The Angels, described as Singapore's first girl band, were featured this week in 1965 in The Straits Times ahead of their debut performance at the Singapore Badminton Hall.

Band members Eileen Goh, 18, Iris Wee, 17, Agnes Wong, 17, and Maria Sin, 19, were discovered by well-known radio personality Kingsley Morrando. He called them "tops in beat music".

"I have big plans for them, but my big problem is teaching the girls to get used to face make-up," he said.

The girls had just left school and were not used to make-up, he said. "In fact I had to get the permission of their parents to have them wear lipstick and rouge."

He had spotted them one morning practising at a nightclub as they could not afford their own amplifiers.

They had formed the band just three months before they met Mr Morrando, after saving up to buy their own musical instruments.

Named after Elvis Presley's hit song Angel, the band played covers of pop songs by Elvis, The Beatles and Gerry And The Pacemakers.

The band broke up later in the 1960s when one of the guitarists got married, drummer Maria Sin told The Straits Times in a 2008 interview. She herself got married in 1972 and had two sons.