First Class

The First Class was a British pop music studio-based group, put together by songwriter and record producer John Carter. The First Class was the studio creation of the British singer-songwriter John Carter and singers Tony Burrows and Chas Mills as an outlet for material Carter wrote with his creative partner and wife, Gillian (Jill) Shakespeare. Carter was the veteran of the early 1960s beat music, most notably Carter-Lewis and the Southerners, a... more

The First Class was a British pop music studio-based group, put together by songwriter and record producer John Carter. The First Class was the studio creation of the British singer-songwriter John Carter and singers Tony Burrows and Chas Mills as an outlet for material Carter wrote with his creative partner and wife, Gillian (Jill) Shakespeare. Carter was the veteran of the early 1960s beat music, most notably Carter-Lewis and the Southerners, a band Carter formed with fellow producer Ken Lewis. That band dissolved when Carter and Lewis began working extensively as studio singers, appearing on the hits "It's Not Unusual" (Tom Jones), "I Can't Explain" (The Who), "Hi Ho Silver Lining" (Jeff Beck), "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" (Sandie Shaw), "Excerpt From A Teenage Opera" (Keith West) and "Out of Time" (Chris Farlowe). Lewis and Carter formed a vocal harmony band, The Ivy League, that enjoyed three top twenty hits in Britain in 1965: "Tossing and Turning", "That's... less