Philip Goodhand-Tait has come close to stardom as a performer on a painfully regular basis since the 1960s without ever achieving it, but still finding success. He's an established producer, songwriter, and musician whose work has benefitted artists ranging from Roger Daltrey to the Lords of the New Church, without ever quite becoming a marquee name himself -- sort of England's answer to Al Kooper. Born in Hull in 1945, his father was a trade unionist and his mother taught piano. He was a natural musician and quickly acquired a skill in the same instrument, as well as showing off considerable talent as a singer. When he was 12 years old, the family moved to Guildford, Surrey. It was while living there that he became enamored of rock & roll, which was sweeping the British isles at the time in the hands of visiting American stars such as Bill Haley and Buddy Holly, and through homegrown talent such as Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard & the Shadows. In his early teens, he started singing in local groups, working under names like "Phill Tone and the Vibrants." He and his three closest friends -- Ivor Shackleton (guitar), Kirk Riddle (bass), and Paul Demers (drums) -- coalesced around a quartet lineup that, in 1961, took the name "Phil & the Stormsville Shakers"; the band name was appropriated from the Stormsville album by one of their favorite groups, Johnny & the Hurricanes. The Stormsville Shakers spent the next few years building a serious live reputation, on their own and, for a time, working as the backup band to Larry Williams, but they never managed to get a hit record. Their sound was a mix of rock & roll and American-style R&B, highlighted by a pair of sax players who joined their lineup -- overall the group's music stood midway between the jazz-based R&B of the Graham Bond Organization and the punchier rock & roll work of the Undertakers.