "thank you", this time to Phyllida Sumner who emailed to let me know she'd spotted four of the guys (all but Toby) on TV this week just gone. All playing together (bass, guitar, drums and keyboards)... as Ronan Keating's backing band on the Pepsi Chart Show! I've since checked the sleeve of the single and they're not the musicians featured on the recorded version of Lovin' Each Day, but as Ronan was singing live, I guess they were playing live.
The weirdest bit was their appearance. All four had crewcuts and were wearing black t-shirts and jeans - somewhat like the women in those Robert Palmer videos. Only not so pale. Or sexy. In my opinion. I have to admit I watched the video twice before it sank in that it was them. Jimmy's the only one more than vaguely recogniseable at first glance!
Now - coincidence or not? Mark Plunket was apparently Boyzone's tour manager a year or so ago. Hmmm...

Update 26th April 2001

More "where are they now info", this time courtesy of Michael Small (or Nick, who uses Michael's address - sorry for any confusion). Actually, I'll let you just read the actual mail:

Regarding your little angels information, I have some information on Bruce. He is school manager at the Academy of Contemporary Music, where he lectures on Music Business Studies. I have sat through many of his lectures which were filled to the brim with little angel tour stories and other such nonsense. He explains in his lectures excactly why and how the Little Angels split. His story doesn't quite match yours. They had millions of pounds invested in them to tour Europe supporting Van Halen and Bon Jovi, and the outcome was a disaster, with them only selling an extra 6000 copies of Jam throughout Europe. Technically the record company dropped them. The band was a few million in debt at this point.
Other interesting facts: Bruce onced mimed playing guitar for Boyzone on the National Lottery. Bruce has 2 kids.

Update 19th March 2000

Surprise, this one. Thanks to John Dickinson, Jimmy and Bruce's dad, for dropping me a line when he saw the page. For those looking for something to buy, Jimmy's new band, YY28s, have an album entitled Soap out now and are doing pretty well in Japan. Surprise, surprise, though - bugger all radio play over here.
Also, and most likely due to lack of radio support and publicity, one of the major factors in the band's calling it a day was finances. They barely broke even on that last gig - and you'd expect selling out the Albert Hall to make you a tidy packet. Understandably, if a show this size nets very little you can see how a whole tour could be physically and emotionally draining, yet still fail to pay the bills.
Still, you never know. Cross your fingers, folks. Maybe they'll do a one-off charity show or something. Nobody's said anything, but I know I live in hope!

Update 15th Feb 2000

Many thanks to Nigel Crooks who emailed me the following info, prompting the first update to this page in around 2 years:
Jimmy is now in the band Younger Younger 28's
Bruce works at the Academy of Contemporary Music
Toby works for a film company in Bristol
Mark Plunket is Boyzone's tour manager (poor sap)
Michael drums for Page and Plant
Mark Richardson is now the drummer with Skunk Anansie

The Little Angels were a British band, specialising in light rock. They formed in 1984, renamed to the Little Angels in 1987 and their third (and last) album, Jam, sold over 1 million copies.
The Angels split up on July 2nd after a farewell mini-tour ending at the Royal Albert Hall, London (of which I have a couple of pictures). The reasons for the split are many, and the band don't seem to want to talk about some of these, so it's best to stick with the major one: Polydor.
The band signed to Polydor backstage at Hammersmith Odeon (as it was then - now the Labbats Apollo) after a sell-out gig and went on to release three albums. All the albums did incredibly well in the UK, but Polydor were reluctant to push the band outside of this country. The Angels reckoned they'd reached and passed the point at which they could have made it bigger, so decided to quit while they were ahead and go out on a high.

The band were:
Lead vocals, acoustic guitar: Toby Jepson
Lead guitar, acoustic guitar: Bruce John Dickinson
Bass, backing vocals, percussion: Mark Plunket
Keyboards, percussion, backing vocals: Jimmy Dickinson
Drums: Mark Richardson
Saxaphone: 'Big' Dave Kemp
Trumpet: Grant Kirkhope

Thanks to Elliott (see later) for the last two, which he reminded me were named on the Makin' Jam video.

The only real line-up changes in the band's history was regarding drummers. Originally, Dave Hopper was with the band way back when they used to be called Mr Thrud. Next in line was Michael Lee who left the band on short notice to join The Cult who dumped him after about two weeks. Mark Richardson then joined the band for the recording of Jam after playing a series of live dates covering for Lee.

Discography

Albums
Singles
And a quick "thank you" to Elliott Atkins, Chris Prosser and John Peake (who's brother went to school with the band) for help with the discography and so forth.

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