ge family. As far as I am concerned he began the Rock
& Roll era in 1955, with the
Comets, his "outrageous" backing band. I know, I've
heard it all before - the Egyptians first played rock & roll, and the
Jurassic Dinosaurs before them - but they didn't make records, Bill Haley
did! Without Haley (and then Presley and Eddie Cochran) the AC/DCs and Black
Sabbaths of this world would have still been playing the music of Alma Cogan
and Max Bygraves, Haley's predecessors. At the time the frightened parents
all said "... it's just a fad, it won't last" ...really? Before the revolution,
"race" (or negro) music was not generally available and even afterwards we
had to go through a phase of Little Richard's Tutti Frutti
being charted
by the simpering Pat Boone, but the process had at least started! I think
the Blues owes a lot to Bill Haley. As for the music visit the
website and listen- the cost, £500 in the 60s would be about £10,000 today
- mechanical unreliability
- it weighs a ton (literally) and can take 4 people to lift up impossible narrow staircases at venues, good for developing your muscles
- to get the true sound you will need a Leslie Speaker, which contains mechanically revolving horns and woofers and weighs another ton!
It is, not surprisingly, true that the Hammond sound is still too gritty and
complex to be copied by a synthesizer although synths are, in the real
world, nearly as good and far more practical
It is undoubtedly Jimmy Smith who deserves the title of "greatest
player" of the instrument, but I personally think that Britisher Brian
Auger deserves a mention too.
Kohler, his Polish landlady who treated him like her own
wayward son. You would never know it to look at him but Malc's family were
successful entrepreneurs from the North East (and extremely rich) hence his comparatively luxurious
BMC J2 bus (a van with proper seats of which there were still not
enough) and brand new purple Ford Capri. I
played with Malc in the Perfumed Garden
& Acme during which he played guitar,
bass, drums, sitar, harmonium and any other wayward instrument he could lay
his hands on. I was reminded (by him) of the 8 foot long imitation
Rickenbacker he bought in Bournemouth which adorned the walls of his already
crowded bedsit. After later
forming Indian Summer and guiding them toward their
first album release he then went back to the north-east to take over Harker &
Sons, the family engineering company. The one thing for which I am truly
grateful to Malc is that he persuaded me that I ought to learn to play
saxophone, probably so that he could later recruit me for Danny & the Heart-Throbs.
After nearly 30 years I met Malc again when he and his current band, "We're Wolves of Stockton", helped put on a show for Barbara Hooper's 50th birthday party at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea on 17th November 2000. I am delighted to report that he is still eccentric, musically obsessed, and what he lacks in virtuosity is more than made up for by a unique showmanship and vitality which, to my mind, are worth infinitely more.
part of the scale
and not there by accident. To play
blues you suck most of the time which enables you
to "bend" the notes for that distinctive sound. Best for the blues, in my
opinion, are Hohner
Cross Harps or
Lee Oskar
diatonic harps. Given either, go to the second hole from the left and suck.
it. This is the root, or key that you will play in. For example, you play
a C harp in G, blues style. I know, it sounds complicated
but believe me, from then on it's completely natural ... and that's
far more tuition than I ever had in the first place!
"support acts" slot at the Newbiggin
Town Fayre in 1996. I remember Paul Hooper telling
me how, the first time he saw them, they had a chalked up blackboard with all of their
repertoire listed so as to facilitate requests. They are excellent musicians
who, like me, believe that good covers have far more artistic validity than
indifferent "own compositions". Their repertoire is
enormously varied, including their arrangements of songs by everybody from Ry
Cooder to Sam the Sham & the Pharoahs". I jammed with them on tenor sax for a reggae version
of Deep
Purple's "Smoke on the Water" and then Hendrix's "Voodoo
Chile", on their version of which my maraccas (yes maraccas)
fitted in perfectly. One of the best bands in the Universe, check them out
if you're ever in the north east and see them advertised. 
many other bands. One of the Throbettes in
Danny & the Hearthrobs. In 1989 Paul & I sat
in my house and worked out how to get a Kawai Q80 sequencer
to work, as a result of which the one-man-band was started.
A very good friend of mine who, over the years, has been a great help with
drum patterns and general inspiration. Paul now plays with the Fortunes and lives in
Newbiggin by the Sea,
Northumberland with Barbara, a geordie lass
tly drip insulin into yourself all day
long at precisely the dosages that your body needs. You can also "bolus"
dosages for corrections and meals whenever it suits you. To find out more
simply enter "insulin pump" into Google and read on ... and on.They're not easy to get in the UK but they are, believe me, worth the trouble.
I must confess that the idea of being permanently connected to an electronic gadget didn't appeal to me - but you get used to this as quickly as you did injecting insulin in the first place. In the year it took me to get one I never met a user with a bad thing to say about pumps - "it will give you back your life" they said and they were absolutely, 100%, right.
Please understand, they require an awful lot of work, but no more than with old-fashioned injections and, this time, with fantastic results.
Having got the device you do need 2 days training, for which I offer my sincere thanks to John Hughes - and to he and all at Warwick Diabetes clinic for the ongoing support and assistance. At the end of the day the NHS save on Casualty department use and the long term financial health savings far outweigh the initial cost - let's face it the Yanks and the Germans aren't always stupid!
"never try to break up a fight between husband and wife - they'll both finish up hitting you !"
... and another gem " there's never been a house built yet that's big enough for two women"
My dad went to school at Centaur Road (later renamed Hearsall) school then took an apprenticeship in thread-grinding with the newly formed Coventry Gauge & Tool Co. He worked his way up to Sales Manager very quickly and eventually retired in 1981. Something my wife could never understand was that me and my dad got on very well provided we didn't have to live under the same roof. My dad smoked, drank a little, and travelled the world in his job. He lost both of his legs through diabetes and died of a stroke in January 1988, in the Craven Arms, Earlsdon, Coventry - probably the first pub he ever drank in as a young man. He and I were out on a Friday night - artificial legs no problem - and we would have gone to Thailand the next week to meet his new "in-laws" (my wife's family). One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was ring up my wife and tell her he wasn't going to make it. Half of my father's ashes are at Canley Crematorium, the other half are lovingly tended at our house in Prakhanong, Thailand ... so he did make it after all.
- buy one
- join a band
- play it
- worry about the technicalities later
on hearing that immortal line
"hey man ...",
doesn't remember Rodney, a guy who lives and breathes "good sounds", and
good other things too. For his activities over the last 30 years or so Rodney
deserves a book, but that book could never be written on the grounds that
it might incriminate him, and a few hundred others in the process. Managed 3am, played congas in
Smackee and,
much more to the point, Kyham, a local jazz-rock oufit with Steve Tatham
on sax , Chris Jones on guitar and Jim Pryal on drums.
I never did get to see the band but they gigged in London at the Speakeasy,
the Greyhound and Ronnie Scotts -so they must have lived up to their reputation.
I know that one of Rodney's early influences was conga-player Speedy Aquaye,
who was with Georgie Fame's Blue Flames, and I can imagine
Rodney playing with this band with "hey-mans" and "yeahs" all over
the place. I would love to have seen and heard it
in his
bands would take a few pages, and include Mick Jagger, Cyril
Davies, Paul Jones, Graham Bond and many others. Checkout the
AMG Allmusic Guide
for full
details. I once had the pleasure of supporting Alexis
at the Leofric Jazz Club, to find one of the nicest,
most helpful people I have ever met in the music business. He seemed to have
a genuine interest in my band's music and was full of helpful suggestions.
He hosted a weekly Radio 1 show in the 80s, during which he would intrigue
you with the diversity of his musical taste. I sadly remember him concluding
his last show with the words "I have to go to hospital this week and don't
know whether I'll be back, but thank you for your support over the years
..." He died of cancer shortly afterwards and the memory of his last
words still brings tears to my eyes - he was that sort of bloke!
First performed in about 1991 when John and I were performing with the Travs
at the General Wolfe (Foleshill Rd, Coventry). The support band didn't show
up so we jammed an hour of blues numbers to tremendous audience response. We
have, over the years, threatened to take this show on the road but other
commitments have taken priority and we only managed a few spontaneous
"support" performances ... until 16th September 2000 when we
performed at a birthday party in a garden tent, for "Dolly",
a hip 80 year old. Following this I went out and got us a paid gig on 7th
October in another tent at the Malt Shovel
and we are now, finally, on the road. The music is raunchy blues with
excursions into J J Cale, Bob Dylan, Soul music and whatever else takes our
fancy.And guess what, the Last Fair Deal has a splendid website to which you are cordially invited
jazz
downstairs and blues/R&B in the upstairs room, where they would
have had trad jazz a decade before. On my first gig with the Weevils we were
support band for Long John Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie Men. We later supported
all sorts including a band called Bluesology (with Elton John on Hammond organ), the
Brian Auger Trinity and numerous
visiting Americans. We soon had our own top of the bill spot with people
supporting us. We would arrive from the night before's Marquee gig at about midday, set up the gear, go home
for sunday lunch, sleep the afternoon, play that night, get home late and
off to school the next morning. In the Leofric I spent a lot of time in the
modern jazz room and getting into the more avant garde styles of music.
I also had a great time upstairs - it was a superb, if badly paid, gig
This (table) has 4 legs - therefore it is a lion"
Ancient Chinese Wisdom, I was told by ex-employee and dear friend, Paul Taylor.
Over 20 odd years as business advisors Paul & I listened to hundreds of examples of "logic" generated by this principle. To hear some today, just switch on the news and listen to politicians
guitarist with the Sorrows in their
hayday then pretty unemployed until the 70s when he played with Zips and
the Dodgers. In 1978(ish) he recorded Selecter
and
the Specials in his converted batley garage at his council house in Broad
Street, Coventry. This was, of course, the start of the Coventry Ska boom
and Rog went on to make a big name for himself as a record producer with
the Specials, Selector, Bad Manners and many others. He now runs a studio
and works as agent for Roy Wood's Army, as well as any production bits &
pieces that come along
