Marmalade with Alan Whitehead

At 19 Alan Whitehead turned fully professional, as a drummer. Joining Crispian St.Peters who had a No 1 hit with "I'm the pied piper" he then played with various groups including the cult group "The Attack" with Dave O'List. In the winter of 1967 he saw an advert for a drummer in a popular music paper "Hard-working Motown group looking for a drummer". That group was 'Marmalade',who were the number one group in Scotland, they had decided to move down to London to break into the music industry but their drummer didn't want to start all over again so Alan filled the vacancy.

After a few months of Alan joining, the band got a residency at the World famous Marquee club in Wardour Street and their first big hit followed, with "Loving Things", then "Wait for me MaryAnn" and by the Christmas of 1968 their first Number one with Ob-La-De Ob-La-Da. The group followed this hit with "Baby Make it soon". Marmalade then switched record labels to Decca and recorded "Reflections of my life" which went on to be number one in 18 countries. Marmalade toured the World extensively racking up a total of 11 top ten hits and 2 number ones.