THE COOKIES

The Cook Sisters, Beverley, Margaret and Wendy Cook were born in Portsmouth in the UK. They emigrated to Brisbane where the sisters won a talent quest in 1960 beating the Gibbs Brothers (yes, later The Bee Gees). Due to their mothers homesickness, they all returned to Portsmouth between 1962 and 1965 and caught up with swinging England for a while then moving back to Australia. The Cookies formed in 1965 and gained success in Brisbane before they teamed up with Marcie Jones in 1967. Within 12 months they had become widely known for Marcie's powerful voice and the Cookies superb vocal harmonies and their synchronised stage movements as a result of their appearances on national TV shows, particularly on the pop music The Go!! Show. They toured Australia as support act for overseas artists such as The Monkees on their Australian December 1968 tour. That same year Marcie & The Cookies were presented the Best Female Act for 1968 award by national pop magazine Go-Set and were awarded the Critics Award for the top Australian vocal act.

As a group they released only two Columbia singles, however both these singles had regional success mainly in Melbourne & Brisbane. They were in demand for session work such as on the Tony Worsley & The Blue Jays track, ''Something's Got A Hold on Me''. Particularly they should be recognised for their contribution along with musicians: Brian Cadd, piano; Don Mudie, bass and electric guitar solo; Richard Wright – drums (all three from The Groop); Roger Hicks (of Zoot), acoustic guitar intro/rhythm guitar; and The Chiffons' Judy Condon, Maureen Elkner, Pauline Brady on the recording of Russell Morris's ground breaking psychedelic single "The Real Thing" in early 1969.

During 1969 they toured South East Asia for three months performing in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Bangkok and the Philippines. The tour included performances to Vietnam war servicemen at American bases. They then performed around Europe and the U.K for two years and were support act and back-up vocalists for Cliff Richard during that time on his UK tours. In London, Wendy later married Douggie Reece who was then Dusty Springfield’s Musical Director.

After more than two years overseas Marcie decided to return home to Australia, leaving the Cook sisters to continue on as Cliff's backing singers and joining lead singer Peter Williams (formerly of The Groove) in a new group called Spirit of Progress who recorded a couple of singles on the Decca label and was the support act also for Cliff Richard on tour, as well as performing on the UK Cabaret circuit.

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