Here’s a list of the blog entries appearing below:-
Motown and me (26/7/2011)
All about the saxophone (26/4/2011)
Alnwick revisited / Jimmy Lillico Band (21/1/2011)
Pre-Beatles bands from the north east (5/12/2010)
Roadies / Colin Hart (7/10/2010)
North east friends (26/7/2010)
Mods and scooters (27/6/2010)
Mortonsound, Impulse and recording (12/5/2010)
Ivan Birchall (21/4/2010)
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26th Jul 2011 – HOW MOTOWN CHANGED MY LIFE
There is a long list of singers, songwriters and musicians who say they were influenced by Motown. And it’s not just artists that grew up during Motown’s golden era of the sixties. There’s a host of recent performers that not only claim to be influenced by Motown but also sound like the old Motown stars. Although my development as a musician happened at the same time as Motown’s growth in the UK record market, it was decades later that Motown changed my life.
Back in the late fifties and early sixties Motown didn’t take off in the UK in the same way that it did in the States. Probably the first time most British music listeners got a taste of Motown was when the Beatles covered tracks by Smokey Robinson, the Marvelettes and the Isley Brothers on their early albums.
Music history books tell us that Motown’s break through in the UK was largely due to the work of Dave Godin. Long before Motown was generally recognised in the UK, Godin started the Tamla Motown Appreciation Society and became the UK adviser to Berry Gordy, Motown’s founder, on how he should conduct his operations over here. The strategy worked – six years after the company was founded in Detroit in 1958, Motown artists started appearing regularly in the UK charts.
By the time I first heard ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ by The Supremes late in 1964 I was already hooked on some of the popular black music coming out of the States. For me Motown didn’t just explode as a new entity – it was more of transition from black girl groups like the Chiffons and what Phil Spector produced with the Ronettes and the Crystals. As with the Spector records, a lot of the early Motown stuff included a baritone sax for the solo breaks. I had just started playing the sax in bands so I guess this was one of the reasons I was an early convert to the Motown sound.
A year or so after Motown broke in the UK I started playing in clubs such as Newcastle’s Club A’Gogo and for the first time I was able to hear Motown music played through good sound systems. A couple of the records I remember being played at the Gogo a lot in 1966 was Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t That Peculiar” with the distinctive bass line driving the song along. Also “This Old Heart of Mine” by the Isley Brothers.
Towards the end of sixties the Motown sound became more polished and heavily orchestrated. To me, the true Motown sound consisted of a driving bass and drum beat, a dominant tambourine and a beefy baritone sax break. Although my interest in Motown was on the wane, one or two records still caught my interest, for instance – “My Cherie Amour” by Stevie Wonder and “It’s a Shame” by the Spinners.
Then came the seventies and with them the Sound of Philadelphia – fresh new black music, which at the time seemed like a natural successor to Motown. I became a great fan of Gamble and Huff’s “Philly Sound” but by this time I had left the north east and had given up playing the saxophone, so I never got to play any of that type of music in a band.
A couple of decades whizzed by and inevitably I gave up any thoughts of reviving my career as a musician. My beloved tenor sax lay dormant in the attic. Sometime during the early nineties an old friend of mine, an ardent music fan, sent me a couple of cassette tapes entitled “Standing in the Shadows of Motown”, which accompanied a book he had bought. The book was a tribute to the late great Motown session bass player, James Jamerson and was published in the wake of a campaign to get retrospective recognition for Jamerson and the other Motown session musicians, the Funk Brothers, who had played on most of the early Motown hits.
Motown’s session musicians – The Funk Brothers
For one reason or another I didn’t get to listen to the tapes at the time they were sent to me and it wasn’t until 1997 that I found them and began playing them non-stop. The tapes consisted of Motown songs without the vocals and with the bass lines being played by world famous bass players who also provided a commentary on James Jamerson’s style of playing. Although I knew all of the songs on the tapes, I had never before taken the time to analyse what went on under the vocals of artists such as the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations and the Four Tops. I was amazed by the wonderful bass lines and the contribution they made to the overall sound of the music.
My next step was to buy the book “Standing in the Shadows of Motown”, which by this time came with a couple of CDs instead of the cassette tapes. The book not only contained a history of James Jamerson and the Funk Brothers work with Motown but also had the musical notation for the Motown bass lines featured on the CDs.
The acquisition of the book was swiftly followed by the purchase of a Precision bass. I wanted to play some of those bass lines – albeit in the privacy of my own home. At the age of fifty I had no thoughts of reliving my earlier life as a gigging musician.
So I taught myself to play the bass by reading the music from “Standing in the Shadows of Motown”, starting with the easier tracks and working myself up to complex bass lines like those on “Bernadette” by the Four Tops and “Darling Dear” by Michael Jackson.
As I became more proficient on the bass, one thing led to another and in 2002 I ended up joining a local covers band. At the same time I had my old saxophone renovated and started to play that again at home. The covers band was a bit lame. They rehearsed a lot but only did a couple of live gigs while I was with them.
In 2004 I moved on to a 3 piece rock outfit playing covers of Deep Purple, Free, Led Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy songs. They were quite popular locally and sometimes I found myself out gigging a couple of times a week.
A few years later I thought it would be nice to return to playing my original instrument, the saxophone, in a band. I got the opportunity to play sax and keys with a popular mod tribute band in 2006 and from then until 2010 I gigged with them on a regular basis.
Since rediscovering Motown back in 1997, I’ve rekindled my love of music and play one instrument or another on an almost daily basis.
My life changed in a big way and for the better thanks to Motown and, of course, my friend Charlie Banks who sent me the “Standing in the Shadows” tapes. I’m convinced that I would never have got back into music had I not discovered the amazing bass playing of James Jamerson.
Finally, if you have any interest in Motown music then I would recommend getting hold of a copy of “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” – even if you have seen the subsequent movie of the same name, which was loosely based on the book. It may change your life!!!
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COMMENTS
1. Hi Roger,You won’t remember, but you and I have exchanged e-mails once before when I first discovered your excellent website. I’m an ex Middlesbrough boy, lived in Canada for the past 30 years, and was a member of the Road Runners along with Paul Rodgers and Micky Moody. Just read your last blog entry about your return to music via reading “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” and I had no idea that you had segued into bass playing as well as reviving the tenor sax etc. I have to say that your site and its wonderful content, accuracy and incisive wit and observations makes wonderful reading – kudos indeed on such an interesting place for old “musos” to visit! I was back in the north-east in the spring, and had the pleasure of joining Paul Rodgers on stage at the Metro Arena in Newcastle where he invited me to play guitar on the old Temp’s hit “Aint Too Proud to Beg”, and so your observations on Motown etc. particularly resonated with me when I read them today. Keep up the great work on the site, stay safe and healthy, and enjoy the music! All the best from Toronto!
Comment by Colin Bradley — August 31, 2011
(COMMENTS NOW CLOSED ON THIS BLOG)
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26th Apr 2011 – Saxcetera
(WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE SEXY SAX?)
Unlike guitarists, not many saxophone players outside of the jazz world have become household names. I suppose most people will have heard of Kenny Gee, whether or not they like his slushy style of playing. Then for the oldies there’s Junior Walker – but he was probably just as well known for his vocals as for his sax playing on the Motown hits of the All Stars.
In the world of popular music the saxophone is one of those instruments that go in and out of fashion. Although the sax has been the most recorded woodwind instrument over the last fifty years, for the last couple of decades at least it certainly hasn’t featured much in the charts. But what goes around comes around so perhaps there’s a new saxophone revolution just waiting to happen.
“It’s an ill woodwind that nobody blew any good!” That’s how my school music teacher described the saxophone when I told him I was taking up the instrument and would be dropping the violin. Well I suppose to a classically trained musician used to teaching pupils about the works of the great composers, the sax is a bit of a weird instrument.
Adolphe Sax
My teacher went on to question my motives for wanting to play such a dreadful instrument. Well what were my motives? Back then most of my friends had chosen the guitar as a means of impressing girls. At school, the sax was only encouraged for the clarinet players if they wanted a second instrument to mess about with. My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps and play the trumpet but eventually I persuaded him to buy me a second hand alto sax. He knew I’d been listening to his collection of Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey records for years and that I liked the sound of a full sax section. He also had some 78 rpm records by a virtuoso sax player by the name of Freddy Gardner which really appealed to me. 
While I was learning to play the saxophone, I started listening to the sax parts on records by Johnny and the Hurricanes and Duane Eddy. At the same time a few jazz records featuring the sax started to appear in the top twenty – records such as ‘Take Five’ by Dave Brubeck and ‘Desafinado’ by Stan Getz. ‘Yakety Sax’ by Boots Randolph had also been a hit in the British charts. It seemed that the saxophone was becoming trendier in the world of popular music and this convinced me that I’d made the right decision in learning to play the instrument. At that time, though, I was still more interested in the big band sound. When Phil Spector started producing records for American girl groups such as the Ronettes and the Crystals he included plenty of saxes in his ‘wall of sound’. ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ by the Crystals had a great eight bar baritone sax solo, which at the time I wrongly thought was a tenor. Nevertheless, this and similar records prompted me to make the switch from alto to tenor.
During the period I played in north east bands from the mid-sixties to the early seventies I didn’t have to look far for work as a sax player. Throughout this era the popularity of blues, soul and then progressive rock meant there were always lots of bands in need of a brass and woodwind instruments. The sax maintained its credibility during the seventies through artists like the Average White Band, the Crusaders, Chicago, Manu DiBango and Weather Report. Steely Dan albums also included more and more sax arrangements and solos. The popularity of the 1978 release ‘Baker Street’ featuring the unforgettable alto sax riff of Raphael Ravenscroft triggered the era of the power sax. At one time the alto sax looked as if it may take over from the guitar as being the number one girl pulling instrument. Remember all those eighties hits featuring an emotive reverb-heavy alto sax solo?
Candy Dulfer – the most photogenic sax player ever?
After the eighties, the sax dropped out of the limelight with only the occasional sax player shining through; for instance Clarence Clemons from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. However, most people have a favourite sax song or solo, whether it be ‘Baker Street’, ‘Will You’ by Hazel O’Connor and Wesley Macgoogan, ‘Lily Was Here’ by Candy Dulfer and Dave Stewart or maybe just the sexy sax intro to George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’. Here’s a few of my all time favourite sax solos
(click on the links to listen to the short musical extracts): –
Al Klink’s and Babe Russin’s shared tenor solo on Glenn Miller’s ‘String of Pearls’ was overshadowed on this record by the fantastic trumpet solo of Bobby Hackett, but nevertheless this is a great performance. Klink and Russin perform their solos alternately over a simple 12 bar chord sequence with only a slight overlap at the end of the 4th bar.
String of Pearls sax solo
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The baritone sax was the standard solo instrument on a lot of the early Motown recordings. Mike Terry
Where Did Our Love Go baritone sax solo
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This is Graham Bond’s emotion filled 12 bar alto sax solo on “Night Time Is The Right Time” by Alexis Korner and Blues Incorporated. Technically, there is nothing outstanding about the solo. For four bars (from bar 6 through to bar 9) Bond repeats the same note (upper register G on the alto) over and over but he really bares his soul throughout the twelve bars.
Night Time Is The Right Time alto sax solo _______________________________________________________
I’m not a great fan of the soprano sax but here it used to great effect by Larry Nozero on the intro bars of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On?’ I read somewhere that Larry played the part for what he thought was a warm up session but what he played ended up being used on the actual record.
Whats Going On soprano sax intro
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One of my all time favourite sax solos is 
Phil Woods’ alto part on ‘Dr Wu’ by Steely Dan. Everything about this solo is perfect – both in the phrasing and in the choice of notes. Phil uses almost the full range of the instrument from top E down to bottom B throughout a fairly complex chord sequence. Phil Woods was a much sought after session musician in the seventies and eighties and was often used by Donald Fagan and Walter Becker in Steely Dan sessions. Apparently Phil floored Becker and Fagan with this solo on the first take. It was rumoured that that Fagan was so dumbstruck by the performance that he asked Woods to play it a couple of more times just so that he could hear it again. Phil Woods also played alto sax on Billy Joel’s ‘Don’t Go Changing’.
Doctor Wu alto sax solo
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Here’s another great baritone sax solo which actually comes at the end of the record and is unfortunately used as a fade out. The solo is by Ronnie Ross on Lou Reed’s ‘Take a Walk on the Wild Side’
Take a Walk on the Wild Side baritone sax solo _______________________________________________________
I recently heard a fantastic tenor solo by Pee Wee Ellis for the first time on Youtube. 
The solo is on a live version of Van Morrison’s ‘Tupelo Honey’ and far outshines the solo on the original studio recording. A lot of the notes in the second part of the solo are in the altissimo register – in other words, above the normal range of the sax. You’ve got to be really good to play an altissimo solo the way Pee Wee does! Van Morrison, a fairly ordinary sax player himself, often performs solos on his own recordings. But when he does use session saxophonists he certainly uses the best. Pee Wee Ellis, an American, was originally with the James Brown band but now lives about 10 miles from me in rural Somerset. Tupelo Honey tenor sax solo
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I’ve been scratching my head trying to think of sax players from the north east who have become really famous, either as part of a north east band or as an individual musician but none instantly spring to mind. Anyway here are three north east saxophonists I know of who do deserve a mention: – 
Nigel Stanger was one of the most gifted and respected sax players to have come out of the north east. William John Nigel Stanger, otherwise known as Nigel was born in Newcastle in 1943. In the early sixties Nigel played sax on the Newcastle jazz circuit at clubs such as the New Orleans and Downbeat with the likes of Alan Price, Chas Chandler and John Steel. In September 1963, Nigel left Newcastle to study at Oxford University. He went on to play sax with Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, John Mayall and Georgie Fame. In the seventies and back in Newcastle, he played regularly with the Newcastle Big Band. Sadly, Nigel died of cancer in March 1999 aged just 56. Nigel is fondly remembered for his great solo work on both alto and tenor saxes. More information about Nigel can be found here.
A north east tenor sax player I’ve mentioned elsewhere on the site is Bernie Walsh. If it hadn’t been for Bernie who I saw performing with Paul Ryan and the Streaks back in the early sixties I may never have subsequently played in north east bands. After playing with the Streaks and touring with them on the ‘Geordie Sound Show’ in 1964/5, Bernie did a year’s stint with the resident band at the Mecca ballroom in Edinburgh. On his return to the north east in 1966 he played in the Gregg Burman soul band for a couple of years. In 1968 he joined Medium, the resident band at Ray Grehan’s Crescendo Club in Whitley Bay. This was followed by a period in a band called Brass Tax. After a break of around 3 years, Bernie joined the Ray Stubbs Allstars on tenor sax. Amongst other venues, the band did a regular Monday night spot at the Corner House in Heaton for about 8 years.
Publicity flier for the Ray Stubbs Allstars with Bernie on tenor sax
Neil Perry is well known in the north east, mainly for the 20 or more years he played tenor sax with the Junco Partners from the late seventies onwards. Prior to that Neil was with the Georgia Quintet, Quincy and the Jub Jub Click Band. Following a period of ill health Neil has resumed playing again and the last I heard he was working with the Proper Boys. Here’s a great video of Neil performing with the well known blues man – Eric Bibb.
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21st Jan 2011 – ALNWICK REVISITED
Last November I was given the opportunity to play at charity gig in Alnwick with a couple of my old band mates. Driving up the Great North Road through Northumberland to the gig brought back memories of the many journeys I’d made up the A1 to venues in the Alnwick area forty or so years earlier; venues such as Haggerston Castle, Alnwick Teachers Training College, the Dolphin and Viking at Seahouses and many more.
No doubt lots of other bands from the Newcastle area played at those same venues and regularly travelled up and down the A1. At the same time, bands from rural Northumberland would have been travelling south to their own gigs in Newcastle, Whitley Bay, Sunderland and South Shields. One such band was the Plimsoll Lyne, a five piece outfit from Alnwick. The five band members; Rod Foggon (vocals), Jimmy Lillico (guitar), Barry Bilclough (organ), Ronnie Wintrip (Bass) and Dave Angus (drums) initially did most of their gigs at youth clubs in and around Alnwick.
The Plimsoll Lyne in 1967 – left to right: Jimmy Lillico, Barry BilClough, Dave Angus, Ronnie Wintrip and Rod Foggon
After building up a solid repertoire and a following in the Alnwick area they signed up with the Newcastle based Ivan Birchall Agency. The Plimsoll Lyne then started playing at venues in the Newcastle area and became a firm favourite across the north east club and night club scene. The band was active between 1966 and 1968 and played their last gig as Plimsoll Lyne in December 1968 for the Alnwick Teachers Training College in the Guest Hall of Alnwick Castle. What a way to bow out – performing in front of 300 female students! Before that final gig, the band had played at Alnwick Castle supporting Jimmy Powell and the Five Dimensions which featured a young Rod Stewart on backing vocals and harmonica.
After leaving the Plimsoll Lyne, Rod Foggon sang in a Morpeth band called Peter’s People for a couple of months before joining Sneeze in the spring of 1969. Rod and I played together in Sneeze for a couple of years until 1971 which is probably the last time I saw him until quite recently. I didn’t know the Plimsoll Lyne back in the sixties nor did I ever see them perform back then. I guess we must have passed each other on the A1 many times on the way to our respective gigs.
I had the pleasure of meeting most of the original band members and playing alongside them at the Alnwick Gate pub in November 2010. I was invited to play baritone sax in the Jimmy Lillico Charity Band by my old band mate, trumpeter Jimmy Hall.
Me, Rod Foggon and Jimmy Hall with Sneeze in 1970
Spot the difference! The three of us forty years later in 2010
The band was playing at a charity gig in aid of a young cancer patient. The band members were Rod, Jimmy Lillico, Barry Bilclough and Dave Angus from the original Plimsoll Lyne plus bassist Billy Hopkinson and keyboard player Richie Newbiggin. For the second set they were augmented by a brass section; Jimmy Hall on trumpet, his brother John on tenor sax plus myself on baritone sax. Alnwick is about 350 miles north of where I now live but the evening at the Alnwick Gate was well worth the long journey. I got to play with some great musicians who I’d never played with before plus two (Rod and Jimmy Hall) who I’d last performed with in the early seventies. It was great to play some of the old sixties soul songs as part of a three piece brass section.
Here’s a Youtube video of one of the songs we played at the gig.
The guys have promised me that they’ll invite me back for their next charity gig so I’m really looking forward to my next trip up the Great North Road to Alnwick.
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5th Dec 2010 – UNDER THE INFLUENCE
A while ago I received an email from Arthur Renwick, a north east guitarist who played in local bands in the late fifties and early sixties. Arthur reminded me that there was a very active music scene in the north east prior to the Beatles era and wondered why there was nothing on Ready Steady Gone about it.
Arthur (far right) with the Talismen in 1959
The answer is really simple – this site is about my own experiences of the north east music scene which started around 1965. My knowledge of anything prior to that is very limited. Arthur has kindly filled me in regarding some of the groups and venues he knew from the fifties and sixties. More about Arthur’s band days below.
While I was thinking about music in the late fifties, I started to wonder what or who back then influenced young people to start playing guitar or bass. It must have been a lot different to the time when I started to play music around 1963. By then the Beatles had left their mark and had been the inspiration for many people to go out and buy a guitar, bass or drum set. Those who persevered with their choice of instrument and had achieved a reasonable standard by the mid sixties had probably forgotten about the fab four and were emulating other great musicians. By that time there were lots of excellent bands in the charts and playing live music at clubs and concerts all over the country. So why choose to play the guitar in 1958 or 1959? Budding musicians from the previous generation had grown up in the big band era and were more likely to have taken up the saxophone or trumpet.
At the time Arthur started to play in bands, the UK charts were dominated by American artists; mainly solo performers or vocal groups Rock and roll had emerged a couple of years earlier with Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and UK acts like Tommy Steel, Marty Wilde and Cliff Richards started to appear in the charts from 1958 onwards. There were also some skiffle and jazz groups in the top twenty but still there weren’t that many iconic guitarists around to influence people.
US instrumental acts like Duane Eddy, Johnny and the Hurricanes and the Ventures had been appearing regularly in the UK charts. In fact, it was Duane Eddy and the Ventures that were the influences for Arthur’s guitar playing. 
However, it wasn’t until the summer of 1960, when Cliff Richards’ backing group the Shadows hit the charts with “Apache”, that thousands of teenagers decided they wanted to take up the guitar and become the next Hank Marvin. At around the same time, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates hit the UK charts with “Shakin’ All Over” and showed the world what could be done with a catchy guitar riff. Johnny Kidd and the Pirates were the first English rock band with a vocal/guitar line-up to achieve a number one hit in the UK. ‘Shakin’ All Over’ has been covered by numerous performers over the years and is still played by bands all over the world.
Things started to change over the next few years. After the Beatles first release in October 1962, more and more UK bands started to appear in the top twenty and by the mid to late sixties charts hits by UK artists outnumbered those from the US. Here’s a comparison of UK and US top twenty hits from 1959 to 1967: -
UK and US top 20 hits
So from about the mid sixties onwards there has been no shortage of great bands and musicians to influence young people wanting to play music. Anyway, back to Arthur; in his own words, here’s his recollections of the north east music scene in the late fifties and early sixties: –
“I started to play guitar in local groups in the late fifties in Wallsend, my home town. There are two photos of me on Vintage Sixties Live: one in the Talismen the other in the Scimitars with the New Vikings. This photo was taken in a rock competition held in the North Eastern Marine Social Club. We came second and the Vikings came first. There were about fifty groups that took part and later that month there was an even bigger competition held in the Roxy in Blyth. The Sixteen Strings won that one. They were a Shadows type of group. The Scimitars were a six piece group with tenor sax. We played Johnny and the Hurricanes type material plus rock and roll. We used to open with the “William Tell Overture” but I guess people liked the Shadows.
“Anyway getting back to the very early sixties; the main groups of that time were the Gamblers and the Delemeres who I thought were great. The Gamblers had a tenor sax and played the stuff I liked. The guitarist was Jimmy Crawford, the sax was Ken Brady and the bass player was Blackie Samuel. They went on to back Billy Fury in 1964. The next great group was the Delemeres who went to work full time in the Liverpool Majestic in 1961. Need I say any more – yes, they worked with the Beatles lots of times. The bass player Dave McGiven is one of my good friends and he tells some great stories about that period.
The Gamblers
The Delemeres in 1962
“One of the really early groups that I got to see was Johnny and the Cadillacs about 1959. I saw them at the MEM in Wallsend, a popular venue back then. They were another great group; the lead guitarist was called Pussy Muse who later played guitar for Screaming Lord Sutch. The drummer was called Keith Robinson who had a drum shop on Newgate Street, Newcastle. “On a Saturday night around 1960 me and my group of mates would go to the Hotspur dance hall in Whitley Bay to watch The Wildcats, another top north east group. The star was Hilton Valentine, a really good guitar player even then and a really nice lad to know. His step brother, Harry Dixon played bass, Tappy Wright played rhythm and Ronnie Stephenson played drums. They had the coastal area all stitched up. I know that there are people out there who will say that local groups from Durham were better but these groups were at the top. I knew lots of great individual guitarists, bass players drummers.”
Thanks very much to Arthur for his memories. If you were around in the early sixties and want a reminder of some of the other bands that were playing at that time, it’s well worth visiting Vintage Sixties Live.
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7th Oct 2010 – ONE FOR THE ROAD(IES)
I finally got around to reading ‘Rock Roadie’ by Tappy Wright (see my blog dated 6 September 2009 in ‘Older blogs’).
There’s some interesting ‘insider’ stuff in there about the music scene from the early days of the Animals in the sixties through to the death of Hendrix in 1970. This takes up about 33% of the book. It’s a pity you have to wade through a lot of padding consisting mainly of badly written porn about groupies in order to get to the interesting bits.
Anyway, while I was reading the book I got thinking about the dozen or so ‘roadies’ who were around when I played in north east bands in the sixties and seventies. Each had his own ideas about what duties a roadie should perform so it’s not surprising that they all did their own thing, which was considerably different to the expectations of the band. Here’s a wish list of the things you would have wanted a roadie to do back then: –
- Load up the band’s van
- Pick up the band members in the van
- Drive the band and gear to a gig
- Unload the van, carry the gear into the venue and set it up
- During the performance; make sure that the band had a continuous supply of drinks. (There was no off stage mixer in those days so you wouldn’t expect a roadie to do any sound engineering during a performance)
- For the band members who didn’t have a WAG, chat up groupies on their behalf for later.
- After the performance – take down the gear, pack it in the van and then drive the band, retinue, equipment and any newly acquired groupies home.
Most important of all – you wouldn’t expect to pay a roadie because being part of a band should have been payment enough. In any case there were lots of other people queuing up to do the job for nothing.
It’s because these ‘roadies’ never got paid that they went their own way, probably doing no more than a couple of items from the above list.
The first roadie I knew was a guy called Colin Hart from South Shields. 
He joined the Jazzboard in 1967, primarily to drive the band’s old ambulance to and from gigs. At the time he had a full-time job for South Shields Council. Colin quickly became a part of the band and did his share of humping equipment. He was also good at rounding up groupies. Unfortunately for the rest of the band, he kept most of them for himself.
Colin’s grounding with the Jazzboard gave him a taste for life on the road. Years later he became the tour manager for Deep Purple and Ritchie Blackmore. A while ago Colin contacted me and gave me the low down on his career.
“I moved on after The Jazzboard to work for Toby Twirl for a couple of years, working out of the Bailey Organization at the Latino in Shields. From there I got a gig with Vanity Fare, then Matthews Southern Comfort, which took me to the USA for my first tour, with MSC, Deep Purple and Rod Stewart and the Faces. What a tour that was! Anyway, by the end of the tour I was offered a job with Purple, which I took. Made my way up to tour manager for them and then left with Ritchie to do all the Rainbow years with him, then back to Deep Purple as Tour Manager until I left in 2001. Then I worked for Living Loud for their album etc. and worked for a theatre called Legends in Concert in Hollywood, Florida for a year before returning to Orlando again, which is where I currently live. In between, I worked for Elf and Tucky Buzzard and a few other bits and pieces, including a couple of weeks looking after Barbie Benton in Hollywood, California. Anyway, settled again here in Orlando and now work for Greg Rike Productions, which includes the Living Legends website and our audio/video studios.”
A year after the Jazzboard broke up I was in a band called the Village whose means of transport was also an old ambulance driven by a roadie called Ossie. Other than driving the ambulance I can’t remember him doing much else.
The Village’s old diesel ambulance
Ossie’s speciality was falling asleep at the wheel on the way home from a gig so we all had to take it in turns to try and keep him awake. The Village later recruited another roadie called Arthur Riddleston, affectionately known as ‘Twiz’ because of his resemblance to a TV puppet called Twizzle. Twiz talked his way into the Village on the basis that he had previously roadied for a few other Newcastle and Gateshead bands. He couldn’t drive and knew nothing about amplification or drums but, according to him, his lack of knowledge of all things musical was compensated by the fact that he was the best ‘humper’ in the business.
He also had the hardest head in the business. The Quay Club in Newcastle had a steep staircase with a low ceiling leading to a cellar room where the bands performed. It also had big sign saying “MIND YOUR HEAD”. Every time (and I mean every time) Twiz took our equipment down the stairs, his head came into contact with the ceiling leaving a bloodied imprint of a forehead and an effective warning to others about the folly of ignoring the sign.
When the Village broke up, myself and some of the band members formed a new band called Sneeze. Twiz followed us. Another roadie called Derek Scott (pictured) also joined Sneeze. Derek, otherwise known as Dek or Custer (because he looked like a Hollywood type image of General Custer) couldn’t drive but at least he knew a little bit about wiring up a PA system. So between them, Dek and Twiz could fulfil about three items from the wish list – enough to justify their places in the band but not enough to warrant them getting paid for their services. Dek also knew more raucous songs than any man alive including all twenty odd verses of the Wild West Show, which he insisted on singing on the way home from gigs when the rest of us just wanted to sleep.
The role of the roadie has changed over the decades and now, even in local bands unless there is a dedicated sound engineer, a roadie is expected to know how to set up a PA to get the best out of a venue and be able to mix the sound so that the band sounds perfect. Back in the sixties being a roadie in a local band required no particular talent. If you couldn’t play an instrument it was as near as you could get to being a band member. Roadies in local bands who did have ambition and talent, people like Tappy Wright and Colin Hart, found their own level and often ended up in top named bands.
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26th July 2010 – OLD FRIENDS & SUNNY DAYS
It’s always good to hear from north east musicians who were active during the sixties and seventies, in particular those I played with in bands or shared the stage with back then. Since my last blog on the subject (20th February 2010), some more musos have stumbled across this site and have taken the trouble to contact me – Eddie “Poobah” Martin, Pierre Pedersen and Peter Bell.
In the mid to late sixties, Mr Poobah’s Chicago Line was a well know and popular soul band on the north east gig circuit. A few months ago their singer/guitarist, a guy I knew back then as “Eddie Poobah” got in touch and sent me some photos of the band at the Rex Hotel, Whitley Bay plus some newspaper cuttings (the photos and cuttings can be seen on the Rex Hotel and Mayfair pages and in the blog dated 24th May 2010 in ‘Older blogs’). At the end of the sixties Eddie (whose actual surname is Martin) went on to front the renowned Newcastle band – the Sect. Eddie is still working as a musician both in the UK and abroad. He now sings as part of a duo as well as playing sax and guitar.
Another north east musician from the sixties still gigging is keyboard player Pierre Pedersen. I played alongside Pierre in the Newcastle band Sneeze in 1969 and 1970. After Sneeze, he worked with Keith Fisher, Tom Hill and Bob Barton in another north east band called Blondie. Pierre now lives in the south east of England where he plays keyboards in a couple of local bands. What I remember most about Pierre, apart from his great sense of humour, was the size of his equipment; a full sized Hammond organ plus a massive Leslie cabinet. Getting that stuff into venues with a staircase wasn’t easy and it was even worse getting it out at the end of a gig after a night of drinking. Pierre tells me that he still has a Hammond and Leslie but technology has advanced and the kit now comes in easily assembled pieces which can be conveniently transported.
Pierre in one of his current bands
A couple of weeks ago I heard from Peter Bell, a vocalist who I played alongside in two bands in the sixties – James South in 1967 and the Village in1968. Before that Peter was in a couple of bands from the Stanley area – Morning Glory and the Short Blues Line. The last time I saw Peter was in 1973 just before I moved away from the north east so it was really good to hear from him. He was a versatile singer with a good range who was great at covering blues, soul and Motown material. Peter no longer sings in bands but now he has found out that some of his wrinkly old ex-band mates are still at it, he is reconsidering his options.
It’s not just musicians that have been in touch. A while ago I was surprised to receive an email from the lovely leggy Ronnie pictured on the right. I first met Ronnie in the summer of 1967 while I was playing regular weekend gigs with the Jazzboard at the New Cellar Club in South Shields. Not only was she very attractive but in the darkened corners of the Cellar club after a few drinks she looked just like the sixties supermodel, Twiggy.
There’s this premise that when you try to recall events from decades earlier, you only remember the things that took place on sunny days. This is definitely true in the case of Ronnie. I don’t recall much about the time we were together at the Cellar Club but I do remember one Sunday in the long hot summer of 1967 when I took Ronnie to a beauty spot near Durham City on my scooter. It was a perfect July afternoon – lots of warm sunshine and clear blue skies in the company of a very pretty, interesting eighteen year old girl. I suppose there was the anticipation (on my part at least) that we’d be spending more of the summer together. But it didn’t happen. After that day we never saw each other again. A few days later I went to Salcombe in Devon with our keyboard player to stay with a couple of girls he knew down there. When we got back, Jazzboard was in the process of splitting up and the Cellar gigs were coming to an end. Our guitarist, who was a regular at the club told me that Ronnie had moved on and had started going out with someone he knew so I didn’t bother trying to get in touch.
So forty plus years later I’m left with some nice memories of Ronnie; a beautiful shared summer’s day at Finchdale Priory, a very short relationship without any nasty bits to spoil the memory and recollections of a mild infatuation. Plus, of course, I’ve still got the picture of Ronnie at the Cellar Club looking a bit like Twiggy. Not long back Ronnie googled “Club a’Gogo” and found my website. I got an email from her mentioning that she, too, remembers that “lovely sunny Sunday afternoon”. The thing is that the place she recollects visiting is forty miles from where I actually took her. I guess it’s probably some other guy, and some other date that she remembers! Oh well – at least she remembers the sunshine.
The good thing is that we are in touch again and are “talking” via email and Facebook. And she still looks a lot like Twiggy.
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27th June 2010 – ALL MOD CONS
For the past 6 years I’ve been playing saxophone and keys in a mod themed tribute band called Carnaby Street. Unlike the two people who formed the band, I’m not in Carnaby Street because of any affinity to mod culture or because I’m a great fan of mod music. I started playing with them purely because it gave me the opportunity to play sax in live bands again after a long break. That’s not to say that I don’t have some credentials. I did play in a band called the Jazzboard towards the end of the sixties mod period. And the Jazzboard were the opening act for some of the top mod bands of the day – the Who, the Small Faces and the Action.
Carnaby Street performs mainly at pubs, scooter rallies and mod events to predominantly forty-somethings – people who were part of the mod revival period of the late seventies and eighties. Most of the punters enjoy our covers of Jam, Specials, Madness songs from that period. However, the songs from the original mod era that Carnaby Street play are way out of line with the music I remember liking in the mod period of the sixties. No self respecting mod back then would have listened to some of the material we play. Only a few sixties songs in the band’s repertoire by the Small Faces and the Who come anywhere near the mark. It’s a good job that there aren’t too many original mods in our audiences.
Mod tribute band – Carnaby Street
I suppose that people who were mods in the late seventies and eighties would be in their pre-teens during the mod period of the sixties and their vision of the original mods would likely be based upon books, magazine articles and the film Quadrophenia. I’ve read quite a few books and articles myself about the mod movement. Most of these portray the original mod era as an age of fashion and music lasting from the late fifties to the late sixties. A time where all mods cruised around on either a Lambretta or Vespa and listened to music by the Who, Kinks or the Small Faces whilst popping pills. My memory of the sixties mod thing in the north east is considerably different to anything I’ve read in recent times. This is how I remember things: –
It all started for me in the summer of 1963 when I was still at school in Sunderland and I went to visit my cousin Linda in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire – about 30 miles from central London. Linda and her two friends, Maureen and Mauveen were “mods”. They were surprised that I’d never heard the word before and that I didn’t know of any mods in the north east. They spent the next few weeks educating me. This mainly consisted of dragging me around coffee bars, clothes and shoe shops. There weren’t any shops dedicated to mod fashion. Linda and her friends just mixed and matched clothes and accessories to get the effect they wanted.
Mod girls – Maureen, Linda and Mauveen in 1963
As far as I remember they weren’t into any particular type of music. They had just started watching a new TV programme called Ready Steady Go featuring mod music but to them, mod culture was purely about fashion. I went to a few dances with them and they taught me the latest mod dance – the Shake. They talked non-stop about mod things and I felt sure that when I returned to Sunderland, after the school holidays, mods would have taken hold in the north east. I was wrong. There was something missing in the north east which gave young people in the south a head start – Ready Steady Go. It was another year or so before Ready Steady Go was broadcast nationwide and by that time the mod movement had become front page news in the national press. It was nothing to do with fashion or music; just the bank holiday battles between mods and rockers at south coast seaside resorts. The newspaper coverage painted both the mods and rockers as vicious hoodlums whose only interests were violence and their means of transport – scooters and motor bikes, respectively. This was the first I had heard of the association between mods and scooters. Linda and her friends had not mentioned it and, anyway, I’d been riding pillion on my dad’s Lambretta since I was ten so I doubt that part of mod culture would have impressed me.
By the end of 1964 and beginning of 1965 the mod “brand” had become very commercialised. High street clothing shops like Burtons were selling jackets, slacks, suits and shirts that were advertised as and could pass as mod gear. Even my little sister’s Sindy doll had a mod boyfriend called Paul, complete with blue mohair suit, a high collared shirt, knitted tie and Chelsea boots. Any new fashion fad was invariably described and advertised as being mod. By the time I joined the Sunderland based band, Jazzboard towards the end of 1965 the label “mod” was not being used any more. It had been done to death and was dropped from the vocabulary of young trendy people. Even when the Who and Small Faces started to chart in 1966, the word mod was not universally applied to these bands or their music – at least, not back then.
Sunderland band – the Jazzboard in 1966
A certain look had become the norm for people who wanted to be fashionable. Local north east bands like the Sect, Elcort and Mr Poobahs Chicago Line all wore the latest styles, as did bands who appeared on the national club circuit, such as the Action, Shevelles, Eyes and Dawnbreakers. In the autumn of 1965, the guys in the Jazzboard wore either white jeans or hipster trousers; desert boots or Hush Puppies and coloured button down shirts with a tie. Hair was worn short, often with a centre parting. Some of the people that followed the Jazzboard had scooters and hung out at the Biz Bar, the “in-crowd” coffee bar in Park Lane, Sunderland. Drugs like purple hearts or Dexedrine were available if you wanted them. By 1966 the mod movement was definitely on the way out in the north east. The TV programme – Ready Steady Go went with it. The decline probably happened a good few months before that in the London area and the south. The following year gave way to the rise of hippies and flower power and by 1968 the mod era was a distant memory.
Me on my Lambretta in 1966
Some of the Newcastle scooter crowd in 1968
The part of the mod movement that did linger on was the use of scooters. I bought a Lambretta as a means of transport in 1966 and kept it until 1970. Even three or four years after scooters were considered a must “mod” accessory, it was the done thing that if you had a scooter you added a crash bar, a few extra mirrors and spotlights – perhaps a union jack or two. When I first met my wife in 1968 she was part of a ‘scooter crowd’. That’s what they called themselves – not mods.
So being a north east mod for a few years in the sixties may not have been exactly like Quadrophenia but if you are old enough to have been part of it, you should have some great memories.
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12th May 2010 – FOR THE RECORD
Back in the early to mid sixties, the opportunities for a north east band to become known on a national level were quite limited. The usual route for a band to break into the big time was to build up a following in the north east’s clubs, pubs, ballrooms and colleges and then head off to London with a bit of a reputation and a good manager.
A Mortonsound record – the Kon Tors, an early version of the Animals
But what if you wanted to test the water first? That’s easy – you could send a recording of your band to the London record companies and impresarios, couldn’t you? Well, it wasn’t quite as easy as that in the mid sixties. For a start, there weren’t that many studios around. As for DIY jobs; the only affordable recording devices back then were unsophisticated reel-to-reel tape recorders with cheap and nasty microphones. In the mid sixties Mortonsound in Newcastle was the place that most north east bands went to make a record. There was no fancy multitracking and normally the recording would be done in one take. You were at the mercy of the sound engineer – a guy in a white laboratory coat who, at the time, seemed at least a generation older than the band.
Discs produced at Mortonsound
So you’ve scraped a little bit of money together, bought some time at Mortonsound and have ended up with as many vinyl coated aluminium disks as you could afford. Each of the band members, the manager and the roadie want a copy for posterity so there are no disks left to promote the band. And you can’t even copy the recording and send off tape cassettes to London because cassettes weren’t available in the mid sixties. Oh well, back to the north east pubs and clubs for the time being.
Later on in the sixties a few more north east studios started to appear giving bands a bit more choice about where to record their masterpieces. There was Dave Wood’s Impulse Studio at Wallsend, Torino Sound in Sunderland (which relocated to Newcastle in 1969) and Multichord in Sunderland. Compared with Mortonsound, these newer studios were a bit more user friendly and the owners were more approachable. You could even book rehearsal time at some of them. For some reason, the disks that you ended up with were usually a bit disappointing and weren’t comparable to commercially produced records. They sounded a bit like your band without the bass! People like Dave Wood knew what they were doing and had good recording equipment so I guess the weakness was the way the recording was transferred to disk or the disk media itself. Or perhaps ‘Mastering’ had not been invented in the sixties.
The Langfords – sleeve for a recording produced at Mickey Meade’s Sunderland studio, Torino Sound in 1969
Fast forward three or four decades to today’s technology. Now with a laptop computer, audio software such as Cubase, Cakewalk or Ableton Live, an inexpensive audio interface, some decent microphones and a bit of know-how, a band or vocalist can knock out CDs with almost the same audio quality as a commercial CD.
About a year ago I came into contact with Dave Snowdon, the guitarist from one of my early bands – the Conrads from Sunderland. We hadn’t seen each other for about forty years and by coincidence we had both moved away from the north east in the early seventies. Unbeknown to us, we had lived only an hour way from each other for quite a long time. We have been corresponding by email ever since and occasionally meet up. A few months ago, for old times sake we decided to do a recording of an old sixties song. Dave recorded his vocal, guitar and bass parts at his home in Gloucestershire and sent me the tracks by email. I recorded my sax and keyboard parts at my home on separate tracks which I sent back to Dave. Dave mixed and produced the final track using Cubase. We then got together to record a video for Youtube, which we have dedicated to a couple of the Conrads guys who have passed away.
The wonders of technology! Back in the sixties you would never have believed it would be possible for unknown musicians to produce a recording with such ease and then make it available worldwide. And the quality of today’s digital DIY recordings (but not necessarily the content) is as good, if not better than the recordings made in local studios in the sixties. Just to prove the point, here’s a recording of Dave’s band the ‘Upnorth Combine’ made at Mortonsound in 1965.
Incidentally, Dave is trying to locate his former Upnorth Combine band mates so if anyone knows of their whereabouts please contact me.
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21st April 2010 – IVAN BIRCHALL R.I.P.
A few weeks ago I had the idea of including a page on Ready Steady Gone about non-musicians who were part of the sixties north east music scene; managers, promoters, agents, studio owners etc. While I was doing some research on the internet regarding these people I found out that one of the top Newcastle booking agents of the late sixties and early seventies died last year. The agent in question was Ivan Birchall who ran the Birchall Entertainment Agency.
Anyone who was in a band at that time would have either known or heard of Ivan. He had most of the top local Tyneside and Wearside bands of that period on his books and also the best local venues.
Contract used by the Birchall Agency in the 60’s
Ivan Edwin Birchall was born on 5 May 1943 near Wigan. He grew up in the north west and on leaving school went to work for Pilkington Brothers the glass manufacturers in St Helens. He became involved in the entertainments industry when he went to work for the Rank Organisation in Scotland. He subsequently moved to Newcastle where he was the manager of the Majestic Ballroom. He worked with the booking agent Jack Wright in Newcastle for a while and then around 1967 started his own business, the Birchall Entertainments Agency. Ivan’s agency in the late sixties and early seventies was situated in a small office suite in Newcastle’s Cloth Market. Ivan ran the business personally with the aid of a secretary/girl Friday called Susan. (Susan was subsequently replaced by Janice in 1970). Ivan provided lots of gigs for popular bands on his books (the ‘A’ list) such as the Sect, the Elcort, Pleasure Machine and Mr Poobah’s Chicago Line at places like the Mayfair and the Rex Hotel at Whitley Bay. He also had plenty of work for up and coming bands (the ‘B’ list) that still had to make a name. He used his top bands as a bargaining tool to get venues to accept bands from the ‘B’ list. Apparently his A list bands paid a 15% commission whereas those on the B list paid a 10% commission.
Publicity photo for the Village bearing details of the Birchall Entertainmnet Agency
Ivan was an easy person to do business with and always gave the impression that he was doing the best he could for your band. In his later years Ivan became General Secretary of The Agents’ Association of Great Britain and also Treasurer of The European Federation of Performing Arts. He lived mainly in the Champagne area of France in the small city of Sezanne, which is about an hour’s drive east of Paris. Sadly, Ivan died in Newcastle on 21st June last year. He’ll be fondly remembered by the musicians from the sixties and seventies who know the contribution Ivan Birchall made to the north east music scene of that era.
So why has the subject of Jimi’s death been revived yet again? Quite simply because Jimi’s ex-roadie, James ‘Tappy’ Wright has published his autobiography in which he suggests that Jimi was, in fact, murdered by his manager, Mike Jeffery. Tappy Wright claims that Jeffery told him in 1973 that had been involved in the killing of Jimi Hendrix. The motive being that Jeffery stood to gain a lot of money if Jimi was dead. Jeffery, who was the owner of Newcastle’s Club a’GoGo, died in a plane crash a few weeks later, so unless anyone else confesses to being an accomplice in the murder, the truth of that fateful night is unlikely to ever emerge.
Raw Spirit at the Magnesia Bank, North Shields