Remembering The Drifters Girl who made it all happen - new musical

There’s wasn’t. But there was certainly a girl behind them, and that girl made all the difference, as the show will demonstrate when it opens its national tour at Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre (September 12-16; mayflower.org.uk or 02380 711811).

After a successful West End run, The Drifters Girl is on the road to tell the remarkable story of one of the world's greatest vocal groups and the woman who made them.

Carly, former star of Six the Musical and who delighted audiences with her performances as Erma in Anything Goes, will play the girl in question, music industry change-maker Faye Treadwell. Faye was the manager of The Drifters who fought for three decades alongside her husband George to turn Atlantic Records' hottest vocal group into a global phenomenon.

From the highs of hit records and sell-out tours to the lows of legal battles and personal tragedy, The Drifters Girl charts the trail-blazing efforts of the world's first African American female music manager and how she refused ever to give up on the group she loved. 70s years and hundreds of hit songs later, Faye Treadwell is still and always will be The Drifters Girl.

Carly said: “This is the first ever tour and it had a great run in the West End. I wasn't in it but I had friends that were in it and I think I knew the majority of the cast in fact and I went to see the show to support them and I just started thinking this is a fantastic part. And I just can't believe that it's come around for me. I think I'm still in denial!

“There are so many fantastic songs that you just don't realise are by The Drifters until you see the show but also people just don't realise the role that Faye played. She was a fierce trail-blazer. She was so intelligent without knowing just how intelligent she was and she had the brains for the industry and she saw the potential and she made it happen. She saw them and she thought they were great and she put them on the map. She sees what they can become and she makes them something amazing.”

And the legacy continues still with her daughter Tina: “Faye had the control. And she had to really fight as a black woman, people trying to take it away from her or not taking her seriously but she wasn't just in it for the fame or fortune. She was in it for the legacy and for her it was all about creating something that carried on.

"It was just raw for her. Some people just have it. It was just innate. She could see what other people couldn't see and she had a different way of doing things. Because she wasn't from that world she could see how things might be done differently. She was the outsider, she had different views, she was tenacious and because she was from the outside she didn't have a fear of getting it wrong.”