Dream Come True For Patsy Band

Members of original 1980s band Daniel Takes A Train are having to pinch themselves after their first ever chart Number One – nearly 40 years after they broke up!

Their latest single Just Like Patsy Cline is ‘Top of The Pops’ in the latest Heritage Chart

announced on Sunday by former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read and has risen higher even than singles released by more established acts such as Depeche Mode, Belinda Carlisle and Stereophonics.

“We simply can’t believe it,” says singer Paul Baker, who by day runs a vintage lifestyle shop. “We’ve had singles in the Heritage Chart before, but we never expected to hit the top spot.”

Other members of the band, all of whom are now in their fifties or early sixties, work as estate agents, business consultants or service engineers but have never taken their eyes off the bigger prize: a number one smash hit.

Songwriter and guitarist Dan Synge, otherwise a publisher and university lecturer, says: “This is great news! Even after all these years we still enjoy writing and recording music together. It’s nice also for the band to get some recognition at last.”

The song Just Like Patsy Cline was inspired by memories of listening to an old cassette tape of the

legendary female country singer at a time when the band were rehearsing in a London coal

cellar and struggling to get a record deal on the 1980s club scene. Record companies EMI and BMG courted the band briefly, and they were mentioned on Radio 1 and played some

top West End venues including Ronnie Scott’s and the Astoria, but fame and fortune eluded the band. They went their separate ways in 1988.

But after a chance reformation in 2018 (an obscure German record label found their old

video on YouTube and put out an LP of their long-rejected demo tapes), the band have since have been plugging away with a succession of new music releases. “It sounds crazy, but we

never gave up on the dream which we first imagined in our early twenties,” adds singer Paul. “As the chorus to our single says: Just Like Patsy Cline I won’t give in!”

The Heritage Chart Show available on radio and TV formats plays new songs by legendary

musicians who were largely active before the year 2000. Chart positions are determined by votes from listeners in up to 100 countries.

Order Whatever Happened to the Teenage Dream? an eye witness account of the band's story here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DJTGZKBW