DAVID GARRICK
Born: September 12, 1945 - Died: August 23, 2013
R.I.P.
R.I.P.
Of all the aspiring pop stars to come out of England in the 1960s, David Garrick had the most unlikely background. Unlike the members of the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers, et. al, who were all fans of rock & roll as kids, Garrick grew up in an environment steeped in classical music. Born Philip Darryl Core (some sources list his birth name as Darrell Philip Corré) on September 12, 1945 in Liverpool, he came from a home in which Mozart and Beethoven were vital musical figures, and occupied the center of his attention to music -- rather than Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, or Elvis Presley, Mario Lanza loomed large on his boyhood radar screen. From an early age he was also singing in church choirs. He took formal voice training starting at age 14, and was singing with the Birkenhead Opera Company by 16. And from there it was off to La Scala on a grant to study with Lanza's one-time teacher. This was in the early '60s, and still not out of his teens, he had worn himself ragged between the voice training and the work to pay his expenses, and so he headed back to Liverpool.