Chapter 1 : Frogmore House to Devon 1959

I was born on November 3rd 1945 at Frogmore House Maternity Home in Norwood Green, Middlesex. My dad, Rupert, was a hardware store manager, and my mum, Clare, was a housewife, joining Dad at the shop when I went to Grammar School in Hillingdon. Together with older sister Liz, I had a very happy childhood growing up in working class, but still semi-rural Hayes. Like most families in post-war Britain, we would party at any excuse, playing the 78 rpm hit records of the day on an ancient wind-up gramophone. Liz played reasonable violin, but my musical ambitions stopped at the recorder.

I guess it all started with Lonnie Donegan. Like most young people in the 1950’s, I was completely knocked out by the excitement of his records. Liz bought “Rock Island Line”, “Stewball” and others. My first record purchase was Lonnie’s “Gambling Man”, on 78 rpm of course, which survived for two days until it was dropped and smashed in two!!

There is no doubt that Lonnie’s influence began the guitar boom, and I soon began pestering my parents for one, a plea which fell on deaf ears. Most guitars sold at that time ended up in a cupboard, so I understood their reluctance to buy me one. However, Christmas 1957 saw me the proud owner of a plastic ukulele which, whilst being worse than useless, was at least the right shape!!

Liz, meanwhile, would regale me with stories of her trips to the Ken Collyer Club in London, where musicians would hold what they called “jam sessions”. She built me a tea-chest bass from a box, broom handle and string, in true skiffle style, which I plucked while she cavorted around the living room strumming the out-of-tune ukulele, both of us boogieing along to the current Donegan hit.

It was not long before new sounds began to shape our lives. Tommy Steele, Haley, Paul Anka, and the one that really did it for me – Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

Whilst on holiday in Devon in 1959, I first heard the sound that would have a profound effect on my musical direction – an amazing disc called “Please Don’t Touch” by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, which I could not get enough of. Little did I know back then as a twelve year old, that one day I would be a member of the Pirates!

Chapter 2 : The Renegades

During the next few years, the music got even better, with amazing artists coming to the fore, such as Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Ricky Nelson, Gene Vincent, Roy Orbison, Eddie Cochran and the wonderful Jerry Lee Lewis. In fact we were spoilt for choice!

By now I had joined a gang of lads who met most evenings on the bridge over Yeading Brook, which was only 200 yards from our house. I was still at school, but most of the ‘Bridge Mob’ were a bit older and had started work. I was soon introduced to the joys of smoking, and the taste of beer, although mostly we drank “Jubbly” orange drink which only cost fourpence!

1960 was the year that it all finally happened. Dad had received a healthy bonus from his firm, so he decided to blow his windfall on a holiday in Jersey (Channel Islands). We spent a glorious fortnight at ‘Parkins Holiday Village’ in Plemont, famous for once employing Peter Sellers as entertainments manager. One of the high points was to be a talent show; one day Dad and I were passing the open door of a chalet, when we paused to listen to the man inside who was practicing his ‘turn’, strumming a guitar and crooning the words to “The Ballad of Jesse James”. Dad, who was feeling benevolent after a lunchtime beer, turned to me and said “when we get home son, I’ll buy you a guitar, and you can go in for talent shows!”

Well, I kept Dad to his word, and the weekend after our return saw us making our way to Southall Broadway. ‘Musicraft’ was a large record store which also sold instruments. Dad signed the hire purchase agreement, handed over the deposit, and out I walked, the proud owner of a Framus semi-acoustic electric guitar, costing the princely sum of 17 guineas!

From then on I saw little of the gang on the bridge, spending every spare minute in my room, practising instrumentals such as Duane Eddy’s “Rebel Rouser”, The Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run”, and of course the sensational Shadow’s hit “Apache”.

Dad insisted that I learnt properly and enrolled me for lessons with a middle-aged gent called Bert Kirby. Bert taught me to read music, but most of the sheet music was written for piano and not in the same keys as the records. I soon discovered that it was quicker to pick up the hit tunes by ear, so I dispensed with Bert, much to Dad’s relief, as the lessons weren’t cheap!

Pretty soon the word spread that I had a guitar! People regularly knocked on our door, just to have a look, and even at school my status was raised, being the only pupil allowed to stay inside at lunch break, as long as I was practising guitar!

One night I had a visit which was to change my life forever. Richard Bennett and Ian Nelhams were two lads that I knew quite well as they lived close by. What I didn’t know was that they had a music ‘group’, and they just happened to be recruiting new members! Richard Bennett played rhythm, but he didn’t own a guitar, so it was agreed that he could borrow mine, whilst I was relegated to playing their homemade bass guitar, known as the “Flatty” due to its lack of contours. Ian, usually known as “Nelly”, or sometimes “Rubbernose”, was a cousin of Terry Nelhams, by now known as pop star Adam Faith, which added (we thought!) a little bit of kudos to our group. Two other members, Lenny and Paul, left the group before I even met them, and I wondered if we would ever rehearse with a full complement. Soon, however, we were joined by a talented guitarist from Wembley called Ken “Jet” Lucas, on account of his black hair. We needed a name, so I came up with “The Renegades”. We were on our way!!

Our HQ was the basement of the Bristol café in Southall which the owner, Jack, used as a youth club cum coffee bar. It had a small stage with a jukebox on one side and an out of tune piano on the other, and it was here as a fifteen year old, that I made my public debut, playing the only two notes that I knew, and lots more that I didn’t know! It sounded pretty awful but the audience, made up mainly of friends, gave us a warm reception.

More gigs followed. Sometimes we hid our equipment in shop doorways whilst one of us hailed the bus. We knew that the conductor would never let us on if he saw the gear first!

One memorable night, when I had been promoted to lead guitarist, Nelly came up with the brilliant idea of placing my speaker at the opposite end of the hall, explaining that I would hear myself better. He carefully ran about 70 feet of cable from my amplifier to the speaker, strategically placed at the end of the hall. All went well for two tunes until someone shut the cable in the door and severed it! That ended that experiment!

Pretty soon, the lack of gigs and permanent members led to the disintegration of the Renegades. Whilst the trio of Bennett, Nelhams and Simper stayed firm friends, we went in different musical directions. I teamed up with Nelly, trying to form a new group, whilst Richard Bennett decided to form one of his own. One day Richard and I went to the funfair in Battersea Park, where we bumped into two of his old school chums, Micky Willshire and Robin Scrimshaw, who both played guitar. Although they seemed a little reluctant, Richard talked them into starting a new group called “The Downbeats”. Little did Micky and Robin know at the time that they were beginning musical careers which would see them both become important musicians who would play on many hit records.

Nelly and I continued to recruit new people, but those who showed promise were swiftly poached into the Downbeats, including singer Dave Kaye and bassist Ken Rankine (brother of Matchbox singer Graham Fenton), by Rich Bennett whose power of persuasion was far greater than ours.

The Downbeats were soon up and running, whilst Nelly and I got nowhere. It was time to call it a day. The Renegades were no more. My enthusiasm had not weakened though, and I threw myself into practising guitar as hard as possible. I had bought a Watkins Westminster 10 watt amplifier from Maccari’s Music Shop in Wembley, so I felt ready for action.

This was my last year at Grammar School, and my studies conflicted with the time spent practising guitar. It was no contest, the guitar won! During this period I had got to know another local youngster who was a few years older. His name was Tony Ross and he was learning to play bass. I didn’t know then that he was destined to become one of the most important bass players in the country and later, known as “Rupert” Ross, to be a huge influence on my life.

Chapter 3 : Rupert & The Delta 5

Tony Ross was a good-looking self-confident type of bloke, who was extremely enthusiastic about music. Sensing my own eagerness to learn, he invited me to his house in the next street on a regular basis, where in his bedroom he kept a small Vox amplifier and a Hofner Club 60 guitar – an impressive bit of kit!

He had already secured the bass player’s job in a top local group called Pete Nelson & the Travellers, whose members were to include Johnny “Mitch” Mitchell on drums, Tony Hall on rhythm guitar, later to become one of Britain’s best tenor saxophonists, and Vic Briggs on lead guitar, who later went to the USA with the New Animals.

Tony, whose nickname was ‘Pip’, used the bottom four strings of his Hofner for a while until he became the proud owner of a cherry red Burns Artist bass, “the next best thing to a Fender”, as he was often heard to proclaim. Throughout late 1960 into 1961, Tony Ross took me under his wing, and together we went to see bands at local gigs and youth clubs, whilst he played me the most important records of the period by Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Ray Charles amongst others, showing me the bass lines on his new Burns, which I was eager to learn, even though I was still ambitious to play lead guitar.

To say that Tony Ross stood out amongst his peers would be an understatement. He seemed to have an aura about him that set him apart from others. He had an uncanny knack of foreseeing who would be big in music, and even which guitar models would be in vogue, and it was not long before it became obvious that he was developing a talent for playing bass which was to elevate him way above all the competition! As the Travellers grew in stature, it was not long before they decided to purchase new guitars.

Bert Kirby, my old tutor, had introduced me to a friend of his who was about to open a music shop in Hanwell, West London. His friend was a drum teacher called Jim Marshall. His little shop at 76, Uxbridge Road soon became a Mecca for budding musicians and top professionals alike, and it was here that I witnessed the three guitarists from the Travellers take delivery (after a six month wait) of two cherry red Gibson 335 guitars and one pink Fender Precision Bass guitar. I was present during this transaction only because I had agreed to buy lead guitarist John MacDonald’s Futurama, which Jim Marshall had promised me at the trade-in price of 20 guineas.

Of course finding 20 guineas was out of the question, but Jim kindly let me take the guitar away on the agreement that I would pay £1 per week, precisely the amount that I received from my Saturday job in the local butcher’s shop! Every weekend I would cycle to Jim’s shop and give him a one-pound note. He would duly fill in the card, until one day, after half the payments had been made, he wrote in large letters – PAID! across the card, and the Futurama was mine!

This became a pattern of generosity which Jim showed throughout the early years of his business, and so it is no surprise that his customers stayed loyal, and later flocked to buy his amplifiers, making Marshall one of the most recognised names in the business!

Meanwhile Tony ‘Pip’ Ross went from strength to strength, and of course it was inevitable that he would be poached by a professional group. The Flintstones were one of the most exciting groups around. Based loosely on the ‘Piltdown Men’ and ‘Sounds Incorporated’, they toured constantly and were making a good living when they added Ross to their ranks. For some reason he dropped the name ‘Pip’, and as two of the Flintstones were named Tony, he was re-christened “Rupert”, which he had sign-written in Gothic letters across the top horn of his Precision Bass.

I had now left Bishopshalt Grammar School with only 4 GCE O-level passes, and had no idea what to do with myself. My mother was working in Southall at Williams Brothers’ Grocers shop, and they were short-staffed, so I became a fixture for several months, serving on the counter, boning bacon, cutting up cheeses and being the gofer!! This was a very happy period in my life, free of school, earning a few bob, and getting to know the local girls who hung around the shopping parade.

Soon I had an invitation to join a local group who were making waves around Greenford and Southall. The ‘Cossacks’ were formed around the three Lewis brothers, two of whom played bass and rhythm guitars, and Keith who was the singer – apparently their father had come into some money and had kitted the boys out with the best equipment. Bragging of my new appointment, I was amazed at my increase in popularity with the girls. This didn’t last long however, as the Cossacks disbanded before I ever played a gig with them. Undeterred, I began networking between Hayes and Ealing, setting up rehearsals with many local players, trying to get a group going.

It was during a visit to Southall Community Centre, to watch the ‘Jaywalkers’ (who had an impressive guitarist called Ritchie Blackmore) that I bumped into two people who I had recently jammed with. Drummer Paul Tait and his bass playing pal Chas had secured a gig with a Wembley based outfit called The Delta 5. Paul explained that they needed a second guitar, and they had lots of gigs in the book. I needed no further persuading, and in a few days joined the Delta 5 line-up featuring Ricky Eagles on rhythm guitar, Ken Pickering on vocals with Paul and Chas on drums and bass. In no time we hit the road, playing every weekend. At last I was playing in a good group, and getting paid for it!

Nick Simper (guitar); with Ricky Eagles (rhythm guitar); Ken Pickering (vocals); Paul Tait (drums); Dave Hillyard-Jones (bass).

Rupert, meanwhile, continued to progress. It was always open house at 39 Ashford Avenue and Rupert introduced me to the sounds of the great lead guitarists such as Cliff Gallup, Scotty Moore and James Burton, as well as on the local scene Mick Green, Micky King and Big Jim Sullivan. The Delta 5 played some good venues, including the Ealing Jazz club, where we would pack the place on Wednesdays, whilst on Thursdays, new group the Rolling Stones pulled only a handful of people! Whilst many people praised my ability on lead guitar, I was beginning to realise deep down that I didn’t have what it takes to be another Mick Green!

About this time, another friend and neighbour, Micky Haskell would bring round records by Woody Guthrie and Big Bill Broonzy. Mick was running a club at the White Hart, Southall, and one memorable evening we witnessed blues artiste Cyril Davies doing a solo spot. “Forget yer Bloody Hank Marvin”, said Mick, “This is real guitar playing!” He wasn’t wrong either!!

After a tour with the Everly Brothers and Little Richard (with the Flintstones being proclaimed Keith Richards’ favourite group), Rupert Ross quit to join probably the most underrated but one of the most talented outfits in England, namely Carter-Lewis and the Southerners. Based upon the hit song-writing duo of John Carter and Ken Lewis, the group boasted a line-up of Rupert Ross on bass, Viv Prince on drums and Jimmy Page on guitar. Jimmy was shortly to leave and so Rupert drafted in local boy (from the Downbeats) Micky Keane. This was a big period for Rupert, as John and Ken were writing hits for lots of acts, and it was necessary for the Southerners to demo these songs in the London studio at Southern Music. Whilst the Flintstones had cut two singles and half an unreleased album with the legendary Joe Meek, Rupert now found himself playing the part of a session man.

He still showed an almost clairvoyant approach, raving about new groups that he’d seen on the road, such as the Beatles and the Pacemakers. He sported what later became known as a Beatle haircut, and to some of us it seemed as if he was from another planet.

Rupert’s father, Ken, had started his own agency, ‘Ross Entertainments’, and at this time he was booking the Delta 5 and others into the local venues. It was during a Ken Ross gig at the Acre Hall, Northwood, Middlesex that a shocked Delta 5 and their audience learned of the assassination of U.S. President Kennedy in November 1963.

Whilst the Delta 5 carried on learning the trade, Tony Ross was undoubtedly becoming one of the country’s top bassists. Playing mostly with his thumb, he was rapidly becoming a legend in his own lifetime…

Chapter 4 : Rupert, Cliff Barton and ‘Some Other Guys’

….. However this was also the time when he started to get sick. At first it was no more than stomach pains, then nausea and sickness. He began to lose weight, but doctors were baffled as to the problem. One day he breezed into Jim Marshall’s shop, announcing that his illness had at last been diagnosed, simply a stomach ulcer! We were all visibly relieved.

By now I had secured a job as a trainee draughtsman at the Southern Electricity Board in Uxbridge, a great job designing electricity sub-station sites. Unfortunately the pay, six pounds and ten shillings a week, did not give me the financial clout to purchase the musical equipment that I needed. I had acquired a 1939 Austin Ten saloon car with the help of an eight quid loan from my Mum, which I was paying back at five shillings (25 pence) per week. I needed a rise!!!

I approached the boss, Mr. George Hendry, and asked for ten pounds a week. He gave me a one-word answer – no! I immediately gave two weeks’ notice and soon found a job at the local bakery, Chibnalls, as a wholesale and retail bread salesman, on a basic wage of sixteen pounds a week, plus commission. I was rich!

At the first opportunity I rushed down to Marshall’s shop where top guitarist Mick King, formerly of Cliff Bennett’s Rebel Rousers, was the new manager. I had already bought the Fender Amplifier that Micky Green had used on several Johnny Kidd hits, and I needed a guitar to match. I intended to order a white Fender Stratocaster, but Mick reminded me of the six month wait to obtain one from America and then drew my attention to what he considered a better buy, hanging on the shop wall. It was a Gibson Melody Maker, finished in yellow sunburst, and – the best part – it was only 96 guineas! Micky King added a short Bigsby Patent tremolo arm for an extra 14 guineas and I was sold!

For the last couple of years I had been trawling the clubs and pubs of West London, observing and picking up tips from dozens of different bands. There had been an amazing explosion of bands – known at that time as ‘groups’ – during this period, some of the most influential being ‘The Cossacks’, ‘Frankie Reid and The Casuals’, and the uniquely named ‘Cyrano and The Bergeracs’. Watching these outfits, I realised that half of the battle was having the right equipment. Well, with the kit I had now, I was king of the hill!

During early 1963 I met another musician who was to have almost as much influence on me as Rupert. Calling himself Cliff Curtis, after the legendary Crickets guitarist Sonny Curtis, his real name was Cliff Barton, and he was lead guitarist with local group ‘Ricky Wade and the Crossfires’. Cliff took me under his wing, much as Rupert had done, teaching me guitar licks that I had previously found impossible to play. He also talked me out of any ideas I had of being the next Hank B. Marvin, and lent me a stack of records to study, by people such as Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Ritchie Barrett and Solomon Burke. R&B was the thing, he explained. He also took me to see two bands that he considered to be the most important and influential at this time, namely Buddy Britten and the Regents and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, both powerhouse musical trios who paved the way for the later bands of the decade such as Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. To say that I was impressed by these acts would be an understatement – I was completely blown away!! “Forget rhythm guitarists”, said Cliff, “they’re not needed!”. If anyone had suggested at this time that I would become a member of one or both of these bands, I would have said that they were crazy!

Once Cliff Barton had converted me to his way of playing and thinking, I was eager to impart my new found knowledge to the Delta 5, but my suggestions were only well received by the rhythm section, the other two being committed to being ‘all round entertainers’. My commitment to these new sounds led to several of us having a clandestine rehearsal with a couple of other like-minded musicians, including a great singer called Roger Peacock. Of course we were soon found out, and so the Delta 5 collapsed. I did feel a little guilty for a while, but not for long. I can remember feeling really honoured to receive a call from Cliff Barton, suggesting that we form a new group with me playing guitar and Cliff on vocals. With old friend Alan Hill on rhythm guitar and harmonica, and the bass and drums from the Delta 5, we proceeded to rehearse at Perivale Youth Club, in the school hall.

A couple of rehearsals later, it became obvious that we were not coming up to Cliff’s expectations and we decided to call it a day! Sadly, I saw little of Cliff after that. He went on to take up bass guitar and double bass, working with Cyril Davies, Long John Baldry and Georgie Fame. He soon established himself as one of England’s greatest bassists. Sadly, it seems that he also embraced the drug culture, and about four years later, whilst celebrating the success of ‘Hush’ with the other members of Deep Purple, I was shocked to spot a small paragraph inside the London Evening News, reporting Cliff’s death at the age of 24 years.

Paul Tait, Alan Hill and I decided that we would stay together and form a new group founded on the style that Cliff Barton had taught us. After a bit of shuffling we found a good singer from West Drayton called Dave Taylor, who sang in the Cliff Bennett style. Just what we wanted! Then a talented pianist called Steve Cameron, from Greenford, turned up. All that we needed now was a bass player. However, bass players then were a rarity, whilst lead guitarists were ten a penny, and most of them better than me! The solution was obvious. Back to Jim Marshall’s shop I went and traded my gear in for a second-hand Fender Precision bass, and a brand new 50-watt bass amp with a 4×12 speaker cabinet. Finished in white rexine, it was one the first, if not the first bass rig, the design of which Marshalls still sell to this day. With the addition of ace guitarist Mike Payne, ‘Some Other Guys’ were born.

Drawing on everything that Rupert Ross had shown me, I began to make the transition to bass player. ‘Some Other Guys’ really clicked together, and after playing a few well-received gigs, it began to dawn on us that we really had something!

Meanwhile Rupert, although obviously still very ill, had landed a gig with vocalist Jimmy Justice. Jimmy had enjoyed several top ten hits and was at the top of his game, being about to embark on a tour of Holland. “Rupert’s moving up the ladder”, observed one of his former Flintstones colleagues.

By this time the unsociable hours of being a bread salesman were clashing with the life of a semi-pro musician. I wasn’t the most popular salesman at Chibnalls, having driven the 8 feet high van under a 7 feet high arch, tearing off half of the roof, so I thought it was time for a change of career.

Having secured an interview for a job in a London office, I set off early. With time to spare I called into Jim Marshall’s shop and engaged in small talk with ex-Flintstones guitarist/singer Rod Freeman. After several minutes the phone rang, and I watched Rod visibly wilt with the news. On the phone was Rich Bennett, my old Renegade pal, calling to announce that Tony Ross was dead. He had died of cancer in Holland whilst touring with Jimmy Justice. Needless to say, I never got to the job interview!!!

Chapter 5 : Going Pro

The death of Tony ‘Rupert’ Ross stunned everyone who knew him. It did not seem possible that one of the brightest stars of the pro music scene was no longer with us. Life, of course, had to go on. It continued to be open house at Tony’s home. Pat Marshall, one of the Flintstones’ saxophonists moved into the spare room and became a long-term lodger, whilst I visited regularly. Tony’s parents lost none of their enthusiasm for the music scene, and proudly watched the rise of John Carter and Ken Lewis who, together with Perry Ford were now making waves as the Ivy League. Shortly afterwards, Jimmy Justice and his band returned from their tour and the pink Fender bass was returned to Ken and Jean Ross.

Initially they intended to hang it on the wall, but after some discussion decided that it had to be used. When they offered it to me, I was shocked, and then flattered, but of course I gratefully accepted and became the second owner of this wonderful instrument. After a chat with Jim Marshall, he showed his usual generosity by buying back the bass guitar that I had purchased from him several months before, thus helping a little towards the Ross’s family outlay resulting from their sad loss.

I was still clinging on to the job at the bakery, whilst furiously working flat out during every spare moment honing the stage act of ‘Some Other Guys’. On several nights a week we would rehearse at the Hayes Church Hall, polishing up our set list. My old school friend from Bishopshalt Grammar, Tony Tacon, had also knocked a group together known as the Javelins. I had taught Tony his first chords (from the Buddy Holly songbook of course) and helped out once or twice when they needed a guitarist. Tommy had been on the receiving end of an amazing stroke of good fortune by discovering an old Fender Stratocaster hiding at the back of a junk shop. The proprietor, knowing nothing about guitars, was open to offers, and handed it over for 30 quid!! Obviously Tony was happy with that result. He had blossomed into a useful rhythm guitarist, and the Javelins, with their new singer known as Jess Gillan, performed very passable covers of the hits of the day. Their regular gig at a local youth club was only yards from the church hall, and we frequently had to turn up the volume at our rehearsals to avoid being drowned out!

At the same time, we had acquired a manager through a friend of a friend, who claimed to know everybody in showbiz. He would frequently drop names such as Dick Rowe (of Decca records) or Brian Epstein, which initially impressed us no end. We felt that having a manager gave us extra kudos, but it soon became obvious that all these associates existed only in his imagination.

The early 1960’s was a period when the music scene was exploding with new bands and new venues absolutely mushrooming. Lots of these groups were actually packing up work and turning professional, as in those days, if you had a decent sound that pleased the crowds, it was not necessary to have hit records. A good outfit could gain a reputation and work most nights of the week on that alone!

Of course, as the beat business expanded, so the ‘Arthur Daley’s’ of showbiz gathered like vultures to swoop down in unsuspecting gullible musicians who, eager to just get on with the music, happily handed the business side of things over to these dodgy managers and equally dodgy agents. The modus operandi of many of these people was so simple that it defied belief! What they did was to charge the venues the highest price possible for their acts, whilst paying the groups half or less of that figure. To compound this outrage, they also extracted 10% commission from the artists’ cut, which did not leave much cash to be shared between 4 or 5 skint musicians! To be fair, there were many straight and trustworthy agents out there, but I am sure there is not a single musician who hasn’t been ripped off in the way I have described. The Delta 5 once travelled from Wembley to Sevenoaks in the Kent for the princely sum of 8 pounds. The normal practice for promoters was to post a cheque to the agent, thus ensuring that the group never discovered their true fee, but for some strange reason the Sevenoaks promoter handed the cheque to us. Imagine our surprise at seeing the figure of 25 pounds written on it!

When ‘Some Other Guys’ realised that their manager was not totally truthful, it was decided that revenge was needed. So we set him up by getting a pal with a flash car to pose as a top U.S. music mogul (using the dodgy agent’s name), complete with big cigar and personal assistant. The poor guy went for it like a hungry pigeon, turning up in his best suit and tie. The crowning moment came when the ‘American’ impostor presented our dodgy agent’s business card as his own, and arranged to have him telephone details of all the bands that he could muster, with the promise of U.S. tours. Our manager really thought that he had hit the jackpot, and we all held our sides trying not to laugh as we hid just within earshot. Of course one can only speculate as to what happened when he called the real agent! The very thought of it was reward enough for the times that we had been conned. The funniest part was that he never suspected us, even warning us that there was an American impersonator about, and to be very careful!!

Meanwhile ‘Some Other Guys’ continued to rehearse and play more gigs. The audience response was growing each time, which did wonders for our confidence. Steve Cameron quit one night after a row and was quickly replaced by an equally talented Hayes pianist called Dave Bone. Alan Hill had by now begun to show promise as a songwriter, presenting us with a soulful ditty titled “Sweet Talking Man”. Armed with the new song, we booked some time at a recording studio in Rickmansworth, owned by the famous disc jockey Jack Jackson. Produced and engineered by Jack’s sons John and Malcolm, the group recorded the new title, together with a cover of Benny Spelman’s “Fortune Teller” on a two-track machine in about three hours flat! We felt the result was not half bad, and several acetate copies were cut for our manager to hawk around.

At the same time, Alan Hill had entered us for a talent show being run by the London Evening News, with the promise of cash and a record deal for the winner. Turning up to do our spot with a dozen other groups, nerves got the better of us and our performance was pretty dismal. As we slunk out dejectedly, knowing that we had blown it, I was compelled to hang back as the next act did their stuff, as they had a singer who really stood out from the others, with a powerful range that defied belief! His name, I discovered, was Ashley Holt.

By now I was beginning to feel that my ability on the bass was approaching a more respectable level than I had showed on lead guitar, and thought it was time to get myself accepted by the local musical fraternity. I began spending as much time as possible hanging out in the right places, musicians’ haunts such as the Spiral Steps Café and the bowling alley, both in Southall, The Rendezvous Café and Ted’s Café in Hanwell Broadway, and of course, the main place to be seen, Jim Marshall’s shop. I would hang around and watch players trying out guitars, some of them big names such as Big Jim Sullivan, Judd Proctor or Mick Green.

One day, I dropped in with my Mum to pick up some strings, and as Jim came to serve us I became aware of some other people there, posing by the counter like gunslingers in a Wild West Saloon. It was Screaming Lord Sutch with three of his Savages – Rick Brown, Ritchie Blackmore and Carlo Little. Jim introduced us to Dave Sutch, who was probably the first pop singer to sport waist-length hair. During our conversation my Mum jokingly asked if his hair didn’t sap his strength, whereupon Sutch replied that she hadn’t read her Bible, for it was Samson’s hair that gave him his strength! Mum was suitably chastened!

The highlight of the week was Saturday afternoon at Marshall’s shop, when my old tutor Bert Kirby would check out the condition of the guitar stock. Bert was pretty adept at knocking out a jazz tune, and he would be joined in a jam session by such luminaries as Rod Freeman on guitar, Ken Rankine on bass and Johnny ‘Mitch’ Mitchell on drums. Saturdays at Jim’s was like a musicians’ social club, and I would drink in the atmosphere, rubbing shoulders with various members of local bands such as Cliff Bennett’s Rebel Rousers and the High Numbers, shortly to become the Who.

By late 1964, new groups were appearing overnight to become the next big thing, and Some Other Guys certainly felt that all was going according to plan and that the big break would not be long in coming. For me though, everything was about to change. One evening I received a telephone call from Jim Marshall’s son, Terry. He asked if I was interested in a professional gig. Naturally I was all ears and asked who with? His reply nearly knocked me over. The gig was with Buddy Britten and The Regents, one of my favourite outfits!

Within two hours I was knocking on Roger Pinah’s front door. Roger was the Regents’ drummer, who I vaguely knew as the bloke who used to sit in (and speed up) with the Delta 5. Surely, I thought, he can’t be up for the gig? The following evening saw me proved wrong, as I witnessed the Regents’ show at the Grosvenor Ballroom in the centre of Aylesbury. Roger Pinah had blossomed into one of the most visual and exciting drummers that I had ever seen, with Buddy Britten playing raw guitar behind his rocking vocals, Tony Richards pumping the electric piano, and about-to-leave bassist John Lawson providing the bottom end. The atmosphere in the ballroom was electric as the Regents played a scorching set to an enthusiastic crowd.

After the show I met Buddy, for some time one of my musical heroes. Tall, charming and well-spoken, he made me welcome and showed me the set-list, mostly songs which I knew. Finally it was time to depart, having arranged to meet on Monday at his agent’s office in central London. Bidding the group farewell, I left Aylesbury for home, feeling like a dog with two tails. Finally, the dream of life on the road as a pro musician looked about to become a reality!

Chapter 6 : Regents and Bergeracs

It was a cold Monday morning when I picked up Roger Pinah, and together we drove to the underground station where we caught the train to Oxford Circus, in the heart of London town. A short walk took us to the office of the Malcolm Rose agency, which managed Buddy Britten’s career. Buddy had been highly touted for several years as Britain’s answer to Buddy Holly, and very good he was too! His chiselled good looks and tall, slim physique were identical to Holly’s, and the addition of a pair of (clear glass) horn-rimmed spectacles completed the image perfectly. He did a pretty good imitation of the voice as well, and had Holly’s guitar style off perfect. Speculation was rife in the business that he was to play the part of Buddy Holly in a film of his life, but nothing happened. Maybe the well-spoken Harrow accent of Britten was too far removed from Holly’s Texan drawl!

Buddy, whose real name I later discovered was Geoffrey Glover-Wright, welcomed me to the office, where he presented me with a stack of his single record releases, which I was instructed to learn for my debut gig at the weekend. These included several songs, which really deserved to be hits, but had not quite made it. One of the best was a great version of the James Ray U.S. hit “If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody”. According to legend, Buddy sent a demo copy to a well-known agency in the North, hoping to secure work in that area. Apparently he heard nothing, but it was not long before one of the agency’s acts, Freddy & The Dreamers, rocketed to number one in the charts with the same song, which had left a bitter taste in Buddy’s mouth! Of course, whether his version did inspire Freddie Garrity to record the tune, no one will ever know!

Impressed by Buddy’s easy-going manner, and armed with the pile of records I headed for home, trying to take in the fact that I was now a pro musician! Today it is considered normal for people to leave school or college to pursue a musical career. Back in 1964, being a pro set you apart from the crowd, often leading to you being regarded with suspicion as some kind of freak or oddball! With unemployment being almost non-existent, anyone who did not get up in the morning and go to work was certainly not regarded as normal! I took me some time to acclimatise to the lifestyle of late nights and even later mornings, and some neighbours could not be persuaded that I was not a layabout on the dole!

Following the meeting I got down to some serious practise before having a rehearsal with Buddy and Roger prior to the first gig. Buddy and his wife Janet lived in an apartment in an old country house in Hertfordshire. Called ‘Wormleybury’ near the village of Wormley, it was a splendid old pile which had several areas converted to apartments, some of which were rented by workers in the music industry.

Saturday night arrived, and together with Buddy, Roger and Tony Richards on piano, I made my professional debut at the Whitehall, East Grinstead in Sussex. After forty-plus years, my memory of that first gig is extremely hazy, but I can remember that we went down very well and, as our set finished, I could not resist waving through the rapidly closing curtains to a trio of enthusiastic girls at the front of the stage. “Never ever do that again!” snarled Buddy. Suitably admonished, I didn’t have the nerve to enquire why not!

Apart from that small blip in stage protocol, Buddy was very happy with my performance, and I felt ten feet tall as Roger and I walked from the hall to my old green Bedford Dormobile van for the journey back to London.

Life had now become a hectic round of rehearsals and one-nighters. Tony Richards dropped out as he had a demanding daytime job, and so Buddy gave the task of finding his replacement to Roger, who scoured the music press adverts for likely candidates. Our first port of call was Putney, where we found a really talented pianist called Ray Soper. Ray was really up for it, and proved an asset to the group.

Together, Roger, Ray and I criss-crossed the country in the freezing Dormobile (which had no heater!), whilst Buddy, often with Janet, travelled in style in his large white Mk III Ford Zephyr saloon car, an ideal vehicle for an image-conscious rock singer in 1964. The Dormobile by contrast was rusty with a slipping clutch, and occasionally Ray and Roger would have to disembark and walk a little, to enable me to nurse it up the steeper hills.

As a member of the Regents I was now lucky enough to have become part of an elite collection of bands who all toured the same country-wide circuit of venues, and were generally regarded as good musicians who could pull a crowd and deliver the goods. The biggest and best of this collection of acts was without doubt Johnny Kidd and The Pirates, fronted by arguably the greatest rock singer England has ever produced. They were closely followed in the popularity stakes by Screaming Lord Sutch and The Savages. Other great acts who all followed the same circuit included Nero and The Gladiators, Cliff Bennett and The Rebel Rousers, Joe Brown and The Bruvvers, and Neil Christian and The Crusaders, with a young Jimmy Page on lead guitar.

Before long I found myself playing at my own favourite dance hall and local venue, Southall Community Centre, where I had witnessed so many of my heroes strutting their stuff. Bursting with pride as we rocked through our set, I could see many old school friends and acquaintances in the capacity crowd. Buddy liked to vary the set by including the odd folk ballad, and as we lurched through a shaky rendition of “Jailer Bring Me Water”, a bunch of hairy biker types near the front began to hurl abuse. To my amazement Buddy signalled us to stop playing, then, stepping up to the microphone he uttered the following words – “You fellows have big mouths”. As a hush fell over the crowd, the hecklers moved menacingly forward, as if about to murder us! A second later, Buddy followed up with the punch line, “Why don’t you use them to sing?” As the crowd roared their approval, the troublemakers tried to back away, but two of them found themselves propelled onto the stage by their mates. Looking extremely nervous and embarrassed, the two allowed Buddy to shepherd them towards a spare microphone on a stand, instructing them to sing along with the chorus. On the count of four we resumed the song, with the chastened bikers, by now red-faced, mumbling along as instructed. Suddenly, one of their pals appeared at the front of the stage and without warning flung the entire contents of a 2-gallon fire bucket all over them! For a second, the two stood motionless, soaked from head to foot and festooned with old soggy cigarette butts, before hurling themselves off the stage in hot pursuit of the perpetrator, who wisely had swiftly legged it for the exit and the safety of the night! Buddy decided not to continue with “Jailer Bring Me Water”, and after a few more rocking songs we left the stage to thunderous applause, with most of the audience convinced that Buddy had deliberately set up the hecklers for a soaking.

As 1964 came to a close, we finished the year with a riotous Christmas Eve show at the Dancing Slipper Ballroom, West Bridgeford, near Nottingham. The support band joined us on stage for a Christmas finale, and I shared the microphone with a then unknown Noddy Holder, as we roared through the great Ray Charles hit “What’d I Say”. A splendid ending to a great year!

As 1965 dawned, so the cracks began to appear. I was not getting on so well with Buddy as before, probably because I tended to question his rules and decisions, and it was patently obvious that I was not popular with the entourage with which he surrounded himself. To be fair, I was young, brash and pretty cocky, but when you became a Regent, you were expected to obey without question. I suspect that Buddy was also having management problems, as gigs were not as plentiful as before, meaning a loss of income! Roger and Ray immediately solved this problem by joining a local R&B outfit called ‘Cyrano and The Bergeracs’, who had a pretty full worksheet. With just myself left with Buddy, I began to find myself picking up different drummers for gigs, who were called in to deputise. Where possible I would suggest my old Delta 5 drummer, Paul Tait, so that the rhythm section at least had some rapport.

One of Paul’s first gigs was at Exeter University, where we were the support act for the Who, a West London group who were at last making waves after several name changes. Following our soundcheck, singer Roger Daltrey was heard to remark that I had Rupert’s bass guitar. “Yes” said bassist John Entwhistle, “and he plays it like Rupert as well”. Naturally this was an enormous boost to my ego, although deep down I knew that my ability could never come close to that of Rupert! After the gig we had a long chat with Keith Moon, who it transpired had passed an audition for the Regents, but received an offer from the Who just two days after accepting the job with Buddy.

As my career began to falter, I took other jobs to boost my income, including some gigs with a South African group who also recruited me for a photo shoot advertising shirts, and a one-off gig near Earls Court with a scratch band which featured a bloke on keyboards called John Paul Jones, and a guy singing called Dave Jones, later to take the name of the famous American knife-fighter Jim Bowie! Another memorable event was deputising for a week with local West Drayton group ‘The Birds’, whose bassist had gone down with tonsillitis. Featuring future Rolling Stone Ron Wood on guitar, the Birds were an exciting R&B group who always seemed on the verge of success, but sadly didn’t quite make it. A great bunch of guys though; they really knew how to rock!

By now, feeling a bit in limbo, I decided to place an advertisement for my services in the Melody Maker, at that time the top music publication. The only concrete offer I had was from a Manchester based outfit called The Boomerangs. It turned out that Roger Pinah knew them personally, having spent some time living in Manchester, where his mother had a café. Apparently they were a first-rate and popular group, previously fronted by an Australian singer – hence the name Boomerangs! It was decided that I would travel north for an audition, and if all went well I would move into the home of the drummer until I had found my own place. With a date swiftly arranged, Roger decided that he would come with me for the ride north and look up a few old acquaintances. This sounded alarm bells for Cyrano (real name Dave Langston), who was worried that Roger would not return to London once he was re-united with his old pals! To solve this nagging worry, Cyrano volunteered to drive the pair of us to Manchester, thus being able to keep an eye on his newfound star drummer.

Armed with my trusty Fender bass, I pitched up at Cyrano’s place in Greenford where Roger was already waiting. We departed at the crack of dawn in the Bergeracs’ bandwagon, with bassist Keith Dyett coming along for the ride also. Arriving in Manchester, I met the Boomerangs at their basement rehearsal rooms, where after a few jovial preliminaries we got down to running through a few tunes that we all knew. The band seemed to be genuinely impressed with my efforts, with the exception of the drummer, Bernie Burns, who thought I was crap, and did not care if I heard him say so! For a while there was a bit of a standoff, but the lead guitarist, who went by the wonderful name of Cecil, told Bernie in no uncertain terms that the others wanted me in, so in I was! I felt rather uncomfortable to say the least, as I was going to be living temporarily with Bernie and his wife, but he was gracious enough to accept the majority verdict and, shaking my hand, welcomed me to the group.

It was arranged that I would move to Manchester the following weekend, and I departed, secure in the knowledge that I had landed a job with good financial prospects. The downside of the trip was that I had contracted a dose of food poisoning from a dodgy café on the way up, with the result that I was suddenly stricken with a bout of sickness and vomited directly into Cyrano’s stage boots!

As we neared London, whilst I began to recover from my recent affliction, Cyrano suddenly turned to me with a proposition. “You don’t want to live in Manchester”, he said, “Why don’t you join the Bergeracs?” I reminded him that he already had a bass player in Keith Dyett. However it appeared that Cyrano, who played lead guitar as well as singing, wanted me to take over the guitar role, leaving him free to project himself as vocalist only. Well, it had been some time since I had played guitar, but Cyrano was very persuasive, and before we reached home Keith and Roger were woken up to be told the news. I was now lead guitarist with Cyrano and The Bergeracs.

The following Monday saw me in Keith Dyett’s house, where the Bergeracs rehearsed in the front room. I had explained the situation in a telephone call to Bernie Burns who (probably relieved) wished me well. Now I put Manchester out of my head and got on with the job in hand, which was to learn the guitar parts to about forty songs before the end of the week, when the gigs resumed. Not having a guitar did not present a problem, as I had the use of Cyrano’s equipment. Also, my old school chum Tony Tacon had seen his group The Javelins fold up recently, and so I was offered the use of his Fender Stratocaster, which I gratefully accepted.

Playing with The Bergeracs proved to be an exhilarating experience. Roger and Ray rocked with as much conviction as they had with The Regents; Keith Dyett provided a driving bass, whilst Cyrano proved to be a good singer and mover, now that he didn’t have the restriction of a guitar around his neck! Although rusty on guitar, I began to gain confidence and enjoy my new role, playing the Bergeracs’ lively brand of rock and R&B.

Three or four weeks went by, with each gig being more successful than the last, and the band’s future was looking quite rosy. Suddenly from out of the blue, guitarist Mick Keane, currently enjoying success with the Ivy League, turned up to watch our performance at the Seagull in Southall, a well-known music pub. It appeared that ace drummer Clem Cattini was leaving, and Mick had got wind of Roger Pinah’s reputation. By the end of the evening Mick had offered the job to Roger, now for various reasons known as Solly, who of course accepted. Naturally the Bergeracs were not too pleased, for drummers of Solly’s ability were rare indeed! However, before he even got to rehearse with the Ivy League, our old boss Buddy Britten re-appeared with an offer that neither of us could resist.

Chapter 7 : The Summer of ’65

During our time on the road with the Regents, Buddy Britten would occasionally speak of his 1963 summer season spent in Jersey in the Channel Islands. Apparently his act had caused much excitement on the island and he had become something of a celebrity, attracting large crowds. At the end of his last show before returning to the mainland, the over-enthusiastic audience had demanded, and got, several encores before the management cut off the band’s electricity supply, resulting in ugly scenes bordering on a riot! This resulted in a ban on the Regents returning to Jersey. 1964, needless to say, was a dire year for music on the island, and apparently a poor time financially for the establishment at which he had appeared, so the offer of a return season for the summer of ’65 was welcomed by all parties!

The thought of returning to the place where my musical career had been conceived was a happy one, for 1960 had started a love for Jersey which still exists to this day, so I had no hesitation in accepting Buddy’s offer of a return to the Regents. Solly, however, had just landed a great gig with the Ivy League, one of England’s biggest acts, so I was amazed when he turned it down to join me in signing the contracts which Buddy swiftly drew up for us. Naturally, the Bergeracs were not too pleased at this development as the group was doing quite well. They wished us well however, and carried on with local boy Charlie Chapman on drums and the great Mick King (late of Cliff Bennett’s Rebel Rousers) on guitar. Sadly they disbanded before the end of 1965 with Cyrano joining Gary Farr and the T-Bones, who featured a talented organist called Keith Emerson. Keith Dyett went to work for Jim Marshall, building amps and speaker cabinets whilst Ray Soper continued to gig with various outfits around his hometown of Putney.

By now I realised that my trusty old Bedford Dormobile, which had carted both the Delta 5 and the Regents up and down the country, was looking rather the worse for wear, so I began to look around for a suitable replacement. My old school pal from the Javelins, Tony Tacon, told me about their Morris J2 van which was up for sale following the collapse of the group. This proved to be in excellent condition, and so was purchased as the next Regents’ bandwagon for the very reasonable sum of 50 pounds.

Early April 1965 saw Solly and I heading out of London towards the docks at Weymouth, where we caught the ferry to Jersey. After arriving at the capital, St. Helier, we made our way to number 14 Raleigh Avenue, where we were welcomed by Mr and Mrs Coker, formerly of Acton, West London, who showed us to the top flat in their comfortable old house which would be our home for the next six months, at the very affordable rent of 6 pounds a week!

With Buddy and his wife Janet not due to arrive for several days, we had instructions to find and introduce ourselves to Buddy’s friend Jimmy Wilson who was a talented singer and guitarist. We soon tracked Jimmy down to his residency at the Goblet Bar, situated in the basement of the Jersey Opera House. A likeable fellow from Belfast, with a sunny personality, he showed us around the island and introduced us to several characters in St. Helier, including one who startled us by appearing, as if by magic, from behind a revolving bookcase and another who offered to supply any bottle of spirits for the small sum of ten shillings (50 pence)! The most entertaining of all was a well to do businessman who loved to play poker and who, when we ran out of money, insisted that we replenish our stake from two plastic washing up bowls, brimming full of cash!

Whilst the island is still a lovely place to go to, visitors will find it very different from the Jersey of 1965. Today the island revolves around the financial industry and there is little live entertainment to be had, but back then Jersey was more famous for its night life. Along the five miles of the west coast alone, there were six or seven night spots. The venue that we were to play at was called the Surf Room, a dance hall cum night club situated on the edge of the beach in the centre of St. Ouens Bay (pronounced ‘wons’), built onto the Watersplash, Jersey’s number one nightspot, where audiences flocked nightly for a meal and a floorshow. Water fountains, cascading over stepped terraces gave the club a somewhat exotic look, which was marred one night when a joker emptied a packet of soap powder into the water, giving the whole area the appearance of a giant meringue!

On the Thursday following our arrival we met Buddy at the Surf Room to rehearse. Decked out Hawaiian style with palm trees and garlands, the room had a good stage and lighting, with lively acoustics. As we ran through a few songs to check out the sound, a familiar looking figure wandered around for several minutes, nodding to us, then waving goodbye as he left. It was Dickie Valentine, a huge singing idol of the 1950’s and 60’s, who was appearing a couple of miles up the road. Further along the coast another club played host to singer Danny Williams who was riding high on the back of his huge hit “Moon River”.

As Saturday night approached, there was a definite buzz in the air! The island was covered in posters advertising the gig, and we were hoping for a busy opening night. By eight o’clock on Saturday the Surf Room was absolutely packed, and the three of us sat nervously smoking in the dressing room. I tuned my bass, and then Buddy’s Fender Stratocaster as I always used to do. Buddy looked immaculate in a dark blue suit, whilst Solly and I wore matching outfits in Burgundy red. As the crowd grew restless, one wag set up a chant. “Who do we want?” he shouted. “Buddy!!” roared the crowd. “Who’s the greatest?” he cried. “Buddy!!” came the answer. “Who’s a prat?” bellowed someone else. “Buddy!!” they roared once more. By now we were even more nervous. “You two go out first” ordered Buddy, peering out through a crack in the door. Unfortunately, the dressing room was opposite the stage, which meant running through the audience to get there. As fast as we could, Solly and I tore across the room, forcing our way through and climbing onto the stage. The roar from the crowd was deafening, even more so when Buddy arrived close behind us! With no preamble we launched into a driving set of rock ‘n’ roll, ending with three or four encores, before collapsing exhausted in the dressing room.

Everything that Buddy had told us about 1963 was repeating itself for this latest line-up of Regents, and so we embarked on an exciting six months which, for Solly and myself, proved to be our first taste, albeit small, of “fame”. Wherever we went on the island, people would wave and seemed to know our names, so we soon made many friends. On Sunday afternoons all the musicians would gather at a club called The Sands at the north end of St. Ouens Bay for a jam session, where rock and pop musicians would play with jazz players, folk players and lounge musicians, all united in the common cause of making music and entertainment. We also made friends with many seasonal workers, often from Scotland and Ireland, as well as a strong contingent from Spain and Italy. Early in the season the island was rocked by tragedy when an airliner carrying continental workers crashed into a potato field in fog, with only one survivor. A sobering time!

During the day, Solly and I would explore the charming capital, St. Helier, or roam the many lanes and beaches. Sometimes we would just hang out with friends, or rehearse new songs whenever Buddy felt like adding to our already huge repertoire. Occasionally one of the Watersplash musicians would cadge a lift from me to visit a sunny meadow where he was attempting to grow his own marijuana. Armed with fertilizer and a watering can, he would visit the spot often. This practice ended abruptly when he found that the meadow was now occupied by a horse that had promptly scoffed his plant, leaving no trace!

I guess that life was pretty idyllic at this time. One of the best aspects of Channel Island life was the low cost of living. There were no taxes (apart from a fixed rate of income tax) and items such as alcohol and cigarettes cost very little. Petrol was only half a crown (12½p) a gallon in old money, and it was very difficult to spend more than £15 a week, no matter how extravagant we were. After our gig was finished we often found ourselves invited to parties, particularly by the large surfing contingent who practiced their sport at St. Ouens, one of the best places for surf. In 1965 the Rothmans cigarette company were sponsors of the World Surfing Championship and we became friends with the many U.S. and Australian contestants who frequented the Surf Room at night. Like most young people on the island, they were drawn to the parties held in the Second World War underground bunkers which were dotted around the coast. These had been built by the occupying German forces throughout the war years, and some had been decorated out by enthusiastic party lovers, many being hidden in cliff-top locations which were difficult to access. The Jersey authorities had declared these activities illegal, so guards had to be posted on party nights to keep a look out for police raids. The knowledge that we would be deported if caught gave these parties an added air of excitement!!

As the summer went on, the opening frenzy had settled down, but every week was different, with our audience changing nightly, although our hardcore supporters were always there! There never seemed to be a dull moment. Sometimes customers would get over-excited and be removed by the bouncers. One night the head of security, a huge guy named Jim, tried to eject one of our regulars, a Glasgow lad who had over-imbibed! When Buddy remonstrated from the stage, a slanging match ensued which led to Jim and Buddy squaring up to one another outside. Obviously the slender Buddy was no match for the Hulk-like Jim, but Buddy courageously stood up to him on behalf of our pal, even though Jim was threatening Buddy with instant oblivion! Luckily it occurred to Jim that the whole audience sided with Buddy and would have flung him from the sea wall if he had thrown a punch! Our pal was allowed back in, whilst Jim, defeated by People power, skulked off to the bar!

Early in the season an old acquaintance and fellow musician Roddy Freeman came over for a visit. Roddy had been a big influence on my career, having graduated from skiffle to become a recording artist at the legendary Joe Meek stable before joining the Flintstones with Terry Marshall and Rupert Ross amongst others. Rod admitted that he had regarded me as a young nerd, always hanging around the band, but when he realised that the Flintstones represented an important part of my musical education, his attitude changed and during his week in Jersey, we hung out together. Several times we visited Jimmy Wilson at the Goblet bar, who invited Rod to get up and do his stuff. He was happy to oblige and knock out the audience with his masterful knowledge of music. Accompanying himself on Jimmy’s guitar, he would effortlessly run through an amazing catalogue of sings, ranging from Bill Haley to Johnny Mathis, from Ray Charles to Nat King Cole, his jazzy vocals drawing loud applause from the crowd. By the time I drove Roddy to the airport at the end of his holiday we had forged a great rapport, and he was to become one of my closest friends.

Halfway through the season we took time out to fly back to the mainland to record four songs in the Pye studios at Marble Arch, London, for the next Regents’ record releases. Buddy insisted that Solly and I paid our own air fares as, he reminded us, we were “on royalties”. No statement ever arrived from Pye, however, so I wrote requesting one the following year, but never received a reply!! Back in England we were met at Jim Marshall’s shop by our good friend Paul Tait who had a light van with which to ferry equipment to the studio. I had previously telephoned Jim requesting the loan of amplifiers, and true to form he refused all offers of payment for his services.

Reunited with pianist Tony Richards and Buddy’s brother Nigel on tambourine, we swiftly recorded the four songs for Pye records with producer John Schroeder in charge. John, famous for writing and producing a string of hits for Helen Shapiro, was a laidback producer who soon put us at ease. For me and Solly this was our baptism into the world of making records, although I had previously made a demo with Some Other Guys. In one afternoon session we completed two ‘A’ sides and two ‘B’ sides, a feat which was not unusual at the time, but probably impossible today. As we beavered away at Marble Arch I could not have imagined that I would be back in the same studio in less than three years’ time with a new group named Deep Purple!

Shortly after our return to Jersey we were notified of the imminent release of our single, a cover of the U.S. hit by the Sir Douglas Quintet called “She’s About A Mover”. Unfortunately, Pye had been a bit too slow, and the original version was released on the very same day, thus eclipsing our version completely! To make matters worse another cover of the song was simultaneously released by one of England’s greatest rock singers, James Royal. Now, as James Royal (better known as Jimmy) was a good friend of both Solly and myself, we found ourselves accused by Buddy of tipping off Jimmy about the song. Of course his accusation was totally unfounded and it was just a surprising coincidence. Anyway the result was that both cover versions were completely buried by the original! To be honest I did not think that our version was as good as Sir Douglas’, but backed with an excellent original written by Buddy, called “Since You’ve Gone”, it wasn’t a bad record and I was quite proud of my first release!

Shortly after, Pye released our follow-up, a cover of a song originally recorded by Mel Tormé, entitled “Right Now”. Backed with the old folk standard “Jailer Bring Me Water”, Right Now was a slightly jazzy up-tempo tune which got great reviews and proved popular with audiences, but failed to make the charts.

1965 was one of the best years for music, with many different types of song charting, including such diverse acts as Sonny and Cher, Righteous Brothers, Unit 4+2, Yardbirds and the Ivy League. Occasionally Buddy would include some of the more unusual hits in our act as crowd pleasers, such as “The Clapping Song” by Shirley Ellis, “Everybody” by Tommy Roe, and “King Of The Road” by Roger Miller. We also included the Everly Brothers’ “Price Of Love” in our show, which I was particularly proud of. In spite of my limited vocal ability, Buddy wanted me to sing harmony wherever possible, and it was working rather well, although a bad case of tonsillitis in late August was a taste of trouble to come!

As the season continued, Solly and I were unaware of the cracks appearing in Buddy’s marriage. Buddy and his wife were renting a cottage in the countryside which was the venue for many riotous parties. One Saturday night after the show, Buddy made it plain that he was in no mood to party, in spite of many people having been invited back to his house, and without a word he went straight to bed. His wife Janet, however, had decided that the party would go ahead, leading to clash of wills when Buddy emerged from his bed to try and sabotage the record player! This seemed to be the final straw and before long Janet had departed for the mainland. The effect on Buddy was quite dramatic! He seemed to enjoy being a bachelor once more, taking on the persona of a rock star cum playboy. I moved into his home for several weeks to keep him company whilst he hatched new plans. There was no doubt that the music scene was changing, with the emphasis being on groups rather than solo artists, so Buddy summoned us to a meeting in a top restaurant to outline his new ideas. After the Jersey trip was over, the name Buddy Britten and the Regents would be no more, he solemnly informed us. He was to become Simon Raven (also the name of a best-selling author) and the band members would also have new identities. Solly was to be called Roger Truth (the name he uses to this day), Tony Richards would be christened Richard Honour, and I was to be known as Kid Freedom! Truth, Freedom, Honour! Collectively we would be known as the Simon Raven Cult. The suits were to be dispensed with, dress would be pop art style and the music would be louder and more aggressive. Buddy had put his ideas to us with his usual persuasive charm, and Solly and I were impressed to say the least!

As the season in Jersey ended, we both knew that this had been one of the happiest and most memorable periods in our short careers. We also knew that six months of playing together nightly had melded us into a useful rhythm section, ready to take on the world! Buoyed up with Buddy’s new ideas, we were a happy pair as we left Jersey to return to England again….

Chapter 6 ←
→ Chapter 8

Chapter 8 : Simon Raven and Ryman Office Supplies

Back on the mainland, we began to get ourselves into mode as the Simon Raven Cult, whilst awaiting the return of “Simon”, who had stayed in Jersey for an extra month to tie up a few loose ends. Finally he arrived back, staying at his parents’ home in Kenton near Harrow. We had been calling him by his real name, Geoff, for some time, so there was no confusion with the change of name. The air of anticipation was heightened when we were presented with a new song by music publishers Shapiro Bernstein, titled “I Wonder If She Remembers Me”. This proved to be a commercial sounding rocker with a strong hook, a great first record from the “new” group, we thought. Once again we assembled at Pye Studios with John Schroeder at the helm. This time the result was a much heavier record, with Geoff creating a great fuzz sound from his Stratocaster, achieved by making cuts in a speaker cone which he had turned towards the ceiling with his silver identity bracelet placed inside it!

Buoyed up by the new recording, although a ‘B’ side had not yet been decided, Solly and I eagerly awaited the launch of the new project. Sadly, it never happened. Geoff, obviously clutching at financial straws, had landed us with a residency! Now, having a residency in Jersey was fine, but being stuck in the middle of London’s Soho was no joke. We found ourselves performing nightly from 8 until midnight at the Van Gogh Bar, a seedy watering hole attached to the Latin Quarter in Rupert Street, a nightspot frequented by gangsters and starlets amongst other odd characters. The bar was run by a tough guy called Ted, who kept a large wooden mallet under the counter in case of “trouble”!

At the far end, next to the toilets (of course!), was a small rostrum, which the three of us could just about squeeze onto. Night after night we would entertain a boisterous collection of mobsters, prostitutes, tourists and drunks. Occasionally on match days we would be flooded with football supporters. At these times, you kept your head down and prayed to get out alive!

Even in those days it was difficult to park a vehicle in Soho, so for a while I began parking out of town and using the underground train. Geoff decided to do the same, and the very second that we finished the last song, the pair of us would grab our guitars and run like hell for Piccadilly station, often risking life and limb down the escalators in order to catch the last train. One night a huge puddle of vomit had been deposited at the bottom of the stairs, which I just managed to avoid. Geoff wasn’t so lucky however, and I’ll never forget the look on his face as his Cuban-heeled boots skidded across the platform in a passable imitation of an Olympic ice-skater!! As time went by, Geoff and Solly seemed to become comfortable at the Van Gogh Bar, having settled into the routine and regular money, whilst I still hankered after the excitement of life on the road. Feeling confident that I could find myself a new gig I decided that it was time to move on. I was swiftly replaced by an excellent player called Brad, who played on the ‘B’ side of the new single, a pretty good cover of the old Marty Wilde hit, “Sea of Love”. Any regrets I felt were swiftly dispelled when I received a copy of the record, which bore one single name on the label, that of Simon Raven! The Cult had vanished before it even began! I always felt that Geoff threw away a good opportunity, and sadly the record sank without trace. It was played recently on an alternative rock radio show, and still sounded pretty good.

Geoff continued to play at the Van Gogh for a few years, and I dropped in from time to time for a beer and a blow! I played with him once more, deputising for his regular bassist on July 8th 1967, just before he relocated back to Jersey, where he still performs to this day, although the name has been changed slightly to Simon Raverne. The name of Buddy Britten and The Regents, however has now been lost in the mists of time, but I will always be grateful for the start that he gave me and proud to have been a member of a pioneering rock trio.

Whilst scanning the “Musicians Wanted” ads in the Melody maker, I noticed a small advertisement for a bass player with a rock n’ roll trio. Just up my street, I thought. It turned out that the guys looking for a bassist were two of the most experienced players in the business. On drums was none other than Rory Blackwell, a pioneer of British rock n’ roll, famous for being in the Guinness record book, having set a world record marathon on drums at the famous 2 I’s coffee bar in Soho. His partner, also called Rory, was ace guitarist and vocalist Rory Wilde who, like Blackwell, had been inspiring budding musicians since the 1950’s, when rock first began in Britain. Overawed by their pedigree, to say the least, I began to gig with the Rories around East London, sometimes at a large grizzly old pub in Dagenham, where the crowd was composed mainly of people who you would not like to meet down a dark alley!

In spite of their menacing looks, however, most of them turned out to be friendly, and after a couple of shows I began to relax. My musical confidence took a sideways knock though when it became apparent that I was a bit out of my depth with these hardened old pros and totally unfamiliar with their endless repertoire! Struggling in the deep end to get to grips with the bottomless pit of songs thrown at me, I know that I was gigging on borrowed time. It was not long before Rory B. and Rory W. found an older, more experienced bassist, and I was relieved to call it a day. Playing with these two veterans was good experience, though, and we parted as friends. Several years later I discovered that Rory Blackwell became a holiday camp entertainments manager, and Rory Wilde opened a bar in Spain. I last saw him on the Songs Of Praise TV programme, leading a mass gospel sing along on a Spanish beach. A far cry from rock n’ roll!

After several weeks without a gig, I began to feel that the big adventure was now over, and so it was time to look for a proper job! Throughout the sixties there was never any shortage of work, so it was not long before I found myself a position as a stock control clerk at a company called Rymans in Perivale, Middlesex. Rymans specialised in office equipment supplies, so I spent my day checking orders for everything from office furniture to paper clips. Hardly creative, but it paid the rent! Sitting next to me was another office newcomer, also from Hayes, named Des Keane. Des and I really clicked. He had a devilish sense of humour, and we spent more time playing gags on other staff members than doing any actual work.

One day I fell into conversation with a guy in the warehouse who somehow knew about my musical past. He explained that he had a pal who was a successful record producer called (if I remember correctly) Mikki Dallon. Apparently his latest success was a top ten chart hit for Neil Christian, called “That’s Nice”, and Neil was currently recruiting for his group, The Crusaders, to go on the road and capitalise on his hit. Armed with Neil’s telephone number, I wasted no time in getting touch. He explained that he already had his original drummer, Jimmy Evans, in the frame, together with Ritchie Blackmore on lead guitar. Yes, he said, I would fit the bill nicely, and promised to call me as soon as rehearsals were arranged. Was I excited? I felt like a dog with two tails! However, after several weeks with no call, I realised that I wouldn’t be leaving Rymans yet, after all. In fact, the job was already taken by journeyman bassist Tony Dangerfield, already tried and tested!

Not long after this short-lived bit of excitement I was contacted by Dave ‘Cyrano’ Langston of the Bergeracs, who was attempting to start a new group. For several weeks we held evening rehearsals with me on bass, Cyrano back on lead guitar, Charley Chapman on drums, and a singer named Gabby. Whilst it wasn’t bad, we never really sparkled and so we soon mutually decided to call it a day.

Early in 1966 I received a letter from ex-Renegade Rich Bennett, who was now successfully forging a new life for himself in Toronto, Canada. I showed the letter to Des Keane, together with the photograph of Rich, standing beside a huge American car. Des was impressed, and it wasn’t long before we were both discussing the idea of emigrating ourselves, with Canada being the obvious destination. Before we could get serious however, events took an astonishing turn for me, leading to a stroke of luck that I could never have believed possible!

This was a period when the whole musical scene was changing, not necessarily for the better in my opinion, as Merseybeat, spearheaded by the Beatles, was dominating the business. There is no doubt that they wrote great songs and made great records, but to me the sound had little appeal. Such was their fame though, that whenever I left the house, my mother insisted on cracking the same tiresome old gag, asking “If the Beatles call, shall I say that you’re available?” to which I always replied, just before closing the door, “No! But I am if Johnny Kidd calls!”

Now Johnny Kidd, he was something else altogether! Ever since Cliff Barton had introduced me to Johnny’s music, I had been his number one fan. Indeed, most of the musicians I associated with would have given their eye-teeth to be in his band, the Pirates! There is no doubt that Kidd was a seminal influence on many singers and musicians who graduated from this period, including some of the biggest names. As I will deal with later on in this story, history and the music business did not treat Kidd kindly, and if there were any justice he would still be a household name today, as he was all those years ago! For those unfamiliar with his reputation in those days, I can only say that to join the Pirates back then was an experience that would be matched today by a young heavy rock player joining one of today’s stadium rock acts!

Now, I figured that my chances of playing with Kidd were slimmer than my chance of walking on the moon, so you can imagine my disbelief on arriving home one evening to be told that my ex-Regents and Bergeracs buddy, Ray Soper had telephoned to say that he was gigging with Johnny Kidd! Half disbelieving, and absolutely green with envy, I telephoned Ray immediately for the story. It transpired that he was gigging with a semi-professional group, one of whom was a window cleaner by trade. He also happened to clean Johnny Kidd’s windows, and had struck up a conversation with him. It had been announced in the press recently that Kidd wanted to lose his tough-guy image and appeal to wider audiences, and to this end he had split with the Pirates, ditched his famous eye-patch trademark and buccaneer outfits in favour of smart suits in order to target cabaret venues.

Still having quite a few rock dates to fulfil, and without a band, the window cleaner’s group were offered the chance to back him on these final appearances. Without beating about the bush, I asked Ray how good the group was. “Not very!” was the reply. My brain went straight into overdrive – “Why don’t the old Regents become the new Pirates?” I suggested. Impressed by this stroke of genius, Ray agreed to meet me the following evening, when we would pay Kidd a visit. With Roger “Solly” Truth in tow, we drove to Johnny Kidd’s home on the edge of a smart up-market estate in Harrow, Middlesex.

Feeling extremely nervous, and slightly amazed at the sheer cheek of it all, we strode up the path, past the cannon on the lawn, and rang the bell. The door was swiftly opened, and there stood the great man himself! Obviously he recognised Ray immediately, and peering at Solly and myself, realized that he vaguely knew our faces. “Hi fellas”, said Kidd, “What can I do for you?”. “John” I replied, trying to muster a bit of more bravado than I felt, “We are your new band!” Kidd stared at us in amazement. “OK.” He replied, “Then I guess you’d better come on in.” Rather sheepishly we followed him into the lounge and were introduced to his wife, Jean, who went off to the kitchen to make some tea.

Johnny listened patiently as we sold ourselves to him, eventually convincing him that we could deliver the goods. I was dispatched to the local pub to fetch a few beers, and on my return we toasted the new alliance. Soon the conversation turned to the subject of who could play guitar. We suggested approaching old mate Mick Keane of the Ivy League. Johnny seemed happy with that idea, and suggested a rehearsal as soon as possible. With this loose arrangement in place, we took our leave of Johnny Kidd at around midnight. As we shook his hand and said goodbye he uttered the words that I will never forget. “Thanks a lot fellas”, he said, “You’ve saved my life!”

<?– chapter 8 –>

Chapter 7 ←
→ Chapter 9

Chapter 9 : The New Pirates!

The next day was spent trying to locate ace guitarist Mick Keane. Since I first met him at Battersea Fun Fair with Rich Bennett, Mick had played on several hit records, becoming a highly regarded player, particularly on the session scene. I was still buzzing after the meeting with Johnny Kidd and felt like someone who had won the football pools! By the end of the day, after countless telephone calls, it seemed that no one knew where Mick was, or even what he was up to. After some discussion with the other we realized that we would have to think again. I recall Solly and I both coming up with the same name, a guy we had known for several years who, like us, rated Johnny Kidd and the Pirates above all other acts, and who, like us, knew all his songs inside out! Mick Stewart was a professional player who had gigged with several different outfits, none of which had risen to great heights, but nevertheless he was recognized as a reliable solid picker who also looked good and could sing reasonably well.

Occasionally I would bump into Mick in Jim Marshall’s shop and I remember that we sometimes fantasized about being in Kidd’s band, just as today’s young players might fantasize about joining Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. When I telephoned Mick to offer him the job I could sense the excitement in his voice, but he insisted on keeping cool, saying that he would think about it and call me back. I countered this charade by telling him to be quick because we had to find someone fast! Of course he was pretty swift in calling back and the Pirates line-up was complete!

I called Kidd immediately with the news and we planned a rehearsal for the following morning, arranging to meet in the café at the end of Johnny’s road. As we ate breakfast together in the café, a blue Commer van pulled up outside. “You are about to meet”, said Kidd seriously, “the world’s greatest road manager!” Through the door came a wiry, confident, tough looking character, and I was introduced to the man who was to become one of my greatest friends. “Meet Johnny Irving, or Irvo, for short” said Kidd, and we all shook hands. Swiftly finishing our food, we loaded our gear into the bandwagon, all piled in, and with Irvo at the wheel, set off for the local church hall where we would show Kidd what we were capable of.

Nervously setting up and tuning up, we all knew that in spite of what had been said, if we failed to impress Kidd, then the deal would be off! One thing in our favour though was our knowledge of Kidd’s repertoire, having bought all the records, played them live where possible, and witnessed John’s act many times. He and Irvo could not have been more charming, and soon put us at ease. Once we had routined a few songs, our confidence grew and before long it was obvious that we all really clicked! Not surprising really, as Solly, Ray and myself had worked together so successfully as Regents and Bergeracs! I had a printed running order of the act, to which Kidd added a couple of comments, reminding us where to kick our legs out together, and not to forget the vocal “Oh Yeahs” in Dr. Feelgood.

After about six exhausting hours we called it a day, and once again climbed aboard the Pirates’ bandwagon. In those days the Commer van was the favourite vehicle of bands across the country. Kidd had modified his by fitting one of the first car record players next to the radio. It played 45 rpm singles with the centres removed (juke box style), which slid into a slot in the same way a cassette tape or CD is played today. The pickup weighed as much as a house brick, in order to stop the needle jumping on bumpy roads. Of course the record would be destroyed after about fifty plays, but that was all there was in those days, and if you had one you were the envy of the neighbourhood! Near the sliding side door was a steel tube, welded to the floor, over which several hundred records were stacked, every one a rock classic! As we pulled away to the strains of Johnny Otis singing “Castin’ My Spell”, I looked nervously at Kidd, and asked him if we had passed the audition. “You’ve passed with flying colours!” was his answer. “I know that we don’t have Mick Green…” I began, about to praise the assets that we did have, when he interrupted, “Don’t ever worry about my past musicians”, he said, “you guys are the business!”

Back at Johnny’s house, we toasted one another with cups of tea. There was no doubt that our performance had made the right impression, and our fantasy was now reality – we were the Pirates!

Still giddy with euphoria, I worked my last week at Ryman’s, bid the office staff a last farewell and got down to the serious business of being a pro once more. May 14th soon rolled around and the new line-up of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates headed out for their debut gig at a large ballroom in Bromley, Kent. Johnny was worried, having recently announced in the national press that he was changing his image. He had even generously allowed is previous Pirates to keep the name, in order that they could carry on working. However, according to Johnny Irving, Kidd was so rejuvenated by our arrival that he knew the image he had built up so successfully just had to be retained now.

Ray and Roger watched Mick and me nervously tuning up in the dressing room, whilst Kidd, fully resplendent in his stage outfit, languished in front of his portable TV set. Several other groups were on the bill and as people moved around the large dressing room I could sense the aura of respect which Kidd commanded. When the time came for us to take the stage I felt more nervous than ever before. Somehow I managed to croak my way through my first Regents’ single, “She’s About A Mover”, before Mick Stewart launched into the Ike & Tina Turner classic, “Something You’ve Got”. Then it was time for me to introduce Johnny Kidd, the crowd almost drowning out the intro to “I’ll Never Get Over You”, Kidd’s last top 5 hit. Exuding his usual air of menace, Kidd gave an amazing demonstration of stage craft, honed by ten years’ experience, as he effortlessly worked his way through the set. The new Pirates’ nervousness was compounded by the fact that our stage clothes were a bit below par, having hastily gathered a rag-bag of vaguely piratical outfits, which had to pass muster until we were able to get better stuff. Nevertheless, our debut gig went down a storm, and Kidd was more than pleased!

During the following week we were taken to Anello & Davide, the famous theatrical costumiers in London’s Drury Lane, where Kidd allowed us to pick out whatever we needed. We wandered around vast rows of costumes, like kids let loose in a sweet shop, picking out the items needed to turn us into real 18th Century pirates. The main item needed was a good pair of boots, Mick, Ray and Solly picking soft suede, whilst I chose black leather thigh boots. Mick and Ray opted to wear the blue and white striped matelot shirts, Solly going for velvet shirts with balloon sleeves. Johnny had given me one of his own stage shirts and pointed out how easily they could be made, so I swiftly recruited my mother to run up one on her sewing machine. By removing the sleeves from a regular white shirt and replacing them with huge balloon sleeves made from an old bedsheet, Mum created the ultimate pirate shirt, finished off with lace at the cuffs and collar. Johnny had given us large-buckled wide belts which he insisted were to be worn low, in order as he put it, to “lower our waists”. Half the contents of a can of spray starch made sure that my enormous sleeves stayed enormous. It was quite amazing how my kit transformed me from a nine-stone weakling into a menacing hulk!

Following more rehearsals, our confidence had grown one hundred per cent, when, on May 20th we headed off for our second gig, at the Royal Albion Ballroom, Walton-on-the-Naze, in Essex. Kidd was delayed that night, so Irvo and the boys set off in the van, whilst I picked up Johnny in my Austin Mini-van. During our high-speed dash to get there in time, Johnny coolly opened a bottle of beer with the window open. The contents immediately exploded from the bottle, giving the pair of us a 70 mph soaking!

On arriving at the packed hall we soon got changed and prepared for the show. Johnny taught us how to apply stage makeup, known as “slap”. He was very aware of stage craft and imagery, making full use of the stage lights. He was probably one of the first rock artists to realize the importance of lighting, and almost definitely the first in England to use ultra-violet light, having purchased one from Sweden several years before. Today everyone is familiar with UV, but in 1966 it was rarely if ever seen, leading to many people thinking that we wore ghostly “luminous” clothes!

Johnny’s stage appearance was completed by the addition of an amazing wig, known as the “Syrup” (of fig), for which he had paid over £100, an enormous sum back then. Whilst he still had plenty of his own hair, Johnny had the benefit of being able to leave the dressing room minus wig, and walk through the crowd completely unrecognized. It was during the Royal Albion gig that disaster almost struck! The stage had a canopy of tree branches above it, probably left over from a previous production, and when Kidd made his customary leap into the air during “Shakin’ All Over”, his wig snagged on a branch and lifted several inches above his head. Luckily Irvo always used a flashing strobe light at this point and so only a few people at the front noticed anything amiss, but those that did wondered if their eyes were playing tricks! The show ended without further mishaps and, elated by the audience response to only our second gig, we headed for home.

During the following week I was introduced to our publicist, Keith Goodwin, who handled the press for a stable of established acts. I was given the job of liaising with KayGee, as the firm was known, with Keith or his assistant telephoning me each week to discuss gigs and any reportable happenings. If there was little news, then something would be created to keep our name in the music press. To celebrate the boost to his career, Roger Truth purchased a new Ludwig drum kit. Solly had always been one of the loudest drummers in the business whilst playing a Premier kit, but the increase in sound level with the new kit led us all to turn up the volume. Mick Stewart boosted his Fender twin amp with an extra Bassman cabinet, and with my Marshall 50 watt 4×12 the sound was much louder than any previous Pirates, giving Kidd a much heavier backing.

On May 27th we headed out for Wales at the crack of dawn. Back in 1966 only a few miles of the M4 motorway had been built, so it took all day to drive to Abergavenny. There, we were given a warm welcome, for Johnny was extremely popular in Wales, just as he was in Scotland. In fact, I do not remember a negative response, for without doubt he was one of rock’s most loved characters! The Abergavenny gig was a yearly bash, sponsored by the local hunt, which took place in a huge hilltop barn. A large lady introduced us as we took to the stage and proceeded to give us a couple of loud blasts with a hunting horn, the crowd roaring approval.

The next few months saw us continuing to develop the show, gaining in confidence and basking in the positive feeling which we knew had lifted Johnny’s career from the doldrums. He had experienced many highs and lows over the years, with more misses than hits on the recording front, but there was no doubt that with the new band he was on the rise again! The advantage of his unique stage act, plus the fact that he had written and recorded arguably Britain’s best rock anthem meant that he never needed to rely on hit records to be in demand. By now we had lost our nervousness at being the new boys, and were becoming accustomed to being a band that took no prisoners. I think we were all reasonably competent musicians by then, with Solly an exception, rapidly being recognized as one of the best rock drummers in the country. Coupled with our youth and sheer exuberance, this made us a force to be reckoned with!

 

Chapter 10 : The Summer of ’66

The rest of the summer of ’66 saw us going from strength to strength as the Pirates travelled the country from one end to the other. I particularly remember waiting at Newbury station, drinking tea, waiting for the Plaza Ballroom to open up. On the juke box came a record which knocked me sideways. It was called “I Fought The Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four, who had captured the Crickets feel perfectly, and added a little magic of their own. Whenever I hear that record I think of the gig at Newbury, and it still has the ability to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck!

We often seemed to be at the seaside too, very fitting for Pirates, taking in towns such as Folkestone, Bournemouth, Seaton and Grimsby. The gig at Bournemouth was promoted by a West London promoter called Pete Southall, who accompanied us to the venue. Pete was slightly worried that the advertising of the show was a bit lacking, so we toured the area in the van with posters all over it, playing songs from our rock ‘n’ roll record collection, windows wide open. We discovered that by taking a lead from the van’s record player to my bass cabinet, we could boost the volume considerably, so it was possible to create a hell of a noise and thus attract plenty of attention! Remember that this was a time when most cars did not even have radios, let alone the mega sound systems which we are so familiar with today! Anyway, it seemed to work and the show was well attended!

Whilst driving across country to yet another far-off gig, Irvo thought that he could hear a rumble from the back axle of the van. Pulling into a country garage, Irvo persuaded an obliging mechanic to take a look, the van being raised up on a hydraulic lift. We had all evacuated the vehicle except Solly, who was fast asleep in the front. Disaster almost struck when he suddenly woke up and attempted to climb out, thinking that we were all in a café. The sight of him clinging onto the door 8 feet above the ground will always stay with me!

As we travelled around, the sense of camaraderie grew. Irvo and Kidd regaled us with stories which today could fill a rock ‘n’ roll history book. He had seen it all and done it all, beginning with skiffle and graduating to his own brand of hard rock and R ‘n’ B, forming probably England’s first power trio as his backing, and becoming one of the most original performers of the era, admired (and copied) by many of the top stars of the day.

Kidd had met and worked with most of the big U.S. rock stars, and we hung on every word as he told stories of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Eddie Cochran. Irvo, too, had just as many stories, having accompanied Kidd throughout his career, apart from a period when he had chauffeured visiting U.S. stars such as the Shirelles, Big Dee Irwin and Brenda Lee.

One of the first things you noticed when in the company of the two Johns was the fact that they spoke in their own language. Not only did they converse in complex Cockney rhyming slang, but they chose their own words to rhyme with the slang! Thus the word “draft” became a “George”, after actor George Raft, and then became a “Cheddar” after Cheddar Gorge. They also used any topical newsworthy name they fancied to rhyme, such as Charley Clore for door, and Steve Race for (suit) case. You knew when the venue was near when you heard Kidd say “open the Steve (Race) and pass the Irish (jig = wig). Every band member was a “thing”, i.e. “Drum Thing” or “Bass Thing”, and Irvo was always the “Road thing”! In the Pirates, you never “went” anywhere, you always “did a lively”! We soon picked up the strange lingo though, and it quickly became second nature.

Early in August, a chain of events led to a change in the group’s sound and profile. Johnny still had not appointed a regular agent to procure gigs for us, and work was still a little spasmodic. He had parted company with his previous agent, George Cooper, over financial matters, but was still accepting the odd booking from George. On one particular weekend he received a frantic call from Cooper, who was desperately trying to find a top act to cover for Georgie Fame who was unable to appear. Kidd immediately telephoned around and managed to assemble all of us except Ray, who could not be contacted. It was decided that if we tried any longer to find Ray, then we would be too late for the gig, which was in Weston Super Mare on the North Somerset coast, and so we set off minus our keyboard player. Solly had rushed into Jim Marshall’s shop in Hanwell to grab some drumsticks, telling them that he had to dash, “gigging at Weston Super Mare”! Of course as fate would have it, Ray had popped into Marshall’s later that day, to the amazement of the staff, who assumed that he was with us. Ray, naturally, was a little miffed, wondering what was going on!

As we sped towards Weston Super Mare, it was decided that a stop for tea was necessary, so we pulled into the next transport café and ordered tea and toast. No sooner had we sat down than we were approached by a tall good-looking character, immediately recognizable as hit recording star Eden Kane. After exchanging pleasantries, Eden informed us that he was on his way to Weston Super Mare to fill in for Georgie Fame! Slightly perturbed to say the least, we quickly finished our refreshments and decided that we had to beat Eden Kane to the gig in case we were victims of a double booking! Irvo thought that he knew a shortcut, but we ended up at Cheddar Gorge, hopelessly lost, and didn’t arrive until long after Eden got there. We didn’t have to worry, however. Both acts were billed outside the Winter Gardens, with our name being top of the bill!

After setting up and settling into our dressing room, Irvo went backstage to familiarize himself with the stage lights. He immediately fell foul of a dictatorial stage manager who objected to Irvo’s rather radical approach to lighting! Irvo informed the “jobsworth” in no uncertain terms that he was in charge during the Pirates’’ act. A stand-off ensued until the ballroom manager was summoned. He took one look at Irvo and gave him permission to use the lights as he saw fit, a so a nasty scene was avoided!

Eden Kane and his group, including his brother Peter Sarstedt on bass (soon to have big hits in his own right) put on a great show, performing all his hit songs and going down a storm. We were naturally a little nervous, going on minus our keyboard player, but spurred on by adrenaline we pulled out all the stops, with Johnny blowing the audience away with his superb vocals.

Eden was the first to congratulate us. “Fabulous show, boys” he said, “No one could follow that!” Rather pleased with ourselves, we sat in the dressing room. It was not long before it was unanimously decided that we preferred sound of tonight’s show to what had gone before! Now, it has to be understood that this was no slur on Ray Soper! Ray was a great musician and a lovely man who had given us all hours of pleasure, but none of us could deny the fact the we just preferred the sound of a power trio!

Now came the dilemma of how to tell Ray, our stalwart pal who had made it possible for us to become Pirates! I soon found myself volunteering to tell him, as I felt that he deserved better than just a phone call. The next day found me nervously making my way to Putney, where dear old Ray was quite understanding although rather hurt. Naturally his parents were quite volatile, but this was to be expected. Sadly I said goodbye to Ray, hoping that he at least gave me credit for telling him face to face. Now we got on with the business of being just three Pirates, tailoring our sound the way Kidd had always preferred it – guitar, bass and drums!

The Weston gig and Ray’s departure led Mick, Solly and myself into pressuring Kidd to bury the hatchet with George Cooper, in order to secure more gigs for the band. Kid decided that this made sense, and made the pilgrimage to the Cooper Organisation HQ in London’s Soho Square. Kidd had always looked on Cooper as a father figure and it was with some relief that we witnessed the two of them emerging from the office, arms around one another, to announce that the parting was over! Now, we thought, the future was assured!

I had not seen much of my old pal Rod Freeman during the time with Kidd, so it was good to meet him again at our show at the Terry Downes’ Club in Harlesden, owned by the former champion boxer. Rod was now fronting his own band in a residency at Tottenham’s Royal Ballroom. His current outfit had originally formed from scratch in 1963, to help out bassist Ken Rankine whose group, the Art Wood Combo (led by Ron’s elder brother), had failed to show up. The gig was such a success that they decided to keep together, operating under the name Soul Messengers. Featuring Rod and Ken, together with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Terry Marshall on sax, soon to be replaced by Gary Bell, they took the name Next 5, hoping to emulate the success of the two previous resident groups at the Royal, the Dave Clark 5 and the Migil 5.

The Pirates, minus Ray, continued to play up and down the country, as George Cooper got busy securing us new bookings. More and more new bands were springing up, with the charts more diverse than ever. Some of the songs blasted out of the radio in our van made a huge impression, such as “Black Is Black” by Los Bravos, “Wild Thing” by The Troggs and particularly “When A Man Loves A Woman” by Percy Sledge. Johnny also took great interest in the soul acts from America such as Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and Ike & Tina Turner. Much of our spare time was spent at Johnny’s house, kicking ideas about for the next single, exploring some of the sounds on the Beatles’ more psychedelic recordings, and even trying some of John’s back catalogue in different formats. Sometimes we recorded these onto John’s portable reel-to-reel tape machine, but nothing really grabbed us. The sudden cancellation of a tour of Scotland depressed us all no end, particularly John, who confided to me that he was considering retiring from performing to pursue a career in management and agency. Naturally I tried to talk him out of such a move, and the subject was not mentioned again.

It was shortly after the Weston Super Mare gig that a song turned up that we all felt was worth recording. An unusual semi-ballad, it was called “Send For That Girl”, written by Barter, Rowland and Victor. On Thursday 18th August 1966 we arrived mid-afternoon at EMI’s famous Abbey Road studios, where Kidd had recorded many times. The session was supervised by Norman Smith who had worked for a number of years at EMI, particularly with the Beatles. We had rehearsed several times at EMI’s Manchester Square studios with Norman, so we felt quite at ease with him. “Send For That Girl” was put down in a couple of takes with Norman at the piano, then in true 60’s fashion we quickly knocked out the ‘B’ side, covering Sandford Clark’s “The Fool”. None of the band were particularly familiar with it, so our version was taught to us by Johnny, leading to a different take on the song! Feeling pleased with our performance, we left the new single in Norman’s capable hands. He would add strings and carry out the final mix. That was the last time I saw Norman Smith, until he appeared on Top Of The Pops performing his own hit recording under the name of Hurricane Smith in 1971!

Feeling quite elated after the first recording session with Kidd, we left Abbey Road on a high. Johnny Irving swiftly drove us back to Harrow where Kidd’s wife Jean had tea and sandwiches waiting for us. After a quick nosh and even quicker clean-up we hit the road once more, with Irvo electing to drive through the night to Dundee, where we were to appear at the Caird Hall. The show was a rip-roaring success, featuring several other bands such as chart toppers David & Jonathan and the highly touted St. Louis Union, who featured none other than Bernie Burns on drums. We reminisced about my audition with the Boomerangs not so long ago, and parted on good terms after the show.

At the end of August we were booked to play on the bandstand at the Birmingham Flower Show where we met ex-Searcher Tony Jackson and his band The Vibrations. Tony and his guitarist needed to get to London and, as their car had broken down, we all squeezed into the Commer van and they travelled back with us to Johnny’s house. Someone suggested holding a séance with a home-made Ouija board. All went ok until the lighting fuse blew, plunging us into darkness! Poor old Tony was gibbering with fright, convinced that it was no coincidence!

More one-nighters took us through into September, with morale high in anticipation of the release of the new single. It was then that George Cooper suggested that we have a go at cabaret! Initially we were all aghast, but George explained that this was the future, pointing out that many rock and pop acts were following the lead of Englebert Humperdinck and Tom Jones who were forging lucrative careers in the clubs. With two weeks to go before our debut in the northern town of Darlington, Johnny decided that we needed to tone down our show and include a couple of old-time standards to satisfy the older folk that would be sure to be there, so rehearsals were held to learn the new songs.

On arriving at the Flamingo Club on September 19th we were amazed to see the same age group queuing up at the entrance as we always saw in the ballrooms! A quick peep at the audience revealed that there were a few older folk present, but all obviously rock ‘n’ roll fans judging by their Teddy Boy clothes! Johnny decided to disperse with the revised act and stick to what we did best, and the crowd absolutely loved it! The boss of the club was so pleased that he presented us with a bottle of vodka which we took back to our comfortable guest house, before demolishing it. The resulting party antics led to a severe reprimand from the landlady who extracted an apology from Kidd, and a promise to behave in future. The following night was as good as the first, and once again back at the digs we slipped into party mode. That was the last straw for our landlady who promptly evicted us the next morning!

Johnny Kidd’s charm and second apology failed to change the landlady’s mind and we were forced to seek new accommodation, finding clean but less comfortable lodgings at another guest house, called the Bluebird. The rest of the week passed without incident. Getting thrown out of our digs was a sobering experience, and we felt slightly ashamed. This was of course long before it became fashionable for bands to trash their accommodation! Also resident in the guest house were another hard-working band called Rob Storme & The Whispers, whose bassist, Lewis Collins, would later become an enormous star, acting alongside Martin Shaw in the popular TV show the Professionals. Lewis spent several hours chatting to Kidd, who was one of his idols. Unable to remember where he was at the time, Lewis recently telephoned me from his home in the U.S.A. I was pleased to be able to remind him where he was, and which band he was with, thus enabling him to get the details right for his forthcoming autobiography.

Sadly, Irvo was not with us for this trip. He had stayed behind to work on a new sideline, having acquired an interest in a scrap metal business situated opposite the famous Ace Café near Wembley. We had assured him that we could cope without him, as our equipment only had to be set up once, and his usual brand of histrionics with the stage lights were not deemed necessary within the confines of a nightclub. I also remember that week for witnessing Otis Redding and his band performing a great live show on television, and for hearing the song “Cherry Cherry” by Neil Diamond, a great new artist who would prove important to me in the not too distant future!

Our next gig was on October 1st at the Royal Air Force base in Waddington. A great time was had by all, the band being particularly well received by the capacity crowd which included a large contingent of young women who had been ferried by coach from the town. Irvo had performed his favourite trick of heating up a half-crown coin by holding it in pliers over a cigarette lighter and then placing it strategically on the floor. Solly had obliged by snatching it up. The scream of pain before it reached his pocket made us all laugh!

Another favourite gag was to fill Kidd’s thigh boots with coke bottles, cigarette packets and general rubbish. He never pulled on his boots until he heard me announce his name, and the resulting delay in his appearance, followed by whispered oaths and threats never failed to amuse the rest of us.

Once the applause died away, we congratulated ourselves in the dressing room. That was a good gig, we all agreed, as Johnny sat shirtless, cooling down and dishing out praise to us all. What no-one could know however, was that Johnny had just played his last show!

Thursday, October 6th saw Johnny Kidd, Roger Truth and I hit the road for that night’s show at Oldham. John’s wife, Jean, had decided to travel with us, as we would be staying with old friends of John who had at one time been involved in running his fan club. We had gigs for Thursday night and Saturday night, but Friday was a day off.

Mick Stewart had previously travelled north to stay with his new fiancée, who he had met during our successful week in cabaret, and so was not with us in the bandwagon. Johnny Irving, who usually never allowed Kidd to travel without him, had stayed behind, at Kidd’s insistence, to devote some more time to his new business venture, and so it was Kidd and myself who shared the driving duties up to Oldham. We had departed behind schedule, and traffic was exceptionally heavy, a combination which made us a little late in arriving at the venue, a large ballroom in the town centre. “What’s the best way to Oldham?” enquired Kidd of a passing pedestrian. “One in each hand” came the time-honoured reply.

No-one was particularly concerned at our late arrival, as we knew that the always punctual Mick Stewart would be there early, and in any case, we never went on before 9 o’clock.

Our contract stipulated a 7 o’clock arrival, and we were just over half an hour late, whilst Mick had been there since 5:30, so we were absolutely amazed to find the manager placing “cancelled” stickers across the advertising posters! Johnny immediately turned on his charm, attempting to placate the manager, but he was having none if it! In a manner reminiscent of a member of the Gestapo, he ranted and raged about the terms of the contract, and insisted that the show would not go on! Johnny kept calm in the face of such an obnoxious character, pointing out that the doors had only been open a few minutes, and the expected crowd had yet to arrive.

When it became obvious that the manager would not be placated, Johnny gave him an amazingly generous offer, which said everything about the character of Johnny Kidd. He explained that he would waive his fee for the show and play for free, apart from a small fee for the Pirates. Incredibly, the offer was turned down, and Johnny sadly admitted defeat and ordered our retreat from the premises. Why the manager acted as he did, we will never know. Our late arrival had not threatened the potential success of the evening in the slightest, but for reasons best known to himself, he found it necessary to demonstrate his authority and at the same time unwittingly trigger a chain of events which would end in disaster!

With the Oldham gig cancelled, Johnny put on his thinking cap and decided that tomorrow we would travel to the Imperial Ballroom at Nelson, where manager and old friend Bob Caine would surely be able to arrange an extra gig or two in Lancashire and avoid the trip turning into a financial loss!

Thursday night saw a disappointed Pirates bunk down with Johnny’s friends. On Friday morning I drove Solly and Mick into Manchester, where we visited a few of Solly’s old haunts. He decided to stay in town for the night with some friends, so Mick and I drove back to Leigh to get ready for our trip to Nelson.

Early that evening we set off for Nelson in two cars, Mick and myself being driven in one car, with Johnny a passenger in the following car. At the Nelson Imperial, a huge ballroom, we were introduced by John to the manager Bob Caine, who, taking us into his office, got onto the telephone to see if he could find us a gig or two. Bob had good potential results and promised to call Kidd the next day if he could finalise anything. We said goodbye to Bob, thanking him and reminding him that we would see him soon, as were booked to appear there in a couple of weeks’ time. As we left by the stage door, Johnny and I were in deep conversation about the merits of returning to Germany, where he had commanded a huge following for several years. As Mick Stewart settled himself in the front seat of the car in which we had travelled up, and I prepared to get in the back, John asked Mick if he would travel back in the other car, so that we could continue our discussion. Mick of course agreed, and so they swapped seats. As John thanked Mick and moved to the front passenger seat, a figure loomed from the shadows and approached the car. “You’re Johnny Kidd!” he exclaimed. “Can I have your autograph?” Johnny chatted to the fan for several minutes, reminding him to bring his friends and say hello in two weeks’ time. As the fan walked happily off into the night, no-one could have imagined that Johnny Kidd had just signed his autograph for the very last time!

As we left the lights of Nelson behind us, Johnny, full of enthusiasm, chatted away about his German successes, and how confident he was of returning with the new Pirates. Shortly before our destination Johnny announced that a toilet stop was necessary, and so our driver, Wilf, pulled over by a convenient clump of bushes. As I conveyed the reason for our stop to Mick, in the following car, they decided to carry on ahead, shouting “see you there!” as they sped away. Meanwhile, Kidd, having swiftly relieved himself behind a bush, settled back into his seat once more, and we resumed our conversation. Almost home after an uneventful journey, what happened next remains a mystery. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, our car was out of control, heading for a chain-link fence on the opposite side of the road. Both Johnny and Wilf gasped in disbelief, for there was no explanation for our loss of control. Then a car was approaching at speed, unaware of our plight, the driver flashing his headlights to warn us. With a dreadful sound, both cars collided head on, demolishing them completely!

I still marvel at surviving the crash reasonably intact! Both drivers were badly injured and both front-seat passengers died instantly. Helen Read was only 17 years old, being driven home after attending a 21st birthday party.

I was dragged from the wreckage by firemen and taken to hospital. Convinced that I was dying, it was quite a relief to be discharged with several stitched wounds, a smashed left arm and a broken nose! The real damage though was far more than physical, and I sank into deep depression with the date of October 8th 1966 burned deep into my memory. Along with poor Helen Read, we had lost Johnny Kidd, arguably the best rock singer that this country ever produced!

Chapter 11 : Bobby Hebb

The death of Johnny Kidd seemed like the end of the world! The following days were spent in a kind of twilight, punctuated by visits from various friends and well-wishers, including a couple of office girls from Rymans, my previous employer. I couldn’t do a lot at the time, my left arm being damaged, my nose broken, amongst various injuries to my head, back and neck. The other pirates had been commandeered by Kidd’s old bassist, Johnny Spence, for a tour backing Jerry Lee Lewis, where only Mick Stewart got to perform. Jerry Lee had his U.S. bassist and drummer, but the others had to be there to uphold one of the many daft rules that the Musician’s Union had laid down. Poor Johnny Irving was devastated, blaming himself for not being there to drive Kidd as he had always done, and he immediately renounced all connections with the music business that had been his livelihood for so many years, turning down jobs offered by such giant acts as The Shadows and The Who!

Still in a state of shock, I agreed to join Mick and Solly in carrying on the Pirates, which we unanimously decided was what Johnny would have wanted. As soon as I was well enough we began to plan our future, which was given a boost with the offer of a month-long tour backing a visiting U.S. star. Bobby Hebb had enjoyed success in his own country before breaking through in Britain with his self-penned song “Sunny”. Also covered by own Georgie Fame, Sunny was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and Bobby was riding high! Shortly before rehearsals were due to start, drummer Roger Truth decided to join a touring soul extravaganza called “The Mack Sound”, a fourteen-strong band led by the former U.S. light-heavyweight boxing championship contender, Freddy Mack. A replacement was quickly recruited in the form of Kenny Slade, a terrific drummer from Sheffield who had previously played in Joe Cocker’s band.

On the day appointed to meet Bobby Hebb, the three of us assembled in a dingy basement rehearsal room in Denmark Street, London’s Tin Pan Alley. A small charismatic looking black man suddenly descended the stairs, carrying a huge wad of sheet music under his arm. After swift introductions, Bobby then enquired as to when the brass section would arrive. His face was a study when we informed him that we were the band, in total! Angry exchanges then followed on the telephone to the promoter’s office, from whence a keyboard player was quickly dispatched to augment the Prates trio. By the time Johnny Goodison arrived, complete with Vox Continental organ, it was too late to rehearse, so Bobby gave us all a list of songs, together with sheet music to be studied in preparation for the next day’s rehearsal. Panic rapidly set in, as none of us were very adept at sight-reading, and I swiftly set off for Jim Marshall’s guitar shop, where his son Terry helped me to decipher the bass lines.

Following a sleepless night, I met the others once more in Denmark Street where Bobby Hebb introduced us to his act. He seemed to have got over his disappointment at the lack of brass players and made a great effort to put us at ease. Most of his set was not too demanding, although I struggled at first with “Sunny”, which was built on an all-important bass line. Patiently, Bobby taught me the song note for note, pointing out the mistake that the studio bassist had made on the record. John Goodison proved to be a solid, reliable musician. He was a veteran player, leading his own outfit called Johnny B. Great and the Quotations, backing the Walker Brothers, probably the biggest act in the business at that time.

On the following Thursday, December 1st 1966, the tour opened to a capacity crowd at the Streatham Locarno Ballroom in South London, where we nervously wobbled through the show to Bobby’s satisfaction. By 11:30 p.m. we had moved on to Blaize’s nightspot in London’s West End, where it seemed that the whole music business had turned out to see this new American star. Bobby rose to the occasion, as did the Pirates, and we delivered a pretty good show. Solly was in the audience with his new boss, Freddy Mack, who proved to be a likeable giant of a man, and we immediately struck up a rapport.

From then on it was hard graft all the way as the tour zigzagged across England and Wales, and poor Bobby Hebb realized just what he had signed up for! In time-honoured fashion, the Prates-Hebb showcase followed that bizarre route so beloved by British tour promoters, with no thought given to distances covered or almost impossible schedules which were the artists’ responsibility to keep up with! The offer of good regular wages seemed fine in theory, but the reality was a hard slog of constant driving (with no motorways in those days), eating in foul greasy spoon cafés and sleeping in lousy run-down guest houses which would never get a licence to operate today! This was a dreadful culture shock to poor Bobby, a fact which was made more apparent to me when I first visited the U.S. in 1968. Even the cheapest American motels were luxurious by comparison, and the abundance of good quality 24 hour road-side diners were a positive joy to eat in! No, Bobby was not a happy man, obviously very homesick and missing his fiancée. Although used to the extreme temperatures of America’s East Coast, he seemed troubled by the dampness of a typical English winter. In spite of these problems, though, he kept cheerful and proved to be good company on the road.

The tour was exceptionally tough for me too, being the only driver in the band. Our tight-fisted promoter provided no road crew or assistance whatsoever, so not only did I have to drive the van, usually with the others fast asleep in the back, but also set up my own equipment. The worst night was when we appeared at the Pavilion Ballroom in Bath, Somerset on December 5th. The journey up from London was hampered by stormy weather, and thirty miles before our destination the windscreen wipers failed! By leaning forward with my right arm out of the window, I had to operate the wipers manually. Of course, by the time we arrived my whole arm was numb and turning blue! After the gig I drove the band out of Bath as fast as possible, having been summoned to appear at Manchester Crown Court the next day, where Johnny Kidd’s friend Wilf was due to face a charge of causing death by dangerous driving. Unaware that I could have altered the court date, I had worked out that by driving non-stop back to London, then non-stop to Manchester, I could just make it in time! I had telephoned my girlfriend Janet from Bath to ask her to accompany me on the journey (to keep me awake), but, wisely, her parents had forbidden it, and so after dropping off the others as dawn broke, I departed Hayes alone for the North in my trusty Austin mini-van. The court experience was rather intimidating, the first time I had been in a court presided over by a bewigged judge and barristers. Although summoned by the police as a prosecution witness, I was of little use to them. I gave my evidence as I had seen it, telling how Wilf’s driving had been faultless, and adding that in my opinion the same thing could have happened if Stirling Moss had been at the wheel! The police were determined however that someone had to be blamed, and sadly Wilf was found guilty, although the judge appeared to agree with me and was thankfully extremely lenient. Immediately afterwards I headed back to London, crawling the last seventy miles in thick fog down the M1, Britain’s only section of motorway, before arriving home after 36 hours without sleep. The mini only just made it, and on inspection was found to have a blown head-gasket!

One week later, Saturday December 10th, I experienced another bad day when the tour arrived at the Imperial Ballroom, Nelson, Lancashire. It was barely a month since I had arrived in the company of Johnny Kidd, and it felt strangely surreal to be back so soon. I had little time to dwell on that dreadful event in October however, as we had to leave swiftly to perform at Nottingham on the same night. Originally we were scheduled to play at Widnes in between Nelson and Nottingham, but the gig was cancelled when our hard-driving promoter realized the impossibility of three shows in one night!

The Nelson gig had gone well, apart from an unsavoury incident when a local hooligan took exception to Bobby’s colour and began hurling abuse from the front of the stage. Slowly, the huge bear-like figure of Johnny Goodison removed his microphone from its stand, and grasping it like a spear, strode to the front and informed the heckler of what would happen if he continued. The punter wisely got the message and rapidly disappeared, but it was a disappointing moment for all of us, although thankfully the only bad incident of the whole tour.

As we left Nelson, my sombre mood evaporated and by the time we reached Nottingham, although tired, we were fired up for the next show. The audience at the Dungeon Club all-nighter was mainly composed of West Indians, and they gave Bobby Hebb a rapturous welcome. He pulled out all the stops, demonstrating his skills on guitar, bass, drums and spoons, and they loved him! A truly great all-rounder, he thoroughly deserved the standing ovation that he received at the end of the show. As Bobby sped back to London, being driven in the ageing Ford Cortina generously supplied by the promoter, I followed behind with only the pinches and punches of Mick Stewart keeping me awake. After 4 hours sleep we were off again for a lunch-time show at Brixton’s Ram Jam Club. By no stretch of the imagination could this rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle be termed glamorous! An assault course was nearer the mark!

And so the tour ploughed on, some of the gigs being at seaside ballrooms on the end of the piers, those odd, quintessentially British establishments, which sadly are fast disappearing. Sometimes I wondered, as I gingerly nursed the van across rotting planks which made up the pier walkways, whether we would get to the end without plunging through into the sea below! If you made it safely to the ballroom, there were often hazardous electric circuits to contend with in these ancient establishments. Experienced musicians always took care never to touch guitar strings and microphones at the same time, as this could often result in a severe shock, and fatalities were not unknown!

In Rhyl, Wales, we shared the bill with Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, a huge name at the time, being handled by Beatles manager Brian Epstein. In spite of all his hits, Billy seemed plagued by insecurity and self-doubt, but came across as a really nice man. Backstage, I renewed my acquaintance with Mick Green, the Dakotas’ ace guitarist who had made his reputation during the short time he worked with Johnny Kidd. He said that he could not think of Johnny as being gone – just gigging somewhere up the road! A nice sentiment I thought.

In London, we played a recently opened venue called Tiles. Underneath Oxford Street, it was comprised of a subterranean collection of shops, a disco and ballroom. A great idea which, sadly, did not last for long. Another memorable London gig was at Samantha’s Disco, which epitomized the whole swinging London scene, where the records were played on a deck fitted inside the cockpit of an E-type Jaguar sports car by a selection of mini-skirted teenage girls. One of these lovely ladies, named Francesca, had a brother-in-law named Anthony Edwards, who at that time could have had no idea that he would soon be managing a new band called Deep Purple! Johnny B. Great was on particularly fine form at Samantha’s, knocking ‘em dead, as the saying goes, with Phil Upchurch’s “You Can’t Sit Down”, and the other monster instrumental hit of the day, Booker T’s “Green Onions”, prior to Bobby Hebb taking the stage.

Back up north, Bobby was excited to be playing at the world-famous Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles had begun their rise to fame. Sadly though, there was little glamour to be found at the Cavern, a dingy depressing cellar with abysmal acoustics!

As the tour drew to a close, just before Christmas 1966, Bobby’s spirits began to lift as he knew that he would soon be going home. I felt that he had not really enjoyed his first taste of Britain. Back in the U.S.A. he was a star, and deservedly treated like one, but in England he was just another commodity to be sold on for maximum profit. Socially, however, it had been a successful experience, with the new Pirates line-up and Bobby Hebb having enjoyed one another’s company and music immensely. Mick Stewart and I both agreed that we had learned a lot by sharing the stage with Johnny B. Great and ace drummer Kenny Slade, and we put it to them that this line-up had an excellent future together. Naturally we were very pleased when they both expressed similar sentiments, and so we agreed to meet up after the Christmas break and formulate a plan for the coming year.

I said a sad goodbye to Bobby at Heathrow Airport. A month is not very long, but during the intensity of a hectic tour, with people living and working in close proximity, it’s almost impossible not to forge some sort of bond. I never saw Bobby again, although we corresponded by letter several times. He never repeated his success, but “Sunny” went on to become one of the most covered tunes in the history of popular music – a well-deserved success for one of the nicest people that I had the pleasure of working with.

Chapter 10 ←
→ Chapter 12

Chapter 12 : Pirates without Kidd

Immediately after the Christmas break was over, I telephoned Kenny Slade and John Goodison to arrange rehearsals. The news wasn’t good! In two short weeks they had both moved on to other gigs and were no longer interested in the Pirates. I picked up a couple of gigs with an accordion-led trio which, whilst paying well, were definitely not rock ‘n’ roll, so it was a relief when I received a call from Solly offering me a job with the ‘Mack Sound’.

Freddie Mack had invited me on stage a couple of times when I had gone to watch the band, and I was impressed with the solid wall of sound that they produced. Freddy had obviously been influenced by the soul reviews of Ike & Tina Turner and James Brown, with ten musicians, a dancer, four vocalists and Freddy himself at the front as M.C. It was a mighty sound and a very exciting spectacle! Freddy had secured a residency through his boxing connections at the Uppercut Club, a large venue in East London, fronted by ex-champion Billy Walker. Here we were summoned to rehearse most days, which meant a long slow road trip from Hayes and back again. I took great pride in arriving dead on time for the proposed rehearsal hour of 12 midday. Unfortunately the majority of the band never assembled much before 4 or 5 o’clock, by which time I was ready to depart. The other band members who lived nearer and were happy to hang around in limbo, took exception to my regular departure time of 6 p.m., and so after a week and a half I found myself fired! I wasn’t sorry though, because it wasn’t really my type of music.

Freddy and I stayed good friends, and I had enjoyed my short stint with some excellent musicians, including a stunning lead guitarist named Ged Peck. I visited the Uppercut several times socially, and made a special trip to see the Mindbenders who, having split with singer Wayne Fontana, had a number one hit of their own called “Groovy Kind Of Love”. Sadly the Mindbenders had to cancel, and their place was taken by a new highly touted outfit named Pink Floyd. This was probably the first time that the Uppercut audience had witnessed psychedelia, and it only took about 20 minutes before the hall was completely empty! I don’t think anyone present that night would bet on Pink Floyd surviving for long, let alone rising to the dizzy heights that they did!

By now the first month of 1967 had passed by and there was not much work on the horizon. To make a few bob I went to help my uncle Henry who ran a small building and decorating business. A large house in Chiswick needed painting, and so I found myself climbing a ladder from 9 ‘til 5, which paid reasonably well, and was definitely preferable to doing nothing. Following my spell as a decorator, I did a spot of night work for my old Delta 5 chum Rick Eagles, who had invested in a small factory producing lagging for central heating pipes. Rick’s career as a professional bass player had recently come to an end when his band had folded. Called ‘Tony Knight’s Chessmen’, they were a competent jazz-flavoured R & B group, who really should have made it!

I was whilst working for Rick that I received a phone call from Solly. It appeared that he was no longer enjoying playing soul music and suggested that the Pirates should reform. This, of course, was music to my ears and a meeting was arranged with Mick Stewart, where Solly put forward his idea for a manager.

In those far-off days there was a thriving music shop in Ealing’s Bond Street which catered primarily for keyboard players. Run by a lovely middle-aged lady called Joan Watson, the Organ Centre was another musicians’ hang-out where you could just drop by with no obligation to buy anything. She had also invested money in the Mack Sound and knew Solly well. On hearing of his plan to rejoin the Pirates, Joan had immediately offered her services as manager, using the office at the rear of the shop as the centre of operations.

This office also doubled as an employment agency, run by Joan, whilst the front of the shop was usually manned by a ginger-haired young man named Billy Davidson. Bill was one of the most gifted organists around, who played with real panache, the speed of his hands being amazing to witness. He also played great bass pedals on the Hammond organ, which could seriously demoralize the average bass guitarist! The shop was regular hang-out for promising local groups, such as the Foundations, and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, both on the verge of huge success. Kind hearted Joan would help up and coming musicians as much as possible, giving them credit if they were broke, lending them instruments, and even lending her car, if necessary!

It was unanimously agreed that we could trust Joan and so she would be our manager. We also all had misgivings about whether we could carry a show without Johnny Kidd in front. We could all sing okay, but none of us had the kind of voice needed to carry Johnny’s songs. The obvious answer was to get a new front man, and I suggested ex-Searcher Tony Jackson, as his new band the Vibrations were not having much success. The others thought that this was an idea of which Kidd would approve. We had already dismissed an offer to work with a French rock singer, but Tony was different. We had all got on well with him, he had a distinctive voice featured on most of the Searchers’ hits, and he had a great image! I telephoned Tony the next day, suggesting that collaboration could lift both his profile and ours. He agreed at once and we promised to meet as soon as possible. The reality, however, was that it proved so difficult to get Liverpool-based Tony to travel to London for rehearsals that, sadly, we had to abandon the idea. Personally, I think that the prospect of taking over from Johnny Kidd may have proved too daunting for him, and of course the practice of well-known outfits interchanging lead singers was still many years away in the future!

It was Rick Eagles who provided the answer to our dilemma, by suggesting his erstwhile colleague in the Chessmen, John Carroll on Hammond organ. He pointed out that John also had a reasonable voice. I telephoned Johnny Carroll with the proposition, and he immediately agreed. The next day saw myself, Mick and Solly joining Johnny at his parents’ West Ealing home, where they allowed us to rehearse in the garage. Johnny proved to be an excellent musician who fitted in perfectly. The new Pirates were now complete and, after a few rehearsals, were ready for the road. Joan, working on our behalf on just a handshake, soon secured us a short tour of the West Country.

Before departing for Cornwall we paid a visit to the Cutty Sark, that famous sailing ship moored in the Thames where, dressed in all our finery we posed for photographs. The ship had been one of Johnny Kidd’s favourite locations, so I felt that this was a good omen for us. It only remained for us to replace Johnny’s ultra-violet light. A trip to a London stage lighting company called Strand Electrics secured a lamp on hire, which would provide the eerie glow that gave the Pirates show such atmosphere. Luckily UV was still little used and therefore unknown and unseen by the general public, so we had an edge on other acts. Finally my mum was good enough to get her sewing machine out and run us up a huge Jolly Roger flag, to be hung behind us on stage.

As the start date of our trip drew near, our thoughts turned to transport, so we paid a visit to Johnny Irving’s home in Willesden, hoping that he would offer to be our road manager, but Irvo was adamant that he was finished with the music business, and whilst wishing us well, declined our offer. With time running out it was decided that our only option was to hire a van and drive ourselves!

With only three or four days to go before our first gig, we were hit with a sudden bombshell! Solly had decided to stay with Freddy Mack, lured by the promise of more money and regular employment, and informed us by telephone that he would not be with us after all! At this news, panic set in and a feverish hunt for a replacement began. With no time to advertise, we began to telephone around in a desperate search. Mick Stewart found a likely candidate living in his street, and we wasted several hours rehearsing the set before it became obvious that the chemistry just wasn’t there! Finally, just as it looked as if we were sunk, Mick had a brainwave – what about Frankie Reid’s old drummer, John Kerrison?

Well, as luck would have it, John was looking for a gig, and as soon as he joined us in rehearsal at Southall Community Centre it became clear that he was perfect for the job. He was also a fast learner, and after a couple of intense rehearsals we were ready to hit the road.

On February 23rd 1967, in a hired van, groaning under the weight of our gear, now trebled by the addition of the mighty Hammond organ plus Leslie speaker cabinet, the new four man Pirates set sail and headed west.

After a day-long drive we arrived at Helston, on the southernmost point of England, where we set up at the local naval base, a fitting place for the first Pirates gig without Johnny Kidd. Finally the moment came! The curtains opened to reveal the four of us bathed in the eerie purple glow. A cheer came from the crowd which appeared to be composed of mainly females, and we proceeded to stagger through the show, based mainly on Kidd’s best songs, interspersed with one or two instrumentals plus a couple of songs from John Carroll. We went down well enough, and Mick and I were pretty pleased with the two new members who performed extremely well.

The 24th saw us arrive in Penzance. It wasn’t long before we spied digs bearing the sign ‘The Pirates Hotel’, which if course we just had to stay at! As we entered with our suitcases we were welcomed by the owner’s dog, a small but loud poodle-type who yapped incessantly at us. Unfortunately the excitement caused the animal to defecate in the lobby, and Johnny Kerrison was none too pleased on discovering that he had trod in the result, making a hell of a mess on his shoes! Once we had signed in (as The Pirates, of course) and explained who we were, the landlady, apologising profusely, took Johnny’s shoes away, returning ten minutes later with the shoes in pristine condition.

After a clean-up and a meal, we arrived at the local dance-hall and performed a rousing set to a capacity crowd. Flushed with success, we made our way back to the hotel, only to find that our friendly poodle had evacuated his bowels once more, but this time on Johnny Kerrison’s bed! As the rest of us collapsed laughing, Johnny tore off in a rage, in search of the landlady who, between more apologies, re-made his bed with fresh blankets. To this day Johnny insists that the poodle singled him out for attention!!

The following night saw us perform at the Plaza Ballroom in Newquay, after which we decided to drive straight back to London. We soon discovered the lack of petrol stations between Cornwall and London. Even with a full tank we couldn’t make it, and so it was that we found ourselves at Andover, siphoning petrol from the squad car of an obliging policeman!

After a short rest, and a gig on March 3rd at Welwyn Garden City, our thoughts turned to recording. We recognised that the business was changing, and it was no longer enough to rely on a good stage act. What was needed was a good record to boost our image! Our one and only recording with Johnny Kidd, “Send For That Girl”, had been released in November to great reviews, but sadly his record company had done little to promote it. Neither had they expressed any interest in the Pirates, which amazed me, considering the past history. Arguably Britain’s best rock singer, hugely successful for ten years, Johnny Kidd had sold enormous amounts of singles and E.P.’s, yet he had never had an album release during his lifetime! In today’s profit-driven record business, where the death of an artist is considered a ‘good career move’, an artist of Johnny’s talent and stature would still be a household name, with back catalogues exploited to overkill, and his image adorning merchandising everywhere!

Sadly, although revered by many people he inspired, such as Van Morrison, Johnny has been allowed to quietly disappear. Back in March 1967 we realised that our association with Kidd would not help us much, but luckily Joan had a contact who expressed interest in a Pirates record. Armed with two songs, one a commercial ditty penned by John Carroll, and another by Kinks front man Ray Davies, we headed for the recording studio….

Chapter 13 : Pirates in Scotland

Joan Watson had managed to negotiate some studio time through a contact that she had in a large recording and song publishing concern. Armed with John Carroll’s song, and a little known Ray Davies number, we assembled in a Central London recording studio to do our stuff. Unfortunately, our efforts did little to ignite the spark needed to create a hit record. Several backing tracks were attempted over three or four hours, the best being overdubbed with some shaky vocals. Joan’s contact was not too impressed, and there was a general feeling that we had blown our chance! We cheered up, however, when it was suggested that we returned in a week or two’s time, when we would all be more inspired. Putting the recording on the back burner, we spent a couple more days rehearsing our act in readiness for our next gigs. We didn’t have long to wait; Joan had secured us three days in Glasgow as part of a huge music extravaganza. The Kelvin Hall was one of Scotland’s landmark concert halls, also famous for staging high profile boxing matches. On the 24th, 25th and 27th of march we were to share the bill with several big acts, including Unit 4+2, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch, Screaming Lord Sutch, and, surprise, surprise, The Mack Sound. Face to face with Solly, of course, the insults flew, but Dave Sutch intervened as peace-maker, and we soon ended up as pals once more.

The Pirates’ spot came before Screaming Lord Sutch, and as we nervously tuned up behind the curtains, Mick and I were extremely aware that this was our first big show without Johnny Kidd. I can honestly say that never before or since have I felt such stage fright! Suddenly, the curtains opened and we were facing a huge audience. The first song passed by, just a blur, but by the second number I began to realise what a powerful sound we were producing, and my confidence rose. By the third song I became aware of girls screaming, and I knew that we had cracked it! At the end of our set, which included a rousing drum solo from John Kerrison, the crowd were shouting for more, and it was a pretty satisfied crew of Pirates who made their way back to the dressing room, with a queue of female autograph hunters providing the icing on the cake!

Screaming Lord Sutch was about to go on stage with his new outfit, no longer called the Savages, but renamed The Holy Roman Empire, with Dave dubbing himself Screaming Lord Caesar Sutch! I had recently witnessed this new act at Johnny Kidd’s tribute night, held shortly after his death. The players were a couple of veteran Savages in the form of drummer Carlo Little and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, together with a U.S. saxophone player called Joel, and two other new boys, Tony Dangerfield on bass and Matthew Fisher on piano. The trademark leopard skin loin cloths usually worn by the band were now replaced by Roman soldier’s garb, with Sutch himself resplendent in a Centurion’s outfit, complete with breastplate!

As the Pirates relaxed in our dressing room, Dave Sutch came in to ask a favour. He thought it would be a splendid spectacle for the audience to witness a sword fight between him and myself, in Pirate dress. I swiftly pointed out that it made little sense historically to have a Roman Centurion fighting an 18th century pirate, but Dave was so enthusiastic about the idea that I soon found myself agreeing to do it. My cue was to enter stage left, and attack ‘Caesar’ just as he ignited the tin of petrol-soaked newspaper which was the highlight of his version of the Jerry Lee Lewis classic, ‘Great Balls of Fire’. Sutch had provided me with a very piratical sabre which I brandished with gusto, right on cue. Of course, I was not quite prepared for what followed, when Sutch came close to decapitating me with the largest two –handed sword I had ever seen! The audience roared their approval as the fire blazed, whilst Sutch chased me around the stage, accompanied by a blistering Ritchie Blackmore solo. Finally I was forced to leg it for the safety of the dressing room before a demented Sutch could accidentally cause me serious harm!

At the end of a great evening, we all had a few drinks with Solly, plus a couple of other members of Freddy Mack’s band including Ged Peck, who had continued to impress me with his amazing speed and precise technique. As we said our farewells and made for the exit, Solly and I bumped into a couple of familiar figures in the form of two Glasgow lads who had also been working in Jersey in 1965. They had come to the show and were surprised to see us, and we reminisced for 15 minutes before leaving.

Tired but happy, I piloted the creaky old Austin van away from the Kelvin Hall. Mick and I were also rather hungry, so we asked the first pedestrian we saw, where we could eat. The man directed us to the clock tower in Sauchiehall Street, where we would find a pie stall. As we pulled up, it was obvious that John Kerrison and John Carroll were fast asleep, so Mick Stewart and I made our way through the crowd of rather dubious looking characters until we reached the stall. “Give us two pies with chips please guvnor” said Mick in his best West London accent. At that, the crowd fell silent in a manner reminiscent of the scene in a dozen cowboy movies where the bad guy enters the saloon. Suddenly a huge bearded man resplendent in a kilt, lurched forward, uttering the memorable phrase, “Yer f…ing English bastards!”. Sensing the ugly atmosphere I whispered in Mick’s ear, as loudly as I dared, “Run like hell!”. As we reached the van, which unhappily bore the legend Matador Car Hire, Hanwell, London, England, the two Johns awoke from their slumber to the sound of the rear windows shattering under a bombardment of various missiles! Somehow my shaking hand managed to get the key into the ignition, and we roared off at high speed, thankful that only the van was damaged.

On reaching our hotel, we discovered that it was next door to a hospital. A quick word with sympathetic night staff found us a parking space near the ambulances, safely out of sight of any marauding vandals who might take exception to the writing on the side. The following two shows at the Kelvin Hall passed successfully without incident. The pie stall attack had taken us completely by surprise. For years there had been rumours of Scotland being a no-go area for English bands, with several reports of experiences such as ours. I had always felt immune from that sort of thing, owing to the fact that Johnny Kidd and the Pirates had always been welcomed and respected everywhere, due in no small measure to their tough image, but, of course, the drunks at the pie stall had no idea of our identity. However, they were only a tiny minority, and we generally found the Scots to be warm and friendly folk. Our three shows had been well received, and we were pretty pleased with ourselves as we headed south for home.

Back in Hanwell, Matador Car Hire were not very happy at the loss of several windows, and we had to part with a few pounds to make good the damage. Following our return from Glasgow we were given the news that our services as recording artists were no longer required! Our one and only attempt had been a dismal failure and we didn’t even bother to request a copy tape! Joan’s contact did offer a publishing contract to John Carroll in recognition of the commercial prospects for his song, but this did not include the Pirates as an act, and we realised that we had blown our chance! The euphoria following the gigs in Cornwall and Glasgow soon evaporated when we discovered that Joan had been unable to secure any work for the near future apart from one gig in London at the Uppercut Club, and very quickly the Pirates began to disintegrate.

On Monday May 1st 1967, the four of us met to discuss any possible future we might have together. It was generally agreed that the group had limited appeal without Johnny Kidd, and our lack of a record deal also led to agreement that we had little option but to call it a day. Sadly, we all shook hands and said our goodbyes. The name Pirates had been at the top for almost a decade in one form or another, but now it was consigned to history! Without a doubt it was the end of an era, but a new one was about to begin…

Chapter 14 : Billie Davis & the Quality

Before a week had gone by I had received an offer of a new gig. West London group The Birds had decided to call it a day, despite being on the edge of success for several years. Rhythm guitarist Tony Munroe had decided to re-invent himself as lead singer with a new band. This band, he explained, were going to take the business by storm, and he wanted me to be in it! He also had the support of a management team who ran several local venues, including one of my favourites, the Starlight Ballroom at Sudbury, near Wembley. The group were to be called, he told me solemnly, pausing for effect… The Gods!! What a great name, I said, whilst thinking that this outfit would have to be a bit special to operate with that title!

The very next day found me setting up my gear at the Starlight and being introduced to the other band members. On guitar was a quiet young guy from Hatfield named Mick Taylor, on keyboards was a very amiable bloke called Ken Hensley, and a drummer whose name has vanished into the mists of time. After the usual preamble we attempted to run through a few standard tunes but, in spite of the obvious enthusiasm, nothing seemed to come together. Tony blamed the drummer for our failure to gel, and so, later in the week, Roger Truth was summoned to the Starlight to add a bit of magic. However, even his considerable talent didn’t make things improve. After a try with another drummer, I felt that we were flogging a dead horse and so I told Tony that this wasn’t for me. We parted as friends, and he soon drafted in another bassist named Greg Lake. Apparently the Gods did eventually get it together, and worked with various personnel for several years. Occasionally I bumped into Ken Hensley, who soon formed a new outfit with Cliff Bennett, but it was a couple of years before I saw Mick Taylor again.

Following this debacle, I began to lose interest in the music business again. I had pinned all my hopes on the Pirates and now felt without a direction to follow. The business was rapidly changing, not for the better I thought, with pop acts like the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Monkees dominating, although several of my old acquaintances from Jim Marshall’s shop were doing well, such as the Who, and Johnny Mitchell, who had left Georgie Fame to work with an interesting new trio called the Jimi Hendrix Experience. My old pal Rod Freeman had re-named his group the Freemen, and was still resident at the Tottenham Royal Ballroom. He had relocated to Tottenham, and so we no longer saw much of each other.

While I languished at home, pondering the future, I received a phone call from out of the blue. “Nick?”, enquired the voice on the phone, “Carlo Little here!”. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Here was one of my all-time musical heroes calling me! Carlo explained that he needed a bassist for a trio that he was assembling to back singer Billie Davis, who’d had a top ten chart hit two years before. Now, normally I would have run barefoot over broken glass to work with Carlo, but his call had come at the wrong time for me, and I declined his offer. I was now really feeling the impact of the loss of Johnny Kidd and the demise of the Pirates, and there didn’t seem much point in taking any job unless I felt enthusiasm for it. Several days later Carlo telephoned again, hoping that I had changed my mind. Once again, I turned him down. Finally I received a third, rather desperate sounding call, informing me that Billie and her group were due to open in cabaret the very next week, followed by a pleading request to “just help out” until a permanent member could be found. Carlo was putting me on the spot, and he knew it. Grudgingly I agreed to help out on a temporary basis, arranging to meet at his Wembley home the following day. Arriving at Carlo’s, I set up my bass amp next to his drum kit in the front room where, together with a South African pianist named Neville, Billie Davis and her wonderfully named manager, Johnny Toogood, we proceeded to get to grips with the forthcoming act.

The morning of Sunday, 28th May 1967 saw Carlo, myself, Billie and Neville heading north for Bradford, where we were to appear for a week, first playing the tiny Paradise Club, followed by a later show at the larger Lyceum Club. Travelling with our equipment in Carlo’s Ford Thames van, we chatted and got to know one another during the trip. Carlo Little did most of the talking, keeping us entertained with stories of life on the road with acts such as Neil Christian’s Crusaders, the Cyril Davies All Stars and Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages. Billie proved to be a good raconteur too, so Neville and I sat back enjoying all the great stories!

On our arrival at Bradford we checked into our rather grisly digs, had a quick wash and a hurried meal of fish and chips before departing for our debut gig at the Paradise Club. We kicked off the show with a shaky rendition of a jazz instrumental standard, followed by Billie, who performed a varied collection of songs, including her monster hit “Tell Him”, originally a hit in the USA for the Exciters. She proved to be a capable performer, her good looks being complemented by a tight fitting cat-suit and a pleasing voice. Billie’s career had been in the doldrums lately, and she was keen to show the audience how good she was. At the height of her success she had enjoyed a romance with ex-Shadows bassist Jet Harris, and they had been relentlessly hounded by the press. As Jet himself put it recently, “we were the Posh and Becks of the day!”. Following a serious car crash that badly injured them both, Jet received some press stories which were damaging to his career, which nosedived spectacularly. Today such coverage would probably enhance a career in rock, but at that time it was the kiss of death! Billie, however, came through unscathed, and the Bradford audience showed their appreciation. Almost before the last notes died away, Carlo was shepherding us into the van, almost flinging the gear in the back before driving at break-neck speed to the Lyceum, about 20 minutes away.

I was to learn very swiftly that Carlo had a fear of being late for a show, probably because he never wanted to give managers or promoters the slightest excuse to knock the money! We skidded to a halt outside the Lyceum, a much larger night spot and with Carlo cracking the whip we set up our gear in double quick time. Performing the same show to a capacity crowd, Billie went down a storm, and so our debut was considered a great success. There wasn’t too much to do in Bradford, apart from the occasional visit to the ice-rink where I picked up plenty of bruises, so a lot of the time was spent in the digs being musically educated by Carlo, who had brought along his reel-to-reel tape recorder with endless tapes of some of the greatest music I had ever heard. Stuff by everyone from Leadbelly to Link Wray, from Bobby Bland to Marvin Gaye. These were the sort of songs that you never heard on the radio, and Carlo would point out every nuance that made the tracks great, analysing each and every instrument in his enthusiasm.

Following our week in Bradford, we moved to Swansea’s Townsman Club. Our opening night had to be cancelled owing to Billie missing her flight from London following a TV appearance. The manager took this extremely hard, almost blaming the band personally for her non-appearance. His attitude was so obnoxious that I almost came to blows with him before being restrained by the Carlo. Luckily, as we were about to depart, giving the time-honoured two finger salute, the manager’s brother, who was much more reasonable, instructed us to ignore the row and turn up for tomorrow’s show, with his personal guarantee that all would be OK. As promised, the rest of the week went like clockwork, and we were paid in full, with no stoppages for the missing show.

On June 11th we opened for another week at the Club Royale in Preston. By now I was beginning to enjoy the work, with a different town every week, good company and generous wages. Carlo and I were beginning to work together well and also to forge a genuine friendship. He presented a stern, rather forbidding exterior which often gave people the wrong impression, but the person underneath proved to be a warm and friendly character with a great sense of humour!

After the first few weeks I began to appreciate my luck in providing a rhythm section with the man dubbed by Keith Richards “the greatest rock drummer in the world!”. Halfway through the week we spent a day in nearby Blackpool, happily trawling the sideshows and taking a trip up the famous tower. I felt a moment of sadness as we passed the now closed down nightclub, once famous as Johnny Kidd’s Club. Above the fading facade, a life size painted likeness of my old boss in pirate costume looked jauntily down, just as I remembered him, a stark reminder of recent events!

By this stage, as Carlo and I developed our partnership, it became painfully obvious that Neville wasn’t fitting in. He was a lovely bloke and he played very well, but was obviously more suited to playing lounge music. Whilst Carlo and I wore the standard dress of sixties rock musicians, Neville was more comfortable in a tuxedo. We wanted Jerry Lee Lewis, but got Liberace instead! A council of war with Billie led to the decision to replace Neville with a guitarist, and so it was left to Carlo and me to find the right person.

Billie hired a room above a North London pub during a break between gigs, but didn’t appear herself, whilst Carlo and I auditioned several hopeful guitarists, lured by a hastily placed advertisement in the Melody Maker, promising regular work with a ‘name singer’. Remembering how impressed I was with Freddy Mack’s guitarist, Ged Peck, I had invited him up for a blow, where he proceeded to annihilate the opposition with his tremendous turn of speed. Carlo was not too impressed, he had seen it all before with Ritchie Blackmore, and he valued notes before speed, quite rightly, but at the end of the evening he grudgingly agreed, with the words “I suppose it’ll be your mate!”.

Now things were looking up; With Ged on board we could rock a bit more, Carlo never mentioned my ‘temporary’ status again, and all negative thoughts disappeared. Billie was signed to a new management and agency which had recently been set up by Spencer Davis following the split of his original chart topping group, and the work was rolling in!

Ged fitted in well and enabled us to beef up the act a bit! June 23rd saw us driving north to a one-off show at the Town Hall, Hawick, on the Scottish border. On arrival we were informed by the promoter that the support band had failed to show, so we were expected to play all night. Billie quickly told him that we were only contracted for 75 minutes. The promoter had no other support apart from a tiny Dansette record player on the stage, with only the Shadows’ first album being played repeatedly. Without our co-operation he would have to cancel the show. In retrospect of course, we should have carried the whole evening, but it was decided to cancel the show, for which he would pay us regardless. Before paying Billie in full, the promoter made a cancellation announcement to the early arrivals, who quickly dispersed, whilst Billie, Carlo, Ged and I prepared to remove our belongings from the dressing room. “It’s a shame”, said Carlo, as we opened the back door, “to come all this way and not get to play!”. “There they are!”, came a shout as we prepared to step outside, followed by a hail of missile, including stones, bottles and assorted garbage. Carlo swiftly slammed the door shut. “Get the police!”, he hollered, white with fear. After about ten minutes, which seemed like hours, a trembling band made their way through a booing crowd, held back by a cordon of local police. Quickly climbing into the van, echoes of Glasgow with the Pirates crossed my mind as we drove the short distance to our hotel. Still shaking with fright we looked for the bar, where we could steady our nerves, only to discover that we were booked into a temperance hotel. No drinks!!

It was decided that someone had to venture out to a liquor store for a bottle of whisky, so I suggested drawing straws. Carlo swiftly fashioned ‘straws’ from bits of paper, and of course I managed to draw the short one! Turning up my collar and praying that no-one would recognise me, I gingerly sauntered along Hawick High Street, soon finding a drinks store where, using my best Scottish accent, I managed to purchase a bottle of Johnny Walker and leg it back to the hotel unscathed. Our sense of terror soon abated after a large Scotch or two, and we went to bed happy!

The next night saw us play Falkirk without incident, before moving on for a week in Birmingham where we played the Monte Carlo Club. Now we were joined by a keyboard player, a friend of Carlo’s called P. J. Kelly. PJ proved to be a real hoot, always up for a laugh, and a nice player too! Billie began introducing new songs to her act, a favourite being ‘Bang, Bang’ by Cher. A distinctive guitar lick between verses often caused Ged a mental block, with quite hilarious results. Another was ‘It Takes Two’, the Gaye hit, where Billie required me to duet with her. I never felt comfortable with this, even more so after witnessing Billie sing it on TV with Steve Marriot, who showed how it should be done!

On July 8th, I stood in for one night with the Simon Raven trio (still Buddy Britten to me), with Roger ‘Solly’ Truth back on the drums. It was just like old times, and still a buzz to play with those guys!

A few days later Billie Davis and the Quality (as we were known) crammed into Carlo’s Ford van, caught the ferry to Belgium and travelled across to Germany, where we were to play for five days at Frankfurt’s K.52 Club. The sun beat down relentlessly, with temperatures inside the van almost unbearable, so we were pretty drained on our arrival. We certainly weren’t thrilled to discover that we had to play six shows a night between the hours of 7 p.m. and 1 a.m.. This was the famous treadmill system employed in Germany which, of course, had been the making of many British groups. As the audience changed almost every hour, no-one minded that we just repeated the same set. There was just time in between shows to grab a beer and dry the sweat from our shirts with a hair dryer!

Halfway through our stint at the K.52 we travelled to a one-off show at Hamburg. Before we left, Carlo took me to one side and told me of his ambition to re-unite with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. The two had worked together with Screaming Lord Sutch and The Savages, and Neil Christian’s Crusaders, remaining friends and keeping in touch. Blackmore now lived in Hamburg, and Carlo had arranged to meet him, to present an idea for a new band based on myself, Carlo and Ritchie. After the gig we met Blackmore at his flat, from where we proceeded to the famous Star Club for a beer and a chat. Carlo swiftly outlined a plan where the two of us would give Billie reasonable notice to quit, and then return to Hamburg, where we would base ourselves, and rehearse an act. Carlo pointed out that all three of us had excellent pedigrees, and felt confident that we could attract plenty of well-paid work in Germany, just as other British bands were doing. He suggested that I handle vocals until a proper singer could be found, to which I agreed, although with more confidence than I felt!

Blackmore seemed keen on the plan. After all, he had languished in Hamburg for some time without regular employment, so this could only be a positive move. He suggested a keyboard player who was also resident in Hamburg, another ex-Savage who Carlo knew well. As the time swiftly approached for us to depart for Frankfurt, we all shook hands in agreement, Carlo promising to let Ritchie know as soon as we were able to return. Leaving the Star Club, full of optimism for a successful future, we headed onto the Autobahn….

Chapter 15 : Savages & Flowerpot Men

On our return from Germany, Carlo and I continued to make vague plans for the new project, but a recurrence of an old problem – namely severe tonsillitis – was making it almost impossible for me to sing harmony for Billie, let alone tackle complete songs, as I had done with the Pirates. A visit to hospital confirmed that I needed an operation. “How long?” I enquired. “Between one and two years” came the reply, so my name was added to the list.

The shows with Billie continued. P. J. Kelly left, for reasons long forgotten, and was replaced by a terrific organ player called Arthur Regis, a friendly well-spoken bloke, who fitted in perfectly. No sooner had Arthur joined when I received a mysterious phone call from Roger Truth, asking me to meet him in Soho to discuss a business proposition. Intrigued, I headed for the Van Gogh bar in Rupert Street where Roger had once more taken the gig with Buddy Britten, who had now permanently become Simon Raven. Roger explained that he had found a benefactor who was interested in financing a new group, and introduced me to a young lady he called “’Enry”. ‘Enry, it appeared, had spotted Roger’s talent on her frequent visits to the Van Gogh, and of course he had recommended me to her. I explained that it would be no problem to find the other musicians needed.

‘Enry had exquisite manners and poise, with the air of self-assurance that often surrounds people of wealth. I soon found out that she was, in fact, Lady Henrietta Guinness, of the famous brewing family! A date was arranged for me to come to the Van Gogh bar where I could perform a couple of tunes with Roger, apparently to satisfy her trustees that we were a viable proposition. Once this task was performed, we provisionally brought Arthur Regis and Ged Peck on board, before beginning the search for a vocalist. Henrietta was arranging the purchase of a Tudor manor, where, she explained, we all would live. I lost no time in calling up Terry Marshall at the new amplifier factory in Bletchley, swiftly placing an order for several new Marshall stacks to amplify the new outfit. Meetings now took place at Henrietta’s headquarters, a fabulous King’s Road Italian restaurant called Alvaro’s, where Roger and I were wined and dined in style. Henrietta celebrated her birthday with a huge party at Sybilla’s nightclub near Piccadilly, where we rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous. At the time I was taking snuff to try and wean myself off cigarettes. One of the guests invited me to try some of theirs, which I did, only to discover that it definitely wasn’t snuff! On waking up in Roger’s flat I found my memory of the previous night’s activities extremely hazy!

Whilst all these new plans were being laid, Billie Davis’ situation took a turn for the worse, with the cancellation of several months’ work. The reasons are now lost in the lists of time, but panic gripped Carlo, Ged, Arthur and myself, as we realised that our regular earnings had come to a halt! Carlo immediately rushed out to find his old boss David Sutch, who promptly engaged three of us to work as his group, the Savages. Arthur, however, was not included, as Sutch was using his famous one-eyed pianist, Freddy Fingers Lee.

All of a sudden, amongst this whirlwind of activities, proposals and counter-proposals, I found myself working with yet another of my rock n’ roll heroes. Today he is often dismissed as an eccentric oddball, but no-one should underestimate the importance of Screaming Lord Sutch and The Savages in the history of British Rock. Their act was an absolutely awe-inspiring sound and spectacle, a totally amazing antidote to the majority of pop and rock during the 60’s, which definitely provided the impetus that drove many budding musicians to strive for success. Although others were on the fringe, the best line-up of Savages was undoubtedly Bernie Watson (guitar), Carlo Little (drums), Nicky Hopkins (piano) and Rick Brown (bass). Together they created an amazing wall of sound which was uniquely British, yet more powerful than most U.S. bands. As well as Sutch, this line-up had also worked with British Blues legend Cyril Davies, as the All-Stars, performing on the great recording of Country Line Special. The early Rolling Stones used to support them at London gigs such as the Marquee Club, According to Sutch, Mick Jagger and Brian Jones begged Carlo Little to join them, but Carlo was in a different league and so, naturally, turned them down. Keith Richards is often quoted as dubbing Carlo “the world’s greatest rock n’ roll drummer”, a sentiment I agree with entirely. There was little doubt that Sutch’s act had suffered recently, mainly due to the fact that he was unwilling to pay for good musicians, often recruiting the cheapest available, but he always relished the chance to use Carlo Little, knowing that he added class to the show. And so I found myself a “Savage”, working alongside Carlo as he played in that heavy style which always made him stand out. Freddy ‘Fingers’ Lee was also of legendary status, and with Ged Peck’s virtuosity we really could not fail!

Meanwhile negotiations continued with Henrietta Guinness, although at a somewhat slower pace, owing to the fact that I was now relishing the experience of being a ‘Savage’! How lucky can one get, I thought, having played with two of England’s best outfits, here I was with another – Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. David Sutch’s act had not changed in the eight years that he had been a top attraction, and I knew the collection of Fifties and Sixties rock n’ roll songs inside out. The difference with Dave, though, was that you had to brave fire, water and assorted weaponry whilst playing with the panache demanded by Carlo, who was also band leader and choreographer! The highlight for me though was seeing Freddy Fingers Lee cartwheel across the stage, landing with his head on a cushion strategically place on the keyboard of the piano, whilst Sutch, standing on top of the piano would grab Fred’s ankles, holding him in hand-stand position. Fred would then play an amazing solo, arguably playing better upside down than most pianists could achieve the right way up! Usually he would screw a car wing mirror onto the piano, thus allowing him to see the rest of the band with his one good eye. He also had a disconcerting habit of removing his glass eye band resting it on your shoulder, usually accompanied by the phrase “I’ve got my eye on you!”

For Ged and me, this period was an important part of our rock n’ roll education, an experience we would not have missed for anything!

The rise to fame of Screaming Lord Sutch was initially due to his appearance. In 1959, waist-length hair had never been seen in England and so, until long hair became more commonplace, Sutch caused amazement and outrage wherever he appeared! Gigs with Sutch were never dull affairs. Girls would invariably scream with fear at his antics, often leading to their boyfriends becoming hostile and determined to show that Sutch was no-one to be afraid of! Several years before, I had taken three girls, including my future wife Janet, to see Sutch’s act at Northolt, where they were all so overcome with fright that we had to leave after several songs. Now, as a Savage, I was witnessing this effect from the stage.

One memorable night, August 5th 1967, saw us playing in Narberth, Wales. The ball room was packed to capacity with a lively crowd, and as usual most of the girls were frightened to death by the spectacle of Dave Sutch doing his stuff. A handful of toughs stood at the front, led by a large bloke wearing a light blue suit, who seemed intent on causing trouble. He attempted to hold on to Dave’s microphone cable whenever possible, which limited Sutch’s stage movements. I could sense Dave getting annoyed. The moment arrived during our version of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls Of Fire” when Sutch set fire to a container of newspaper and petrol, resulting in flames four or five feet high. I expected to see our tough guy move back from the heat of the fire, but he stood his ground, although it seemed that his eyebrows were in danger of vanishing! Sutch then ran across, ringing his big brass fire bell, carrying a 2 gallon fireman’s bucket of water to extinguish the flames with. The sight of the leering yobbo was too much for Sutch, however, and, instead of putting out the flames, he gave the bloke the 2 full gallons right in the face! Retaliation followed in the form of the tough guy’s pals launching themselves at the band in a crazy sea of flying fists and bottles. Under this onslaught the Savages retreated, whilst I wondered if we would survive! Suddenly the voice of Screaming Lord Sutch boomed over the P.A. system announcing that the police were in the building. Like magic, our attackers ran for the exit. Of course, there were no police, but Dave’s presence of mind had saved us from almost certain injury!

Apart from the occasional crowd trouble, it was tremendous fun working with Sutch and the Savages, and I found a friendship with Dave which was to last until his untimely death in 1999. By the end of August Billie Davis had secured a few more gigs, and so our work was now divided between her and Sutch. This was an extremely busy period, and so our plans with Lady Henrietta Guinness had been unavoidably slowed, resulting in her having a change of heart. For reasons never fully explained to me, she had decided to abandon the project, and so another opportunity was lost. I had to explain the situation to Marshall Amplification, who agreed to cancel my order for new gear. I didn’t see or hear from Henrietta again, but reading of her exploits in the press, I realised why she dropped out. It appeared that her romance with one of the staff at Alvaro’s restaurant had led to friction with her family, with the result that she married and moved to Italy, where she raised a son. The ensuing bad feeling kept her name in the newspapers for several years, until sadly in 1978 she took her own life.

On September 10th 1967, Billie Davis and the Quality began a week long engagement at Manchester’s Embassy Club. The venue was owned by a charismatic front man who was M.C., vocalist with the house band, resident comedian, and also a pretty decent impersonator. He came from working-class roots, had obvious empathy with us as performers, and sometimes drove us back to our digs in his new Jaguar car. His name, we learned, was Bernard Manning, destined to become a famous television performer in the not too distant future.

Whilst I never forgot Bernard, it was a severe dose of food poisoning that made the week unforgettable for me! The food in our digs left a lot to be desired, and by Tuesday it became necessary for me to stay close to the toilet. A system was worked out to deliver me onstage one minute before curtain up, and if necessary I was allowed to leave the stage for the nearest khazi!! By the end of the week I had recovered, bidding Bernard farewell, little knowing that he and his club would soon be nationally famous on TV. I also had no way of knowing that our association with Billie Davis was finally at an end.

From out of the blue, Carlo Little had a telephone call from Spencer Davis Management. It appeared that they needed musicians to support a vocal act that they had signed, named the Flowerpot Men. A single called “Let’s Go To San Francisco” was riding high in the charts, so the logical next move was to get the act on the road, and Billie Davis’ band was in the frame for the job. Sensing a good earner, Carlo swiftly arranged a time and place to rehearse together. The only snag was that Arthur Regis and landed a gig with top soul act Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, so a keyboard player had to found quickly. I immediately thought of Billy Davidson, the amazingly gifted organist who I had met at Joan Watson’s shop. Luckily, he was free to complete the line-up, and so Bill, Ged, Carlo and I assembled at a London rehearsal room, where we were introduced to the four vocalists who had been appearing on TV shows all over Europe as the Flowerpot Men. We soon learned that the hot record had resulted from one of the many studio sessions regularly carried out by my old favourites, Carter and Lewis. They had given up performing in order to concentrate on recording their many compositions, some of which were leased out to various touring bands, who then changed their names accordingly. This they had done with their own group, the Ivy League, following many chart hits, and were now doing the same thing with the name Flowerpot Men, borrowed from a 1950’s children’s television programme. John Carter himself had sung the lead vocal on the record, with harmonies provided by a great session singer named Tony Burrows. Ken Lewis had supplied keyboard and piano, with my old mate Robin Scrimshaw playing bass. John and Ken had for many years written songs in varying styles and had now been able to use their skills to capitalise on the current ‘flower power’ rage which had recently arrived here from the USA. Tony Burrows, currently in a new Ivy League line-up, together with Robin, quickly recruited two other singers. Tony brought in Neil Landon, also from the Ivy League, and Robin brought in Pete Nelson, one-time front man of my old mates the Travellers, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that I knew two of the four singers.

The rehearsal was overseen by Ken Lewis in person, and whilst I was knocked out to meet him once more, he was equally pleased to meet Carlo Little, who he greeted with the words “My, what a reputation you have got!!” Carlo blushed at this. “Have I?” was the best he could reply. The four singers then produced a list of 3 and 4 part harmony material by artists such as the Four Tops and the Four Seasons. They had obviously rehearsed their parts, and the whole package was sounding pretty slick after a two hour run through. Everyone seemed happy with the result, and so several more rehearsals were scheduled before taking to the road.

Carlo, as our elected spokesman, entered into tough wage negotiations. He felt that a top ten hit record would place the act in a high earning bracket, and that good musicians deserved good money. Using all of his considerable powers of persuasion Carlo secured a great deal, which provided us with an excellent retainer, whether we worked or not, plus a decent fee for each show. At last we were about earn serious money!

The next day saw us arrive at the Spencer Davis office where we were introduced to the staff, and provided with cash to buy some suitably “flowery” stage clothes. Following several more rehearsals we were supplied with a truck for us and our equipment. Armed with a full gig list, we were ready to hit the road! …

Chapter 16 : Flowerpot Men on the Road

Without delay Carlo, Bill, Ged and I were plunged into a series of one-nighters, beginning with the Floral Hall at Southport, a seaside resort on Britain’s west coast, situated mid-way between Liverpool and Blackpool. The after-gig inquest decided that it was a resounding success and the four singers congratulated us on our performances. Buoyed up by this initial triumph, the eight of us soon gelled into a slick, confident act, with each show being better than the last! The opening song was always the Four Seasons’ “Let’s Hang On”, with Tony Burrows hitting Frankie Valli’s high notes with ease, followed by various songs by the Four Tops, The Beach Boys and Wilson Pickett. Of course the hit song “Let’s Go To San Francisco” was always a show stopper. For the early shows, as backing musicians we were expected to drive ourselves, and often to hump our own gear. It was soon decided however that the status of the band demanded a road manager, which was supplied after a bit of wrangling with the office. Mark was a young, cheerful and willing roadie, who took the load off the band but kept us alert by his disconcerting habit of turning his head frequently to the rear of the truck during conversation whilst driving, seemingly oblivious to the potential hazards up ahead!

Following several weeks of one-nighters, we embarked on a short tour of Ireland. We carried out an interesting experiment on poor Mark, by waking him up just one hour after he had fallen asleep for the overnight ferry crossing, telling him that the ferry was about to dock. He picked up his watch, which we had advanced by 8 hours, declared how refreshed he felt after a great night’s sleep and proceeded to wash, shave and dress himself. Someone mentioned that he might be too late for breakfast, so Mark swiftly dashed into the restaurant demanding food. Naturally the evening bar staff thought he was a madman and told him so in no uncertain terms! I can’t repeat what Mark called us when he returned to the cabin, but he had to agree, as he settled down to sleep, that it had been a good gag! The tour of Ireland was a great success, marked by the hordes of screaming girls. This of course fostered resentment amongst the males in the audience who responded to the girls’ screams by showering us with (usually lit) cigarette butts! The overall Irish hospitality shone through however and we thoroughly enjoyed the tour.

As the work brought in regular money, far in excess of what we had been used to, I decided that it was time to upgrade my image. For a couple of years I had been happily trundling around in my little Austin Mini-van. Now an opportunity presented itself! The garage mechanic who looked after my vehicle was the proud owner of a gleaming Jaguar Mark II 3.4 litre sports saloon which he had tuned and uprated into a real mean machine! Sadly, due to his marriage, the car had to be sold. I had been a passenger in this vehicle several times, and the thought of owning it appealed to me immediately! Before several days had passed, I had paid a deposit and signed the hire-purchase papers (the usual form of credit during the 1960’s). A local Hayes lad had given me £60 for the Mini, and I caught the bus to the garage to pick up the British Racing Green beauty, with its distinctive number plate 7 XPB. “Remember”, said the previous owner, as I prepared to drive away, “this isn’t a Mini, this is a bomb!!” I soon forgot his words as I steered into Hayes High Street and hit a poor unsuspecting lady’s car in the rear! Not only was it a bomb, it also had a bonnet many times longer than a Mini! Luckily, no damage was done and I proudly piloted the Jaguar back home, to the envy of the neighbourhood.

After a month of one-nighters the act was beginning to gel musically, but the four vocalists felt that something was lacking, and so we all assembled one morning at a London rehearsal room where our act was freshly ‘produced’ by Liverpudlian Hal Carter. Quite what qualified this one-time road manager for Billy Fury to ‘produce’ the act was never explained, but Hal proceeded to advise the four front men how to stand and how to move during each song. Shortly after this we all set sail on a comfortable ship named the Winston Churchill to Denmark where we embarked on a ten-day tour. Thanks to the hit record we received a rapturous welcome, playing to packed houses. Based in Copenhagen, we spent any spare time in the Star Club, which featured a bar/restaurant on the ground floor, live bands on the first floor, and a disco on the top floor. Carlo and I would sit for hours in the bar, where the music was piped through from the disco, the resident jockey playing great artists such as Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, and a terrific band called Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.

Psychedelia was taking off in a big way in tandem with the new ‘flower-power’, making the whole music scene even more diverse. Eastern influences were also at work, with sitars being featured on records, and groups and audiences alike wearing Afghan coats and kaftans. The four singers in our band went the whole hog with bells, beads and assorted kaftans. I felt slightly uncomfortable with this, sticking with the paisley shirts and silk neckerchief, but Carlo went all out with an assortment of kaftans and a large brass bell hung around his neck on a leather thong. With the success of the Danish gigs, several extra shows were added, resulting in three gigs on one particular night. The financial opportunity was too good to miss, so we all agreed to help Mark with the equipment after each show. The next day saw us hit the road early as we had a long drive to the next gig. We noticed how many how many passing cars were sounding their horns, with drivers waving at us, boosting our egos as we enjoyed the recognition, only to come down to earth with a crash when we discovered the real reason for their attention. Several miles back, Carlo’s two bass drums lay in a field, where they had landed after roiling off the roof of the truck. Mark had failed to secure the ropes holding them down. Naturally Carlo had a few choice words with the crestfallen roadie, but a close examination showed that no damage had occurred, so the incident was soon forgotten.

Not long after this episode, we almost came to grief whilst travelling at high speed along a narrow two-way road. Mark was indulging in his favourite practice of looking behind into the back of the van whilst making a point of conversation when we came across a broken down vehicle on our side of the road. At 70 mph it was too late for Mark to pull up, and with a stream of traffic in opposite lane, disaster was imminent! With admirable skill Mark executed a swift right turn, jumping the truck over a deep ditch, and then tearing through a dense hedge to land safely in a corn field. We all rattled around inside the van but no one was hurt except Ged Peck who took the full weight of the Hammond organ as it fell on him! Dusting ourselves down, we straightened up the van interior and, with Ged nursing his bruised ribs, Mark drove along the edge of the field until he found the entrance, and we proceeded on our way.

One memorable night found us arriving at our Danish hotel extremely tired and hungry, having travelled for most of the day and having eaten very little. The hotel foyer had a magnificent tableau featuring stuffed wild animals and birds around a pond. Billy Day, sporting his newly acquired silver-topped walking cane, took a closer look, as Carlo Little asked the man at reception if we could have some sandwiches. The man explained in broken English that the kitchen was locked and that he didn’t have the key. On hearing this, Bill whacked the stuffed bear as hard as he could with his cane, resulting in a huge cloud of fur and sawdust, and then swiftly moved to the pink flamingo. ”The key”, snarled Bill, “or the bird is next!” Suddenly the porter managed to find the key, and we gratefully tucked into a feast of crusty bread and cheese. The memory of Bill swinging his cane close to the flamingo’s stick-thin legs is one that I’ll always treasure.

Soon we set off on what was probably the very last package tour of its kind in this country. Package tours were so named because they featured half a dozen or so acts of varying popularity, and had developed from the early music hall variety tours, featuring a mixture of different entertainers. Because of the number of artists featured, the time allowed each act was usually short, with the top of the bill traditionally getting the longest performance. During the 1950’s, rock n’ roll performers were usually given only a token spot, playing alongside jugglers, fire-eaters, comedians, magicians and animal acts! By the Sixties, however, the demand for rock n’ roll and pop music was gathering, and so such tours became prolific, often featuring U.S. Stars as bill-toppers. This then was the heyday of the musical package tour. As the end of the decade advanced, however, music groups and singers became unwilling to play sets sometimes as short as ten or fifteen minutes, a fact that led to a very ugly scene on the opening night of our tour.

We opened at the Finsbury Park Astoria, one of four huge entertainment palaces designed by famous architect Edward A. Stone in the 1920’s. The acts consisted of a band named Micky Finn, then Art (later to be renamed Spooky Tooth), a new U.S. group called Vanilla Fudge who had a hit single with a reworking of the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hanging On”, the Flowerpot Men, Keith West and Tomorrow, riding high with a hit single “Excerpt From A Teenage Opera”, and the bill-toppers Traffic, formed by ex-Spencer Davis Group vocalist Steve Winwood.

Our spot was to close the first half of the show. The act was warmly received and our first night went smoothly, the only disappointment being the theft of cash from our dressing room by a sneak thief! Shortly after the programme started though, I was to witness a performance which changed my approach to music forever. I didn’t bother to listen to the other acts as I figured I had plenty of opportunity to do this over the next few weeks, and besides it was important to me to have a last minute run through of my own parts. It was whilst doing so that Carlo Little burst into the dressing room in a very excited state, insisting that I come to the wings quickly to witness the “American Blokes” as he called them. We listened and watched in awe as Vanilla Fudge gave a stunning performance, ripping through their songs with such power, attack and panache, their vocal harmonies making the hair rise on the back of the neck. Never, since seeing the Graham Bond Organisation had we heard such a mighty rhythm section as Tim Bogert on bass and Carmine Appice on drums, almost attacking their instruments! The audience went absolutely wild with appreciation, and I knew that we were watching something rather special.

Unfortunately there must have been a breakdown in communication because their set was beginning to over-run, and before they could launch into their hit, “You Keep Me Hanging On”, the curtains began to close. As keyboard player Mark Stein apologised to the crowd, who clearly wanted more, an almighty row erupted backstage with the result that Vanilla Fudge quit the tour there and then! What we did not know in England was that the ‘progressive’ movement in rock music was already kicking off in America, with songs being extended beyond the traditional three or four minute format and solos being performed ad-lib, just as modern jazz players were doing, and so an act such as Vanilla Fudge had little chance of showing their talents in a fifteen minute slot!

After our show finished we held an inquest in the dressing room, where all eight performers agreed that for the first night it was pretty good. Carlo and I however had our minds elsewhere, knowing that our style of music was going to change!

Following the successful opening night, the tour rumbled on across the country, taking in large theatres in most major towns. With the exception of bill-toppers Traffic, all the bands travelled together on a coach, and a camaraderie soon developed amongst us. The tour manager was a dour Scotsman who left us in no doubt that the coach waited for no-one, a rule which Carlo, Ged, Bill and I tested one morning in the north of England, resulting in our having to hire a taxi cab who drove like hell until we caught up with the tour bus several miles out of town. To alleviate the boredom of touring, practical jokes became the order of the day with a special rivalry developing between Keith West’s group Tomorrow and the four of us.

Following stink bombs under the drummer’s foot pedal, and exploding cigarettes being left in their dressing room, their guitarist Steve Howe invited Ged into their room for a drink. Ged accepted a beer and sat down in the seat offered. The chair had been cleverly dismantled and then rebuilt minus screws and nails. The hilarious result left Ged covered in beer, sitting on the floor amid what resembled a pile of match wood. We all agreed that this gag had topped them all, but Ged was hell-bent on revenge. Back stage at one gig, Bill Davidson had discovered a box of shotgun cartridges which he had appropriated for future use. He happily passed them to Ged who proceeded to empty the gunpowder out until he had enough to fill a small paper bag. This was hidden in Tomorrow’s dressing room under the table, with a discreet trail being laid along the wall and under the door. At the right moment, as the group discussed the merits of their performance, Ged lit the trail, resulting in a mighty roar as smoke and flame filled the room! All agreed that this was a great gag, and hostilities died down for the rest of the tour.

One hindrance on this type of tour was the abundance of teenage girls who attended the shows, screaming and generally going berserk in their attempts to get at anyone who remotely resembled a musician. I was asked for an autograph by one young lady who then proceeded to rip my silver identity bracelet from my wrist and leg it. I fell down a staircase during the chase but managed to overtake her and retrieve it.

On one memorable night I crept out of the venue just prior to curtain-up, together with Spencer Davis who had come to see his old band mates in action. As we downed a quick beer in a local pub, a mob of screaming girls tore in. With the help of the landlord we escaped out of the back entrance and ran for the stage door, with the girls in hot pursuit. I got in first, closely followed by Spencer who became trapped with his arms outside the door. The ensuing tug-of-war was won by us, but the sleeve of Spencer’s nice new jacket had parted company with the shoulder!

Being constantly on the road generally meant that we had little sleep and ate poor food. The digs were pretty abysmal as well, with the management saving money by booking us into the cheapest accommodation available. The bad diet and lack of sleep often led to a bad stomach and a greasy, spotty complexion, something which Ged and I tried to overcome by purchasing lady’s face packs. It was a hilarious sight to see us resting in the digs, faces whitened by thick face masks! Dry shampoo was another regular purchase to combat greasy, lank hair.

As the tour rumbled on, different acts were added to fill the vacant spot left by the departure of Vanilla Fudge, including hit 60’s singer Dave Berry and the new progressive group The Nice. By this time there was definitely a feeling that the music scene was changing. The pop bubble had burst and musicians generally seemed to be dissatisfied, with the most high profile people striving to create more meaningful material. Traffic themselves, although enjoying several successful single records, were spearheading a new scene, where bands would ‘get it together’ in remote cottages where they could be more creative.

Bill Davidson seemed to have an aptitude for song-writing, and several attempts were made to do our ‘own thing’, but without concrete success. Carlo, in particular was feeling jaded, as the initial excitement of touring and making good money wore off, leaving him still harbouring hopes of a reunion with Ritchie Blackmore, and working in Germany as was once planned. It was about two thirds of the way through the tour that Bill went into hospital for an operation, having suffered from chronic tonsillitis for years. To fill the gap we had several stand-in keyboard players, usually supplied by Southern Music Publishers, although none of them measured up to Bill, until one day a tall thin man with a moustache arrived. His name was Jon Lord. We both felt that we had met before, and when he told me that he had played with West London band the Artwoods, I realised that I had bumped into him late one night at the Shepherd’s Bush pie stall with Johnny Kidd. Whilst not as flamboyant a player as Bill, it was obvious that he was an excellent musician and so he became a permanent member of the band until Bill’s return.

By now the four vocalists had been in the recording studio making the follow-up single to “Let’s Go To San Francisco”, another Carter-Lewis composition called “A Walk In The Sky”. The fact that they had not used their own band in the studio became a sore point, particularly with Carlo, and it was obvious to us that we were only regarded as sidemen. By now it was also obvious that Bill Davidson would probably never rejoin us. I had struck up a rapport with new addition Jon Lord, who confided in me that he had been offered the job of musical director to the Flowerpot Men, which he was considering. This was a turning point in Jon’s life. After several years pinning his hopes of success on the Artwoods, it was now apparent that the band was in trouble. A relaunch as The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, with a new single release, had died a death and Jon knew that the group’s days were numbered. A job with us was now a welcome boost to his finances. Soon, following a few one-nighters with Jon Lord on Hammond organ, we were off to Germany to play a week at the Blow-Up Club in Munich, with the promise of a show being recorded live. Mark departed at this time and we were given a new road manager, Dave Kaye, who I had last seen as a singer with the Downbeats, the group formed by Rich Bennett after the Renegades, which had also featured the great Micky Keane on guitar.

It was good to see Dave again and we reminisced happily as we drove through Germany towards Munich. Jon had kept himself aloof from the rest of us, probably to avoid being considered part of the ‘backing group’, and so protecting his bargaining power with the singers. He had managed to secure himself a seat on the aircraft carrying the four vocalists to Munich, thus avoiding the overland slog in the bandwagon. After a few miles a red light on the Ford Transit dashboard told us that the engine fan belt had snapped. Of course our new road manager had not thought to pack a spare, and he became the subject of much abuse as we limped along with steam pouring from the engine bay. Luckily we were close to a small village where the obliging local mechanic searched through a vast collection of new and second-hand belts until one was found to be a reasonable fit. Assured that we would make it to Munich, Dave promised to buy a replacement belt plus a spare as soon as possible.

The ‘Blow-Up’ Club was situated in an old cinema. Several bands played where the lower stalls once were, whilst the top band played upstairs in the balcony (minus seats), an odd situation with the audience below and behind. It was during this week-long engagement that one show was recorded, but the result was deemed unsatisfactory and the recording was scrapped. By now Jon, Ged, Carlo and I were playing three or four songs on our own, before introducing the four vocalists. We invariably kicked off with “Wade In The Water” and “I Want You”, both tunes lifted note for note from Graham Bond’s Sound of ’65 album. Ged would follow up with “It Was A Very Good Year”, a heavy take on the Della Reece version of the song. Carlo had found a little-known shuffle from Marvin Gaye on his tape recorder called “Some Kinda Wonderful”, which I made a passable attempt at singing. Several years later this song was a huge hit for Grand Funk Railroad, and we were amazed (and kicking ourselves) when we heard how identical it sounded to our version!

We soon noticed that the German audiences reacted very enthusiastically to our own short set, a fact which did not go unnoticed by the four singers, who informed us that we were only to play the one instrumental before introducing them. Sadly it was becoming obvious that the cracks were beginning to appear in the relationship between musicians and singers. However, this was a marvellous boost to our confidence. After-show chats with members of the audience led us to discover that generally they disliked the high falsetto vocals of the Flowerpot Men, saying that the sounded like women, not men! I think it was the Munich experience that made us realise that we had the ability to create our own sound and direction, lifting us above the stigma of being mere side-men! The four singers had also suggested that we had our own name, further reinforcing our position as backing musicians. I came up with the name The Sundial, which was considered a suitably hippy title, and soon adopted. Whilst in Munich, the four of us posed for a couple of photos, in order to establish a separate identity from the four singers.

In spite of our songs being cut, we had enjoyed the trip immensely and had a lot of fun, ending with Carlo and myself rolling a snowball home from a pub, which grew to a height of about 3 feet by the time we reached the hotel, then rolled it into the lift, travelling up along the corridor where it was rolled into Ged’s bed! Puerile stuff, but it seemed hilarious at the time! The last night of our trip was soured though, when the resident friendly DJ named Dieter left early without saying goodbye. Unfortunately Carlo had handed over a good portion of his wardrobe to Dieter, who seemed extremely keen to purchase as much “hippy” gear as possible, promising to pay at the end of the gig. Carlo had learned the hard way never to trust a smooth talker!

It was decided that we would save one night’s hotel bill by leaving straight after the last show and travelling overnight to the ferry. As we left the lights of Munich behind, I checked that Dave had got a spare fan belt. He assured me that he had not one, not two, but three spare belts, so we all relaxed as we sped down the autobahn through the snow-covered countryside. We had probably travelled about 150 miles when the dreaded red light appeared on the dash once more. Dave had not bothered to fit one of his spare belts, hoping that the one fitted on the way over would see us home. Worse news was to follow, when he discovered that his three new belts only fitted German Fords, not British ones. As the realisation dawned that we were stranded somewhere in Germany at three o’clock on a freezing morning, Dave was immediately hit with an explosion of verbal abuse.  Carlo was consumed with rage, announcing that he would thumb a lift home. Grabbing his suitcase he set off along the hard shoulder with his thumb held out. “What about the drums?” someone shouted. “F—k the drums!” was Carlo’s reply. I ran after Carlo to try and change his mind, catching up with him just as a vehicle pulled up. What luck! Our Good Samaritan not only spoke English, he was driving a recovery truck! We explained our problem and in no time the friendly driver had winched our van up behind and we all squashed into the cab.

As dawn broke we found ourselves dropped outside a Ford garage situated in a tiny snow-bound village deep in rural Germany. Our saviour explained that the garage would open at 8 o’clock, meanwhile he would introduce us to the owner of a local bar who he felt sure would allow us to wait on the premises for a while. As we walked down the tiny main street, curious villagers stared from windows at the strange long-haired creatures, one even aiming a camera in disbelief! The bar owner agreed to open his premises to us, serving tea and toast as we gratefully settled down as close as possible to the stove. We bid farewell to the recovery truck driver and promptly fell asleep in the warmth of the bar. Suddenly we were rudely awakened by the sound of a police klaxon as a police car arrived outside, apparently alerted by a villager who labelled us as vagrants! The policemen spoke little English, but were pacified by the sight of our passports. Unfortunately Ged Peck had left his in the van and so was immediately taken to the local police station, to languish in a cell until we could produce his passport and collect him! With the van re-belted and the battery recharged, we picked up Ged and set off for the ferry once more, arriving back home without further mishap. It would be sometime though before our new road manger would be allowed to forget our German trip!

Chapter 17 : Jon Lord Receives A Telegram

And so the Flowerpot Men continued to tour, much as before, with the Sundial firmly put in their place as sidemen and no more. The follow-up single, called ‘Take A Walk In The Sky’, had failed dismally to chart, in spite of rave reviews in the music press and plenty of air-time. Just as ‘Let’s Go To San Francisco’ had surprised everyone with its massive success, so did ‘Walk In The Sky’ surprise everyone with by its massive failure! No-one seemed too perturbed however, particularly the members of the Sundial, who had no input into the record.

The work still continued to pour in and plenty of money was made, although weekly cabaret spots now began to replace the one-nighters. The famous Bailey circuit was one of the most popular, with clean well-lit large clubs which, for a reasonable ticket price, provided the punters with a variety show and a chicken-in-the-basket meal. The acts would play their first show on Sunday night to a capacity crowd, followed by Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday playing to an almost empty room! Thursday saw things pick up, followed by a full house on Friday and Saturday. Then it was off to another town to begin the cycle all over again.

The tedium of being in the same town for a whole week soon began to tell, and the Sundial got into the habit of staying up carousing until the break of dawn, then sleeping for the whole day, only surfacing in time for the evening meal in the digs before a mad dash to the club for the night’s performance!

Usually we would be following a juggler or ventriloquist, occasionally a hypnotist, all compered by the obligatory mundane comedian. During late 1967 we played one week at Wetherall’s Nightclub, an independent club in Sunderland. Having a quick look at the crowd I saw veteran rocker Wee Willie Harris sitting at a table with a stunning blonde girl. I had met Willie several times before, and mentioned this to Carlo Little, who asked to be introduced. After a quick chat I went backstage to tune up, leaving Carlo talking to the pair of them. Carlo was immediately smitten with the girl, named Iris, and he soon discovered that she was the daughter of Willie’s landlady, and was not linked to Willie romantically. This knowledge spurred Carlo on, and an exchange of telephone numbers led to the start of a real romance, for that night Carlo had met his future wife.

As 1967 came to a close, New Year’s Eve saw us playing at Tito’s Nightclub in Stockton. The surprise act to bring in the New Year were the Dagenham Girl Pipers, at that time a household name, comprising a team of nubile young ladies dressed in kilts, who really could play the bagpipes. As 1968 dawned, Carlo Little and I were slightly the worse for wear, following more than a few large drinks, and I found myself being challenged by Carlo to play the bagpipes myself. An obliging young piper showed me how to hold the bagpipes and gave me some brief instructions. I gave it my best shot, with all the puff I could muster and, following a huge fart brought on by the effort, collapsed in a heap with the bagpipes on top of me like a drunken octopus! I thought Carlos would explode from laughing! That was the one and only time I tried my hand at playing bagpipes!!

As our tour creaked across the north of England, it was obvious that Jon Lord was fitting in very well. I had hit it off with Jon right from the start and, although he didn’t give much away, I realised that he was involved in something new, although still sad at the demise of the Artwoods. He often seemed morose, hinting that he was having problems romantically, and he was obviously hard-up financially, gratefully accepting a couple of my old stage-shirts to supplement his meagre wardrobe.

In January I met up with my old mate Dave Sutch, who asked me if I had heard about Ritchie Blackmore’s new group (groups still hadn’t become ‘bands’ yet). I confessed that I had not, and immediately forgot about it. Carlo was still banging on about us teaming up with Ritchie, but Jon remained silent on the subject.

One evening we arrived at yet another northern cabaret club, where strangely a telegram was waiting for Jon Lord. He was quite happy to read it in my presence, although the words meant nothing to me. The main message was “If you want to carry on without Chris, get in touch”. All very mysterious, I thought, but I didn’t ask questions. Jon mumbled under his breath about a business offer, and nothing more was said. But, as I was soon to discover, his short telegram was the very beginning of the biggest project of his life.

During a very welcome spell of one-nighters we had a gig at the California Ballroom in Dunstable, always a favourite venue with a large stage, decent dressing room, and unusually well attended. I had arranged to pick up Carlo at his home so that we could travel together. When I got to Carlo’s house I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had visitors, none other than Ritchie Blackmore and his girlfriend Babs. I hadn’t seen them since we last met in Hamburg. He informed me that he was coming to Dunstable with us to ‘check out’ our keyboard player, with a view to joining him in his new venture. Together, the four of us drove to Dunstable, where the show went down very well in front of a capacity crowd. On the drive back, Ritchie expressed his satisfaction with Jon’s performance. I was soon to find out that Jon wasn’t the only one being checked out that night!

The first month of 1968 soon passed, and during February we embarked on a tour of Holland. As the tour bus approached our hotel, Jon quietly whispered in my ear that I should share a room with him, as he wanted to discuss something important with me. Intrigued, I agreed to his request. I usually roomed with Carlo, who was not best pleased to learn that he was now sharing with Ged Peck, who could always be relied upon to rub Carlo up the wrong way!

As soon as we got to our room, Jon closed the door furtively, looking around, as if for eavesdroppers! Then he got straight to the point. “Would you”, he said, “leave the Flowerpot Men and give up this money for a small wage, if it meant that we could make our own music?”. Without pausing I gave my reply, saying “You bet, include me in!”. Jon then explained that he had been offered a gig in a new group with ex-Searchers drummer Chris Curtis. Also included in the line-up was Ritchie Blackmore. The whole thing was to be financed by three business men who had formed themselves into a management company. Jon explained that he had at first declined the offer, due to the strange ideas put forward by Curtis, but that they had asked him to join without Curtis, hence the mysterious telegram of several weeks ago. Like all of us in the Sundial, I had had a bellyful of flower power, and its insipid falsetto vocals, and the thought of a new direction appealed to me immensely!! My enthusiasm was not dimmed by the knowledge that we would only draw £25 a week for a while. That would do fine for now…

Chapter 18: Getting It Together In Deeves Hall

The Dutch tour went off very well, drawing capacity crowds. Morale had seemed to lift generally amongst both vocalists and musicians, but Jon Lord and I both had our minds elsewhere. I was particularly excited to learn that the drum stool in our group was to be occupied by none other than the great Bobby Woodman, who had achieved legendary status through his work with rocker Vince Taylor and Johnny Halliday, probably the biggest French rock star ever.

Bobby had been an inspiration to many British drummers, including Carlo Little, so his reputation was assured. On arriving back in England, the one-nighters were picking up, a welcome break from the tedious cabaret gigs. Jon had arranged a meeting with the backers of this new venture, and so on a crisp February day in 1968 I found myself heading for Newman Street, in the shadow of London’s Post Office Tower, where two of the three new managers had their offices. I climbed the stairs to the office where the meeting was scheduled, which was the headquarters of an advertising agency run by a guy named John Coletta. Jon and Ritchie were already there and introduced me to Coletta and his other two partners, Tony Edwards and Ron Hire. Tony worked upstairs for his family firm Alice Edwards Textiles, and Ron was a high flyer for Unilever, specialising in their frozen food operation. It turned out that Coletta and Hire both lived in Brighton and commuted daily by train into London, where Coletta’s company operated below the Alice Edwards’ office. Together the three of them had pledged to gamble £5000 apiece (an enormous sum at that time) on a musical group. Through a contact, they had met Chris Curtis and were obviously impressed by his status and many hit records as a former member of the Searchers, arguably the biggest British act at the time after the Beatles. Chris had liked the idea put to him by Hire, Edwards and Coletta, now known as HEC Enterprises, and had organised a meeting with Jon and Ritchie. Chris however had not impressed the pair with his somewhat outlandish ideas for a “floating” group of various musicians who would opt in and out of the band at different times, and so the project was abandoned, that is, until HEC decided to approach Jon on his own.

So here we were, in Coletta’s office, discussing the future.  According to Jon, Tony took him to one side, saying “Nicky looks great. Get him in!”. My confidence was duly boosted and I eagerly absorbed the details explained by Tony. They (HEC) would supply a place for us to live and rehearse, the necessary equipment would be purchased, wages would be paid on a weekly basis, and the rest was up to us! The only downside was that instead of the promised £25 per week, we would initially draw only £12.50 each, although any extra commitments such as my car hire purchase debt and Ritchie’s maintenance payments to his ex-wife, would be taken care of. If all went according to plan, then the wages would rise to £25. We all agreed to this, and probably would have settled for a lot less!

Without delay, on February 28th Jon and I gave notice to the Flowerpot Men, explaining our new project. Our fellow musicians, Ged and Carlo, wished us well, and I must admit to feeling a tinge of sadness, particularly as I had grown very close to Carlo, who had rescued my career and taught me much. The four vocalists however received the news with some hostility, which we found rather depressing, particularly as we had offered to find suitable replacements and teach them all the parts! Our offer was turned down, and in no time Jon was replaced with Johnny Carroll, my old pal from the last Pirates line-up, and the bass job went to Gordon Haskell (who many years later was to have massive success with his own solo record).

By now Jon was living at my parents’ house in Hayes, but it wasn’t long before we learned that HEC Enterprises had found a suitable house for us, and we set off to view our new home in the countryside. Situated near a tiny Hertfordshire village called Ridge, Deeves Hall was an old Georgian farmhouse, standing in several acres of ground. Well secluded and with no immediate neighbours, this was the perfect place for a rock group to ‘get it together’ without disturbing anybody’s peace. The nearest house stood high up at least half a mile away, apparently occupied by champion racing driver Graham Hill. At Deeves Hall I was introduced to Bobby Woodman, who was re-locating from Paris with his girlfriend. A quiet, laid-back type of bloke, Bobby and I hit it off immediately. Together, the four of us toured the many rooms of the house, agreeing on which rooms would be used for which purpose. Before leaving it was agreed that Ritchie and his girlfriend Babs would move in first as they were homeless. But first, the current tenant had to move out. A pleasant young lady who had lived there with her boyfriend for some time, she solemnly informed us that the place was haunted, and we were not to be worried by what we might see or hear!

Within a few days I was picking up Ritchie and Babs, their belongings packed into two suitcases, and heading north up the A1 for Deeves Hall. I couldn’t help but notice that Ritchie appeared to own little more than the clothes he was wearing. He explained to me that, apart from a couple of stage shirts, he always bought black clothes, because he felt that they lasted longer! Armed with his trusty red Gibson 335 guitar and a Vox AC30 amplifier, Ritchie and Babs, ensconced themselves in Deeves Hall in the largest bedroom, and awaited the arrival of the rest of us. Approximately one week later, Bobby, his girlfriend, Jon and I moved ourselves into Deeves Hall, and so began the new group which was to become Deep Purple, each of the four of us picking up our first wage of £12.50 on March 4th 1968. It wasn’t long before the subject of a vocalist came up, but Jon assured me that plans had been made, and that the problem would soon be resolved. I discovered that the plan was to ask singer Terry Reid to join, and that Jon, together with HEC, had no doubt that he would leap at the opportunity. Unfortunately, Terry had other ideas and turned the offer down flat!

Undeterred, we pushed on, trying to cobble together some musical ideas to kick start our new identity. As I have said previously, this was a time when pop music was changing radically, with groups experimenting with new ideas and sounds. Ritchie, Jon and myself had agreed from the start that we were going to be different and, hopefully, new, but we weren’t quite sure how this was going to be achieved. I have read Jon’s later report that he and Ritchie had composed several of the early songs at their first meeting, but this was patently rubbish as nothing was forthcoming at our first get-together at Deeves Hall, apart from a single idea which Ritchie had constructed which showed some promise. Ritchie also loved the riff that Hendrix had played in his recording of “Hey Joe”, and spent a lot of time trying to ‘alter’ it in order to create a different riff. The result was “And The Address”, although we all had a lot of input into the final version of the instrumental. As the days went on, gradually we started to gel as a unit, and we discovered a mutual admiration amongst ourselves.

Ritchie would tell me how he loved to listen to me practicing as he lay in bed at night, and we all expressed admiration at Jon’s prowess on the keyboard. One night Jon, Ritchie and I sat in the living room with our mouths open as Bobby practiced his drum solo in the rehearsal room, and we realised just what he was capable of!

Sadly, it soon became obvious that Bobby was not on the same wavelength as us when it came to musical policy. Jon and I had witnessed the mighty Vanilla Fudge in action, had listened to Graham Bond and others and realised that the boundaries of music were expanding rapidly, which had inspired us to look for a new direction but Bobby, on the other hand, seemed hell bent on carrying on in the same direction he had been following for the last ten years, which was only going to lead to friction in the future!

After a couple of weeks we had all settled in nicely and had cobbled a few tunes together. Ritchie insisted, somewhat embarrassingly, in pushing a tune he called “Mandrake Root” as his own, although I and half of London’s musicians knew it as “Lost Soul”, an instrumental composed by the guitarist in Screaming Lord Sutch’s Savages before Ritchie, and which Ritchie had to learn on joining the band. However, we needed material, and so “Mandrake Root” was accepted into our short repertoire. Bobby was obviously unhappy with our ideas, and although he reluctantly played along, he often referred to it as ‘circus music’!!

It wasn’t long before news of what we were up to got out and a producer from Decca Records was knocking at the door of Deeves Hall. Mike Vernon knew Jon from his Artwoods days, and listened eagerly as we played him our meagre offerings. Amazingly to us, he was absolutely knocked out, and left that evening convinced that he had discovered a world-beating group! The very next day he was offering a record deal to HEC Enterprises, which boosted us up considerably!

Of course, we realised that we desperately needed a vocalist, a fact that I discussed with my old school friend Tony Tacon, who turned up one evening for a visit. Obviously impressed with our situation, Tony was of the opinion that the vocalist from his old band, the Javelins, would suit very well. “You know”, said Tony, “Ian Gillan would go apeshit for this!”. “Do you think so?”, I replied. “Yes”, said Tony, “His band Episode Six aren’t getting anywhere, and he’d love this!”. I knew Gillan was a capable singer, so I asked Tony if he would call him up and ask him to come to Deeves Hall for a blow. Tony promised to call him the next day and let me know if he was interested. I relayed this to the others, who seemed pleased when I told them that Gillan would fit in very well.

The very next evening I received a telephone call from Tony Tacon who sounded very apologetic. “Sorry”, he said, “I asked Gillan, but he wasn’t interested. He said Episode Six are going to make it big, and said he thought that you won’t get anywhere!”. Well, I must admit to being rather taken aback. I was sure that Gillan would check us out, even if he didn’t want to join, but then he had always been a bit flash, so I guess it was no real surprise! Thanking Tony for his trouble, I relayed the news to the others, and it was decided there and then that an advertisement in the Melody Maker was our only course of action. Before this could be sorted out though, Jon, Ritchie and I decided to make a trip to London to see the Jeff Beck Group. Now I cannot remember if it was Bobby Woodman or Carlo Little who was deputising for Jeff Beck’s regular drummer, but I tend to think it must have been Carlo, although I may be wrong. The decision was made to go, however, when someone suggested that we check out his singer, a bloke called Rod Stewart. Who knows, maybe we could use him, and anyway Jon and I had a mate called Ron Wood playing bass, so we would see him too and have a chat about old times.  Well, we heard Rod Stewart, but no-one suggested asking him, so several days later there was our advert boldly printed in the Melody Maker:

Little could we imagine the mayhem that was about to engulf us!

Chapter 19: Rod and Ian join the “Roundabout”….

Life at Deeves Hall soon began to take regular shape as we settled in. There was a permanent buzz in the air as we all sparked off one another, and a definite feeling that something (although we didn’t know what) was about to happen. Jon and I felt particularly at ease in the countryside, and would occasionally stroll down the lanes in search of a secluded spot where we would sit and smoke a cigarette whilst discussing our hopes for the new group. Ron Hire would frequently visit to replenish the large freezer that he had supplied, whilst Tony Edwards and John Coletta would drop by to show off their group to various friends and family members. Just outside the backdoor lay a large square shaped piece of wood which could be pulled back to reveal an extremely deep empty brick-lined well. Occasionally a lighted newspaper would be dropped in, as a party trick, taking so long to hit the bottom in a shower of sparks that it never failed to draw amazed gasps from our visitors!

Adjacent to the house was a huge barn in which I would garage the trusty Mk II Jaguar, alongside Bobby’s Citroen saloon car. We got to know the local woodcutter, Mr. Berridge, who lived near South Mimms. For ten shillings (fifty pence) he would deliver several hundred-weight of cut pine logs which made a wonderful smell as we burned them in the large open grate in the living room. Supplies of food and provisions could be bought at the nearby Shenley Stores, each of us shopping individually and cooking for ourselves. Jon was keen to keep ties with London, and so several times a week the pair of us would drive to the Speakeasy Club in Margaret Street, to hang out with fellow musicians and enjoy Jon’s favourite tipple of Scotch whisky and cola. One evening, as we prepared to leave for town, Jon almost leapt out of his skin with fright on finding a large bat hanging from his jacket. “Don’t panic Nick”, he shouted. Then I pointed out that it was dead, and confessed to putting it there as a joke. He wasn’t best pleased!

Soon the day came when our advertisement for a singer was published in the Melody Maker magazine, and all hell broke out as our telephone almost exploded! So many people applied to audition that we had to devise a system, giving a time two hours apart for each person to be at the local railway station, where I would pick them up and drive to Deeves Hall. The problem was that people arrived early, and I would be faced with two, three, sometimes four people at the station at once! The house was soon full of various hopefuls, all waiting their turn in the living room, whilst we ploughed through this endless queue of vocalists of varying ability, and I soon began to feel like a seasoned taxi driver!

The problem was that we did not know precisely what we were looking for, whilst the visiting singers had no idea what we wanted to hear. After several days of hearing dodgy versions of rock ‘n’ roll standards, we all began to feel extremely jaded, although there was the occasional bit of light relief, such as the bloke who bellowed a spirited rendition of “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey?”, whipping out a tuneless mouth organ in the middle, for a solo! It was during this period, when we were all starting to sag both physically and mentally, that we made a monumental blunder and passed up one of the best voices in rock.

My old mate Rod Freeman had recommended the vocalist that he worked with in the Ronnie Smith Band at Watford’s Top Rank ballroom, and sent him along to audition. I completely failed to recognise him as the same singer who had impressed me so much at the beginning of the decade, when I was still semi-professional. Ashley Holt suggested that he would sing a couple of Wilson Pickett songs, but one thing that Jon, Ritchie, Bobby and I were not into, was soul music! Sadly, and very unfairly to Ashley, we took little notice of his efforts and quickly moved on to the next singer, thus missing the opportunity to sign the man who was later to prove himself one of the greatest rock singers of all time! What an asset he would have been to the future Deep Purple!

After several days I wearily drove to the station once again, picking up three more singers to audition. During the return journey it became obvious that one person stood out as a bit of a character. He introduced himself as Rod Evans. It turned out that Ritchie had seen Rod sing with his group, The Maze, and had been impressed, so we gave Rod a bit of extra attention. As it turned out, the attention was warranted, because Rod was the only applicant who seemed to have ideas. He had worked out a new treatment of the Beatles song, ‘Help’, and so, after dismissing the others, we gathered around the organ whilst Jon helped to develop Rod’s unique treatment of the song.

This then was a pivotal moment in the short life of our group. Rod not only looked great, he sounded great, with a rich voice unlike any we had heard before, and we knew that we had found the right person for the job! By now it was getting late, and so it was decided that Rod would stay at Deeves Hall for the night. Ritchie and I, who shared a similar sense of humour, decided that this was a golden opportunity to play a joke on the newcomer. During our first few weeks in the house we had frequent visits from a firm who specialised in curing dry rot, and each room had samples removed, leaving a small hole in each wall, providing a marvellous opportunity for future practical jokes! The hole in the wall of our living room, where Rod was to spend the night, was conveniently hidden behind the piano, so black cotton was pushed through from the hall and tied to several cup handles which were placed on top of the piano. The windows were from floor to ceiling, with wooden shutters. The one beneath Ritchie’s bedroom had the metal security bar removed, thus allowing Ritchie to push it open from above, with a broom. When Rod heard the ‘news’ that a dangerous man was on the run from the local asylum, he insisted on arming himself with a hammer when he bedded down on the sofa for the night. The rest of us stayed awake until we could hear the sound of Rod snoring, and then, as I pulled the cups off the piano to smash in pieces on the floorboards, Ritchie leant out of his bedroom window to push the French window open. The trouble was that Ritchie was over-enthusiastic in his efforts and actually smashed the glass in the window!

Rod shot out of the door like a rocket, swinging wildly with his hammer in the darkness, pausing only when he heard the guffaws of laughter from the rest of us. He appeared so distraught with fear that we had to own up that it was all a gag. Rod wasn’t convinced though and insisted on dragging his blanket upstairs to make his bed in the bath, with the door firmly locked! Over breakfast the next morning, Rod saw the funny side and we all had a good laugh together, whilst confirming that we were offering him the job as vocalist, which he was more than happy to accept.

Later that day Rod left to return to his parents’ home at Slough where he packed his belongings in order to move to Deeves Hall. Jon, Ritchie and I were collectively pleased with our new member but Bobby didn’t seem keen at all. I had forged a close friendship with Bobby over the time we had lived together. He was a great raconteur, a really friendly man who was good company, and without doubt a great drummer with an awesome reputation, yet nothing we offered musically seemed to connect with him, and it seemed to all of us that our collaboration was never going to work. The beginning of a bad atmosphere was starting to permeate the house and I was at a complete loss as to what to do.

Unbeknownst to me, Jon and Ritchie were worried enough to try and fix the situation, by bringing in a new drummer! Ritchie remembered that when he saw Rod Evans’ group, The Maze, they had a good drummer. A quick call to Rod led to him hurrying back to Deeves Hall with his drummer, a young man named Ian Paice. In what was to be the first of many future acts of skulduggery, Ian was brought to the house for a brief trial, whilst both Bobby and I were away on separate shopping expeditions. It was decided there and then that he was to be the new drummer. The only worry that they had was whether I would agree! The very next day I was given a mysterious message to be at Tony Edwards’ house in Barnes at 7:30 that evening.

At Tony’s home I found him sitting in the lounge with Jon, Rod, Richie and – Ian Paice! The atmosphere was very tense and doom-laden. Tony came straight to the point. He explained that the others wanted Ian in the band, but they were worried that I would leave if Bobby was sacked! They all cheered up when I told them that I agreed that the band would never work with Bobby, and I was happy to have Ian on board.

And so the line-up was now officially finalised, and the original Deep Purple had now begun.

The next day saw the atmosphere worsen, and Bobby confided in me that he was starting to smell a rat. I felt bad at this and told the others that we had to tell him collectively, or I would tell him myself. Panic now set in with Jon and Ritchie, and so Coletta and Edwards were summoned to give Bobby the news, which he took quite badly. I guess this was understandable as he had left Paris in order to join this new venture. The next day saw Bobby’s departure, and I must admit to some sadness at losing my new friend. Bobby shook my hand as he left and we resolved to stay in touch.

Our new member proved to be an excellent drummer and, unlike Bobby, was quite happy to play the ‘circus music’! Jon took me aside and said that Rod and Ian were so grateful to be in the band! I thought that we should be the grateful ones, for although Jon, Ritchie and I had built reputations based on our past successes, it was Rod and Ian’s fresh enthusiasm that gave us the impetus that we needed!

A new and even more exciting atmosphere pervaded Deeves Hall when the new members moved in, and one of the subjects frequently discussed was what we were to be called. We kicked all sorts of names about, some of which were seriously considered. Ritchie suggested ‘Deep Purple’, saying that it was his grandmother’s favourite song, but soon backed down following our collective howls of derision! After all, this 1930’s song, which had been revived in the early sixties, was just a crooner’s song, representing the exact opposite of the rock music that we wanted to play!

Tony Edwards especially liked the name Roundabout, or Magic Roundabout. He and Coletta had a friend in PR called Frances Baars who also backed the name, being very pop music minded. Her opinions had a big influence on Tony and John, and they could not understand why we all hated it so much.

As they days went by we came up with alternative names, but any that we seriously considered were always found to have been registered by another group! Until the right name came up, we just pushed on without one. After all, the lack of a name didn’t stop us rehearsing together, but as far as our management were concerned, we were Roundabout!

One sunny morning I found myself alone at Deeves Hall, as everyone else had gone out for the day for various different reasons. At the opposite end of the land surrounding the house was a small wooden cottage which had recently featured in the TV show “The Saint” starring Roger Moore, and so I spent half an hour looking around this little house which was used as a hayloft. As I returned I became aware of someone knocking on our front door, whilst a car and driver waited outside.

The visitor asked for Ritchie, introducing himself as Derek Lawrence, a record producer. I explained that Ritchie was gone for the day, but invited him for a cup of tea, which he gratefully accepted. Derek told me that he had heard about the new group, and was prepared to offer us a deal. He explained that through his connections with Feldman Music Publishers, he had been given the mandate to find a British group who were to be signed by a new American record company, with success guaranteed for the right outfit. Naturally, I was all ears! What Derek was proposing sounded extremely exciting, and we chatted for several hours before he had to leave. I promised to relay the details to the others on their return, and that we would contact him shortly.

Meanwhile, the offer from Mike Vernon was still being considered by HEC Enterprises, who had booked time in a London recording studio, although we had no finished material to record. As the day approached, it was decided to record the one completed tune we had, although no lyrics had been written for it. I suggested that we all sit down together and create a tune around a simple bass riff that I had been kicking around. It wasn’t the greatest tune, but between us all we quickly cobbled together a song entitled ‘Shadows’, with Rod writing the lyrics as the tune took shape. At least we had a finished effort to record, written in the nick of time, as HEC were determined that we would record something, whether ready or not!

Our new outfit assembled at Trident Studios rather nervously, for after all we had only been together for a matter of days. As we tuned our instruments, in walked Chris Curtis, boldly proclaiming that he was here as our producer. It appeared that this was to be his consolation prize from HEC for not being a member of the group! Ritchie immediately put down his guitar, announcing in that if Chris was producing, he would be doing it without Ritchie! An embarrassed Coletta and Edwards hurriedly led Chris out of the studio, and the embryonic Deep Purple got on with the business of laying the foundation of the group’s signature sound.

Chapter 20 – The Debut Deep Purple Gig!

The result of our trip to Trident studios ended up being rather good. “Shadows” sounded suitably moody and heavy (although this term was not yet in musical use), and we had a decent attempt at “Love Help Me” with Ritchie excelling with the wah-wah pedal, although we ran out of time before the vocals could be added. We were each given an acetate recording of both tracks which we played to death, convinced that we had a new sound!

The deal offered by Derek Lawrence was coming together. A new American label called Tetragrammaton had been formed by several experienced record men, together with top U.S. comedian Bill Cosby. They were aiming to launch a new group which had to be British, probably to capitalise on the “English Invasion” which had proved so successful over the last few years. Hopefully we, with Derek’s help, would be it!

It was generally agreed that my Marshall 50 watt amp and Ritchie’s Vox AC 30 were not going to be loud enough for the sound that we intended, so I suggested that we all take a trip to Jim Marshall’s new factory at Bletchley, and see what was on offer. Having arranged a time with Terry Marshall we all set off for the factory, passing through the embryonic new town Milton Keynes on the way.

I parked the car outside Jim’s industrial unit and we stepped out to be met with a barrage of jeers and abuse from the windows of the adjacent factory, where some of the workers seemed to be offended by our long hair and general appearance. Rod Evans immediately demonstrated his ability to deal with hecklers. “Do you drive a car like this?” he said, pointing at the Jaguar. “No, I thought not, now get back to work!”. Our detractors soon slunk away from the windows and we carried on to meet Jim Marshall, who agreed to manufacture the more powerful amplifiers and a big PA system that we needed.

Before the equipment arrived, however, the question of a new Hammond organ for Jon came up, as his current instrument was not really good enough. To get the necessary sounds he also needed a Leslie speaker cabinet which gave a very distinctive sound due to its rotating horn. The equipment was sourced on the South Coast near Brighton, and so Jon and I motored down to check it out. As we sat in London traffic we were spotted by a city gent who delightfully pointed us out to his female companion, saying “Look darling – pop stars!”, much to our amusement. As we headed towards Brighton, Jon insisted that we “do the ton”, whooping with delight as we passed the 100 m.p.h. figure on the dash.

A few days later the new organ and speaker arrived at Deeves Hall, and we carried on with the serious business of rehearsing. Ritchie and I had briefly heard a song called “Hush” which had been a U.S. hit for Billy Joe Royal, and we both thought it was worth using in our act. By now my pal Rod Freeman was working at the Top Rank Ballroom in Watford, fronting the Ronnie Smith Band. The Rank chain of venues were flourishing all over the country where 6-8 piece groups would perform standard songs and covers of the latest hits to mostly teenage audiences who packed the dance floors nightly. I decided to telephone Rod to see if he played “Hush” in their set, to which he replied that they did! He then agreed to come to Deeves Hall on his night off, in order to teach us the song. Little did we know when Rod arrived with his guitar, that this was a pivotal moment in the short history of Deep Purple!

By the end of the evening we had cobbled together a unique version of a song which only two of us had heard before and which bore no resemblance to the original. Rod Freeman had patiently helped us to create a totally different sound and deserves our thanks in helping to deliver the hit record that was to launch Deep Purple to the top! This was, of course, the first time that Rod had heard Ian Paice play, and was quick to say, as he left for home, “that’s a great drummer, another Johnny Mitchell”.

As the days wore on we managed to get the semblance of a show together, including “Hush” and an instrumental version of “Paint It Black”, which was a great vehicle for a lengthy drum solo. Ritchie and I thought that the visual aspect was important, and drawing particularly on our experience with Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, we practised synchronising exaggerated hip movements together in front of a mirror, much to the amusement of the others.

One night, as Jon and I lay in our beds, we discussed the subject of where to make our debut. Jon suggested that Denmark could be good, as both the Flowerpot Men and the Artwoods had enjoyed huge success there, and so resolved to telephone an agent he know in Copenhagen the following day.

Walter Klaebel at the Danish Music Centre was extremely enthusiastic at the prospect and so began discussions with John Coletta to arrange a short tour. Also at this time HEC arranged a photo session for us; unfortunately (for us), it was held at an early hour, resulting in a very tired group posing rather unenthusiastically for the camera. According to the Deep Purple Biography, we were dressed in fancy clothes from the Mr. Fish boutique, but in fact this was prior to our trip to Mr. Fish and we were dressed in our normal street clothes, with the exception of Jon. I lent him a shirt given to me by Bobby Woodman, who in turn was given it by Johnny Halliday. Although we didn’t enjoy the shoot, one picture seemed to work and was to become the chosen shot for the front of our very first album.

Meanwhile, our rehearsals continued with new enthusiasm as the prospect of playing to a real audience grew closer. With the Danish gigs arranged, it was decided to visit Mr. Fish, the high-class boutique near London’s Saville Row, where we were measured up for original stage clothes, at great expense!

At the same time, Jon had the brilliant idea of staging an “open day” at Deeves Hall for our parents and relatives, in order to show them what we were up to. One Sunny afternoon the house was suitably scrubbed up, with a table laden with tea, cakes and sandwiches for our guests. Our equipment was dragged from the rehearsal room and re-assembled in the larger living room in order that we could give a short concert.

During the afternoon most of our parents, Ritchie’s brother and grandmother and Ian’s sister arrived to be given a tour of the house and grounds, followed by a demonstration of our new music which left them in various stages of temporary deafness! As our guests departed, everyone agreed that the open day had been a great success!

Soon the day arrived in late April 1968 when we boarded a boat named the Winston Churchill and departed for Denmark, with all our new equipment loaded into a new trunk driven by John’s friend Dave Jacobs, accompanied by our new addition to the road crew, Ian Hansford. On the boat we discovered that HEC Enterprises had booked our debut tour using the name “Roundabout”, which pleased nobody except our management!

During the voyage Ritchie and I were interviewed by a Danish journalist who asked about our influences. Ritchie, true to form, claimed his admiration for the great “Ted Babbage Folk Four” and the “Wally Thud Trio”, all meticulously noted down. Finally we rather sheepishly discussed our new name, and the journalist became probably the very first to write the name “Deep Purple” in his notebook, Ritchie and I looking on with slightly red faces!

On arriving at Esbjerg we then travelled to Copenhagen where we were greeted by Walter Klaebel and given our itinerary, which included a TV spot, lip-synching to “Help” and “Love Help Me”, to which Rod, Jon and myself had recently added vocals (later to be lost forever!). Walter appeared to have done a good promotional job, getting press coverage before and after the gigs, being easily able to sell us on our past success. He also supplied us with a huge American car which was an added bonus.

On the evening of April 20th we arrived at a large hall in the town of Tastrup, prepared for our debut. To say that we were nervous would be an understatement, but Ritchie was absolutely terrified, desperately asking myself and Jon to remind him of opening chords and keys. When the moment came that the curtains opened, to reveal the five of us, dressed in the finest clothes that we could muster, all hell seemed to break loose! The crowd seemed really enthusiastic and up for it as we ploughed through our handful of songs at breakneck speed. All efforts at musical cohesion seemed to collapse as we put as much effort as possible into gyrating around the stage, trying to put on a big show.

Luckily, the crowd loved it and responded beyond our wildest dreams! Back in the dressing room we congratulated ourselves on getting away with it, whilst the rest of our team seemed to agree that it was a great first performance. Tired, but very happy, we prepared to leave to go back to Copenhagen. I took a visit to the toilet before leaving, only to come out and find that everyone had left without me! Being stuck in a strange town, not remembering the name of our hotel, I was extremely lucky to grab a free lift from a passing cabby who somehow managed to track down where I needed to be. Naturally, I had a few choice words for the others, who claimed that they could not find me. However we soon made up over a few beers, happy in the knowledge that we had got over the major hurdle of our first gig.

The rest of our time in Denmark resulted in more successful gigs. We spent our leisure time at Copenhagen’s Star Club, where I had enjoyed hanging out during the Flowerpot Men days and where we rubbed shoulders with other up and coming bands such as Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After and Jeff Beck’s group.

It was a very tired but happy band of musicians who arrived back in England. Flushed with our success, and convinced that we had a lot to offer, we were ready to take on the next challenge – our very first album. Our management were already ahead of the game, though. The U.S. record deal was on, Deeves Hall was vacated and we were swiftly moved to the Sussex countryside. With the recording studio booked, the hard work was about to get harder…..

Chapter 21 – Hush and Shades

On arriving back in England, things began to move at an incredible pace. The deal with Tetragrammaton in the US was finalised and we were signed to EMI for other territories. We also signed a management deal with HEC Enterprises who had already invested heavily in the group.

Leaving Deeves Hall was quite a wrench, although we hadn’t been there very long. I really loved the place and hoped that one day I could buy it. Jon Lord was very enthusiastic, saying that if I became the owner then he would clear the pond and landscape the front as a gift! All this was pie-in-the-sky of course as we still had only our meagre wages to support ourselves with. Early one evening the group and managers all met at the Roebuck Hotel in Forest Row, at the time one of the smartest hotels, situated near Haywards Heath. After a meal and drinks we were taken to Highleigh Manor, a beautiful old hotel in the village of Balcombe. Here we could relax and prepare the music for our first album. A large annexe provided a rehearsal room, where in one corner stood an ancient harmonium. Jon mastered the pedals which powered the bellows that provided sound to this antique keyboard.

During the next few weeks we polished our material, and Rod Evans came up with the song One More Rainy Day, which was to be included on the new record. Life at the manor was very comfortable, with Jon and myself sharing a large room on the first floor, reached by a huge oak-panelled staircase. Ascending the stairs took us past a huge chandelier, giving the place an air of grandeur.

With summer fast approaching we could make the most of the gardens, as a steady trickle of visitors dropped by. One day Tony Edwards brought his family down and we all played a hilarious game of croquet on the lawn. Very rock ‘n’ roll!! Following our Danish success we felt confident enough to play our first show in England. Rod and Ian suggested a gig that they had played before, the Red Lion Hotel in Warrington. This was the gig where they had first met our road manager, Ian Hansford. Usually two or three bands were featured on Saturday night, which guaranteed a good crowd. Being new and unknown made it difficult to negotiate a fee and so we settled for expenses only, plus bed and breakfast, in return for which we cheekily demanded to be given top billing! The manager reluctantly agreed, and so off we set for our first gig on British soil.

Like our first show in Denmark, this was also a rousing success with lots of onstage craziness making sure that no-one noticed the musical blunders and bad notes. The audience and the hotel manager loved us, so everyone was happy. Two members of the support group, The Sweet Shop, also loved us becoming firm friends and supporters. Singer Brian Connolly and drummer Mick Tucker were so impressed that they came to gigs and visited us socially whenever they could. Eventually they would shorten their band name to The Sweet, and have enormous success.

During the month of May 1968 we entered the Pye recording studios in London to begin making the Shades of Deep Purple album. I felt very comfortable here as this was the same studio where I had begun my professional recording career, cutting five tracks during 1965 as a member of Buddy Britten’s Regents.

Of course the control room personnel were different, with ace engineer Barry Ainsworth in charge. Making records in those days was a totally different process to today, where recording can be done in stages with multitracking, repairing, musicians not always playing together, and with the computer taking over much of the work. In 1968 recording was done on magnetic tape, with only four tracks available. A skilful engineer would ‘bounce’ completed tracks together to free up an extra track, but this was a hit or miss process and the sound quality often suffered as a result.

Ian Paice and I had to share the same track, not having the luxury of one each until the advent of the 8-track machine. This meant that the studio balance between bass and drums had to be perfect because any imbalance could not be rectified after recording. The vocals had to have a separate track so, with only two left, the engineer had his work cut out! Operating the huge tape machine meant pressing stop and start buttons, and this was done by the apprentice who did a lot of button pressing whilst watching the engineer in order to learn the job.

In Barry’s case his apprentice was a very pleasant young man named Martin Birch who would soon become an in-demand engineer in his own right! Whilst some studio mistakes could be rectified, it was generally necessary to stop recording and restart if a mistake occurred. Naturally no one wanted to make a blunder causing everyone to start again, so when the red recording light came on you could almost hear the adrenaline flowing!

It took us just eighteen hours over two days to record Shades; maybe enough time to record one back-track in today’s world. I asked if we could have more time, but Coletta replied that the studio was not available. Obviously, the truth was that the budget would not allow it! From the control room, the whole operation was overseen by our producer Derek Lawrence, who proved to be a great catalyst between us and Barry Ainsworth. Our constant rehearsing meant that we could deliver the goods on time with few extra ‘takes’. Jon and I provided backing vocals for Rod, when it was discovered that I was the only one able to sing falsetto, which we used a lot – probably too much, in hindsight. Derek carried out the mixing process on his own (to save time and money) which didn’t please us too much, but, whatever its faults, I think we produced a pretty good first LP which is still popular over half a century later!

One drawback was the necessity to remove a few bars from the intro to Hey Joe which infringed copyright. We were all given a white label copy of the album before the offending bars of music were taken out. Sadly, I gave mine away – probably a collector’s item now! One track from Shades really stood out. As soon as we heard the back-track of Hush, we all knew that it was special, and the arrangement, courtesy of our pal Rod Freeman was really good. Our management were not impressed however, feeling sure that our cover of Help by The Beatles would be the debut single. Luckily the top brass at Tetragrammaton agreed with us, and so Hush was to be the debut single release. With our first album and single in the bag we carried on with regular rehearsals and attended several more photo sessions, including one with the famous Dezzo Hoffman who specialised in filming groups in excruciatingly daft poses. True to form, he had us standing in a line whilst all holding a long rolled-up carpet! Ritchie’s face was a study as Dezzo exhorted us to “smile”. Luckily most of these ghastly photos have never seen the light of day. The Shades cover was completed and looked fine, apart from the rather silly liner notes which the band were not consulted on.

With a couple more gigs imminent, Ritchie thought that he needed a stronger guitar than his Gibson in order to enhance his showmanship. Together we drove to Marshall’s shop in Hanwell where I suggested that a Fender Telecaster would be the most Indestructible axe to use. He agreed and purchased a used black model which, over the coming months, would be tested to the extreme!

One day it was announced that Tetragrammaton were coming to London to throw a launch party for us. Hosting the bash at the impressive Grosvenor Hotel was record label boss Roy Silver, who made sure that guests received a package of three albums, namely Shades, a Cream album and one by Jimi Hendrix, suggesting, a bit prematurely I thought, that we were in the same league as the other two!

The venue was packed with high-profile guests, including EMI boss Sir Joseph Lockwood, who wore the facial expression of someone who had trodden in dog mess! Others, like top TV host Simon Dee, milled around hoovering up the free food and drink. No-one paid much attention to us, and why should they have? We were complete unknowns! The Americans had also leased a large house at Totteridge for their London HQ installing a charming couple from Los Angeles called Larry and Carol, who also threw a party for the group. We chatted to Barry and Martin from Pye Studios, who said how much that they enjoyed recording us, and considered us better than many of their clients. Ronnie Beck from Feldman Music, our publisher, went further, saying that whilst we weren’t famous names, he considered us a real supergroup because we could really play! Naturally this gave us an enormous boost.

With more gigs imminent I tackled John Coletta about the wear and tear on my car, asking, not unreasonably I thought, if the budget could include a service and the odd tyre. Coletta refused so I told him that the band could hire a car from now on. His response was to purchase a large Humber for me to drive but before I got to drive it Coletta lost control on the way home and crashed, totally destroying it!

For a while we hired large Saloon cars for going to gigs but for the rest of the time I made my car available for band use, occasionally taking Ritchie to visit his parents in Camberley. He and Babs liked to both sit in the back, posing like royalty! Often we would visit our publishers, Feldman music in Soho. We were always welcomed at the friendly office by the guys who would be promoting our music, such as Ronnie Beck, Harold Frantz, brother of famous producer Johnny, and young Ian Kimmett who would become a good friend, all overseen by Ben Nisbet, already legendary in the music business.

The unofficial HQ was the nearby Admiral Duncan pub, which would later be bombed in an outrageous attack on the gay community! In those days though it was a favourite watering hole for journalists and music people and we happily shared many a liquid lunch with the Feldman gang! During the month of June it was decided to cut costs and so HEC rented a large terraced house for us in Acton Vale, West London. Originally horrified at our arrival, the man next door became friendly and offered us rehearsal premises at the nearby Social Club where he was on the committee. The club was situated in the old Savoy cinema on the main A40 road into London, and for a while it was an ideal daytime facility for us.

During the same month EMI officially released our single, Hush, to great excitement within the group. This soon abated however when we discovered that no shops carried our disc, and worse, they hadn’t even heard of it! EMI Records proved to be absolutely useless at promotion and rumour had it that this was because their whole operation was concentrated on the new single from The Beatles! It was well known that many records were “hyped” into the record charts, often by the simple but costly method of buying lots of copies from the so-called secret list of record shops that were used to compile the chart, so we suggested to Coletta and Edwards that maybe this was the way forward.

As Hush continued to sink without trace, the band carried on as usual. Feldman had secured us several radio broadcasts at the BBC which paid a reasonable fee and helped to lift our profile. All the top radio shows would play pre-recorded songs from different acts which were inserted between records. These were recorded at various BBC Studios, usually equipped with antiquated pre-war machinery, and overseen by producers who usually did their best to achieve a decent sound. Others, usually the older guys, just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. When I asked one of these, in my politest manner, if we could check a shaky backing vocal, the answer was a brusque “No!”. He then informed me that the tape was in his bag, and he was off for his dinner! I took care not to respond at all, so I was amazed when a couple of days later Derek Lawrence informed me that the rumour amongst BBC producers was that the Deep Purple bassist was a troublemaker!

The news that our single was to be aired on the John Peel Show caused great excitement. Peel’s Sunday afternoon show had a huge audience countrywide and was extremely influential, although he loved to praise weird and sometimes awful discs whilst rubbishing anything good. Jon and I made a trip to my parents’ house in order that we could hear it at its best on their excellent radiogram. While we were prepared for a lousy review, we were very happy that the whole country would now hear Hush! Imagine our disappointment then, when he announced a new single from Deep Purple and went on to play the B side!

Later in the year we were one of the acts on a theatre show hosted by Peel, who pointedly ignored us throughout the evening. His obvious dislike of us was further compounded when Jon Lord stupidly offered to buy him dinner at the Speakeasy. His one-word reply spoke volumes! Oddly enough we made several more recorded performances for Peel’s show and had great rapport with his producer. Our version of Help somehow also made it onto the show which apparently was heard by John Lennon who loved it!! A welcome boost for us!

Derek Lawrence was also helping to keep us busy by booking the group, minus Rod, out as a self-contained session unit, to provide backing in the studios for various acts. These sessions often went into overtime, resulting in a double fee. Most welcome! One of our gigs was at a ballroom in Margate on the south coast, which was attended by Larry and Carol. I made the mistake of leaving my Fender bass at home, using the semi acoustic Gibson instead. The resultant feedback at the high volume at which we played was dreadful and almost ruined the show. Ritchie got a chance to test his Telecaster though, and we watched in awe as he dragged it around the stage, jumped on it, and finally hurled it like a spear at the ceiling where it jammed quivering and screaming between the roof and a large stack-pipe. When the road crew retrieved it, the paint was barely scratched, proving that it was an axe that could take punishment!

This particular gig didn’t go down as well as usual though, and it was a rather despondent band that left the stage. Carol and Larry were very impressed, however, saying rather prophetically that we would slay the audiences when we got to America. This was not a happy period for us though. We realised that our managers,  although good at financing us, did not have a clue how to market the band, or where to go from there. Both Hush and Shades had sunk without trace, helped by lack of interest from EMI Records. General feedback led us to believe that we had made an impact on other musicians, but the majority of the public were oblivious. Meanwhile the business was buzzing with up-and-coming acts such as Fleetwood Mac, 10 Years After, The Nice and Chicken Shack. New guitar heroes were being talked and written about, which frustrated Richie who felt, quite rightly, that he could blow them all off the planet!

HEC agreed when Jon and I suggested that they should employ a publicity agent. We had both previously worked with a highly successful and respected PR man named Keith Goodwin, who we had got to know well, so obviously he was our first choice. Keith felt that he would be able to lift our profile and agreed to take the job. Jon and I went to Coletta with the good news, only to be told that he had already given the PR job to one of the Admiral Duncan regulars who had no credentials for the job at all! This was another blow to the band, and we realised that, with all their lack of showbiz know-how, our management were not willing to take our advice, or listen to our opinions!

However morale was still high in the group. We had only been together for a few months, but felt confident that we had a lot to offer. As the time drew near for the release of Hush in America, talk turned to a possible US tour. This was an exciting prospect as none of us had ever travelled outside Europe before. It was not long before we were to be lifted with the best news ever. As we chatted at a meeting with Hire, Edwards and Coletta, drinks were produced, then we were told that Hush was being played all across the US airwaves and was currently climbing up the top 100 record chart! Ron presented each of us with a gold ring as a celebratory gift, and we all began to laugh as the news sunk in. At last Deep Purple were on the way! …

Chapter 22 – The TV Debut and Taliesyn

The news that we had entered the US charts gave us a tremendous lift. Obviously, Bill Cosby and Tetragrammaton knew exactly how to market a good record as opposed to EMI who had done absolutely zero! The Americans wanted to know more about us and so we all went to the Feldman office in Soho, where we were each interviewed in turn, with Jon playing the role of interviewer. I cannot recall who interviewed Jon. We began to socialise together at London clubs, particularly the Cromwellian Club which was run by affable ex-wrestler Paul Lincoln, who of course was responsible for the early success of the 2-I’s coffee bar where so many future stars were discovered. Paul had also invented the masked wrestling persona of the famous Doctor Death, who apparently had his name franchised out to other wrestlers, a situation made possible by the fact that Doctor Death never lost a contest, and therefore never had to be unmasked!

As we became a little more recognised, the resident DJ always played ‘Hush’ when he saw us enter the club. The Speakeasy in Margaret Street was another favourite watering hole for the music business. Usually, on a Tuesday night I would meet my old pal Rod Freeman at the “Speak”. he was naturally proud that his arrangement of Hush was doing well. Often, we were joined by another of the ”Marshall Gang”, bassist John Entwistle of the Who, a band that were also starting to crack America. Rod was still performing at the Top Rank ballroom in Reading with a great band including vocalist Ashley Holt and the great Ken Rankine on bass. Rod was always ambitious and one day I called by his flat to find him composing a tune with the young keyboard player from the band, who introduced himself as Richie Wakeman. As our single continued to rise in the US charts enough interest was generated to land us a spot on the biggest up-and-coming TV show at the time – the David Frost show.

This show was also the beginning for the Two Ronnies, Barker and Corbett, who provided brilliant satire and humorous sketches. During rehearsals we wandered into the TV Centre canteen for lunch, to be faced with so many famous faces that we found ourselves saying hello to people that we felt were almost old friends. Collecting my tea and beans on toast, I found that there was only one vacant chair and so I found myself sitting next to Kenneth Williams of the “Carry On” movies. Turning to his companion, another of my boyhood heroes, comedian Ted Ray, he boomed out in that famously hilarious voice, “Ooh look Ted, it’s one of those pop stars!!”. When the time came to perform, following David Frost’s interview with Kenneth and Ted, all the adrenaline kicked in, knowing that we were playing live on television for the first time in front of the whole country!

One of our team had come up with the idea of giving each member of the audience a purple carnation to pin to their lapels, helping to cement our name in their memories. Introduced by the host, David Frost, we received polite applause before launching into ‘Hush’, as loudly as the studio engineers allowed. Sadly this show came before the advent of video recorders, so no footage of our TV debut exists, but according to friends and family watching at home we performed ok. Live television was always a bit nerve-wracking, as our co-performer Engelbert Humperdinck discovered, stumbling over the lyrics halfway through his latest hit!

Shortly after our first TV show we played a gig at London’s Roundhouse with several other big-name outfits. Early in the evening I was summoned to the door where a couple of pals were trying to gain entry, just in time to hear one of them arguing with the doorman, shouting that he’d only come to see the “Purple”! That was the first time I had us called that, and felt rather proud. We all felt after the show that our performance was pretty good, but back in the dressing room John Coletta looked rather downcast. I asked what was wrong and he explained that Mick Jagger had been in the audience and didn’t like us. Richie and I looked at one another and said, almost in unison, “the time to worry is when he does like us!”.

One exciting gig was a last-minute addition to a show in Berne, Switzerland, featuring top acts the Small Faces and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, both at the peak of their careers in 1968. The Small Faces were rather aloof backstage, but by contrast Dave Dee and co. were extremely friendly and a joy to hang out with. We were pleasantly surprised on arriving at the venue to find a top 10 chart pinned to the door, showing that Hush was riding high in the Swiss charts. This fact naturally boosted our standing on the bill, so when we went on stage after several other bands our reception was quite amazing. The audience loved our show so much that a riot ensued when we finished, with police called to calm them down. I saw an opportunity here and suggested that Coletta made sure that our new PR guy got the story to the music press. However the next copy of the Melody Maker carried the large headline “Dave Dee and Company cause riot in Switzerland”!

A happy event took place in on July 20th when my great friend Carlo Little married Iris. Carlo was still drumming with the Flowerpot Men, who all attended along with many other musicians, family and friends. But panic ensued shortly before the wedding day when the church organ broke down, but help was at hand and Jon Lord’s Hammond was delivered to the church in time for the ceremony! Apart from Deep Purple, other musicians in attendance included Billy Day, Matthew Fisher, Noel Redding plus all the Flowerpot Men.

We discovered on a visit to the famous Marquee club that one of its directors, Jack Barrie, was quite a fan of ours. He suggested that an appearance on the forthcoming Sunbury Blues Festival would be great promotion for us and so he pulled the necessary strings to secure us the opening spot on the big stage where the name bands performed. On arrival we felt a bit of a hostile atmosphere, with few people bothering to speak to us. Richie at this time was going through a rather angry phrase towards the business in general with its lack of interest in us, and the promotion of musicians that he considered unworthy. Seeing a small crowd watching Alvin Lee (no slouch himself) going through a sound check, Richie couldn’t stop himself walking out and plugging into an adjacent amplifier. Standing next to Alvin, Richie proceeded to deliver about ninety seconds of the fastest, most blistering example of high-powered rock guitar that the watchers had ever witnessed. As their mouths fell open in disbelief Ritchie than walked off, muttering” Take That!” under his breath. I thought that his attitude would bode well because we knew that we could deliver, even in a hostile atmosphere. Sadly the show was a shambles due to a malfunctioning sound system. As we launched into Hush the bass amp packed up for good and we were left floundering, much to the delight of the watching press! Luckily no other act had to endure similar problems. Were we sabotaged? Without a doubt! To add insult to injury, the leading press hack reported that Joe Cocker opened the show. We needn’t have bothered!

During the same month we began work on our next album, to be called The Book of Taliesyn. Naturally we wanted to work with the same team as before, and as Barry Ainsworth and Martin Birch were now working at De Lane Lea studios in London Kingsway that’s where we elected to work. Although Hush and the Shades LP had not yet peaked in the U.S., Tetragrammaton were already pressurising us for new material so the heat was on us, not quite as desperately as before, but still too much pressure to allow us to be as creative as we could have been. One big bonus so was that shortly after starting to record, the studio took delivery of the latest innovation – the eight-track machine! The possibilities of what could be achieved with four extra tracks was a huge boost to the group.

It was during this period that we began to hire a rehearsal room at the Red Lion pub in Acton High Street. We usually met for lunch at the local Chinese restaurant which was only yards from the pub. During our first rehearsal I began to experiment by playing through Richie’s fuzz box, a bespoke model which was put together by a local electrical genius. I began to run through a series of my favourite warm-up riffs when Richie suddenly yelled, “What was that? Play it again!”. “That” was a bass line that I had found on Ricky Nelson’s version of Summertime, and it excited Richie tremendously. “We can use that”, he explained. “Not really”, I said, ”It’s not original”. Ritchie, however, thought differently and filed it away for future use. Unwittingly I had supplied the handful of notes that would, in the future, morph into Black Night, rescuing the fortunes of the Mark II line-up and possibly saving their careers! (you can thank me later fellas!).

During the Red Lion rehearsals we began to routine an extended version of Ike and Tina Turner’s hit, River Deep, Mountain High for our stage show. By now it had become normal for us to play at enormous volume, making us probably one of the loudest outfits ever. Unfortunately the Red Lion was next door to Acton Police Station, and the police could not hear their own messages! After several requests, then commands, to turn down, we knew that the Red Lion days were numbered. I knew of a rehearsal place that had proved useful in the past, and so I introduced the band to Hanwell Community Centre, a large gothic looking complex that had once been a Victorian children’s home for the poor and destitute. Famous for once having the young Charlie Chaplin as a resident it was reputed to be haunted and had many spooky tales attached to it. Most of the Taliesyn album was rehearsed here following our departure from the Red Lion.

Seeking inspiration for the album proved quite difficult as we had still not been together long enough to have forged a direction. The type of material which suited us best was still in its infancy, with only Graham Bond and Vanilla Fudge playing really hard rock. In fact I think that it’s fair to say that these two acts practically invented the genre which in years to come would be termed “heavy metal”. At that time the music scene was as diverse as ever, with different acts in the charts such as Mary Hopkin, Esther and Abi Ofarim, jockeying with Tommy James, Cliff Richard, even Louis Armstrong. One act that impressed was The Crazy World of Arthur Brown who made everyone sit up!

As life continued at 2nd Avenue, we all rubbed along pretty well. Richie and I would regularly go running at night in an effort to keep fit, something which never appealed to the others although Ian joined us once, with once being enough! The only concern was that some of the band considered that roadie Dave Jacobs was showing a rather cavalier attitude to some aspects of the running of our household, which lead to a decision to fire him. No one wanted to do it however and, in the end, I was elected. This was the start of a trend whereby I was always asked, if anything unpleasant had to be said, leading in future to our management being very wary of me! With Dave gone we needed a replacement who soon appeared in the form of Mick Angus, who just happened to be the very first person to audition as our vocalist. By August 24th of that year Hush reached number 33 on the US chart, just three weeks later it hit number 4, so this was a great period for us. HEC Enterprises could not believe their luck at such quick success, and Ron Hire celebrated by putting a deposit down on a larger house. John Coletta also surprised me with a real treat, handing me the keys to the new band car, a pristine almost new Jaguar 420G, at the time the biggest saloon car available, absolutely huge and amazingly comfortable.

The recording proceeded with the team of Derek, Barry and Martin once again working well together. I felt that most of the material was well played, particularly The Shield and Wring That Neck. Until I came up with that title, we had always referred to it as the “Hard Road” number, being a shuffle beat, and it caused a little confusion which led to it being called Hard Road on some recordings. Pushing for a new single, Jon suggested Neil Diamond’s Kentucky Woman. Richie and I both had reservations as it was a bit folky, until I suggested giving it the Mitch Ryder treatment. I had purchased several records by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and was impressed with the aggressive drive and sheer excitement. As I outlined my idea as to how a folk song could be made to rock, the others soon latched on and soon we had cut our next single, complete with Ron Hire and his young daughter helping out with hand claps. I was not too keen on We Can Work It Out, not being much of a Beatles fan, and I thought that we could be creative by putting our heads together, but time was of the essence and I was overruled. Our extended version of River Deep, Mountain High proved popular at gigs and was also needed for the album. Ian provided timpani drums played in the depths of the basement car park to great effect, whilst Jon borrowed some music from the movie 2001, also to great effect. Jon’s agenda was becoming more obvious by now and we had allowed him to indulge himself with Anthem and Exposition, although Richie and myself would have preferred harder material. To be fair, however, they were both quite clever and well performed, so no one complained.

 

At last, with the month of October approaching our first US tour had been finalised. With both our first single and album still riding high in the charts we packed our cases and prepared to depart for America, not quite able to believe our colossal achievement in less than eight short months. In those days very few people visited America and so we were about to enter unknown territory! We excitedly discussed the situation on the night before departure, with some concerns being voiced about the length of the flight, some thirteen hours in those days. How, how we asked, can a plane stay airborne for that long?

Early the next morning a limousine arrived to ferry us to Heathrow Airport. During the journey John Coletta gave me some welcome news. He knew of my ambition to own Deeves Hall and apparently a 99-year lease was for sale at a very reasonable price. After confirming that I would like to buy it, John promised to telephone the agent from the airport. Sadly however, someone had beaten me to it and Deeves Hall was sold! Although extremely disappointed, nothing could dampen my excitement for long and by the time we boarded the Pan Am Boeing 707 it was already forgotten. Deep Purple were on their way!

Chapter 23 – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

As the Boeing 707 touched down at Los Angeles International Airport we all felt a sense of excitement that we had never experienced before! Accompanied by John Coletta, Derek Lawrence and road manager Ian Hansford we couldn’t quite believe that we were actually in America! On arrival we were met by Tetragrammaton representatives, including label boss Artie Mogul, with flashbulbs popping, to be shepherded to two huge stretched limousines, which were to be our transport for the next few weeks.

Soon we arrived at our apartment block called the Sunset Marquis (pronounced marquee) close to the famous Sunset Boulevard. As we checked in, I noticed a large framed photograph of actor Van Heflin behind the front desk. When I remarked to the concierge that he was one of my favourite actors he replied “Oh you will soon meet Mr Heflin, he lives here!” It all seemed rather unreal as we walked past the swimming pool to be shown to our quarters. In the large apartment that Jon and I were to share, a meeting convened with agent Jeff Wald who would be looking after us on the road. Jeff explained that we had a busy schedule ahead of us but we were also going to have a lot of fun!

It was still with a sense of disbelief that we woke up in Hollywood, to blue skies and intense sunshine. Rod Evans and I were up early and so we walked down the palm tree-lined street until we came across a diner called Ben Frank’s. There we sampled chilled melon, pancakes and bacon which tasted so much better than the greasy-spoon cafés that we were used to back home. Ben’s was to become a regular favourite of everyone. That evening we were taken to the famous Whisky-a-go-go club where we were introduced to Murray Roman, the hottest anti-establishment comedian who was also on Tetragrammaton records. He asked if there was “anything that we needed”, only to be amazed that we were not interested in any of the fashionable drugs available, only a cold beer or scotch and coke!

The next day we received an invitation to attend the latest broadcast of a popular TV show called Playboy After Dark. Hosted by Playboy boss and founder Hugh Hefner, this was a popular show that we were soon due to appear on. The show consisted of a mock party where host Hefner would introduce various guests to perform. We took our seats in the studio, watching the proceedings (and the Bunny Girls) with great interest.

It was here that Ritchie and I were reunited with our old boss, Screaming Lord Sutch. Dave had relocated to America some months before, shipping over his Union Jack-painted vintage Rolls-Royce car, complete with Marshall amplifier adverts and a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in the rear window. For a while he had fooled the USA that he really was the 5th Earl of Harrow (a title he had invented at the start of his career) becoming a regular on TV chat shows, and milking several gigs for himself along the way. Somehow Dave had got wind that we were there and joined the proceedings until a sharp-eyed producer spotted him and promptly had him ejected.

After the show we were invited to join Hugh Hefner at a party on the top floor of the Playboy Club which was almost next door to the Sunset Marquis. Imagine our surprise on arriving to find Screaming Lord Sutch already there! True to form he had found his way in!

During the next few days we were entertained at the Tetragrammaton office, meeting the staff and the bosses, including Roy Silver, Artie Mogul and of course, Bill Cosby, who at the time was riding high as America’s favourite comedian. The suite of offices was sumptuously decorated with antiques and fresh flowers, whilst a cordon bleu chef was on hand to cater for staff and visitors. At the front entrance visitors were allowed to take a free pair of purple tinted sunglasses from a large basket, helping to promote the Shades of Deep Purple album. The whole place just reeked of huge expense. It would not take very long to realise that Deep Purple were almost exclusively funding this over-the-top extravaganza!!

With the first gig fast approaching, Ritchie and I were asked to check out our amplification. Ritchie suddenly succumbed to flu-like symptoms so I set out alone taking my bass and Ritchie’s Gibson to give the amps the once-over. The chosen brand was called Acoustic and proved to be more than adequate for the job, being both extremely powerful with a very good sound.

That evening we were taken by the female office staff to a popular restaurant called Sneaky Pete’s, where free peanuts were provided. It was the custom to throw the shells onto the floor which was permanently carpeted in the crunchy material! As the only driver in the band I was given the use of a Ford Mustang, and I thought I was quite the business as I cruised down Sunset Strip.

The Playboy TV show was a pleasure to do, playing Hush live as the Bunny Girls and guests danced around us, providing a film clip which is still a YouTube favourite over half a century later!

Bill Cosby was also on the show, promoting his latest LP on which he parodied well-known soul hits with his often hilarious lyrics. His backing group sounded extremely impressive, and I chatted to his bassist, Jimmy Mack, backstage. I told him how I loved his drummer and asked for his name, nearly falling off my chair when he answered “Louie Bellson”. Only one of the greatest jazz drummers in the world!

Once again, we were invited to the evening party on the top floor of the Playboy building. Hefner was a charming host, handing each guest a plate and showing us into the sumptuous kitchen where chefs waited to carve as much meat as you could eat. The drinks were equally as generous resulting in Ian Paice ending the evening rather the worse for wear. As Ian and I staggered to our apartments I just managed to grab him before he fell into the swimming pool. What a night!!

Arriving at the Los Angeles Forum to soundcheck for the first show we were amazed to find ourselves in a huge 20,000+ seater, a rather daunting prospect after the dance halls and theatres back home. This was our first experience of huge PA systems and bone-shaking volume. The Acoustic amplifiers were the loudest that we had ever heard. Also on hand were a team from Sunn amplifiers, used by Jimi Hendrix and reputed to be the loudest in the world. Ritchie and I both felt Acoustic had the best sound and the offer to use Sunn was politely declined. I hit it off though with their representative, an amiable fellow named Bob Lefevre, and we became quite friendly during our stay in the U.S. Well, the LA Forum was to be our baptism of fire, and the first stadium that any of us had played in. This was to be the opening of the farewell tour by Cream, the supergroup formed by Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton. Every night would be a sell-out and we were lucky enough to have landed the supporting spot. I felt that it would be great fun with two London-based groups on the same bill, but Cream kept their distance and didn’t show their faces to say “hello”. As the time to play approached we were all a bit apprehensive; after all, no one knew us, although Hush was a huge hit record. In the event though, we were well received and ended up getting a terrific response from the crowd. The Tetragrammaton gang were absolutely ecstatic with our performance and whisked us away for a celebration with food and drink. Of course, the ubiquitous David Sutch appeared, trailing a young companion named Rodney Bingenheimer. Rodney (later to become a radio DJ) appeared to be Sutch’s personal photographer and many pics were taken.

Still flushed with our success we were taken the next day to check out the smart clothes stores in Rodeo Drive. Imagine our delight when we were approached by a group of people who proclaimed that we “blew Cream away last night”! They also described our show as “real heavy”, a strange American saying that we were soon to get used to. Anything that was good, nice, cute etc. was “heavy”. Several years later it seemed to disappear, being resurrected eventually to describe a particular style of music.

Later that day we went to the record company office where they had the luxury of a small movie theatre on the premises. Together we watched the film of our performance, which wasn’t half bad! In the future this film became lost for some time, then was rescued in a very poor state from a box of rubbish. The sound survived though and has since been released on disc as a bootleg and in official form in varying levels of poor quality, but at least still remains as a little bit of rock history!

Prior to our second gig at the Forum, we guested on a banal TV show called the Dating Game, later to be resurrected in Britain as Blind Date. Slightly overconfident with my U.S. driving ability I had decided to drive myself to the studio, but of course got lost and arrived very late. As it was a lip-synched performance, the run-through had started without me, with a rostrum being reserved for me at the front. This resulted in some great photos appearing to show me as the group’s front man!

After our performance the toe-curling dating quiz began. Jon was selected as one of the three “dates”, but sadly failed to win the prize of an exotic trip with a beautiful girl!

Our second show at the Forum saw us a bit more relaxed and less nervous which helped us to perform a lot better. I was happy to be supporting Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker who, along with their old boss Graham Bond were amongst my favourite musicians. Whilst slightly nervous at their awesome ability I knew that this was more than balanced with Ritchie’s capabilities, of which I was sure that Eric Clapton was well aware. Once again, we were extremely well received by the crowd and went down the proverbial “storm”!

The following day we drove down the California coast to San Diego near the border with Mexico. Imagine our delight on arrival at the venue to see our name lit up in the same size lettering as Cream. Although well aware that Cream were the attraction, we were also starting to feel equal to them, and our show was even better than the previous one. The next day the repercussions happened.

Apparently Cream and Ginger Baker in particular were incensed at being given serious opposition by the support band, and equally angry at the size of our name at the venue. The outcome of this was that we were fired from the tour; a big disappointment, a huge financial loss, as well as missing out on valuable exposure. At the same time we were pleased that we had held our own with a huge name band such as Cream. As our producer Derek Lawrence put it – “I guess that you went down too well!!” Tetra’s Jeff Wald now started feverishly booking us out, often as the headline act. Often we joined multiple bills, appearing regularly with such bands as the Chambers Brothers, Canned Heat, the Turtles, and occasionally with Procol Harum when Ritchie and I were reunited with old friend Matthew Fisher, the man responsible for the haunting organ of Whiter Shade Of Pale and, like us, a one-time member of Lord Sutch’s Savages.

Apparently Cream and Ginger Baker in particular were incensed at being given serious opposition by the support band, and equally angry at the size of our name at the venue. The outcome of this was that we were fired from the tour; a big disappointment, a huge financial loss, as well as missing out on valuable exposure. At the same time we were pleased that we had held our own with a huge name band such as Cream. As our producer Derek Lawrence put it – “I guess that you went down too well!!” Tetra’s Jeff Wald now started feverishly booking us out, often as the headline act. Often we joined multiple bills, appearing regularly with such bands as the Chambers Brothers, Canned Heat, the Turtles, and occasionally with Procol Harum when Ritchie and I were reunited with old friend Matthew Fisher, the man responsible for the haunting organ of Whiter Shade Of Pale and, like us, a one-time member of Lord Sutch’s Savages.

The tour gradually worked its way around the U.S. with us often taking several connecting flights to more remote areas. Flying in 1968 was a lot more fun than it is today. Security and the rules were far more relaxed, occasionally the pilots would take off with the flight deck door open, and on several occasions we found ourselves the only passengers on the plane! We toured Northern California for a week, using two station wagons, Jeff Wald driving one and myself the other. It was a joy to drive with the luxuries of air-conditioning, power steering and power brakes which were still rare in Britain. We usually had the radio on and never tired of hearing Hush played regularly. The U.S. playlist was as eclectic as at home but we were usually hearing the tunes long before they arrived at our shores. The two most memorable for me were Glen Campbell’s Wichita Line Man and I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Marvin Gaye.

Halfway through the tour a huge party was held in honour at a ranch in the Hollywood Hills, although apart from Eric Burdon and Lord Sutch we didn’t know most of the guests, who happily enjoyed unlimited drinks and barbecued food. The evening ended during a massive jam session on the front porch when three menacing police officers with guns turned up and ordered us to stop after complaints were received from several miles away! As the party broke up it came to our notice that Deep Purple were picking up the bill, so Jon suggested that we load all the remaining booze into our car, which was then ferried back to the Sunset Marquis. During the tour we all improved our fitness levels by swimming every day as all hotels had large pools. When not on the road we used the apartment block pool, and it wasn’t long before I got acquainted with actor Van Heflin who also enjoyed a regular swim. We often chatted about his movies, most of which I had seen. He dismissed many of them as “turkeys” until I mentioned “Shane”. He was quite rightly very proud of starring in what is still rated as the best western film ever made. Van was filming “Airport” at the time, sadly to be his last film as he was shortly to die of a heart attack whilst swimming in that very pool.

During the tour we received complaints from Tetragrammaton bosses about our stage clothes. Made in London at considerable cost, they were thought too showy and flamboyant. The current trend was for bands to perform in T-shirts and jeans, most of them playing in their daytime clothes. Most of the group complied for a while but I insisted on dressing up for every gig which led to a bit of friction! I refused to look like a member of a blues band, and eventually the others agreed, and so the record company backed down. I always felt, and still do, that a performer should dress for the occasion!

We visited various places such as Oregon, Vancouver and Washington State, eventually landing in San Francisco. Remembering the bad feeling when we left the Flowerpot Men, Jon suggested sending them a postcard (in reference to their only hit), saying “we are here, where are you?”, but we both decided that would be in bad taste as our former band were now really struggling to survive.

One memorable gig was a double header with, of all bands, Vanilla Fudge. Naturally we were pretty nervous, particularly Jon and myself as we had already witnessed their awesome power. They themselves were also aware that people were comparing them with Deep Purple, so they were also a little nervous too. As usual they gave an awe-inspiring performance, but we managed to hold our own and were well received by the crowd. Afterwards we jammed back at the hotel and became friends, particularly with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice.

I had recently purchased a new Fender bass in Chicago which was the first reissue of the 1951 Precision Bass, and renamed the Telecaster Bass. As I complained to Tim Bogert about problems I was having, he admitted that he had bought one and had the same problems. When I asked how he had fixed them he produced his bass which now had a replacement body of a standard Precision. The results looked so amazing that I resolved to do the same when we got home!

At this time discussions were had about the merits of basing ourselves in America permanently in order to cash in on our popularity. The trouble was that the Vietnam War was still raging and U.S. residency meant that all males had to be prepared to be drafted into the army. Whilst Jon, Ritchie and myself were already too old for the draft, Ian and Rod were not! We toyed with the idea of locating to Canada, but in the end the idea was dropped. A by-product of the war was a hatred of the so-called “hippies”, by the general public. The hippie movement was opposed to the war and demonstrated the fact by publicly burning their draft cards. As they all sported long hair, anyone looking similar (like us) became targets of abuse, resulting in many confrontations with middle-aged Americans who also considered long hair to be effeminate. The cries of “hippie faggots” followed us in airports and bars, but the situation was usually diffused when the aggressors discovered that we were British!

During a trip to Chicago I spotted a restaurant called the London House and so insisted that we should eat there. During our meal three musicians wandered unannounced onto the small stage and provided some of the most amazing jazz that we had ever heard. When I enquired of the waiter what the group were called, he responded “oh, the Oscar Peterson Trio, sir”, leaving us all speechless! Only in America!!

One day it occurred to me to try and contact my old acquaintance Terry Slater, formerly guitarist with the Fabulous Flintstones, but later manager of Jim Marshall’s second shop in Hanwell, West London. The Flintstones had toured Britain with the Everly Brothers and Terry had struck up a friendship with Don and Phil. Not long ago he had landed a job as the Everly’s bass player, and departed for California. Trawling through the telephone book I found his number which I called straight away. The result was an invitation to a Hollywood recording studio to meet the Everly Brothers. I got to meet Don and Phil and listen to them record a vocal track, an experience that I will never forget! They were both charming and made me feel very welcome.

During the evening of December 3rd, I found myself alone in a hotel room, sitting in front of the TV sets to watch the much-anticipated program simply called “Elvis”. Now usually referred to as the comeback show it proved to be one of the most exciting gigs ever filmed and cemented Elvis’s reputation as the King of rock ‘n’ roll! When rumours of the forthcoming shows surfaced, I was harangued by Dave Sutch to find out where it was to be held, reasoning that my new found success would open any door. Of course it was a closely guarded secret, although I did make enquiries, with no success. After the gig Elvis held a press conference where Great Britain was represented by – you’ve guessed – Screaming Lord Sutch!!

Later that month our tour headed for New York where we moved into the exotic sounding Number One 5th Ave, adjacent to Washington Square Arch. In reality it was a decrepit turn-of-the-century hotel which should have been condemned! After the heat of California the weather here was extremely cold, being difficult to breathe at times. We spent many evenings at a club called Steve Paul’s Scene where we rubbed shoulders with many of our old pals from home. I hung out with my old mate John Entwistle of the Who and particularly Mitch Mitchell who introduced me to his boss, Jimi Hendrix. Jimi was a reserved almost quiet man, unlike his stage personnel, and was already a fan of Deep Purple, thanks to Ritchie.

Several days before we had appeared on one of the biggest U.S. TV shows hosted by Merv Griffin. Merv also interviewed country music legend Jimmy Dean who remarked that he thought it hilarious to hear the English group (us) asking each other for a “fag!” (Cigarette).

Bill Cosby had used his influence to secure us the chance to appear twice during the show, something normally unheard of. Unfortunately during the half hour interval between songs Ritchie had slightly overdone the hospitality and when the time came, he had launched into a totally different song to the rest of us! Somehow, he managed to cover up and no one seemed to notice. Speaking to Jimi later he also hadn’t noticed, saying it was great! Or maybe he was just being polite?

The Scene had a very good house trio in the blues/rock style, led by an excellent guitar player. One night Jimi Hendrix joined them to jam and was totally outclassed by the resident guitarist. Jimi was visibly annoyed with himself at what appeared to be a below par performance. No one knew much about this player all his name, but by the time of our return to America, everyone knew his name – Johnny Winter!

With Christmas fast approaching, and most of us feeling a bit homesick after three months away, it was decided to bring over the girlfriends of myself, Ritchie and Jon, plus John Coletta’s wife. On the morning of their arrival, Jon was nowhere to be found, and Ritchie was otherwise indisposed! Only Colette and myself were there to welcome the girls at JFK airport. Jon and Ritchie had a lot of explaining to do when we arrived back at One Fifth Avenue! The general state of the hotel led us to worry about the girls’ reaction, after all we had regaled them with stories of the fabulous Hiltons and Holiday Inns, where we had experienced (to us) absolute luxury. Luckily Jeff Wald picked up the baton on our behalf and secured two impressive bridal suites for Jon and Judith and Janet and myself. They were high up in the building, very well appointed and joined by a connecting door. Coletta and his wife were similarly upgraded, as were Ritchie and Babs, to the relief of us all.

Having played the famous Fillmore West, a rather disappointing venue, it was a pleasant surprise to enter the Fillmore East at which we were to play on December 20th and 21st. It was a lovely old acoustically designed theatre, almost like a small version of the London Palladium. The allotted time for our sound check was interrupted by the arrival of the headline act, Creedence Clearwater Revival, who insisted on being given priority. To say they had a bad attitude would be an understatement. Our road manager Ian Hansford was visibly annoyed and, being unfamiliar with their name uttered the hilarious words-“who’s this f–g Clarence Clearwater? I’ll f–g chin ‘im”!

Our performance as second on the bill came after the excellent James Cotton Blues Band. With our girls in the front row it was with some satisfaction and pride that we heard the audience still shouting our name throughout CCR’s first couple of songs. Without doubt we were becoming a brand that was not easy to follow!

On December 22 we flew to Toronto where I was reunited with my old mate Rich Bennett who picked us up at the airport. It was great to see Rich again, four years after he left England for Canada. Of course we reminisced about the Renegades, our first group, and I met his wife Ann and baby son Jeff. I could not imagine then that this toddler would travel to England some 37 years later and present me with a brand-new Fender Bass to mark my 60th birthday! That evening Rich and Ann accompanied us to Toronto’s top gig, the Rockpile, where we played to a capacity crowd.

Flying back to New York the next day we spent some time shopping, visiting the legendary stores such as Macy’s. On Christmas Day our whole entourage enjoyed a massive turkey dinner at Number One’s restaurant.

With just a few gigs remaining at New York’s Electric Circus, the tour was almost at an end. On December 28th we were surprised to find that Cashbox, one of the most important music business papers had listed us as number 4 in their top 5 most promising male vocal groups, the other contenders being the Chambers Brothers, Canned Heat, the Jeff Beck Group and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. A nice accolade to end our first U.S. tour with.

On January 3rd a tired but happy Deep Purple arrived back in England to a press reception at London’s Dorchester Hotel. Pictures appeared in the evening papers, including Jon, Judith, Ritchie and Babs who announced their forthcoming marriages. For the first time in three months the group went their separate ways, Ian Paice and myself sharing a limousine to our respective homes. On January 25, 1969 Cashbox gave us another accolade by featuring a full-page photo of the group on their international page, listing the many countries in which we had charted. A rare honour indeed, showing how far we had come in less than one year……

Chapter 24 – Once Again in Hollywood

After a mere four days’ rest, it was back to work with an appearance on BBC2’s “Late Night Line-up”, followed two days later by a radio recording for John Peel’s “Top Gear” program. January 1969 also saw us back in the recording studio to work on our third album, between more gigs and radio shows. Once again it was a struggle to come up with material. Without doubt Rod Evans was a real creative force, effortlessly penning great lyrics to any tune that the rest of us suggested. Jon continued to push his classical ideas but they were now wearing thin, particularly with Richie who, like myself, was eager to toughen the music up a little and leave the flowery stuff to band such as The Nice, and Yes!

Richie and I began to make visits to the home of record producer Mike Vernon who had offered us a record deal before Evans and Paice had joined. He had an absolute huge record collection, rock and blues mainly, which we would trawl through seeking inspiration. Meanwhile we were getting more gigs on what came to be called “The College Circuit”. Student unions seemed to be awash with cash and much of it was spent on concerts. Often three or four groups would feature on a typical college show which usually proved to be quite lucrative. Also our huge success in America and Canada was permeating through to other territories, as reported in the Cashbox International pages, but back home it was still an uphill struggle. Live shows presented no problem; we knew that we were a force to be reckoned with who could hold our own anywhere, but the total apathy of EMI Records meant that British single and album sales were still extremely poor! We consoled ourselves however with the welcome news of a return to the USA in March.

We were speedily forging a reputation as a good act, simply by the sheer force of our live shows, and figured it would only be a matter of time before we broke through at home. Regular live radio broadcasts were helping to promote us and on February 6th, following our return from another successful trip to Denmark, we appeared in front of a live audience on the prestigious Radio One Club, hosted by the flamboyant DJ Emperor Rosko. Also on the bill were The Move, a huge act at the time. Singer Carl Wayne was intrigued by Rod Evans’ chainmail vest, purchased in San Francisco, and it wasn’t long before cash changed hands and Carl was the new owner of this unique garment!

During this trip a memorable moment occurred near Birmingham, when I steered our hire car out of a transport café onto the right-hand side of the road. I was very comfortable on the right after three months driving in the US. As we approached a junction someone remarked that the oncoming traffic was on the wrong side of the road. I suddenly realised that we were on the wrong side and swiftly switching to the left, possible disaster was averted!

In between radio gigs and live shows the third album, to be called simply Deep Purple , was slowly taking shape. When we found that we were one song short for a radio broadcast we had hurriedly cobbled together a tune that we named “Hey Bop a Re Bop”. This had worked better than expected and so Rod wrote some clever new lyrics and we recorded it for the new album under the title The Painter. This was fronted by a piece of psychedelia featuring a backwards drum track, whilst I cranked the bass up through a fuzz box. Chasing Shadows was another very original song built upon an unusual bass and drum track created by Ian and myself. Rod, as usual, wrote the lyrics as the song progressed. Jon, meanwhile, was attempting to create material by himself rather than with the rest of us. Maybe he thought that he would be more creative without our interference. Personally I think that his appreciation of the possible financial rewards of songwriting was the driving force!

He was also into other future career moves, hoping to produce other artists with the backing of HEC Enterprises. Richie was not too pleased that find that Jon had “borrowed” one of our back-tracks and put on a vocal by his girlfriend, but the dire result soon ended that experiment! Another idea was for he and I to put some cash together and form a limited company, but the purpose of the company was unclear and the idea was dropped. Our friendship still seemed as strong as ever but understandably, with his wedding day drawing near we did not socialize as much as before. Soon we would both abandon our shared room at Second Avenue, with Jon taking on a flat near Fulham, while I stayed mostly back at my parents’ house in Hayes.

Generally the group members had formed a pretty close bond with each other and eagerly anticipated seeing some financial rewards from our immense success. Ron Hire obviously felt the same as he proudly showed us the plot of his new detached home in Brighton which he had purchased on the strength of the success of Hush and the Shades album. Sadly Ron’s world was soon to come crashing down when he was arrested for receiving stolen goods. It was hardly the crime of the century, but Ron was to spend a year in Ford open prison. Edwards and Coletta immediately distanced themselves from him and ruthlessly kicked him out of the partnership. I thought that this was rather unfair, considering how he had supported John Coletta when he was unable to come up with his share of the funding for the project when it began. Of course Ron’s situation provided a huge boost to John and Tony who now each had a much larger percentage of Deep Purple’s income! We were very sad to see Ron Hire depart. He had been the easiest of the three managers to get on with and we all missed his lively, cheerful personality. Of course I was not to know that then that I would be doing business once more with Ron in the not-too-distant future.

Most of February was taken up with BBC broadcasts and college gigs, between which we were in the studio as often as possible. The trio of Derek Lawrence, Martin Birch and Barry Ainsworth was functioning as before and the new album was shaping up pretty well. The only dissent was an argument about songwriting credits which was never fully resolved. Another argument developed with Richie. By now Rod and Jon had received considerable amounts of money as the writers of One More Rainy Day, the B-side of Hush. Ritchie considered it grossly unfair for Rod to receive so much money for ‘merely’ writing lyrics, whilst I argued that good lyrics were far more difficult to achieve than guitar licks! Ritchie, of course, disagreed and didn’t speak to me for several days.

However all this was forgotten by March 1st when we played a great show at Bridgend, at the same time celebrating the first anniversary of Deep Purple. We all agreed that we had achieved more than we had ever dreamt of just one short year ago! This was followed by Jon’s stag night celebration on March 3rd before he married Judith the next day. On the morning of March the 5th, together with John Coletta and Tony Edwards the band convened at our Newman Street headquarters to meet with accountant Bill Reid. With eager anticipation we waited for Bill, a portly, cigar smoking, slightly pompous individual who swept in and ceremoniously handed each of us a set of accounts, neatly bound into a folder.

We quietly perused the jumble of figures which were totally meaningless to all of us. Jon Lord, always eager to please, broke the silence by mumbling that he was happy with figures, whilst Ritchie and I looked at one another, not wishing to appear stupid. “Ask him, Nick” barked Richie at which Bill Reid said, What do you need to know, Nicky?”. I replied to Bill, “ I need to know what I am worth!”. Bill’s reply hit the whole group like a bombshell. “You’re worth precisely nothing!” was his reply followed by “You owe the management £9,000!”.  What was said following that pronouncement has been long forgotten, but I determined in that moment to ensure that not a cent was wasted in future and insisted on laying down some ground rules. Naturally any  popularity I had with NEC Enterprises went into a terminal dive!

The following weekend lightened the mood when the group attended two parties. On Saturday March 8th we celebrated the 21st birthday of my girlfriend Janet, followed on Sunday by a celebration of Jon’s marriage. The following couple of weeks were very busy with gigs at Newcastle, Redditch, and Kent University, plus two days recording, before playing the famous Speakeasy in London, a gig attended by almost exclusively by musicians including the up-and-coming Yes, and our old adversary Ginger Baker. Two more college dates followed before we flew to Zurich for a TV show. Afterwards we visited a nightclub where the owner offered us a bottle of whisky if we would play a couple of songs using the house band’s instruments. Naturally the whisky was duly demolished before we happily staggered back to the hotel where Rod and I assisted Richie to ascend the extra flight of stairs to his room. On our return we enjoyed the luxury of four days rest before flying back to Los Angeles on Saturday March 29th for our second US tour.

On my insistence we checked into a small motel where everyone was a little dismayed at the lack of opulence, having previously enjoyed the luxury of the Sunset Marquis. However, as I pointed out, it was clean, had TV in every room and a decent-sized swimming pool, plus it was only a quarter of the price! They soon cheered up. It was good to see our friends at Tetragrammaton who assured us of our rising status in the USA. Jeff Wald informed us that our records were enjoying huge sales, saying that we were bigger than many of our fellow acts, and chasing Jimi Hendrix in popularity. Jeff finished his pep-talk by telling us that we were now “pretty wealthy guys!” which was a bit hard to swallow so soon after our meeting with our accountant.

After a couple of days rest we headed out with Jeff for the start of our tour. Kentucky Woman and the second album were still popular, and one of our record company’s important moves was to arrange regular visits to record stores. Unlike our little shops back home, U.S. record stores were massive warehouse-sized outlets, where  singles and albums were stocked in thousands! An hour spent in these establishments, promoted on local radio, would see us sign literally hundreds of copies.

Our popularity meant that we were playing quite large venues and thankfully were being well received by the audiences. We usually had several other bands in support, and one of these for quite a few gigs was the band led by legendary British blues singer John Mayall. Richie was particularly impressed by his guitarist, and, after a listen I had to agree that he was really good. Following their set we congratulated the guitarist in the dressing room. After thanking us he looked at me and said “You don’t know who I am, do you?”. He looked vaguely familiar but I didn’t know his name. He then said, “Do you remember the Gods?”. It dawned on me then that it was Mick Taylor! Together we had attempted to form a new group loftily named the Gods, which sadly came to nothing, several years ago. Well, we reminisced for a while until it was time to go on stage. After the show Mick joined us for a drink and expressed his admiration for what we were doing. For the rest of the tour Mick and I got together whenever we could, and really hit it off.

April 4th saw us play Vancouver where Richie was reunited with his old Canadian bandmate from the Outlaws, Ken Lundgren. By April 18th we had gradually worked our way back to Los Angeles where we had three shows in as many days. The third show was booked at what many considered the trendiest night spot in town. Known as The Factory, that is exactly what it had been, a strange converted workplace, where the actual venue was reached via a lift. As the road crew assembled our equipment the place began to fill with people, including Tetragrammaton boss Bill Cosby who was accompanied by David Janssen, famous for his leading role in long running TV show The Fugitive. We chatted to the house band who all seemed strangely subdued. It appeared that several weeks previously Frank Sinatra had paid a visit and took exception to their volume. Sinatra’s entourage left them in no doubt as to what would happen if they didn’t comply, and the group were a little worried that he might turn up for our show. Luckily he didn’t show up, but he would not have had caused to complain as we did not get to perform! A very strange anomaly with the steel construction of the building led to so much interference that it was impossible to play!

Following the Factory debacle we had four days off. On the first day I visited the local music store, a large shop stocked with hundreds of guitars. The friendly owner approached me and asked if I could would consider taping an endorsement of his store to play on local radio. In return he would allow me to pick any guitar as a fee. After speaking the necessary words onto his tape machine I left the shop being a proud owner of a brand-new black Fender Precision bass guitar, complete with case. I returned to our motel to find Mick Taylor and the rest of Deep Purple sitting around the pool. After showing them the bass and recounting the details, it was not long before Richie Blackmore grabbed a roadie and headed for the shop. Much to Richie’s disgust the owner explained that he had no plans for more advertisements, leaving Richie wishing that he’d got there before I did.

Now, it just so happened that during the week I was visited by my friend Bob Lefevre of Sunn amplification. Bob was carrying a Fender Stratocaster guitar which had been given to him by Jimi Hendrix on tour. He explained that Jimi was not happy with the guitar. Bob could not play himself and so he gave it to me. I soon realised that it was not as good as my own Stratocaster which I tinkered with back home. Now it also happened that Richie was not happy with his current guitar, a hybrid Stratocaster with an ill-fitting Telecaster neck. Now this guitar, which refused to stay in tune, had previously been owned by Eric Clapton. I soon had a brain wave! Why, I suggested to Blackmore, didn’t he take these two below par guitars to the guitar store and try to swap them for a new  model? Well, that’s exactly what he did, returning with a brand-new Stratocaster and a big smile on his face! The other two guitars just disappeared into the mists of time. Just imagine their value today had we kept them!

During our time off Mick Taylor was keen to show me a group that had secured a residency at the Whisky-a-Go-go. Mick thought that they were amazing, as did lots of other British musicians who flocked to the venue.  I had to agree that they were as good as he said, and we went to see them as often as possible. The group were known simply by the initials CTA, which apparently stood for Chicago Transit Authority. Later they became known as just Chicago and quite deservedly became a huge name.

A string of gigs followed our break in such places as Fresno, San Diego, and a couple in Oregon, before arriving at a club gig in Rhode Island. There was a rare malevolent atmosphere at this venue and it was a relief to put our gear into the car before leaving. Suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by a gang of ugly looking characters obviously out for trouble. One guy circled our car on a battered pushbike, one lent menacingly against the side whilst two more sat on the wings. “What do you think?”, I asked as I started the engine. “Give it the gun!”, said Ritchie, so I hit the gas pedal hard, causing the car to spin on the gravel, throwing the potential troublemakers in all directions. Making sure that no one was hurt I then gunned the big V8 car towards the highway, but in a flash they were behind us in their own car, ramming our rear bumper, just like the scene in the film ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ with Sydney Poitier. It was hard to keep a cool head as I drove up the elevated section of highway but I knew that the Holiday Inn was on our left so I deliberately signalled right before exiting left at the last moment and luckily wrong-footed our pursuers. Screaming obscenities from their car they promised to “get us next time” before having to keep on driving. As I parked outside the hotel my bandmates literally fell out of the car and ran for the lift, leaving me to retrieve our guitars from the boot!

Following this terrifying incident we had a few more days off which I spent mainly socialising with Mick Taylor. I also caught up with Dave Sutch who was still living in a small apartment close to Sunset Boulevard. Dave had reached a point in his career where everything had ground to a halt for him. There was no way that his unique, but now historical story could be replicated in America, so he wisely decided that a record album could be the answer. I secured him a meeting with Tetragrammaton which was not successful, but undeterred Dave kept knocking on doors until he eventually landed a deal. Quite how he managed to persuade several big-name musicians to record with him remains a mystery. It appeared that none of them realised that they were about to appear on Sutch’s first album, but the release of Screaming Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends certainly provided the boost to his career that he needed.

We were now about halfway through the tour when one sunny afternoon I found myself alone with manager John Coletta. We had driven from L.A. to the beach where we had enjoyed a dip in the ocean. With Jeff Wald’s most recent comments about our new-found wealth still in my head I decided to tackle Coletta about the subject. He listened as I told him of my ambitions to buy a new car and maybe to pay off my parents’ mortgage on their home. He looked at me very seriously and said, “You can do all that Nicky, and more!”. He then proceeded to tell me that we were all now dollar millionaires! I said that I didn’t feel like one. He then explained that at present it was only figures on paper, but before long we would see it in our bank accounts. He then finished our conversation by telling me that if Deep Purple ended tomorrow, none of us would ever have to work again! This was indeed sweet music to my ears, but I could have had no idea of the storm that was approaching!

Chapter 25 – July 1st 1969; The Bombshell

Following my discussions with John Coletta I felt more optimistic as our tour rumbled on. Audience reaction was certainly growing and our show was becoming wilder, although at the same time getting slicker and more polished. One problem occasionally discussed between the four musicians was our concern that Rod’s performance was losing its edge, and he did not appear to have the same enthusiasm as before. He had met a lovely American girl and was already planning his wedding, so I figured that maybe he was temporarily distracted by his future plans.

In early May we arrived in Melbourne – no, not Australia, but Florida! We were staying at the Holiday Inn and enjoying the sunshine as we lounged around the pool. Following our evening meal, we retired to the bar for a beer or two. Hotel rules dictated that the bar closed at 10 p.m., by which time Deep Purple were ready for a few more drinks! The bartender said that a roadhouse called “Fifi’s” was only about 15 minutes’ walk away, but advised us against going as it was a “bit rough”!

Ritchie Blackmore was up for going and when Rod, Ian and Jon declined he suggested that I keep him company. What was to follow has remained one of my most enduring memories to this day! Together Richie and I jauntily strolled the short distance to the roadhouse and walked through the front entrance. Now, readers should remember my previous descriptions of the American attitude to long hair! In today’s climate where “anything goes”, it can be difficult to comprehend the dangers of looking different back in the late 1960’s!

As we walked to “Fifi’s” we both felt that a decent nightcap would be worth the risk, but as we entered, we soon realised that we had made a huge mistake. The place was packed with the roughest, toughest and meanest looking people that you would never wish to meet – mainly large, shaven-headed, tattooed, and to two extremely long-haired musicians, your worst nightmare!

Now we should have left immediately but were both too stubborn to do so. We quickly made our way to an empty table which wasn’t too close to the crowd, but we were soon spotted and subjected to a barrage of cat-calls, whistles and insults. A grinning bartender approached saying “what are you girls having?”. Too stunned to give a suitable reply, I meekly asked for two scotch and cokes which we quickly guzzled down, as our previous bravado rapidly evaporated! As the cat-calls continued above the noise of the rather mundane country house-band, we both wondered if we could get out alive! Suddenly, as panic began to set in, I had a brainwave. I suggested to Ritchie that he sat in with the band and showed the place what real playing was, to which he (very reluctantly) agreed. I put this suggestion to the bartender who relayed it to the group. Judging by their faces they thought it was hilarious as Richie nervously approached the stage and took the guitar offered to him.

As they launched into an up-tempo number everything was about to change. For the next 20 minutes or so, Richie gave the most dazzling display of country picking that the crowd had ever witnessed and, without a doubt, got us both out of trouble. The response was amazing! the barman came over to me and said “whatever you guys want, it’s on the house!”. Richie came off stage to thunderous applause, and for the next hour we had the time of our lives. Long hair or not, the crowds now loved us, and we departed happily for the Holiday Inn, full of free drinks and the good wishes of the crowd. What a night!!

The following gig at Melbourne was particularly wild, especially during Mandrake Root, where the use of a strobe light during the instrumental parts led to some extremely lewd behaviour by a couple who seemed to be very excited by the pulsing light. Subsequent gigs took us to various places including New York, where I met up again with John Entwistle for a catch-up, then back to Florida, a gig in Illinois, before arriving at the twin towns of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota. At the airport I left the others to find the toilet when I heard someone call out. Turning around I saw the figure of Jimmy Page approaching. “Hello”, he said, “you must be in Ritchie’s band”. I couldn’t help replying, “No, Richie’s in my band!”. He laughed and said his band Led Zeppelin were also appearing that night. When I relayed this information to the others, there was concern that it might affect the size of our audience, but our gig was sold out and went extremely well. I was struck by the calibre of the support band and asked for their name. “Santana” was the reply. I made a mental note of the name.

As the end of our second US tour approached, the band became embroiled in several heated discussions, including over our lack of publicity back home, the constant pressure for material from Tetragrammaton, and the huge cost of bringing managers Coletta and Edwards on tour with us. One evening I met the manager of the Nice, who I vaguely knew, and he admitted that he “couldn’t give them away in America”, to

quote his exact words. Yet, according to the Melody Maker they were huge in the States. Well, we were huge in America, yet our press back home was non-existent! This gripe, however, was soon trumped by the next move from Tetragrammaton. Coletta described how they had butchered our ten-minute track “River Deep, Mountain High”, into a dreadfully edited three-minute single. Naturally there was a howl of protest from the band at this act of desperate vandalism, but Coletta said that it was too late to complain as it was already on release!

The realisation that we had no say at all over our recordings put quite a dampener on the rest of the tour, and no one felt inclined to even discuss such a bad record, let alone promote it! What we didn’t know at the time whilst that Tetragrammaton were struggling to keep afloat, hence this dire attempt to find another single release. However, the last few concerts sold out and went down extremely well and I felt that on that level it had been a successful tour, with excellent sales of all our recordings to date.

Just before we left America to fly home Jon asked if I had heard the news about my friend Mick? He then told me that he had joined the Rolling Stones, which was a huge surprise but I felt was welcome recognition for a nice man and a great musician! Soon after arriving home, without Rod Evans, who stayed behind to finalise his wedding plans, it was announced that we were to begin recording the next single. When I questioned starting without Rod, Jon assured me that he knew the key for the song, called “Hallelujah”, and vocals would be added on Rod’s return. A date was soon set for the studio with a morning session plus a night session as the studio was apparently unavailable during the afternoon. A half decent backtrack was almost completed during the morning and we arranged to meet again at 6:00 that evening. At five o’clock, as I was preparing to leave for the studio the telephone rang. It was Jon Lord saying that there were problems at the studio, and so the session had to be cancelled. I decided to spend the evening with my girlfriend Janet, at the cinema instead.

During the following week the group, minus Rod, met at our London headquarters in Newman Street. During the meeting I asked when we would be returning to the studio to complete the music for “Hallelujah”. John Coletta swiftly answered, saying that the others were unhappy with the studio and we should find somewhere else. He then suggested that I should contact my friend Mitch Mitchell to find out where Jimi Hendrix was recording. I replied that it may take time as the Experience were always touring. “No rush”, was Coletta’s reply. I was soon to realize what a good liar he was!

Soon Rod returned from America and on June 10th we returned to one-nighters by playing at Cambridge University, a gig attended by Brian Connolly and Mick Tucker of The Sweet. it was good to see them and they were pleased to see us perform again after being in the US. The day before had been Jon Lord’s birthday and so I presented him with a gift of a bottle of whisky, which strangely seemed to embarrass him quite a lot. During the following week I met up with my old pal Roddy Freeman at London’s Speakeasy Club. We had a lot of catching up to do and during the evening he told me that he had heard a rumour that I was leaving Deep Purple. Of course, I dismissed the idea without asking where he had heard it.

Apart from one gig, the band was free for seven days, so I enjoyed having some time off. Strangely, I had several calls from Rod asking where the rehearsals were, or what time? I naturally replied that we were not rehearsing, but he obviously thought that perhaps we were. Thinking back to those days it seems crazy that I didn’t connect the dots!!

June 19th saw me drive the group to Belgium for a big TV show. At the rehearsals we met up with the other acts which happily included our old mates Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, and Don Partridge who had come to fame as a busker and had written and recorded several hit songs recently. Don was hilarious fun to be around and I was pleased to discover that he lived near me. The day of the transmission (which was live) went well, except for Don, who had taken advantage of the free refreshments and was obviously slightly unsteady on his feet. It was decided that it would be far safer for Don to mime to his new record, which was a wise decision.

The next day saw us play a club in Brussels before heading for the ferry and home. On June 23rd we played a big college in Oxford which went very well. On the 27th we set off for the Top Rank Club in Swansea. Wales was quite difficult to get to in those days, as the new M4 motorway consisted of only a few miles at the London end and the Wales end. The distance in between was a slow tedious drive and this was when Richie Blackmore brought along a powerful catapult and a bag of unripe gooseberries as ammunition to amuse himself with. Readers familiar with the 1983 so-called Deep Purple Biography will find this story listed during 1971, but it actually happened in 1969. Richie proceeded to pick targets along the route with great success until he shot a bare-chested navvy in the back who was digging a deep hole in the road. The navvy roared with pain and was about to punch his nearest mate, when our car stopped at a red traffic light. Realising where the attack came from this massive man launched himself out of the hole and charged towards our car. Luckily the light changed and I floored the gas pedal thus averting possible disaster! Several days later I was routinely stopped by police in West London who seemed quite interested in the catapult on the rear seat. I explained it away as a child’s toy as one policeman tried it out on the nearest lamp-post!

June ended with a show at London’s prestigious Revolution Club, followed by a BBC recording session for the David Symonds radio show. On July 1st I again met Rod Freeman, who was now manager of Jim Marshall’s music shop, and we went for a drink at the old favourite Cromwellian Club. Rod was quite subdued and once again broached the subject of my leaving the group. I explained that this type of rumour often followed successful bands. He then hit me with the bombshell. “It’s true”, he said, and then proceeded to tell me how they had been witnessed rehearsing with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover. With all respect to Glover, I found this very hard to believe. This, of course, was like a bolt from the blue, and I resolved to find out more. The next day I telephoned Tetragrammaton in the US to find out what they knew. I was told that they already had the new single, and had been told that Rod and myself had been “paid off”. They told me that it was obviously not Rod and me on the record, and the official story was that the record was completed by Ron Wood on bass and the singer from Spooky Tooth on vocals, both in the capacity of session men.

I later discovered that they were desperate to keep the names secret as both our replacements were still under contract. Armed with this knowledge I drove the band for what was to be the last time to the Top Rank ballroom in Cardiff where we had last played in February.

I determined to show them what they were about to lose, by cranking up the volume above my usual level and playing to the best of my ability. In fact, it was one big bass solo! I got some strange looks from the others, but I wanted to go out with a bang!

Before the show I had been given various reasons why Rod would be my only passenger on the return journey. Apparently, Jon was traveling to his parent’s home, and Richie and Ian were being given a lift somewhere by the road crew. Obviously, they had a plan, but by now I was not interested. As soon as we left the venue, I told Rod what I knew. Understandably he exploded, calling the others various unprintable names, but saving most of his venom for Paice, who, without doubt, owed his place in the group to Rod. He then suggested that we should dump the car in a canal until I pointed out that it was our car, as well!

After a couple of hours travel, he calmed down and we resolved to meet up the next day. We decided to drive to Brighton and confront John Coletta. On the way through Rod insisted on calling at Tony Edward’s home where Ian Paice was staying. I guess that he intended physical retribution for Paice, but in the event, no-one was at home and so we pushed on for Brighton. Upon seeing us at his door Coletta nearly fell through the floor! He had no choice but to ask us in and we spent the next few hours discussing the situation and the reasoning behind it. The best that he could come up with was to tell me that Blackmore had never liked me! He then asked us to see him at Newman Street the following day, where a “financial settlement” would be discussed.

On the Monday Rod and I decided to meet Coletta separately, and then compare notes.

Rod didn’t seem unhappy as he came out of the meeting, and it appeared that Coletta had offered him a solo recording deal. Things were different in my case. Coletta had recovered his composure and brusquely informed me that I was out of the group and there was to be no financial settlement! I can’t remember my reply, only that it was not polite! I stormed out of the office where Rod was waiting for me. We then shook hands, resolved to stay in touch and went our separate ways.