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 BUDDY & THE BIG O COFFEE & QUIFFS MARTY WILDE
50s SYMPHONIES! INSIDE THE 2i’s CAFE, CLIFF & THE “I’VE NEVER LIKED
NEW ORCHESTRAL HIT ALBUMS BIRTH OF BRIT ROCK MY VOICE”

9 772054 357003

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
39
RONNIE

£5.99
TAGE

DAWSON
VIN
,VVXH
ROCK

ROCKABILLY’S
CULT HERO

THE D
UNTOYLOF
STORAGO
CHICK’N’
ROC L
ROL

THE FINAL STAND OF…

GENE
V I N COF A
E
ROCK
N
’N’RO
T
LL REBEL
THE BULLETS
STRAY CATS
THE DARK DAYS LIVE AT HEMSBY 2018
DODGE BROTHERS
 WELCOME...
Anthem Publishing
Piccadilly House,
London Road, Bath, BA1 6PL
+44 (0)1225 489984

vintagerock@anthem-publishing.com
www.vintagerockmag.com
www.facebook.com/vintagerockmag

EDITOR Michael Leonard Fitting for a man who had an anthem

mike.leonard@anthem-publishing.com called Race With The Devil, Gene Vincent
ART EDITOR Andrew McGregor
lived life at a breakneck speed of
andy.mcgregor@anthem-publishing.com
PRODUCTION EDITING Steve O’Brien
heady extremes. He nearly died in 1960 in
the UK, when he was in the Wiltshire car
ADVERTISING
crash that took the life of Eddie Cochran.
ADVERTISING MANAGER Adrian Major
adrian@majormediasales.com But Vincent survived. Clad in black leather
+44 (0) 1453 836257 and literally limping his way through the
AD PRODUCTION Craig Broadbridge
60s, he was the archetype of tough-nut
craig.broadbridge@anthem-publishing.com
survivor, a never-say-die rocker who would
ANTHEM PUBLISHING not be bowed… even when rock’n’roll
CHIEF EXECUTIVE Jon Bickley
jon.bickley@anthem-publishing.com
started to go out of fashion.
MANAGING DIRECTOR Simon Lewis
Vincent’s later days are the subject of this month’s
simon.lewis@anthem-publishing.com excellent Vintage Rock cover feature by Jack Watkins who,
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jenny Cook with the help of Vincent peer and disciple, Graham Fenton
jenny.cook@anthem-publishing.com
of Matchbox, looks at Vincent’s life in the UK and Europe
MARKETING MANAGER Gemma Bailey
gemma.bailey@anthem-publishing.com right up to his death. The advent of teen idols in the US
meant that Vincent made the UK his home — this
CONTRIBUTORS
Craig Brackenridge, Garth Cartwright, Bill Dahl, relentless rebel needed to find a rowdy port in the sanitised
Vince Eager, Randy Fox, Peter Herndon, John Howard, calm that had washed over the US rock’n’roll scene. In
Garry Letts, Douglas McPherson, Mike Stephens,
Jack Watkins, David West
many ways, the arrested development of the UK was to its
own advantage in this situation: still starved of regular
PRINTED BY
rock’n’roll visitors and true stars, the UK rolled out the
William Gibbons & Sons Ltd
+44 (0) 1902 730 011 welcome mat for Gene and he jumped right in. It all ended
sadly and tragically of course, after Vincent’s years of wild
DISTRIBUTED BY
Marketforce (UK) Ltd, living seemed to catch up with him after a fall. But for the
5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, time he was here – and the records he made before –
E14 5HU +44 (0) 20 378 79001
Vincent remains a true, tragic hero of rock’n’roll. Enjoy the
LICENSING feature, starting on page 20.
Regina Erak
+44 (0) 7753 811 622
Before bona fide stars like Gene had arrived in the UK,
regina.erak@googlemail.com there was only the homegrown rock scene to get truly close
to, and we also chart those days with two more fabulous
SUBSCRIPTIONS & BACK ISSUES
PLEASE CONTACT: features: the first about the 2i’s cafe in London in the
0844 856 0642* (UK) mid-50s, generally agreed to be the birthplace of UK
+44 (0)1371 853 609 (US)
email: shop@anthem-publishing.com rock’n’roll, and an overdue interview with Marty Wilde
web: anthem-publishing.com/vintage talking about his debut LP which was one of the first real
*Calls cost 7 pence per minute plus your
phone company’s access charge milestones in Brit rock.
All this plus a secret history of Chicago rock’n’roll, a
tribute to rockabilly ‘Blond Bomber’ Ronnie Dawson, a
look inside the new orchestral albums by Buddy Holly and
Roy Orbison and much more. Enjoy the issue!

The Professional
Publishers Association
Member

All content copyright Anthem Publishing Ltd 2018, all rights reserved.
While we make every effort to ensure that the factual content of Vintage
Rock magazine is correct, we cannot take any responsibility nor be held
accountable for any factual errors printed. Please make every effort to
Michael Leonard
check quoted prices and product specifications with manufacturers prior Editor
to purchase. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or resold without prior consent of Anthem Publishing Ltd.
Vintage Rock magazine recognises all copyrights contained within the
issue. Where possible, we acknowledge the copyright holder.
VINTAGE ROCK 3
9
 20 30

42

50 62
© John Beecher

4 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 CONTENTS
COVER STORY
GENE VINCENT ...................................................................... 2O
As rock’n’roll started to fade away in the US, Gene Vincent
turned to the UK. Matchbox’s Graham Fenton was there and here
remembers Gene’s triumphs… and ultimate tragedy

THE FEATURES
ROCKIN’ AT THE COFFEE BARS 30
70
........................................

When London got a shot of the new sounds of rock’n’roll, it was

in the coffee bars of W1. Skiffle king Chas McDevitt takes Vintage
Rock on a tour of the wild West End of the 50s
CLASSIC ALBUM: MARTY WILDE ...................................... 42
The one-time teenager in love reveals all about making his
Wilde About Marty debut: “British records had a special sound”
THE UNTOLD STORY OF CHICAGO ROCK’N’ROLL ........ 50
Forget the blues for just one minute: sweet home Chicago has its
own secret history of rock’n’roll, here unearthed in all its glory
BUDDY HOLLY 62
66
.......................................................................

Producer Nick Patrick guides Vintage Rock through the making

of the new orchestral Buddy album True Love Ways…
ROY ORBISON ....................................................................... 66
…and The Big O also gets strings on Unchained Melodies
THE ‘BLOND BOMBER’ RONNIE DAWSON .................... 70
The cult rockabilly hero remembered by his band and friends

THE REGULARS
ALL MAMA’S CHILDREN ....................................................... 6
The Stray Cats confirm a new album, Billy Fury disappears,
98 76 Elvis’ Comeback comes back, Vintage Rock readers form a
rock’n’roll cinema club and much more
ON THE RADAR .................................................................... 16
All aboard The Dodge Brothers’ locomotive of rockabilly!

84 SUBSCRIBE ............................................................................

Never miss a copy of Vintage Rock!

60

7" SINGLES & EP REVIEWS ............................................... 76

Explosive 45s from Al Dual, Les Razerbills, Crazy Cavan and more
LP REVIEWS .......................................................................... 78
Ray Sharpe, Ike & Tina Turner and Maxine Brown tear it up
CD REVIEWS ......................................................................... 80
Killer albums from JD McPherson, Lindsay Beaver and more
LIVE REVIEWS : HEMSBY #61 ........................................... 84
Vintage Rock looks back on a landmark live weekend
A LIFE IN ROCK’N’ROLL ..................................................... 92
Vince Eager is asked to act. Does he pass the audition?
SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE ................................................. 96
The Bullets’ Brett Waters reveals his ultimate rock playlist
CODA: CONNIE FRANCIS .................................................... 98
How the canny Connie Francis chose her hits
VINTAGE ROCK 5
9
 Martin Philbey/Redferns/Getty

9
6 VINTAGE ROCK

Stray Cats
Are Back
Brian Setzer and co are recording a new
album for 2019’s 40th anniversary
T
he Stray Cats are back on the
prowl. After reuniting in 2018
for a handful of reunion shows,
including a lauded headline spot at Viva Las
Vegas, the rockabilly trio will celebrate their
40th anniversary in 2019 with both a new
album and a full-sized tour.
“Forty years ago, us three teenagers
started a little band to play a musical style
that had long since passed and most folks
had never heard of,” Brian Setzer says in
a statement. “Forty years later, we stand
together and still get that same thrill and
exhilaration from the music. That feeling
is what makes the fireworks go off and the
sparks fly. It makes the world go around.”
Bandmates Setzer, bass player Lee Rocker
and drummer Slim Jim Phantom haven’t
released a studio record since 1993’s Original
Cool. The frontman’s own Brian Setzer
All Mama’s Children
Orchestra, whose Grammy-winning cover
of Louis Prima’s Jump, Jive An’ Wail became
a surprise hit in 1998, has made the biggest
impression of all their individual projects in
the interim.
But they are promising a return to classic
Cats style for the new record. “We have an
album’s worth of new songs that are classic
rockabilly while keeping the music and style
current and fresh, like always,” says Phantom.
“In other words… a Stray Cats album.”
English producer Peter Collins, who also
oversaw Setzer’s Jump, Jive An’ Wail, will
work with the band in Nashville. Vance
Powell, whose credits include everyone
from Wanda Jackson to The White Stripes
to Chris Stapleton, is engineering.
There are no confirmed dates as yet, but
they will surely include the UK given it is
here the band made their breakthrough.
VINTAGE ROCK 7
9
 Cineworld? Pah. Odeon?
Schmodeon… Nah, this pub in
Basingstoke’s where it’s at when
it comes to rock’n’roll cinema

THE EXCELLO
RECORDS
STORY
TREAT YOUR BOOKCASE

ROCK’N’ROLL Vintage Rock contributor

CINEMA CLUB
HAMPSHIRE ROCKERS GO TO THE MOVIES...
Randy Fox is well known for his
encyclopedic knowledge of 50s
and 60s rock’n’roll and R&B, and
for his new book he has charted
Hat off to Vintage Rock reader Tony West whose ‘Boozinstoke Rockin the history of Excello Records,
Fraternity’ organises plenty of events for rockers around their Hampshire of his own native Nashville.
neighbourhood. “We have had huge successes with a Pyjama Party, a party on Founded by Ernie Young, the Excello label (and its sister
the Thames, an annual Midwinter Beach Party, and a rockabilly car club drive-in Nashboro imprint) became famous for releasing the
movie … as well as a monthly free entry rockabilly party night.” The latest is a tracks of Slim Harpo, Arthur Gunter, Lightnin’ Slim,
cinema club at the Royal Oak pub in Basingstoke. “The idea of booking out a Lazy Lester, and a host of others. By the early 1960s,
cinema screen and filling it with only those from the area’s rockin’ scene… no Excello recordings were reaching the shores of the UK,
public and no supervision? Well, it seemed like a great idea!” where they inspired young Brits such as Mick Jagger,
And it was, as people came from as far as Swindon, Salisbury and Keith Richards and Eric Clapton to launch their own
Bournemouth to gather. The film was 1979’s cult classic The Wanderers. R&B combos.
“For most of us, we had only ever seen this at a mate’s house on VHS from Through extensive research and interviews, Shake
Blockbuster,” says Tony. “But the best thing of all there was no public to shush Your Hips: The Excello Records Story chronicles the tale
the singalongs, or complain about the inevitable aerial popcorn bombardment, of one of the most unusual labels to emerge from the
regressive juvenile behaviour or the cheering at the favourite scenes – this was 1950s, and sheds new light on Nashville’s rich history
cinema at a fun level!” as much more than a country music city. It’s out now as
Want to join in? Find the ‘Boozinstoke Rockin Fraternity’ group on Facebook. part of BMG Books’ new RPM series.

BILLY FURIOUS!
MURAL OF BRIT ROCK’N’ROLL LEGEND HAS GONE
Sad news we weren’t actually aware of until now: but the Billy Fury mural on Billy
Fury Way in West Hampstead has gone. Faithful Vintage Rock reader Andre Hobus
Jim Linwood

of Brussels, on a recent “pilgrimage” to the rock’n’roll hotspots of London writes:

“I couldn’t find it… I knew there was a mural somewhere. I reached the fire station
[which is some walk! – Ed], and asked the firemen who were idling around their big
trucks. Finally, one of the lads asked his superior who knew who Billy Fury was –
hurrah! – and where it [the painting] was supposedly located. I walked back, found
the wild alley named the Billy Fury Way, parallel to the tracks. But no portrait... the
wall was covered with plain paint. You can still see white traces of the former
portrait. Two very young local graphers [graffiti painters] were at work but, of Following a poll the path was
named after Billy Fury in 2010
course, never noticed the portrait when in existence.”

8 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 presents

In the
Tour
FEBRUARY
Fri 1st WALSALL Forest Arts Centre 0300 555 2898 forestartscentre.co.uk
Sat 2nd GAINSBOROUGH Trinity Arts Centre 01427 676 655 trinityarts.co.uk
Sun 3rd LOUGHBOROUGH Town Hall 01509 231 914 loughboroughtownhall.co.uk
Wed 6th AYR The Gaiety 01292 288 235 thegaiety.co.uk
Thu 7th FALKIRK Town Hall 01324 506 850 falkirkcommunitytrust.org
Fri 8th PEEBLES Eastgate Theatre 01721 725 777 eastgatearts.com
Sat 9th MOTHERWELL Theatre 01698 403 120 culturenl.co.uk
Sun 10th GLASGOW Eastwood Park 0141 577 4956 eastwoodparktheatre.co.uk
Tue 12th SOUTHEND The Cliffs Pavilion 01702 351 135 thecliffspavilion.co.uk
Wed 13th HAYES Beck Theatre 020 8561 8371 becktheatre.org.uk
Thu 14th BURY ST EDMUNDS Theatre Royal 01284 769 505 theatreroyal.org
Fri 15th BISHOP’S STORTFORD 01279 710 200 rhodesartscomplex.co.uk
Rhodes Arts Complex
Sat 16th CHELMSFORD Civic 01245 606 505 chelmsford.gov.uk/theatres
Sun 17th DERBY Guildhall Theatre 01332 255 800 derbylive.co.uk
Wed 20th YEOVIL Octagon Theatre 01935 422 884 octagon-theatre.co.uk
Thu 21st EXMOUTH Pavilion 01395 222 477 ledleisure.co.uk/exmouth-pavilion
Fri 22nd FROME Memorial Theatre 01373 462 795 fmt.website
Sat 23rd ROTHERHAM Civic Theatre 01709 823 621 rotherhamtheatres.co.uk
Sun 24th STAFFORD Gatehouse Theatre 01785 619 080 staffordgatehousetheatre.co.uk
Wed 27th ST ALBANS Arena 01727 844 488 alban-arena.co.uk
Thu 28th EDMONTON Millfield Theatre 020 8807 6680 millfieldtheatre.co.uk

MARCH
Fri 1st CHIPPING NORTON Theatre 01608 642 350 chippingnortontheatre.com
Sat 2nd CANARY WHARF Boisdales 020 7715 5818 boisdale.co.uk
Sun 3rd WINDSOR Theatre Royal 01753 853 888 theatreroyalwindsor.co.uk

1959-2019

simonfielder.com
ENDORSED BY THE BRITISH BUDDY HOLLY SOCIETY AND THE OFFICIAL BUDDY HOLLY AND THE CRICKETS FAN CLUB

CHRISTMAS BOXES
WHY NOT TREAT YOURSELF TO BIG RETRO BOXES FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON?
This is in no way surprising… but Elvis
Presley’s ’68 Comeback Special is being
reissued again for its 50th anniversary.
The new package is a seven-disc super-
deluxe edition box set, with all existing
audio and video on 5xCDs and 2xBlu-ray
discs. That means you get the original
album, both ‘sit-down’ and ‘stand-up’
performances, rehearsals and sessions
recorded with The Wrecking Crew in June
1968, including outtakes. The box set also
includes an 84-page book with the story told
10 VINTAGE ROCK
9
through interviews conducted for this year’s
HBO documentary The Searcher. Which
pretty much makes it the final word on all
things Elvis and 1968. Price is around £100
on Sony. The last issue of VR also makes the
perfect companion.
Also gift-worthy is a new Rolling Stones
boxset… even if it doesn’t feature The Stones
at all. For Confessin’ The Blues, the band have
handpicked the key tracks by the artists who
inspired them, so you get Muddy Waters’
Rollin’ Stone, Chuck Berry’s Little Queenie,
Photo courtesy of Getty/BMG Records/LDPublicity
Howlin’ Wolf’s Little Red Rooster and Bo
Diddley’s You Can’t Judge A Book By Its
Cover. The 42-tracker also features (among
others) Little Walter, John Lee Hooker,
Jimmy Reed and Buddy Guy. Confessin’ The
Blues is on 2xCD, 4x12" LP vinyl and also as
a 5x10" vinyl book pack (with art cards by
illustrator Christoph Mueller). The cover
artwork is by The Stones’ Ronnie Wood,
and 10% of net receipts go to Willie Dixon’s
Blues Heaven Foundation. This lavish vinyl
edition is circa £50.
 ELVIS’
LAST
YEARS K I N G’ S
OF SONG HELLO TO YE
NEW BOOK
GOES TRACK- B O ’ S G O O D B collectables
BY-TRACK ove m b e r sa le o f
THROUGH At Ju lien’s Auctions’ N e
Texan
rret, a super-rich collector,
g in g to M il to n V
THE KING’S belon e d - p hilanthropist and er.
tr a d e r-tu rn
OUTPUT FROM commodities o n ce a g a in proved the clinch to by
rock’n’roll D N A
1969-1977 ia n a H ay ri d e m ic rophone sung in
An original Louis ays went for $15,000 (£11k), while
“I was far too young ever to Elvis in his early d st stage-used Gretsch guitar
Bo Diddley’s la
went for $16,000.
know who Elvis Presley was
while he was alive,” admits
Matt Shepherd of BBC Radio
Cornwall. “I missed out on
the rock’n’roll explosion, the
movie years and the ’68
comeback. I even missed out
on the Aloha From Hawaii
show and all the mass
hysteria when Elvis died
more than 40 years ago.
Yet I have always been an
Elvis Presley fan. My brain is
like a 24-hour jukebox that
mostly consists of Elvis, Elvis
and yet more Elvis.” But now
the BBC DJ has put all his
enthusiasm into an Elvis
book, and it’s a bit different
7 UP FOR JOHN BARRY HISTORY
MAMMOTH NEW BIOGRAPHY CELEBRATES FILM COMPOSER’S BAND YEARS
as it concentrates on the
King’s post ’68 years. Elvis Did you know that The John Barry Seven were beaten only by The
Presley: Stories Behind The Shadows in sales for a British instrumental group of the 60s? John Barry
Songs Vol 1 is a track-by- biographers Geoff Leonard and Pete Walker certainly do, and the authors
track account of that ’69-’77 of celebrated Barry biog, The Man With The Midas Touch, have now turned
output, mixing song facts, their attention to his early group, The John Barry Seven. We can’t do
quotes, interpretations and justice to Hit And Miss: The Story Of The John Barry Seven in these short
trivia. It’s a great companion words; suffice to say that with 350 hardback pages and many previously
to an era of Elvis that is unseen photos, it’s a supremely-detailed account of the group that also
often overlooked. It’s out sheds light on 50s and 60s rock’n’roll/youth culture in the UK. Highly
now via Redshank Books. recommended, Hit And Miss… is published by Redcliffe Press.

12 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 The Grange
RECORDING STUDIO
+44 (0) 1760 756394 www.grangestudios.co.uk

• Large 4 room recording area •

• 2 inch analogue tape 16 & 24 track •
• Classic Studer 827 & MCI (Quior version)
JH16 tape machines •
• Radar 48 track digital - 96K/24 bit •
• 80 channel analogue automated
Amek Rembrandt console •
• Vintage outboard, Classic 60s & 70s microphones •
Track to analogue - copy to 48 track digital for overdubs
Mix to analogue ½” Studer or 96K/24 bit digital
No multitrack tape charges
Residential with 2 self contained cottages

SPECIALIST ROCK & POP AUCTIONEERS

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WE DO ALL THE HARD WORK & YOU GET TOP PRICES
ZĞŐƵůĂƌĂƵĐƟŽŶƐŽĨƌĂƌĞĂŶĚĐŽůůĞĐƚĂďůĞǀŝŶLJůΘŵƵƐŝĐŵĞŵŽƌĂďŝůŝĂƉůƵƐŽŶĞŽīƐƉĞĐŝĂůŝƐƚƐĂůĞƐĨŽƌ^ŽƵůͬDŽƚǁŽŶ͕:ĂnjnjͬůƵĞƐ͕ PuŶŬͬ/ŶĚŝĞ͕WLJƐĐŚĞƚĐ͘/ĨLJŽƵ
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Wd/E'KE^/'EDEd^EKt&KZ:EhZz- APRIL 2019 SALES

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 RARE EVENTS
ROCK’N’ROLL ROCKIN’ RACE JAMBOREE
7-10 February 2019

RECORDS
Early cuts from Gene Vincent and Eddie Boyd, plus Roy
Orbison’s adventures in jingle-land and two rare 7"ers from
James Cotton, courtesy of www.omegaauctions.co.uk…
THE NIGHT IS SO LONELY C/W RIGHT NOW
(CAPITOL F4237 P/S)
GENE VINCENT
Very seldom seen is this US Capitol 7"
from 1960, which was Gene’s only US
picture sleeve release. An iconic image of
the hardest rocker of his time!
MINT VALUE: £1,000
ROY ORBISON SINGS THE JINGLE
(HALLMARK/TEEN DISC 102)
ROY ORBISON
The Big O was commissioned by Coca-
Cola to record some ‘jingles’ for their
commercials back in 1965 – this 12"
contains six ‘radio spots’.
MINT VALUE: £350
FEATURING: The Blasters, Johnny
Knight, The Original Planet
Rockers, The Paladins, Hot
Boogie Chillun and more.
VENUE: Auditorium Municipal Principe de
Asturias, Torremolinos, Malaga, Spain
BOOKING: rockinrace.com/en
HEMSBY #62 ROCK’N’ROLL
WEEKENDER
10–13 May 2019
FEATURING: Gizelle, Charlie
Hightone & The Rock-Its, The
Polecats, The Revolutionaires,
Hightone Rhythm Rumblers, The Neutronz,
Bonesville, The Outsiders and more.
VENUE: Hemsby Beach Holiday Park, Norfolk
NR29 4HR
BOOKING: hemsbyrocknroll.co.uk / 01772 761522
THE ROCKIN ROUND-UP
31 May–1 June 2019
FEATURING: Paul Ansell’s Number Nine, Johnny
Bach & The Moonshine Boozers,
The Hayriders, The Bullets, Jack
& The Real Deals and more.
VENUE: Court Farm Country Park,
Banwell, Weston Super Mare
BS29 6DL
BOOKING: rockinroundup.co.uk (tickets on sale
from January 2019)

WILDEST CATS IN TOWN 60

YEARS OF ROCK’N’ROLL SPECIAL
1959-2019
5-8 July 2019
FEATURING: Hayden Thompson,
The Comets, Jimmy Van Eaton
I’M GOIN’ DOWNTOWN MY BABY C/W STRAIGHTEN UP BABY (first ever UK show), Rip Masters, Crazy Cavan &
(HERALD 406) (SUN 199) The Rhythm Rockers and more.
EDDIE BOYD JAMES COTTON
VENUE: Pontins, Pakefield Seaside Village,
This scorchin’ cut from Eddie was Shortly before Muddy Waters came a
Lowestoft NR33 7PF
recorded a good ‘five long years’ before he knockin’, James Cotton laid down two 45s
BOOKING: tennesseeclub.net / 07976 964086
would travel to Europe with Buddy Guy in Memphis for Sun Records, both now
and find fame. trade for up to four figure sums!
THE BLUEJAYS ROCK & ROLL
MINT VALUE: £500 MINT VALUE: £1,000 (7"), £700 (10" 78RPM)
REVOLUTION
Touring: January to June 2019
and beyond
1950s live music review
THE GENIUS OF EARL HOOKER featuring the music of Buddy
(CUCA KS4100) Holly, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry
EARL HOOKER and many more.
Ultra-rare 1967 LP from the slide guitarist VENUES: Queens Theatre, Hornchurch (8 Jan
specialist who played with (amongst others) 2019); Belgrade Theatre, Coventry (11 Jan);
Ike & Tina Turner, his cousin John Lee Hooker Capitol Theatre, Horsham (12 Jan); Palace
and Sonny Boy Williamson… Theatre, Westcliff (15 Feb); Princess Theatre,
MINT VALUE: £500 Hunstanton (2 March). See website for more.
BOOKING: thebluejays.co.uk
14 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 ON THE
RADAR

The Dodge Brothers (note: they’re not

actually brothers or indeed from Dodge

Adam Prosser
City). From left: Alex Hammond, Mark
Kermode, Mike Hammond, Aly Hirji

home and hardware implements such as

Dodge Brothers bottles and pots and pans, plus the drums.
I play assorted guitars and banjo. The other
rule is that no-one plays anything they can’t
carry. Alex can carry an entire drum kit and
his washboard, so he’s allowed to have a
Southampton’s Dodge Brothers can bass drum.”

play rambunctious rockabilly or If you had to name three musical heroes,

invent a soundtrack to a silent movie who would they be?

Mike: “If I have to narrow it down, it would
at will. Vintage Rock asks the quartet be Brownie McGhee, Geeshie Wiley and
Mississippi John Hurt – they never let
about their train-lovin’ retro sounds… me down.”
Aly Hirji (guitar): “Elvis, The Beatles and
WORDS BY MIKE STEPHENS The Wonder Stuff had the biggest influences
on me musically.”

M
ike Hammond, Mark Kermode, Aly Hirji and Alex Hammond are Alex Hammond (percussion): “Probably
collectively The Dodge Brothers, the UK south coast’s finest writers Bukka White and Washboard Sam on
of “new old songs” that encompass rockabilly, blues, skiffle and more. Special Steamline, but Bukka White in
They’ve released three albums now, including 2015’s The Sun Set (recorded at, yes, Sun general. And The Who and The Sex Pistols.”
Studios) and 2018’s spanking new Drive Train. They are really very good, and should be
famous for more than just having a double-bassist you’ve already seen talking about movies Why are you so-named? After the cars?
on the telly... Or the city famous for cowboys?
Mike: “We were driving back from our first
Briefly, who are Dodge Brothers and Alex who had been a punk drummer to recording in Mark’s 1956 Dodge Coronet.
what do you do? play the washboard. We are a band with I was in the back seat and as we hit the
Mike Hammond (guitar, lead vocals): rules. One is that everyone has to learn a New Forest I had a reverie, a memory of my
“Our current lineup began in 2007 when new instrument every year. Mark plays the childhood in those cars driving through the
Mark [Kermode] wanted us to take part double bass, various harmonicas, accordion pine forests of Alabama. I suggested The
in a BBC Culture Show piece on skiffle. and bagpipes; Aly plays assorted guitars Dodge Brothers would be a good name.
We needed a washboard player, so we got and mandolin; Alex plays washboard, other It kind of stuck.”

16 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 ON THE
RADAR
Adam Prosser
Tell Vintage Rock readers about your
experience of recording at Sun Studio.
Like everyone else, did you just think:
well, this is smaller than we thought?
Mike: “Yes, it is smaller than we thought
but in that little space you are challenged
to drop your inhibitions, look history in the
eye and try to live up to it. It’s never going
to be the same as it was then, and that’s a
good thing. Elvis found his sound there, so
did Howlin’ Wolf and Little Junior Parker
& The Blue Flames… and none of them
sounded like the other. We didn’t go in
trying to sound like anything but ourselves,
but we hoped to stand on the shoulders of
giants – and were happy if we could get as
high as their shoelaces!”
You made a TV documentary about your
visit too, on YouTube, and you said you
hoped recording at Sun Studio “may help
change the way we play”. Did it?
Mike: “The thing about Sun is that it
requires you to play with each other and
listen intently. We didn’t overdub and we
had no headphones, so we had to listen
to the band in the room. It’s like playing
in the kitchen with sound bouncing
around everywhere.”
Aly: “Because we had to get the song perfect
due to recording as they would have in
1954 – no overdubs – we learned to play
with bleeding fingers. We repeated the song
until we were happy. And we learned to lip
read, because of no headphones, to work out
where we were in the track.”
Alex: “I think it’s helped us look more
relaxed on stage – I certainly feel that
because we made a good record at Sun, we
can do anything.”
18 VINTAGE ROCK
9
Mark Kermode’s new book,
How Does It Feel? A Life of Musical
Misadventures is out now from
Weidenfeld & Nicolson
You write a lot about trains: what is it
about the romance of rail travel you like?
And would you ever write a rockin’ song
about the UK rail system?
Mike: “Trains are the energy and the
rhythm of modern times. They still are, even
a UK train. When they first arrived they
had the effect of bringing the frontier closer.
Freedom from the confines of where you are
lies just at the end of that line. So trains hold
in them a hopeful ending but stuff happens
along the way.
“We like the combination of the rhythm
and the possibility of good or bad things
happening. We are not original in that of
course, it’s a timeless combination. You may
get there and it’s what you want, or not what
you had hoped; you may jump off and find
something better; or you may just keep on
riding. Our latest album, Drive Train, finds
some of the similar qualities in automobiles
and that great cinema, the front windshield.”
Aly: “There’s no romance in the UK rail
system anymore!”
Alex: “For me, while The 18:30 Greater
Anglia Service To London Liverpool Street
Blues might not be a great song title, that
train does take me back home after working
away. So I’d say there is romance there.”
Billy Lunn of The Subways has been a
regular guest of yours on stage.
“We hoped to stand on
the shoulders of giants
– and were happy if we
could get as high as
their shoelaces!”
Early rock’n’roll = punk rock: Discuss.
Mike: “Punk’s ethos is anyone can play it
and everyone’s invited. So is ours. So Billy
fits right in.”
Aly: “To quote Billy Bragg – ‘Three
Chords & The Truth’. This works for early
rock’n’roll and punk.”
You also play music to Silent Cinema
events. Is that a very different discipline
to a regular Dodge Brothers show?
Mike: “Yes, very different, because you
are there to become invisible and serve
up the film. Kind of the opposite of being
on the stage. But all the films we play have
trains in them, so in that sense it is
similar thematically.”
Tell us a bit about the best gigs you’ve
ever done?
Mike: “I’d say our gigs at the Black Box
in Belfast. I say that every time we play
there. It’s not that we haven’t had great gigs
elsewhere, but there is a connection with
the Black Box audience that is genuine.
When you feel that vibe coming back at you,
it is very special.”
Aly: “The Minack Theatre, an outdoor
theatre carved into granite overlooking the
Atlantic ocean in Cornwall.”
Alex: “Years ago, we played a couple of
tracks at [BBC DJ] Simon Mayo’s birthday
party, then all bundled into a taxi to rush
across London to the Borderline, for our
Louisa & The Devil album launch gig. My
feet were hanging out the taxi window so
we could fit us all in. That was pretty funny.”
And what about the strangest?
Mike: “One of the strangest and happiest
was in a vinyl shop in Tromsø, Norway. We
were jammed in a corner playing our skiffle
stuff and people were standing among the
vinyl record bins as close as two feet away.
A couple had brought their five-year-old in
to watch us, and he was transfixed. People
were drinking tea and coffee and when
we played a song called Alcohol, Tobacco &
Firearms Blues, which has everyone shout
out beer names, the parents and the kid
were shouting at the top of their lungs.
Later, the parents told me they were in town
for a World Health Organisation conference
and thought that our song should be the
WHO’s theme tune!” 9
Dodge Brothers’ Drive Train is out now on
Weeping Angel records. They play live in
Belfast (again) in January and Nottingham
in March. See dodgebrothers.co.uk for
more dates.
Gene Vincent

Black Leather Rebel: Gene Vincent,

AKA Vincent Eugene Craddock

20 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 Gene Vincent

When rock’n’roll’s popularity began

to fade in the US, the legendary Gene
Vincent made the UK his new home.
With the help of Matchbox’s Graham
Fenton, Vintage Rock charts Gene’s
later years of triumphs, plenty of
tragedy and an indelible mark on a
generation of rockers…
WORDS BY JACK WATKINS
Ron Howard/Redferns/Getty

VINTAGE ROCK 21
9
Gene Vincent
Gene Vincent, rock’n’roll’s
T
original bad boy
he words saint
and Gene
Vincent aren’t
often seen
together, but
if ever there
was a lead
contender
for the title
Patron Saint of British Rock’n’Roll, it
has to be the man born Vincent Eugene
Craddock, in Norfolk, Virginia in 1935.
In the dog days of the 1960s when rock’n’roll
was considered old hat, Vincent, who
spent so much time living in and gigging
up and down the UK and on the European
mainland, became like an unofficial
spokesman for the cause. He became a flag-
bearing hero for fans and an inspiration for a
generation of European musicians.
Two of Britain’s best pre-revival
rock’n’roll bands of the late 60s and
early 70s, The Wild Angels and The
Houseshakers, backed him on a couple of
his last tours, learning from him at the same
time as watching in dismay at their idol’s
22 VINTAGE ROCK
9
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
worsening mental and physical state.
One man who connects that era to the
present-day rockabilly scene is Graham
Fenton. While best known as the lead
vocalist of the hitmaking rockabilly band
Matchbox, Fenton is also a former member
of The Houseshakers, with poignant
memories of Vincent’s last days in the UK.
In the years since his hero’s death in
1971, Graham has subsequently recorded
a lot of material which has recreated or
reinterpreted the Vincent sound, including
the albums A Tribute To Gene Vincent
and Shades Of Gene, released by Graham
Fenton’s Matchbox in 1993 and 2000
respectively. In the early 1990s, when
the 1958 line-up of Vincent’s Blue Caps
reformed for a European tour, he was
chosen to share lead vocal duties because
of his faithfulness to the Vincent style. His
annual Gene Vincent tribute nights at the
famed 60s rockers’ haunt, the Ace Cafe, just
off London’s North Circular Road, have been Vincent recorded his first ever
another contribution to keeping the candle song, Be-Bop-A-Lula, in 1956.
burning for the Screaming End. He penned it himself with his
manager, Bill ‘Sheriff Tex’ Davis
Meeting up to reminisce at the Ace,
 Gene Vincent

GENE
THERAPY
Gene Vincent’s most celebrated
recordings major around the 1956
Capitol sessions before Cliff
Gallup’s departure. But Gallup
actually only played on 35 Vincent
recordings, and the latter’s musical
legacy is far wider than those
admittedly historic tracks. Here,
with occasional commentary from
Graham Fenton, are a few gems
from across Gene Vincent’s career.

PINK
THUNDERBIRD
Bit of a 50s car freak? You gotta
love this one, even more so thanks
to Vincent’s confident delivery.
Along with Pretty Baby - “Uh-uh,
by the way – what’s your name?”
– recorded at the same,
penultimate Gallup session in
October ’56, it’s one of his most
cheeky, swaggering numbers.

UNCHAINED
MELODY
Being of an older generation,
producer Ken Nelson wasn’t
exactly wild about rock’n’roll, and
it’s generally accepted that in
those early sessions he saddled
Vincent with a lot of middle-of-
the-road stuff. Yet the singer
responded brilliantly to the
challenge, delivering faultless
renditions of old standards like
Peg O’ My Heart and Up A Lazy
River. Unchained Melody is a tepid
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

little ditty, but worth listening to

for Gallup’s shimmering
accompaniment on his Gretsch
Duo-Jet.
VINTAGE ROCK 23
9
Gene Vincent

Ed Caraeff/Morgan Media/Getty
An older, and noticeably bulkier
Vincent on a photo shoot for his
I’m Back And I’m Proud album in 1969

West London-born Fenton says he first saw
Vincent perform in February 1964. “A friend
of mine said he was playing at the Hounslow
Baths. In the winter when the swimming
pools shut, they’d board them over, making
it like a big hall. So we were standing on
the top of a swimming pool with a stage
at the end. Gene was backed on that tour
by an English band, The Shouts. We were
standing at the back, and I remember Gene
brushing past us in the beige camel jacket he
“Jack Good had this
used to wear at that time. after he’d touched down
I’d never seen someone at London Airport.
like that, banging the mic “The image young
stand and throwing it up in people who never saw
the air!” Gene when he was alive
In fact, the year of 1964 have, is this rebel figure with
came towards the end of a run his collar up, mean and moody,”
Graham Fenton belting
that had seen ‘Sweet Gene out a Vincent classic at says Fenton. “But he wasn’t
Vincent’ achieve levels of London’s Ace Cafe really like that. It was Jack Good
popularity in Britain, France who put him in leathers. When
and Germany that arguably exceeded you see his early clips with the Blue Caps,
anything he had ever achieved in the States. he hasn’t got leathers on, but he’s wild. But
It had started at the end of 1959 when, when Jack Good first met him, he found
Graham Fenron photo courtsey of Ace Cafe

with the hits and live dates having dried up
vision of Vincent as a in his homeland, Vincent agreed to come
tragic Shakespearean to Britain to appear on the Jack Good-
produced, Marty Wilde-fronted TV show
character” Boy Meets Girls. On first sighting, Good had
GRAHAM FENTON been dismayed by Vincent’s appearance
this guy of average height, mild-mannered,
pleasant and quiet-spoken. He was like a
Southern gentleman, a bit square; ‘Yes, Mr
Good’ and all that. Good thought: ‘I can’t
have this!’ He had a vision of Vincent as a
tragic Shakespearean character.”

24 VINTAGE ROCK
9

When rock meets mod:
Gene Vincent tries out a Vespa
on the streets of London
And so the idea of the supercharged
rocker with the leather-boy image, hunched
over a microphone, swivelling round and
staring dementedly at the ceiling with those
big expressive eyes, was conceived.
BUT VINCENT WAS a genuinely
tortured soul. The pain from a leg injury
sustained in a motorcycle accident when
in the Navy in 1955 which forced him to
wear a brace, never left him. Even if Good
envisioned using the infirmity as a gimmick,
well before the end of his career Vincent
was a real tragic anti-hero.
“I saw Gene’s leg once,” remembers
Fenton. “It was thin and withered. A pretty
grim sight. With technology today and the
prosthetic legs, he’d have been bopping
around. But back in the 50s, they wanted to
Gene Vincent
GENE
THERAPY
LOTTA LOVIN’
Johnny Meeks had a choppier,
rougher style compared to his
predecessor, Cliff Gallup. Lotta
Lovin’ came right at the start in
1957, incorporating Vincent’s new
Clapper Boy sound, with Meeks
coming up with the great intro off
the cuff. On Rollin’ Danny on the
same session, his solo work was
stunning, almost Eastern in effect.
Graham Fenton: “Johnny Meeks
said he sat for months trying to get
near Gallup’s style but at the first
rehearsal Gene said: ‘Why are you
playing like that? Play it harder.
I want it like you did when I first
saw you.’ And in the end he played
it different, in his own style.”
Frederick R. Bunt/Evening Standard/Getty
YOU ARE THE
ONE FOR ME
amputate his leg and replace it with a tin one Vincent was influenced by black
and he’d pleaded with his mother: ‘Don’t let vocal groups for his Clapper Boys’
them take my leg away!’ Rather than have it harmonies and visual routines, but
removed he suffered with extreme pain for clearly also absorbed that style of
the rest of his life. The Blue Cats told me he singing into his own. Git It is the
never rested it after he’d had the accident, supreme example in the Vincent
and was always taking painkillers. Of course, catalogue to meld the style within
it ulcerated and got worse.” a rock number, but he also uses
It might not just have been pain that falsetto and repetition in a very
caused his paranoiac, self-destructive subtle way on You Are The One For
tendencies, though. The recently deceased Me, recorded in 1958, to build up
Chas Hodges reckoned he couldn’t handle the emotional effect.
stardom, that he preferred to be one of the Graham Fenton: “I love this ballad.
boys. Did he have low self-esteem? “I think Clifton Simmons played the lovely
that was why he drank,” reckons Fenton. piano solo. When you see pics in
“Of course, he drank partly because of the the studio you wouldn’t think he
pain in his leg, but it also gave him a bit of was a rock’n’roller, but when they
extra confidence to go on stage.” He recalls got out there and put the Blue Cap
that there may have been a bit of friction on him, it was a different story.”
VINTAGE ROCK 25
9
Gene Vincent
between him and Tommy ‘Bubba’ Facenda,
one of the legendary Blue Caps Clapper
Boys. “Tommy was a sharp-looking Italian-
American boy, better looking than Gene.
Gene didn’t say anything but it upset him the
way the girls loved him. Tommy upstaged
him for a while. They never argued about it,
but by 1958 they had started to drift apart.”
Chas Hodges saw the alcoholic, self-
destructive side of Vincent when his band
The Outlaws backed him on his 1963
tours. But in 1969, when a BBC crew were
on hand to film the documentary The
Rock’n’Roll Singer, Gene seemed like the
subdued, quiet-spoken guy Good had met
in 1959. The grainy film is heartbreaking to
watch, reflecting an artist who, backed by
The Wild Angels, was still delighting his
fans with committed live shows, but then
undergoing the humiliation of having to
hang around backstage for payment. This
was no way to treat a star. Among several
moving sequences in the film is a segment
of him limping down the street alone at
night, taking in the lights of London’s West
End while the soundtrack plays one of his
most recent recordings, a cheery reworking
of Ernest Tubb’s country No. 1 from 1946,
Rainbow At Midnight. Somehow, in spite of
“Gene didn’t say anything but it upset
him the way the girls loved Tommy
‘Bubba’ Facenda” GRAHAM FENTON
26 VINTAGE ROCK
9
everything, Gene Vincent was still believing.
By 1970, it was The Houseshakers who
were backing him, a band fronted by
Graham Fenton, still cutting his teeth as
a young rock’n’roll vocalist, with Terry
Clemson, formerly – as Terry Gibson – of
The Downliners Sect, on lead guitar. Fenton
comes from a musical family, his father
being a crooner before he got his call-up
papers in the Second World War, and
brother Ken a jazz-loving bass player who
worked with Don Lang and Rick Wakeman.
With a background like that, Fenton
appreciated Vincent’s vocal versatility
which went beyond that of your average
rocker. “His style was unique, and he kind
of took me under his wing, told me to put as
much as you could into an act, to really put
on a show and try to overcome my nerves.”
As the proud owner of a 1959 Chevrolet
Impala, Fenton also found himself on
chauffeur duties, even driving his fellow
bike enthusiast into the Ace Cafe forecourt
before taking him back to meet his mum
at his home in Hanwell. “Gene just said:
‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am, your son’s
doing well.’ So polite! He had spent so
much time in this country by 1970 he
had developed a lot of Anglicised phrases
which used to make me laugh. He could be
terrifying, but only when he got pissed.
We thought he was going to die in the back
of my Chevy at one point when he started
coughing up blood. We tried to take him to
the hospital, and I remember him growling:
‘If you take me in that goddam hospital, the
tour’s over.’ He’d have these flare-ups, but
it was managers, agents and promoters he
didn’t get on with. He was uppity with them,
he’d got so badly ripped off.”
Fenton saw Vincent one last time
weeks before he died, when he came back
to London for an alimony court case in
September 1971. “He’d called our manager

Earl Sheridan and said he’d like to tour with
the boys [The Houseshakers] again, but he’d
so insulted Sheridan on the previous tour, he
just said: ‘I don’t even want to speak to you,
you get someone else.’
“If Gene had spoken to us direct, we’d
probably have done it. So he ended with a
pick-up pop band, Kansas Hook. He was so
ill and drinking heavily by then the shows
fell apart. But I was driving through Perivale
in my Chevy, when this little Austin pulled
up beside me at the traffic lights. Gene was
in the passenger’s seat and, recognising my
car, rolled down the window and called
over: ‘Hey man, how’s it going? No hard
feelings, shame I couldn’t work with you
this time.’ The lights changed, his car went
one way, I went the other. Three weeks
later I heard on the radio he’d passed away
from a haemorrhage at his parents’ house
in California. I know he was ill, but with
Gems/Redferns/Getty
Gene Vincent
GENE
THERAPY
I’M GOING
HOME (TO SEE
MY BABY)
So, the British couldn’t cut
rock’n’roll? This was recorded at
EMI’s Abbey Road Studio in 1961,
with Norrie Paramor at the
controls. Sax-driven instrumental
combo Sounds Incorporated,
working a lot with Vincent around
this time, provide the backing.
Graham Fenton: “The intro is great
and it builds up beautifully.”
I’M A
LONESOME
Wild things: Vincent toured with
FUGITIVE
British rock’n’rollers The Wild Vincent was a country boy, but not
Angels in the late 1960s really a country singer. Even so he
recorded plenty of songs from that
the stress of the court case, he was probably genre, as well as recording in
drinking more, maybe taking more aspirin Bradley’s Film and Recording
for his leg and, bang, something had to give.” Studio in Nashville. I’m A Lonesome
Fugitive was recorded in 1967, after
JOHNNY MEEKS, SECOND only he’d left Capitol, for the Challenge
to Cliff Gallup in the roll call of Vincent’s album released in the UK as Gene
greatest guitarists, attended Vincent’s Vincent. A recent hit for Merle
funeral. “The family was arguing, but apart Haggard, it featured some
from that Johnny said there were only about Bakersfield-style guitar, and the
three other people there,” recollects Fenton. roving, solitary life on the highway
“He said it was like a pauper’s funeral. Well, was a theme Vincent would have
I finally made it to the cemetery in 2001. related to.
His grave is near the San Fernando Highway Graham Fenton: “That whole
and the headstone is quite eroded. I took album was country style. I had the
some flowers and just said: ‘This is the only honour of working with Jerry Lee
way I know how to say goodbye. Thanks Merritt, who succeeded Johnny
for being a friend.’ The superintendent lady Meeks on guitar, and who wrote
there said it was now the most visited grave another classic Vincent rocker,
in the cemetery. And yet there had been She She Little Sheila, and
virtually no-one outside family to see him performing this with him at a
buried at the ceremony.” Vincent tribute show.”
VINTAGE ROCK 27
9
Gene Vincent

A
PIECE
AT A
TIME
A TRIBUTE
TO GENE
VINCENT

Steve Aynsley, who ran the

Gene Vincent Fan Club in the
1980s and 90s, has done
sterling work in keeping the
great man’s work alive in
the years since. On this
56-track 2-disc CD from
Rollercoaster Records, he
brings together some
lesser-heard Vincent
recordings, others by Blue
Cap members, and songs
recorded in tribute by
musical admirers, including
Vince Eager, Graham Fenton
and Steve Aynsley himself

(check out My Little Mama).
Nicely packaged with a
44-page booklet.
Gary Merrin/Keystone/Getty
Vincent, pictured signing
autographs shortly before
his death in 1971

Even though a couple of tracks Vincent
recorded at Morgan Studios in Willesden
with The Houseshakers (a re-recording
of his classic, yet unaccountable 1958 flop
single Say Mama and Hank Snow’s I’m
Movin’ On for an album The Battle Of The
Bands on one of his off days) suggested a
voice shot to bits: other recordings he made
nearer the end, including an incredible
home recording The Rose Of Love for Ronnie
Weiser in Los Angeles just two months
before he died, show he was still able to cut
it, with all the old vocal touches intact. Like
his old mate Eddie Cochran, Vincent died
still having so much more to give.
the Clapper Boys’ Tommy Facenda and the
late Paul Peek. He even met up with Ken
Nelson, the producer of Vincent’s Capitol
recordings. “I was with the Blue Caps and
it was a very emotional occasion for them
because they hadn’t seen Ken in years.
They were still calling him ‘Mr Nelson’.
He was a sweet old guy. He was 93, and he
lived to be 96. He had to put his hearing aid
in but his mind was still really sharp.”
“The lady there
said it was now the
most visited grave
Today, younger British rockabilly
bands are still drawing inspiration from
the music of Vincent. At the time of
speaking, Fenton was looking forward to
going into Sugar Ray’s vintage recording
studio in Essex to put down the vocals
for an album of Cliff Gallup-era Vincent
numbers with the band Race With The
Devil. “People who never saw him are still
discovering Gene’s music and when they
realise those Capitol recordings were made
as long ago as 1956 they know the sound on
them is phenomenal. I think Gene Vincent
is probably bigger now than when he was
alive.”

in the cemetery”
In subsequent years Fenton not only The Ace Cafe’s annual Gene Vincent
performed with the Blue Caps, but became Tribute night is on 9 February 2019:
friends with drummer Dickie Harrell, plus GRAHAM FENTON www.london.acecafe.com/news

28 VINTAGE ROCK
9
ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
ȒɅ
ȥȹȶ
Ȕɀ̿ȶȶ
ȓȲɃɄ

The legendary 2i’s in London’s

Soho. Never before had a simple
coffee bar had such a seismic effect
on British popular culture

ROCKIN’ AT THE
COFFEE BARS
In 1950s London, early skiffle bloomed into rock’n’roll in the
coffee bars of the West End. Vintage Rock travels back with
skiffle king Chas McDevitt to days of gig fees paid in
spaghetti and the nascent careers of Cliff Richard, Tommy
Steele, Terry Dene, Wee Willie Harris and more…
WORDS BY JACK HAWKINS
30 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
ȒɅ
ȥȹȶ
Ȕɀ̿ȶȶ
ȓȲɃɄ
Alex Dellow/Picture Post/Getty

Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen on stage in

1954, including a young Lonnie
Donegan (second from right)

W
here was the birthplace he wouldn’t even have an electric guitar in Some of their earliest performances
of British rock’n’roll? his band,” says Chas. were in a church in a London back
Could such a thing ever be That may be so, but Colyer was street near Marble Arch. The Church Of
linked to a single venue? If there is an old undoubtedly something of a catalyst for The Annunciation is still there today, a
cliché that is guaranteed to wind up any what was to follow. Shortly after, in the dowdy, brooding red brick hulk. But that
unreconstructed fan of early rock’n’roll, early 1950s, he and Lonnie Donegan came appearance belies the music that was played
it’s the one about how, on this side of the together as members of The Chris Barber in its crypt for a few months in 1953, making
Atlantic, it only properly kicked off with Band which, on account of Colyer’s heroic it another key venue for those tracing rock’s
The Beatles at the Cavern in 1961. But, just status in jazz circles at the time, took the root performance sources.
as Muddy Waters’ line “the blues had a baby name of Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen. In this unlikely building in the spring
and they named it rock’n’roll” is a gross
simplification of the music’s beginnings, so
are the origins of the performance of rock
music in the UK complex and tangled.
Ken Colyer is regarded as the “spiritual
godfather” of skiffle. But in 1949, when his
Crane River Jazz Band first started playing
in a tin hut next to the White Hart pub in
Cranford, outer west London, beside the
Thames tributary from which they got
their name, their roughneck approach,
energy and lack of technique was arguably
“rock’n’roll in spirit”, as Peter Frame has
written, before the term was known.
But Chas McDevitt, another of the skiffle
greats, winces when the thought is run by
him, saying the phrase would have had
Colyer “turning in his grave”. Colyer hated
the cult of personality and the idea of the
Charles Hewitt/Getty

showy frontman, believing firmly in the Tommy Steele breaks into an

collective. “He was a purist, devoted to impromptu performance at the
Bread Basket Coffee House, 1957
performing Leadbelly songs. To begin with,

VINTAGE ROCK 31
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Future Beatles collaborator Tony Sheridan
rocking out at the 2i’s, circa 1958
Opened by the voluptuous Italian sex
symbol Gina Lollobrigida, The Moka
ȳɀȲɄɅȶȵ
ȺɅɄ
ɀɈȿ
ȶɄɁɃȶɄɄɀ
ȴɀ̿ȶȶ
ȾȲȴȹȺȿȶ
of that year Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen began
a series of regular Monday night shows.
Essentially these promoted Colyer’s
favoured New Orleans style of jazz,
defined by the way the front line of players
improvised collectively. However, the
sets also included some of the earliest
skiffle, or break-down, sessions heard
in central London. These brought the
impassioned vocals and banjo strumming of
Lonnie Donegan to the forefront, backed by
Colyer on guitar, and with his brother Bill
Colyer on washboard, and Chris Barber on
string bass.
With the emphasis on acoustic guitars,
rhythm and energy, Donegan’s break-down
interludes began attracting a far broader
audience than the more ruminative jazz
32 VINTAGE ROCK
9
Rick Hardy/Redferns/Getty
fans they were initially aimed at. In time,
reflecting the music’s rising appeal, gig
posters promoted the line-up as Ken
Colyer’s Jazzmen & Skiffle Group. We
shouldn’t get too carried away. Skiffle would
remain an underground movement until the
success of Donegan’s breakthrough single,
Rock Island Line, recorded in 1954, but not
released by Decca until the end of 1955. But
those gigs in the old church crypt marked a
special moment in time.
HISTORY BOOKS LINK the forging
of British youth’s musical culture to the
rise of the coffee bars which fanned out
from the London West End’s Soho district,
around the same period. The first one was
The Moka, at 29 Frith Street. Opened by
John Pratt/Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty
Tommy Steele at the
2i’s in October 1956
the voluptuous Italian sex symbol Gina
Lollobrigida, it boasted its own espresso
coffee machine. But while it was quickly
followed by others, as Chas McDevitt says,
“these places didn’t have skiffle groups. The
Moka, and the Moulin Rouge in Hanway
Street, had Cypriot guys playing Spanish
guitar and pretending they were Spanish.”
According to Chas, it was the Gyre &
Gimble, otherwise known as the G&G, a
basement coffee bar in John Adam Street,
just off Villiers Street and a few paces up the
road from the favourite skiffle buskers haunt
under the railway arches at Charing Cross,
that can lay claim to having been one of the
first real basement skiffle coffee bars. Even
so, McDevitt says, there were others. “When
my group came to London we played at the
Fantasy in Chelsea. To begin with, it was
just one or two of us playing, and instead
of paying us, they’d give us a spaghetti. But
when we finished up as a group of five, all
we got was a coffee. But it was to the G&G
that people seemed to drift to because they
knew there would always be music there.”
It was at the G&G, not the 2i’s, that
Tommy Hicks (the future Tommy Steele)
was initially “discovered” by Bill Varley and
Roy Tuvey in 1956, says Chas. “Bill had a
little recording studio on the top floor of
6 Denmark Street. They tried to knock
 ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
ȒɅ
ȥȹȶ
Ȕɀ̿ȶȶ
ȓȲɃɄ

Keystone/Getty
Adam Faith performed at the 2i’s when
he was first starting out, as lead singer
of skiffle combo The Worried Men
Derek Berwin/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty

Wee Willie Harris and Shirley Douglas of The Chas

McDevitt Skiffle Group at the 2i’s, 15 November
1957. They are rehearsing for TV’s Six-Five Special,
broadcast live from the bar the following day

VINTAGE ROCK 33
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ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
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The 2i’s boss Paul “Doctor
Death” Lincoln said of Tommy
Steele, “He didn’t impress me
one way or the other”
The 2i’s was originally founded by two
Iranian businessmen, hence the
clever name
the building down recently, but it was saved
because The Sex Pistols used to rehearse in
the basement!” says Chas. “Matt Monro, a
bus driver at the time, used to come along
and do all the demos for music publishers.
Bill had a portable recording machine and
went around the coffee bars looking for
promising new talent, and it was at the
G&G where he first recorded The Vipers,
around the same time as my own group did
some demos for him. The G&G had a very
different sort of layout to the 2i’s, which was
just a long, narrow room. At the G&G there
was much more room to move about.”
34 VINTAGE ROCK
9
SAVE
TIN PAN
ALLEY!
OUR MUSIC PAST
IS UNDER THREAT
The arches where skifflers used to
busk, under the Charing Cross
bridge at the bottom of Villers
Street, have now been infilled with
shops. The Gyre & Gimble, just up
the road, is no more. 59 Old
Compton Street is now a fish &
chips restaurant, though a plaque
marks it as the historic location of
the 2i’s. The World War II bombsite
opposite the venue, visible in the
evocative photo of Chas McDevitt
and Nancy Whiskey’s Freight Train
float in the Soho Fair of 1957,
(see opposite) has been built on.
But if most of the era’s West End
London basement music venues
have gone, a notable exception
being the 100 Club in Oxford Street,
the battle is on to save Denmark
Street, or Tin Pan Alley, centre of
Chris Ware/Keystone Features/Getty
Britain’s music industry for much
of the past 100 years. Once filled
with recording studios, music
publishers, and the offices of
promoters and showbusiness
writers, as well as the prestigious
weeklies, Melody Maker and
New Musical Express, these days
it’s mainly dominated by guitar
shops, and with half the street
The 2i’s was originally founded by two currently hidden by scaffolding,
Iranian businessmen, hence the clever the future looks grim. Music writer
name. But in the spring of 1956, the lease Henry Scott-Irvine is leading a
on the café at 59 Old Compton Street, campaign to raise awareness and
opposite what was then a World War safeguard the future of this
II bombsite, was taken on by a pair of precious part of the national
Australian wrestlers, Paul “Doctor Death” music heritage and a documentary
Lincoln and Ray Hunter, retaining the name film, Tales From Tin Pan Alley, has
from its previous owners and refurbishing just been made. Read up on the
the café, while allocating the flats above history here: www.savetpa.tk.
as somewhere visiting foreign wrestlers And keep up to date with the
could stay. At the time, the 2i’s was outside campaign and future screenings
the beatnik and skiffler circuit of the day of the film at:
and, with stiff competition from hipper www.facebook.com/savetpa

Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty
bars in the area, business was slow. Lincoln
had tried various ruses such as bringing in
someone who performed Burl Ives-style
folk songs, but nothing had pulled in the
younger crowd. However, fate was about to
play its hand.
Wally Whyton had put together his Vipers
skiffle group having become frustrated by
the constantly changing personnel of the
group of associates he played with at the
Photo courtesy of Chas McDevitt
G&G. In the summer of 1956, The Vipers
took part in the annual Soho Fair, joining
the parade through the West End, before
stopping outside the 2i’s, where they
started to play, immediately drawing an
enthusiastic young crowd. Unlike many
of the more intellectually-minded jazz or
folk artists playing in the coffee bars of
the time, Whyton was from a non-musical
background, and had fewer hang-ups
The annual Soho Fair, 1957, with
Chas McDevitt and Nancy
Whiskey’s Freight Train float
ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
ȒɅ
ȥȹȶ
Ȕɀ̿ȶȶ
ȓȲɃɄ
A busy day at The Moka, London’s first
espresso bar, in 1954. At its height, it was
serving over 1,000 glasses of espresso a day
about stoking up a bit of audience reaction.
Noticing the way The Vipers cut through to
the youngsters, Paul Lincoln invited them
to come and play inside the 2i’s on a regular
basis. Adopting an old Appalachian song Sail
Away Lady and, via some rewritten lyrics,
transforming it into the more raucous Don’t
You Rock Me Daddy-O, they quickly built a
following at the establishment.
Meanwhile, with a repertoire that was
slightly ahead of his contemporaries
and already acknowledging American
rock’n’roll, Tommy Hicks – when on shore
leave from his employment in the Merchant
Navy – was spending time playing and
singing with Whyton and his mates. But it
was at the G&G, not the 2i’s.
“Everyone talks about Tommy’s
‘discovery’ at the 2i’s, but my washboard
player was also a photographer and he took
the earliest pictures of Tommy, playing
guitar in Al Burnett’s Stork Room in Mayfair,
where all the ladies and men about town
went,” remembers Chas. It was at the
Stork, too, that Larry Parnes first spotted
Hicks. Still, Steele and the legend of the 2i’s
holds good to the extent that it was indeed
there that he did a guest spot with The
Vipers which so impressed Decca A&R
man John Kennedy that it paved the way
for him landing a recording contract with
Decca Records.
VINTAGE ROCK 35
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ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
ȒɅ
ȥȹȶ
Ȕɀ̿ȶȶ
ȓȲɃɄ

Photo courtesy of Chas McDevitt

Photo courtesy of Vince Eager

Vince Eager’s skiffle group, The
Vagabonds, enjoyed a residency
at the 2i’s. It was here they were
spotted by Larry Parnes

The Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group at the 2i’s

in 1957, with Chas stage left and renowned
washboard player Marc Sharratt in centre

IN THE MASS of media publicity that

accrued from this, the 2i’s became the place
to be, even though Steele would only ever
perform there twice. The Gyre & Gimble
might have been a bit darker and edgier, but
the teenagers were now flocking to the 2i’s.
Paul Lincoln was rubbing his hands with
glee, even though he would later admit to
being “completely indifferent to Tommy
Steele – he didn’t impress me one way or the
other.” Business was so good, he was even
able to open up a second venue, the New
2i’s, a weekend-only club in a dank cellar
at 44 Gerrard Street, on the south side of
Shaftesbury Avenue.
By 1957, The Vipers had a residency at the
2i’s, as well as a contract with Parlophone
Records, where they would work with
producer George Martin. That was also
the year the Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group
featuring Nancy Whiskey scored a fabulous
cross-Atlantic hit with their recording of
the Elizabeth Cotten song Freight Train.
Both they and The Vipers knew how to
work a crowd, having fewer qualms about The late Paul Lincoln with Vince Eager
outside the site of the 2i’s, circa 2006.
incorporating rock’n’roll numbers into their The City Of Westminster Green plaque
sets than some of the more purist skifflers. was added to the building that year.
“We were regulars at the 2i’s when we were
in town,” recalls Chas. “We and The Vipers who made it big coming directly though melody, whereas other skiffle guitarist guys
were the highest paid groups there.” the skiffle movement. “He joined my band like Denny Wright (who worked a lot with
Both groups had busy touring schedules, for a few weeks and then Lonnie Donegan Lonnie Donegan) and Bill Bramwell (an
however, and so a group of students known grabbed him,” he recalls ruefully. “We important member of The Chas McDevitt
as Les Hobeaux were recruited as the 2i’s had new photographs taken and he did a Skiffle Group) played a lot of jazzy chords
resident band, the only one of the leading broadcast with us, but within a couple of and really swung.”
skiffle groups of the time to have a multi- weeks Lonnie had nicked him. But he was a It was at the 2i’s that Britain’s first real
racial line-up. Chas reckons their lead good skiffle player. He had that single string would-be answer to Elvis Presley, Terry
guitarist Les Bennetts was the only one technique that allowed him to pick a lot of Dene, got noticed. The Les Hobeaux bass
player Brian Gregg had become friends with
“We were regulars at the 2i’s when we the aspirational singer, then known as Terry

were in town. We and The Vipers were the Williams, when they worked in HMV on
Oxford Street, discovering a mutual love
highest paid groups there” CHAS MCDEVITT of skiffle and rock’n’roll. When Terry

36 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
ȒɅ
ȥȹȶ
Ȕɀ̿
ȶȶ
ȓȲɃɄ

ROCKIN’ AT THE 2i’S

ALL HAIL THE ANARCHIC SPIRIT OF WEE WILLIE HARRIS

Wee Willie Harris (see Vintage Rock issue 37) was one of the 2i’s more eccentric performers. Along with
his outrageous outfits and dyed pink or red hair, he kept a pet monkey which he tethered outside, where
it proceeded to fascinate pedestrians by running up and down the lamp post. Willie also wrote the bar’s
theme song, Rockin’ At The 2i’s, released by Decca in 1957. Rollercoaster Records recently released a
biography, I Go Ape! The Wee Willie Harris Story, along with a 30 track best-of CD, including Rockin At
The 2i’s. Rob Finnis’ book opens the window on a fascinating era in the Soho musical environment of
the skiffle/early rock’n’roll era.
Photo courtesy of Vince Eager

Beverly Lebarrow/Redferns/Getty
Cliff Richard And The Drifters (from
left: Hank Marvin, Tony Meehan, Cliff
and Bruce Welch) made an instant
impact when they appeared at the 2i’s
Photo courtesy of Vince Eager

Skiffle giants The Vipers were

the bar’s first resident group
ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
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ȓȲɃɄ
Val Guest’s 1959 movie Expresso
Bongo perfectly captured the
sleazy allure of 1950s Soho
came along to the 2i’s to see Les Hobeaux
perform, he ended up singing on stage with
them. Before long, he had landed a contract
with Decca, making tame records that belied
his genuine talent as a visceral rock’n’roller.
The 2i’s boss Paul Lincoln had seen this
and lost no time organising what was, in
effect, the first British all-teenage package
show featuring Dene, The Chas McDevitt
Skiffle Group and Rory Blackwell And The
Blackjacks, at the Romford Odeon in March
1957. Dene, though, was the first victim of
UK rock’n’roll, destroyed by the press and
his own instability. “We were touring with
him the week he went berserk, smashed a
shop window and got arrested,” remembers
Chas. “That’s when Colin Hicks took his
place on the show.”
Among others for which the 2i’s acted like
a magnet was Acton-born Terry Nelhams,
or Terry Denver, as he called himself when
“We were touring with Terry Dene the
week he went berserk, smashed a shop
window and got arrested” CHAS MCDEVITT
38 VINTAGE ROCK
9
with his skiffle band The Worried Men,
before eventually settling for Adam Faith
when he subsequently went solo. Wally
Whyton was fond of recounting the story
about how a dejected Nelhams once told
him: “I’ve been playing the 2i’s for three
months now, and I’m still not a star.”
THE MOST FAMOUS of the all the
rocking outfits to be hatched at the 2i’s was,
of course, Cliff Richard And The Drifters in
1958, even though Cliff, like Nelhams, at first
didn’t think much of the place, having spent
“a week there with nothing happening,
I got fed up.” A year later the big screen
adaptation of the play Expresso Bongo, with
Cliff in the starring role, would perfectly
capture the shady Soho music mileu of the
period, with its teenage bars, strip clubs and
dodgy record hustlers.
Rock’n’roll increasingly took over
Silver Screen Collection/Getty
from skiffle, and the music became more
commercial, attracted larger audiences
and required bigger venues – the age of the
coffee bars would soon pass. Yet if the 2i’s
is associated with the mid-to-late-50s, it
would make a further contribution to the
era that followed. Tony Sheridan was an
East Anglian-born skiffler who’d decided to
try his luck at the 2i’s in 1957, just as the
skiffle craze was beginning to burn out.
He played guitar in Vince Eager’s group The
Vagabonds, and then in the band of one of
the last stars of the 2i’s, Vince Taylor, before
forming his own group.
When Bruno Koschmider of the
Kaiserkeller Club in Hamburg, having heard
of the 2i’s reputation as a nursery of young
talent, crossed the Channel to sample what
was on offer, it was Sheridan and a couple
of associates he brought over to Germany.
The success of Sheridan’s ensemble, the first
British group to play Hamburg in June 1960,
brought in a flood of beat groups, including
The Beatles, for whom the trips would help
shape the sound that would transform the
British pop and rock landscape. 9
Harry Hammond/V&A Images/Getty
ȣɀȴȼȺȿ̘
ȒɅ
ȥȹȶ
Ȕɀ̿ȶȶ
ȓȲɃɄ

Skiffle great Chas

McDevitt, 1957

VINTAGE ROCK 39
9
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 A TKIN S
C K W
O R D S BY JA
W

M ARTY W I L DE
WILDE ABOUT MARTY

42 VINTAGE ROCK
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GAB Archive/Redferns/Getty
‘It may not be American, but it’s ours’
thought British teens as wannabe
rockers emerged from the UK
suburbs. At the forefront was Marty
Wilde, who recalls cutting his own
1959 debut LP with a sense of
the impossible…
I
t’s a badge of honour among some
in the rock’n’roll fraternity that
they never touch the early British
stuff. It’s true that much of what was made
over here was derivative and reliant on
re-recordings of American songs. But while
many efforts at recreating the sound of
American rock in British studios in the late
50s were laughable, no less daft is the view
that nothing worthwhile came from the
homegrown response to the phenomenal
new sounds coming out of the States.
The godfathers of the music on this side
of the Atlantic are Lonnie Donegan, whose
early skiffle recordings were rock’n’roll in
spirit and energy, Marty Wilde, Cliff Richard
and Billy Fury, followed by Vince Taylor
and his Playboys, and Johnny Kidd & The
Pirates. They weren’t all teenagers, but all
made recordings that stand in their own
right, while retaining something peculiarly
“To be honest, I wouldn’t want to hear Cliff’s
Move It played by a proper rock’n’roll musician.
It wouldn’t have sounded the same” MARTY WILDE
Marty Wilde: Wilde About Marty
Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde
rocking it out on Oh Boy!
British. Others such as Tommy Steele, Wee
Willie Harris, Terry Dene, Vince Eager,
and even Tony Crombie, merit honourable
mention, too.
None of them, to be fair, except perhaps
Donegan, claimed to be producing work on
a level with their American inspirations.
Marty Wilde, publicly critical at the time
of the sound on many of his 50s singles,
remains so today. “Yeah, well, they all had
their own style in the end,” he reflects. “But,
to be honest, I wouldn’t want to hear Cliff’s
Move It, for example, played by a proper
rock’n’roll musician. It wouldn’t have
sounded the same. It was similar with my
own hit version of Endless Sleep. They were,
for me, two songs of the era that sounded
right, that sounded like we’d got it.”
UNLIKE THE YOUNG white American
rockers, Wilde and his cohorts didn’t
VINTAGE ROCK 43
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Marty was performing under the
name Reg Patterson at London’s
Condor Club in 1957, when he was
spotted by Larry Parnes (left)
have the advantage of some old black
guy sitting in the porch teaching them a
few blues licks, or even much idea of live
rock’n’roll performance before they faced
the ordeal of entering a studio and nudging
more seasoned musicians towards the new
style. As Wilde says, “It wasn’t like we were
living near Beale Street… we were from
places like Hounslow or Greenwich. You
had to feel the thing yourself.”
But, despite a lack of formal training,
Wilde had a well-developed musical ear.
He’d picked up harmony singing from his
father as a child, and at secondary modern
school a music teacher had introduced
44 VINTAGE ROCK
9
him to classical music. As a teenager, he
describes going to a record shop in his native
Greenwich as “like entering a cave full of
diamonds.” The owner sold him the latest
Bill Haley and Elvis Presley singles, and
introduced him to the blues of Big Mama
Thornton and Muddy Waters.
“I loved Frankie Laine
to bits. Tracks like
Blowing Wild… so very
dramatic, such powerful
stuff” MARTY WILDE
GAB Archive/Redferns/Getty
“It gave me a slight advantage, I feel, and I
have always had an appetite for music of all
kinds. I’m a lucky man in that way because
a lot of people in the rock’n’roll world were
just rooted into that one style.”
And, like many rockers of his generation,
he knew how to carry a tune, adoring pre-
rock’n’ roll singers like Frankie Laine and
Guy Mitchell. “I loved Frankie Laine to
bits. Tracks like Blowing Wild (The Ballad
Of Black Gold)… so very dramatic, such
powerful stuff. That sense of drama was one
of the things I picked up from him.” Wilde
later recorded Jezebel as a tribute to Laine,
adding a superb new pulsing rhythm, which

Edward Miller/Getty
got him his last Top 20 hit in 1962.
Wilde’s all-round musicality is
evident in the singles that led up to
his debut album, Wilde About Marty,
released in September 1959. Signed
to the Philips label, his first single,
Honeycomb, came out in October 1957.
A cover of the Bob Merrill-penned
Jimmie Rodgers hit, it’s been written
down by some. But that’s just another
example of the default tendency, especially
prevalent in the 1950s, to assume something
American must always be better. In fact,
Wilde was clearly the superior singer, and
accordingly, so is his version of Honeycomb.
He penned the flipside, Wild Cat, and while
he dismisses it as “just a young guy writing
rock’n’roll”, it’s a good example of British
efforts to make Bill Haley-esque rock.
Wilde’s boyish, pent-up energy works well,
played off against the slightly stiff horns, and
Bert Weedon’s clean, jazz-based guitar.
Endless Sleep gave the singer his
breakthrough hit, rising to No. 4 in the
summer of 1958. Again, miles better than
the Jody Reynolds original, Wilde invested
it with real melodrama. “It was moody, and
I had a kind of sulky, moody face,” he recalls.
“I was that sort of man back then, so it
suited me image-wise, sound-wise,
story-wise.”
The guitarists on the session were
Weedon, again, and Ernie Shear, soon to
work on Cliff’s Move It. “But it was Bert that
did that ‘ba-a-ung’ intro. To start with, they
were playing it as ‘jay-ing’, using chords, but
I said, ‘Bert, there’s a guy called Duane Eddy
who is playing all single notes on the bass
strings. Can you do it like that?’”
Marty Wilde: Wilde About Marty
Marty taking a break on the set of the 1959
movie Jet Storm with, from left, Dame Sybil
Thorndike, Jackie Lane, Harry Secombe and
the future Mrs Sean Connery, Diane Cilento
Less convivial towards the 18-year-
old Wilde was seasoned jazz drummer
Phil Seamen. “We had a right bust up,”
Wilde remembers. “We started the song,
and after the guitar came in, I could hear
this swishing sound. Phil was playing the
drums with brushes. I thought: Silly sod,
what’s he doing? So I said, ‘Excuse me,
can we have sticks?’ He said, ‘Whattt?’ I
MARTY WILDE said, ‘Can we have sticks, instead of brushes?
We’re playing rock’n’roll, and it just doesn’t
WILDE ABOUT MARTY sound right to me.’ He just snapped back,
1959 • PHILIPS and I didn’t get my way... and a good job too,
because what he did worked.”
Still, these experiences were enough
to ensure that when Wilde went in to the
Down The Line Philips studio to cut his first long-player,
Love Of My Life Wilde About Marty, he insisted to A&R man
Put Me Down Johnny Franz that he be backed by his own
Blue Moon Of Kentucky band, The Wildcats. “I put my foot down.
Dream Lover I’d tried to have my band in from the
You’ve Got Love beginning. I’d asked Johnny to let me to use
I Flipped my musicians on Honeycomb, but it had
gone wrong, we couldn’t get the tempo or
chords right. But I wouldn’t use session men
on the album, they couldn’t get that feel.
All American Boy We were struggling to get it ourselves.”
Mean Woman Blues Even so, Wilde remembers Franz, who
Are You Sincere? also produced Dusty Springfield and The
High School Confidential Walker Brothers in the same studio, with
Don’t Pity Me warmth. “Along with my manager Larry
Splish Splash
So Glad You’re Mine “Endless Sleep was
WILDE’S BAND THE WILDCATS INCLUDED BIG JIM moody, and I had a kind
SULLIVAN (GUITAR), TONY BELCHER (RHYTHM
GUITAR), BRIAN ‘LICORICE’ LOCKING (BASS), AND of sulky, moody face.
BRIAN BENNETT, BOBBY WOODMAN (DRUMS).
LP PRODUCED BY JOHNNY FRANZ I was that sort of man
back then” MARTY WILDE
VINTAGE ROCK 45
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 Silver Screen Collection/Getty
Marty Wilde was born Reginald
Leonard Smith in 1939. The ‘Marty’
in his stage name came from the
1955 smash film Marty

46 VINTAGE ROCK
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 Marty Wilde: Wilde About Marty

THE WILDE TOUCH

A L O N G W I T H B I L LY F U R Y, M A R T Y W I L D E WA S A N E A R LY B R I T I S H R O C K E R W H O A L S O L I K E D
W R I T I N G S O N G S . A N D, PAV I N G T H E WAY F O R T H E S U CC E E D I N G G E N E R AT I O N W H O W O U L D
E V E N T UA L LY TA K E A B I G G E R H A N D I N P R O D U C T I O N , F R O M T H E S TA R T H E H A D I D E A S A B O U T
HOW HIS RECORDS SHOULD SOUND. HERE ARE FIVE WILDE CL A S SICS THAT BENEFIT T ED FROM
HIS CRE ATIVE INPUT

S E A O F LOV E B A D B OY MY HEART AND I TO M O R R OW ’ S JEZEBEL

A sublime, so-called Despite his commanding An example of Wilde’s CLOW N How could anyone better
swamp-pop Stateside hit stage personality, Wilde ability to unearth magic Another self-penned Frankie Laine’s version?
for Louisiana artist Phil has spoken of a lack of in unlikely places. This classic epitomising Wilde’s tenor is lighter
Phillips, with The confidence. Bad Boy was had been a song by the Wilde’s taste for the than Laine’s, but he
Twilights, in 1959, it was the song that truly operatic tenor Richard dramatic. In fact, he deftly sidestepped
Wilde’s version that convinced of his Tauber, and the Wildcats wrote it for Roy Orbison, comparisons to his hero,
charted in England, songwriting capabilities. didn’t even realise they and when The Big O by giving it an
reaching No. 3. Wilde’s With a vocal delivered in needed a licence to wasn’t available, did it arrangement fit for the
poppier take introduced his inimitable style, release their recording of himself. One of his 1960s, with a moody,
a harp, celestial choruses Wilde pared back the it. Who knows what definitive vocal pulsing bassline. Still a
and Big Jim Sullivan’s production to feature just Tauber would have made performances, with a feature of his shows
guitar to stunning effect. himself on acoustic of it, and how it got by typically big intro and today and, yes, he still
Tricky to make, though. guitar, aided by Wildcats Johnny Franz, but finish, it should have takes the roof off with
Sullivan said it required Sullivan and Brian somehow Wilde rocks up been a bigger hit than the big finish.
70-odd takes and that, Bennett. A Top 10 hit in a stodgy ballad without it was.
only after hopping up to December 1959, it also losing the emotional
Joe Meek at Lansdowne gave Wilde his only punch. Rough and
Studios, did they nail it. American hit. ready, this was the face
of British rock’n’roll
to come.

Parnes, he was very important in my
life at that time. He was often guided
by what I said, unlike some of the more
dominant A&R men. He was very fair with
me. He was a great musician himself, a
phenomenal pianist.”
THE PHILIPS RECORD company was
barely a dozen years old in 1959, having
begun by pressing and distributing other
companies’ releases. Ironically, the first
British No. 1 single on its distinctive blue
label was Frankie Laine’s I Believe in 1953.
The studio was on the ground floor of an
old mansion at 2-4 Stanhope Place, near
Marble Arch. While the studio regularly
had 32-piece orchestras in to record, its
technicians had no experience of recording
rock’n’roll. The sound on Wilde recordings
such as Endless Love, The Fire Of Love –
another Jody Reynolds song whose original
version Wilde smashed out of the park –
and a superb cover of Donna, a hit for him
early in 1959, were feats of excellence.
“They could get great sounds and yet they
were only using little four-track machines,”
says Wilde.
The choice of songs on Wilde About
Marty were all the singer’s, reflecting a love
of American rock’n’roll, but nodding to
wider tastes. Unfortunately, there is some
confusion as to the personnel who played
“They could get great
sounds and yet they
were only using little
four-track machines”
MARTY WILDE
on the tracks as the Wildcats line-up was
undergoing changes at this time before
settling under the classic line-up of Tony
Belcher on rhythm guitar, Brian ‘Licorice’
Locking on bass and Brian Bennett on
drums. There’s no doubt, however, that
the electric guitar solos and fills were the
work of Big Jim Sullivan, who’d joined The
Wildcats from Vince Eager’s band. He, along
with Hank Marvin, Tony Sheridan and Joe
Moretti, was one of the first rock-dedicated
British axemen to emerge in the late 50s, in
contrast to old-school players like Weedon,
Shear and Eric Ford.
“The thing Jim had over Hank Marvin,”
remembers Wilde, “was he’d do a run on the
guitar so fast, his fingers would be a blur.
He had that natural talent, but he didn’t have
Hank’s great musical ideas. At shows, you’d
get a row of girls at the front looking

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After a hard day’s work, Marty liked
nothing more than to relax in a floral
armchair with a fag and a dog on his lap
at me, wiggling around, while four or five
guys stood watching what Jim was playing,
never taking their eyes off the fretboard, just
mesmerised by his fast playing. Hank never
did that. He was much cooler, more Scotty
Moore style… but Jim could play faster.”
Sullivan later criticised Johnny Franz
for the dryness of the sound production
on Wilde About Marty, and Wilde partially
agrees. “Yes, Johnny did probably flatten the
sound, but, again, these were early days.
He was a stunning, probably classically
trained musician, and this music was alien
to him, I guess. But, as I say, it was this
conflict that gave the British records of the
time that special sound.”
The flatness of sound, characterised as the
absence of echo, is evident in the opening
track, which is, even so, a full-throttle
take on Down The Line. It begins with a
suspenseful drum roll, from the Wildcats
drummer, either Bobby Woodman or Brian
Bennett, some menacing rhythm guitar and
Wilde’s fiery vocal coming in over the top.
Other outright rockers on the album, Put Me
Down, Mean Woman Blues and High School
Confidential followed the similar formula
as head arrangements of raw, visceral
excitement, not unlike the rockabilly
revivalists in the late 70s. Although Wilde’s
vocals obviously drew on Elvis and Jerry
Lee Lewis, as he says, “You can’t help
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CA/Redferns/Getty
something of yourself coming through on
a recording.”
Never a screamer, he had his own style,
midway between Elvis’s earthiness, and
Billy Fury’s yearning and The Everly
Brothers’ purity, and the album had a fine
version of the latter’s Love Of My Life. The
Wilde singing persona also came across on
Dream Lover. “That was a song I liked, but
I sang it my way. I had my own tone and it
came across on that. I sung it in a lower key
to Bobby Darin, which suited the timbre of
my voice.”
The one outright rockabilly number Blue
Moon Of Kentucky stuck close to Presley’s
Sun reworking, but as The Wildcats had an
electric bass, rim shots on the snare drum,
Bill Haley-style, replicated the click of slap
bass. More interesting was the take on
Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup’s So Glad You’re
Mine, again familiar to Wilde thanks to
Presley’s version, but which sat well with
his love for the blues. Like Elvis, he recorded
it as a shuffle, but ditched the barrelhouse
“I would have wanted it
to be better. I aimed as
high as I could, and it
felt like pushing a train
up a hill” MARTY WILDE
piano for a kettledrum, and stamped his
own vocal signature on it by dropping his
voice and drawing out the words on the
punchline. Some stinging breaks from
Sullivan rounded off an excellent recording.
“The lines are funny,” argues Wilde. “What
does ‘she’s like a cannonball’ mean? But
it’s effective. I loved Elvis’s work but it had
that kind of Frankie Laine impact where it
reaches out and hits you on the nose!”
All American Boy was a talking blues
by American country singer Bobby Bare,
sending up Presley’s US Army draft. Wilde,
who accompanied himself on acoustic
guitar on the recording, performed it
live on Oh Boy! and at the Royal Variety
Performance before the Queen Mother, his
easy swagger reflective of a man who has
acquitted himself well on stage and screen.
On some of the tracks, Ivor Raymonde was
brought as arranger. Raymonde went to his
grave in 1990 still with questions to answer
for Gene Vincent’s all-time worst recording,
the appalling Humpity Dumpity, recorded
with his orchestra in London in 1963, but
on the plus side he did fine work with such
artists as Billy Fury on Halfway To Paradise,
and he was effective enough on Wilde About
Marty. One for the squares, but well done all
the same, was the ballad Are You Sincere?,
a hit for Andy Williams, on which probably
Johnny Franz contributed some upmarket,
nightclub-style tinkling on the ivories.
FOR ALL HIS affability, Wilde is not easily
satisfied, and says this debut album, a steady
rather than a big seller, left him with no
great sense of pride. “I would have wanted it
to be better. I aimed as high as I could, and it
felt like pushing a train up a hill. You could
never get exactly what you wanted and you
were educating musicians and sound men
all the time.”
Whatever its shortcomings, Wilde About
Marty is a historic album as well as a classic
one. In 1959, rock’n’roll LPs by British artists
were rare. Tommy Steele’s Stage Show and
Cliff Richard And The Drifters’ Cliff, had
both been recorded live. Steele’s The
Tommy Steele Story (1957) was, the odd
highlight excepted, milk-and-water stuff.
Wilde About Marty was a proper rockin’
album, and also marked the real entry of the
first generation of British rockers into the
technical environs of the recording studio
and the process of production. Marty Wilde
was a pioneer, and every single rock album
that has since been produced in the UK ever
since is the spiritual descendent of Wilde
About Marty. 9
Hayley Madden/Redferns/Getty
WALK ON THE
WILDE SIDE
N E A R LY 6 0 Y E A R S A F T E R T H E
RELEASE OF WILDE ABOUT
M A R T Y, T H E 7 9 - Y E A R - O L D M A R T Y
WILDE IS STILL ROCKING…
Unlike many of your generation you
weren’t a 2i’s graduate, were you?
“No, I was at The Condor Club, across the
street. Different audience, kind of upmarket,
where all the luvvies went, racing drivers
like Stirling Moss, and I heard Princess
Margaret would sneak in. I was doing a lot
of Elvis’ repertoire, maybe the odd Haley
thing. I didn’t like that club, it wasn’t my
scene, but I had to get myself noticed.”
You are one of those who speaks warmly
of Larry Parnes, who saw you at The
Condor and became your manager…
“I’ve a lot of affection for Larry, although
Hard to believe, but Marty Wilde
will be 80 in April 2019. Not quite
a teenager in love anymore…
musically he knew nothing. He’d say,
“That’s a good brass sound” and we’d say,
“No, that’s a guitar.” But he had a kind of
magic that made things happen. He was a
homosexual who didn’t show it. Even his
mother didn’t know it. He had this Jewish,
homosexual, worldly mix. He wasn’t like
Brian Esptein, who committed suicide.
That wasn’t in Larry’s nature at all. He was
a complex, wonderful, magical, pain-in-the-
butt manager!”
You didn’t have a formal musical
education. When did you realise you
were blessed with this natural voice?
“I never thought about it. I’ve never liked
my voice, to be frank. Now and again I’ll
record something I quite like. I’m currently
recording a new album of self-penned
songs, and finally I’m finding, at the age of
79, that my voice is expressive. I’ve finally
discovered that... but I still don’t like it.”
But you’re one of the few 1950s originals
Marty Wilde: Wilde About Marty
still regularly performing and your voice
is remarkable, still hitting and holding
the notes.
“Yes, the remarkable thing is my key is
unaltered. I gave up smoking at 50 and
I think that helped. I still love performing.”
Can you remember the first rock’n’roll
record you heard?
“Probably by Bill Haley. This guy had a
record shop in Trafalgar Road, Greenwich,
where I grew up. Rock Around The Clock
is still one of the great rhythm tracks of all
time. But although Haley’s image and style
of singing was great for that record, I knew
it wasn’t me. And I didn’t think it was going
to be Elvis Presley at first because I didn’t
like his voice the first time I heard it, on
Heartbreak Hotel. Too much echo. I couldn’t
make up my mind, did he have a voice, was
he any good? But then I heard Hound Dog
and Don’t Be Cruel. Trying To Get To You still
blows me away. I’ll just sit in total silence.
Some music just reduces me to tears.”
You, having changed your name from
Reg Smith to Reg Patterson, were one
of several people who auditioned for
Dick Rowe at the Decca studio in West
Hampstead and got turned down.
“Yes, I’d have been playing something like
That’s All Right, or some other country blues
number. Ted Heath’s great bass
player Johnny Hawksworth backed me,
playing the most remarkable double bass,
but I failed! But, in the meantime, Larry
Parnes moved quickly to get me under
contract. Changed my name to Marty Wilde.
I thought Marty sounded like some poncy
American college guy and Wilde I couldn’t
work out at all, until I saw it in print and
thought, “That’s a star’s name.” Only my old
buddies in Greenwich and Blackheath still
call me Reg.”
Any new activity on the record front?
“Cherry Red are bringing out a 4-CD box
set soon, all my songs, including demos,
some things I’d forgotten I‘d ever done. I’m
also putting the finishing touches to a new
album, my first one of all-new material in 15
years. I had a song I was going to do with the
late Chas Hodges, a great rock’n’roller, but
I never got round to it. One song that will
be on there is a tribute to Eddie Cochran,
who I got to know well on the ill-fated 1960
tour. I’ve had it in my shows for a while and
it’s become a cult part of the act. I’m really
excited about it and looking forward to 2019,
when I’m also touring with Eden Kane.” 9
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 WORDS AND ALL INTERVIEWS BY BILL DAHL

Chicago of the 1950s is forever associated with

the blues of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and
the genius of Chess Records. But behind the
bluesmen,
bluesmen, early
early rock’n’roll
rockk’n’’rolll also
allso thrived
th
hriived
d in
in the
windy city as V
Vintage
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rackks d
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own ssome
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lost stars of US rock history…
50 VINTAGE ROCK
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T
Ral Donner’s influence was so great, he
was even cited by Robert Plant at Led
Zeppelin’s induction into the Rock And
Roll Hall Of Fame in 1995
hink Chicago, and you think blues.
Without the stardom of Muddy Waters,
Howlin’ Wolf, the songs of Willie Dixon,
and the recordings of Chess and Checker
records, it’s true to say that modern music
would be a whole lot different. But for all
the celebration of Chicago’s blues, doo-wop
and soul legacies, the city’s late 50s and
early 60s rock’n’roll scene traditionally flies
under the radar. Not so here.
And we begin with one name from
Chicago who actually
did become famous.
Northwestsider Ral Donner
became an Elvis disciple at 14. He led his “RIGHT ON HIS CORNER, THERE WAS A
own band, The Rockin’ Five, at Taft High SIGNPOST. RON WROTE A SIGN AND
School, and built a devoted local following,
soon joining Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, HE PUT ON THERE: BOP STREET!”
and Jerry Lee Lewis on an Alan Freed-
sponsored bill at the Civic Opera House.
Donner even earned an invitation from
Sammy Davis Jr to perform at the Apollo Theatre… and
all before he had a record out.
Photos courtesy of the artist unless specified
Donner journeyed to Memphis to wax his debut
single That’s All Right With Me in early ’59, just prior to
his 16th birthday, for the Scottie label. Ral’s managers
liked the way he sang Elvis’ Girl Of My Best Friend and
sent him to Miami to cover it. George Goldner’s New
York-based Gone Records picked up the master, and
The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll
18-year-old Ral was an instant national star when his
single cracked the Top 20 in the spring of 1961. Presley’s
influence remained strong on You Don’t Know What
You’ve Got (Until You Lose It), which sent Ral into the
Top 5 that summer, and he closed out the year with
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
another hit, She’s Everything (I Wanted You To Be).
Barry Goldberg, then a keyboardist with the house
band at Teenland on the far North Side, still marvels
at Donner’s charisma. “Ral Donner pulled up in a pink
Cadillac convertible,” he says. “Ral Donner was the
coolest!” Donner waxed a slew of Elvis tributes later in
his career before lung cancer claimed him in 1984.
Gene Vincent was Ron Haydock’s main man. Hailing
from west Chicago suburb Brookfield, Haydock
modeled his act around Vincent’s after seeing The Girl
Can’t Help It; his band, The Boppers, even donned
blue caps. “He looked just like Gene Vincent,” recalls
James Holvay, then Ron’s pre-teen neighbour, and the
whole block knew of Haydock’s obsession. “Right on his
corner, there was a signpost,” says Holvay. “He wrote a
sign and he put on there: Bop Street!”
Don DeLucia’s Cha Cha Records on
the South Side pacted The Boppers and
produced Haydock’s first session in
April of ’59 at a studio in suburban Alsip.
Haydock’s debut was a rocking 99 Chicks,
with its risqué couplet “Ninety-nine
chicks, it’d be just my luck / not one of
JAMES HOLVAY the girls I’d wanna…” ensuring a lack of
airplay. But at live dances and concerts,
the colourful Haydock was a draw –
Holvay recalls a show at a roller rink where Haydock
split a bill with local rocker J Mikel And The Hepcats,
who cut Bettyjean Rock for Ed Cody’s Sonic label in 1958.
“I think that was his territory,” says Holvay of Mikel.
“He got a bigger response.”
After a Cha Cha encore called Baby Say Bye-Bye,
Haydock headed to Hollywood in 1960 to pursue his
other passion, horror movies. He wrote for fan
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The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll

magazines and starred in low-budget films; he even

co-scripted 1965’s Lemon Grove Kids Meet The Monsters.
True horror followed: a truck killed Haydock at just
37 as he walked along a Route 66 offramp in 1977.
His passing got little news coverage, though: Haydock
was buried the day that Elvis died.
CHICAGO BOASTED CHUCK BERRY’S mirror image in
lanky Eddy Clearwater. Born in Mississippi, Edward
Harrington – as he then was – was living in Alabama
when he picked up his uncle’s acoustic guitar, playing
left-handed and upside-down… just like Albert King
did. That uncle, the Rev. Houston H Harrington, later
moved to Chicago and sent his nephew a bus ticket to
join him in Chicago in 1950. Eddy soon made headway
as a blues guitarist, singing Elvis covers as well, until he
heard Chuck Berry’s Oh Baby Doll while driving along
Chicago’s famous magnificent mile, Michigan Avenue.
“I said, ‘This guy is really different, he’s special!’” he
recalled. Drummer Jump Jackson changed Eddy’s stage
name to Clear Waters, and he debuted on wax in 1958
with Hill Billy Blues on his uncle’s own Atomic-H label.
The Chuck Berry sound defined Clearwater’s ’61
single Cool Waters, cut at Hall Studios in the Loop in
Chicago’s downtown. The guitarist waxed two 45s as
Eddie Clearwater that year (for Ohio’s Federal Records),
and the auto-chase rocker I Was Gone and A Real Good
BELOW 1965’s Lemon Grove
Kids Meet The Monsters.
It failed to win any Oscars
Eddy Clearwater would often
perform in a Native American
headdress, acquiring him the
nickname “The Chief”
Chicago blues maestro,
and Chuck Berry-alike,
Eddy Clearwater
Time were more Berry soundalikes. The Duck Walk,
Clearwater’s 1965 single for USA, even introduced a
new dance modeled after Chuck’s signature stage move.
Eddy remained a local hero in Chicago, gigging at North
Side hillbilly bars and in the suburbs before finally
achieving stardom as a bluesman. He died 1 June, 2018.
Along the way, Eddy’s slashing axe was spotlighted
with Eddy Bell And The Bel-Aires. “He got to see me
doing some Chuck Berry stuff,” said Clearwater.
“He thought that was pretty fantastic.”
Bell’s real surname was Blazonczyk and before

THE CHUCK BERRY SOUND DEFINED

James Fraher/Redferns/Getty

CLEARWATER’S ’61 SINGLE COOL WATERS,

CUT AT HALL STUDIOS IN THE LOOP IN
CHICAGO’S DOWNTOWN
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The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll

Hayden Thompson was born in 1938,

just a few miles north of Elvis Presley’s
birthplace of Tupelo, Mississippi

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The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll
“JACK CLEMENT SAID, ‘IF YOU’D LIKE TO STOP
BY SUN, WE’LL HAVE A CHAT AND SEE IF WE CAN
COME UP WITH SOMETHING’ ” HAYDEN THOMPSON
‘Bell’ formed his Bel-Aires, he trafficked in polka music,
a genre beloved on Chicago’s Southwest Side, where his
folks owned the Pulaski Ballroom. Clearwater played
Berry-style axe on Bell’s The Masked Man (Hi Yo Silver)
and Knock, Knock, Knock (Knocking On My Door) for
Mercury in 1960 and Johnny Be-Goode Is In Hollywood
on Lennie LaCour’s Lucky Four label. After his brief
flirtation with rock’n’roll, Blazonczyk later re-entered
the polka field under his own name to great renown.
Lennie LaCour may have been just one label owner
to release Eddy Clearwater’s records, but he also had
recording ambitions of his own. Originally from
Natchitoches, Louisiana, LaCour migrated
to Chicago and sang pop music before
winning a contest to do an Orange Crush
jingle: his 1956 debut single, Rock-N-Roll
Romance, was a one-sided cardboard 7"
78rpm pressing attached to six-packs of
Orange Crush soda. A remake quickly turned
up on Frank McGovern’s Academy label on a
real 45 with a B-side, and Lenny encored on the
Academy label with Rockin’ Rosalie. Lenny launched his
own Lucky Four label before moving to Milwaukee and
establishing his Magic Touch logo.
Hayden Thompson moved to Chicago from
Mississippi and made his name when he joined The
Southern Melody Boys, a country band whose manager
ran the Dixieland Jamboree at Booneville’s Von Theater.
Thompson debuted with I Feel The Blues Coming On
in 1954 for the Von label. When rockabilly got hot,
Thompson formed the Dixie Jazzliners. “We went on
the road with Rock Around the Clock,” he says. “We’d
go into a town and do a show and they’d play the movie
and we’d do another show and pick up the movie and
load up the trailer, and away we’d go to the next town.”
That led to his big break in 1956. “They had a great big
drive-in over in West Memphis, Arkansas,” Hayden says.
“We did a four-day deal there, and [Sun’s] Jack Clement
came over one of the nights. He introduced himself and
he said, ‘If you’d like to stop by Sun, we’ll have a chat
and see if we can come up with something.’”
Sam Phillips issued Thompson’s Clement-produced
remake of Little Junior Parker’s Love My Baby on his
new Phillips International subsidiary with Jerry Lee
Lewis on piano. “Sam stuck that up on the shelf
and released it one year later,” notes Hayden,
who split town. “This was early ’58,” he
says. “A guy offered me a job up north of
Chicago, and I came up and checked it
out. I ended up coming up and worked
at this club for almost five years.”
The Tally Ho was located in north
suburban Highwood.
Thompson found a guitarist in Travis
54 VINTAGE ROCK
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West side teens The
Deltones were Chicago’s
first white doo-wop outfit
Westmoreland. “He was a local boy out of Mississippi
that had been up in (nearby) Zion for a long time,” he
says. “We worked together for 20 years.” A label honcho
stopped by. “There was a guy that came into the Tally
Ho and said, ‘Boy, I’m gonna make you a star!’” says
Thompson. Dream Love on the B.E.A.T. label didn’t do
that, nor did a ’61 single for Mike Oury’s Profile logo,
Watcha Gonna Do. A local uptick in country music
interest led to Thompson’s 1966 album on New York’s
Kapp label. After a performing hiatus, overseas interest
in rockabilly got Hayden touring again and he was a
welcome visitor to weekenders in the UK.
BANDSTAND MATINEE WAS Chicago’s answer to American
Bandstand. Host Jim Lounsbury emceed countless
record hops. “That became a regular little side business
for him,” says Chicago star James Holvay. “He’d bring
a PA system with him, and then he’d have a
live band.” That combo was often The
Millionaires, who waxed Haunted Train
for Shar Records in 1959. “They were all
Italian guys from Taylor Street,” notes
Holvay. “Joey Russo on drums, Bob
Garritano on lead guitar, Vic Cerny on
bass, a guy named Frankie Roberts on
tenor sax.” Lounsbury was married to
singer Penny Stevens, who cut the Bill
Haley-penned I’ve Got News For You in
1955 for the Ka-Hill logo, headquartered in
northwest suburban Des Plaines. She was known as
Debbie Stevens when she sang Jerry with The Deltones
in 1958, then changed her moniker to Debbie Dean as
Motown’s first white female singer in 1961.
The Deltones themselves may have been Chicago’s
first white doo-wop group, and they got to record at
Chess Records studios. The teenagers hailed from the
West Side. “Tommy Burton and I started singing when
we were about nine or 10 years old together in grammar
school,” says tenor Sammy Basile. “We used to emulate
Frankie Lymon And The Teenagers and the groups
back then.” The other members joined when Sam and
Tommy were attending Marshall High School. “We
met another fellow named Ronnie Howard,” says Sam.
 The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll

Hank Mizell’s 1958 single Jungle Rock was

reissued in 1976 and reached number three in
the UK and number one in the Netherlands

CHICAGO’S ROCKABILLIES
THE WINDY CITY’S ROCK’N’ROLL PIONEERS
Hank Mizell came to Chicago from Montgomery,
Alabama in 1956. He teamed with guitarist Jim Bobo
and secured a residency at the Napoleon Lounge.
They were heard there in 1958 by Gene Parsons, owner
of the Eko label. Mizell waxed the throbbing Jungle
Rock at Parsons’ garage studio. Eko miscredited Bobo
as its singer but fixed the error on a subsequent
pressing. A King Records rep heard the 45, his label
reissuing it in 1959. A Dutch bootlegger included
Jungle Rock on a 70s compilation LP and the club
airplay it garnered in Great Britain caused Charly
Records to reissue it – giving Mizell an unexpected UK
smash in 1976.
Tennessee was originally home to Wayne Worley,
who migrated to Chicago at age 18. There was enough
local interest in rockabilly in 1961 for engineer Ed Cody
to record Wayne and his Worley Birds’ revival of Sonny
Burgess’ Sun rocker Red Headed Woman for Cody’s
Western Springs-based Elbridge label. His Elbridge
encore Hully Gully Twist (She’s Quite A Dish) was
driven by Jesse Harvey’s rollicking piano.
Memphis product Eddie Cash cut a couple of
unreleased Sun titles. The Lansky Brothers, Presley’s
favourite clothiers, formed Peak Records and issued
Eddie’s Doing All Right in late ’58. The song stirred up
action in Chicago, and Cash moved there, gigging
everywhere from the Baritz Lounge on North Sheridan
to the west suburban Aurora Hotel. Eddie’s agent gave
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

his stomping demo of Stormy Weather to Roulette

Records in 1961, and it came out as a single.

VINTAGE ROCK 55
9
The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll

ROBBY AND THE TROUBADOURS

TRAINING GROUND FOR FUTURE STAR BLUES GUITARISTS...
Conventioneers, gangsters,
hookers, and anyone in
search of a good time
flocked to Rush Street just
north of the Loop in 50s/60s
Chicago. When the Twist
exploded, the swinging
Rumpus Room booked
Robby And The Troubadours.
They’d started in Connecticut
as Bob Vidone And The
Rhythm Rockers, cutting
Frankie And Johnny and the
instrumental Weird before
changing their name and
waxing The Lemon Twist in
Sidemen to become their
new organist after they
arrived in Chicago.
“They were creating a
sensation on Rush Street,”
says Goldberg. “They all had
matching uniforms, purple
and gold. And they dyed
their hair different colours
every night.” Vidone was
electrifying. “Robby was
sort of like the white Jackie
Wilson,” says Barry. “He’d
leap off the stage, and
they’d do songs like Shout
and Tossin’ And Turnin’.”
saxist Peter Strazza rounded
out the band, Goldberg
covering bass lines on his
organ’s foot pedals.
Goldberg later segued
into blues with his childhood
pal, guitarist Michael
Bloomfield. Future guitar
god Johnny Winter sat in
with The Troubadours during
his eight months of playing
in Chicago. “There wasn’t
any blues scene on Rush
Street,” lamented the late
albino axeman.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

’62 in Florida for the Block Drummer Tony Neri was Barry Goldberg famously played
logo. Barry Goldberg came replaced by Eddie Hoh; keyboards at Bob Dylan’s
over from Sal And The guitarist Carmine Riale and controversial Newport Folk Festival
appearance in 1965

“We got another kid. Ronnie knew him. His name was
Ronnie Buonaro.”
The group impressed Lounsbury with a performance
at his record hop. “He said, ‘How about you guys coming
up to my studio on Randolph Street?’ It was an ABC
affiliate. ‘We’ll talk some music, and maybe we can
record you guys. You got any music?’ We had none at
all that we wrote. No originals. But I said, ‘Oh yeah,
we’ve got about four or five songs,” says Basile.
“We went by Ronnie Buonaro’s house on Taylor Street.
Me, Tom and Ronnie Howard actually wrote Early
Morning Rock, our first record, in about five minutes.
And then we wrote a slow one. We locked ourselves in
his house from Sunday night until Tuesday morning.
We even cut school until Tuesday morning and
early afternoon.”
Lounsbury brought The Deltones to Chess Records’
studio, cutting six sides on them including two with
Debbie Stevens. “We were in there from seven o’clock
at night to about six in the morning,” says Sam. “We’re
doing Early Morning Rock, the first one, and on that one,
we took 26 takes.” Lounsbury sold the Stevens sides to
Roulette and the Basile-led Early Morning Rock and its
flip to Vee-Jay; both came out under the group’s name.
R&B deejay Sam Evans appreciated the prominent
mention of his program Jam With Sam in Early Morning
Rock, making it one of his themes for the next two years.
After one Vee-Jay follow-up, the group-penned ballad
“THIS GUY SAYS TO ME, ‘YOU WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING? I’VE GOT
A Lovers Prayer, the quartet moved to USA Records in
1961 for Please Talk To Me. Their USA farewell, My Only
Love, hit the street under the name of The Parlaments.
Lounsbury was inspirational to another Chicagoan,
Carl Bonafede. “I’ve run so many dances, and he kind
of motivated me into that thing,” says Carl. “When I
saw him doing it and I didn’t see anybody else doing
it, that’s when I put my foot in the door.” In addition
to emerging as one of the city’s top promoters and
managers, Bonafede cut a handful of records as a singer.
Living in an area known as Little Sicily and later on the
North Side, Bonafede played accordion at age eight.
“I was up in the window across the street from the
ballpark, playing songs like Doggie In The Window,”
he remembers. His focus changed when he met Eddie
Thomas, manager of the Impressions: “He kind of got
me motivated in rock’n’roll.”
Bonafede’s 1958 debut single, the self-penned
Halloween rocker Were Wolf, came out on Bill Hall and
Stu Black’s TEK label and was cut at Hall Recording
Studio, in the Loop. Carl was backed by the Gem-Tones,
featuring saxist Harry Manfredini. “Harry used to live
right across the street from me,” says Carl, who released
his encore, Baby Sittin’ Blues, on his own Impala imprint
under the handle of Carl Bonn. Impala also pressed up
Carl Bonafede has Bonafede’s Two Months Out Of School, with John Sills
recorded and produced And His Rhythm Jets in support.
over 200 records
A priest gifted Carl with his distinctive nickname.
“I sang at a Catholic school dance, and the guy comes up
to me. I used to sing a lot of stuff like Jerry Lee Lewis,
Elvis Presley,” says Bonafede. “He says to me, ‘You want

A FEELING THAT I’M GOING TO CALL YOU THE SCREAMING WILDMAN!’ to know something? I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to
call you the Screaming Wildman!’ And it stuck on
AND IT STUCK ON ME FOREVER” CARL BONAFEDE me forever.”

56 VINTAGE ROCK
9

The MayBees were an
Aurora-based rock’n’roll combo
(James Holvay bottom right)
Growing up in Brookfield, James Holvay was knocked
out by Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock and Elvis on
the Dorsey Brothers’ TV show. He picked up a guitar
and formed a band in seventh grade. As a sophomore
at Lyons Township High School, James signed on as
lead guitarist for the MayBees, an Aurora-based band
fronted by George Torrens. ”He was from Puerto Rico,”
notes Holvay. “He was a real good-looking guy, and he
sounded like Elvis.”
The MayBees debuted in 1960 on Bill Friedl’s Terry
Records. “He was the brother-in-law of the drummer,
Don Dalton,” says Holvay. “He was a contractor in
Naperville. So he came and saw the band at some record
hop, and said, ‘Hey, I want to help you guys, and I was
thinking of starting a record label!’” Mary Lou was the
45’s topside. “Mary Lou sounded like a copy of Betty
Lou Got A New Pair Of Shoes by Bobby Freeman,” says
James. It was followed by TR-3, penned by the band’s
other guitarist, Chico Ledesma, and saxist Gary Beisbier.
“TR-3 was a copy of [Eddie Cochran’s] Something Else,”
says Holvay. The MayBees’ ’61 Terry farewell was an
instrumental treatment of Buttons And Bows.”
After the MayBees folded, Holvay, Beisbier, and
their trombonist Larry McCabe hooked up with singer
Jimmy Peterson to record Kathy My Darling in 1963
at Sound Studios for Mercury’s Limelight subsidiary
(the other side of Peterson’s single, Half The Time,
The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll
PHIL ORSI AND THE LITTLE KINGS
KEEPING CHICAGO ROCK’N’ROLL ALIVE IN THE 60S
Since his father operated an Italian
food store on East 18th Street, around
the corner from Record Row on South
Michigan Avenue, Phil Orsi grew up
close to the action. “Muddy Waters
would come in, Howlin’ Wolf…
My dad would make sandwiches for
them,” says Orsi, who listened to
Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and doo-wop.
He started playing in 1958. “I was a guitar player, and I had a bad accident.
Half of my hand was paralysed,” he says. “So I became a bass player.”
Someone New, Orsi’s 1961 debut 45 with the Uni-Beats, came out on Scarlott,
another Bill Hall/Stu Black-owned label. “We had the Sheppards singing
background,” he notes.
Although he wrote several of his singles, Orsi displayed a late-50s rock’n’roll
allegiance into the mid-60s, reviving Huey “Piano” Smith’s Don’t You Just Know
It for Lucky and the Impalas’ Sorry (I Ran All The Way Home) and Maurice
Williams & The Zodiacs’ Stay for USA. “I liked to take old songs and redo them,”
says Orsi, whose Larry Nestor-penned ’67 release Loving On Borrowed Time on
his own Wise World imprint still garners spins on the Northern soul scene.
“We were right there, but it wasn’t meant to be,” says Orsi.
VINTAGE ROCK 57
9
The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll
Willy Henson, AKA Tobin Matthews. You can
read more about Henson’s musical life on his
blog, earlyrockandroll.blogspot.com
featured backing by trumpeter Jimmy Ford and the
Kasuals). Peterson called his new band The Chicagoans,
though they masqueraded as The Livers on their 1964
instrumental Beatle Time for Constellation. They also
played on Inside Of Me, Jimmy Peterson’s 1964 Chess 45.
TOBIN MATTHEWS HAD a national hit in 1960 before he
even existed. It all started with a phone call to local
rocker Willy Henson from USA Records boss Paul
Glass. “They had heard Charles Wolcott’s version of
Ruby Duby Du,” says Henson. “They liked it, so they got
“ALONG COMES BILL HALEY AND THE COMETS, AND THEN
ELVIS, AND IT WAS JUST NATURAL FOR ME TO LIKE
ROCK’N’ROLL” WILLY HENSON
58 VINTAGE ROCK
9
ABOVE Ruby Duby Do was some studio musicians together and recorded it, and it
used as the theme to the became a hit.” Released on Mel London’s Chief label,
1960 crime thriller Key
Witness, starring Jeffrey the instrumental cover was credited to a pseudonymous
Hunter and Dennis Hopper Tobin Mathews. “Paul Glass had a son, and the son’s
name was Tobin Mathew Glass,” Henson says. “He said,
‘Now here’s my problem: I know you’re really popular,
but what I would like to do is use you to help promote
this record for me, and you could be Tobin Mathews.
Then when this little run is over, I promise you, I’ll put
you on USA Records, and we’ll do some vocals.’”
Henson grew up in Calumet City, Indiana and East
Chicago. “Along comes Bill Haley and then Elvis, and it
was just natural for me to like rock’n’roll,” he says. A trip
to Poppel’s Under 21 Tropicana Club in south suburban
Riverdale was the turning point. Henson sang three
Elvis numbers, and the owners dug him. “They said,
‘Well, we have a band that needs a singer.’ The band was
 The untold story of Chicago rock’n’roll

STEVE KING
FROM PROTO ROCKER TO RADIO PERSONALITY
Chicago radio listeners have luxuriated in
Steve King’s dulcet tones for the last 50 years.
But before that, he was a young rocker himself.
The South Sider’s formal guitar study only lasted
a year. “The rest of my guitar lessons were from
Chuck Berry and Scotty Moore and Cliff Gallup and
Duane Eddy on a turntable,” says King.
Cha Cha issued King’s debut 45 in 1962.
“Kitten Twist was a Kal David song. It was
originally called Do The Twist, and Kal did a demo
session for it. And I played lead guitar on Kal’s
version,” says Steve, who did the same on his
own rendition. “I broke a string, but we didn’t
stop playing.”
Mercury Records A&R man David Carroll signed
King that year. “We did a song called Satan Is
Her Name,”says Steve, who wrote it about his
then-girlfriend. “I was walking home from her
house. This would have been about 11 o’clock at
night, and I was walking just by myself and
started putting together some lyrics and
humming a melody,” he says. “By the time I got
home, I had the song pretty well worked out.”
Cut with his band, The Echelons, Satan Is Her
Name nearly broke nationally.
King moved to Mercury’s Limelight logo the
next year, writing and producing A Thing Called
Love. He used an informal group of backing
singers. “Those were literally the girls who were
our girlfriends,” he says. The band on the flip, an
original titled Strange Love done at Sound
Studios, featured Kal David on lead guitar (he cut
Forgotten Dreams with his Exceptions for the
Ardore label in ’61) and future Chicago (the band)
mainstay Peter Cetera on bass.

called The Rhythm Rockers.” was a male vocal group there,” says Henson. “The one
Then Willy fronted Jimmy And The Jeepers. “I liked guy came up and he said, ‘Did you ever hear Think It
them way better than The Rhythm Rockers,” he says. Over by Buddy Holly?’ And I said no. He said, ‘That’d
“They had that pounding, driving beat.” Jimmy McHugh be a good one for you to do!’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know
and Ron Lane were the guitarists, Frankie it.’ He said, ‘Well, let’s go in the john and
Gage was on bass, and Norby King was we’ll teach it to you!’” In 1962, Tobin
on drums. “Jim Lounsbury made some
connections,” says Willy. “We were his
“I LIKED JIMMY AND THE JEEPERS signed with Columbia Records and
moved to New York. He cut two Columbia
favourite record hop band.” London WAY BETTER THAN THE RHYTHM 45s and two more for Warner Bros.
booked Chess Records’ studio to cut three
ROCKERS. THEY HAD THAT POUNDING, Chicago’s rock scene exploded during

DRIVING BEAT ” WILLY HENSON

vocal singles that Matthews (with the mid-60s with national smashes by
two ‘t’s) had on USA in 1961. “Jim The Cryan’ Shames, The New Colony Six,
Lounsbury wanted us to do Oh Julie, The Shadows Of Knight, the Bonafede-
which was a Crescendos thing. We always managed Buckinghams (their chart-
used to do Little Richard’s Slippin’ And Slidin’, so I said, topper Kind Of A Drag and most of their other major hits
‘Let’s do Slippin’ And Slidin’!”’ were written by Holvay), and The American Breed.
The last Matthews USA platter, done with a band But the groundwork for their ascension had been laid
called the All Stars, was brainstormed at Chess. “There long before... 9

VINTAGE ROCK 59
9
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Buddy Holly and the RPO

c PHERS ON
G L A S M
Y DOU
WORDS B

ith a ne w
is b a ck w ic
d d y Ho lly ilh a r m o n
ss in g, B u R o y al P h
ft er his pa s y of T h e e st o ry of
ty y ears a
es , c o ur te te lls u s th
Six ic al clo th k P atr ick e W a y s ...
s c v
set of mustra. Producer Ni w album, True Lo
Orche h on ic ne
lly ’s s y m p
Ho

O
n Sunday 21 October, 2018, walkers on
Primrose Hill came across a giant pair of
horn-rimmed glasses and the seductive
voice of Buddy Holly, wrapped in velvet strings,
wafting across the sunny London skyline.
The al fresco performance of True Love Ways
marked the 60th anniversary of Holly’s final recording
session… and heralded the release of a new album
that revitalises a dozen of his classic recordings
with new symphonic arrangements by The Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra.
The album was produced by Nick Patrick (Seal,
Michael Ball, The Piano Guys) who previously united
the Royal Philharmonic with the voices of Elvis Presley,
Roy Orbison and Aretha Franklin on a string of hit
albums that began with Presley’s chart-topping If I Can
Dream in 2015.
When you did the Elvis album, was Buddy Holly
always on a wish list of other artists to record with
the RPO?
“No-one knew what would happen with the Elvis album,
but after the success of it, one naturally thought, ‘Who
else would this work with?’ It was Tom Lewis, the head
of artist development and A&R at Decca who decided
that Buddy would be great, because of his amazing
songs and the affection people have for him. Here’s a guy
who had such a short career but so many hits. I think
with these things, the artist has to be in that rarefied
atmosphere of the truly great. They need to be able to
carry the day and the orchestra just supports them.”
Buddy had just started working with strings
before he died. How did those recordings
influence this project?
“I’ve always viewed these records as if the artist is in
the room and we’re making a new album, rather than
revitalising old catalogue. And, interestingly enough,
you can learn so much more about the artist by hearing
their performance than you perhaps would by having a
discussion with them. Words can often be interpreted in
different ways, but with a performance you’re getting a
direct emotional connection with the artist that words
in a conversation can sometimes hide.”
“A lot of time was spent studying tracks like Raining
In My Heart and True Love Ways that had wonderful
string arrangements on them already. Buddy had a
very specific style of string writing, where there’d be a
lot of those rhythmic pizzicato parts – like that iconic
pizzicato rhythm that goes through It Doesn’t Matter
Anymore. We tried to maintain that style on the songs
that didn’t originally have strings but felt as if they
easily could have. On the up-tempo stuff we very much
channelled the spirit of It Doesn’t Matter Anymore.
There’s a lot of bouncing pizzicato and simple little pop
lines. Rather than a carpet of symphonic strings it had to
be pop interjections, so it didn’t interfere with the spirit
of the original records.”

62 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 Buddy Holly and the RPO

Buddy Holly had begun using strings

© John Beecher

on tracks like Raining In My Heart

shortly before he died

VINTAGE ROCK 63
9
Buddy Holly and the RPO

What are the technical challenges of working with

60-year-old recordings?
“This one was more of a challenge than the Elvis
albums, because there were no multi-tracks – Buddy’s
voice was never separate. There’s quite an extensive
technical process that we’ve developed over a period of
time that allows us to reduce the backing tracks against
his voice and allows you to restore the voice – to add
clarity and give it a warmth that wasn’t necessarily there
in the context of the original record.”

Did you re-record the rhythm parts as well as

adding orchestra?
“We did re-record the rhythm section, but it’s a
combination of the original performances and the new.
The process starts with us creating a tempo map of the
original record, which often moves up and down all
over the place – many of these old records may finish up
considerably faster than they start. They’ll lurch around
in tempo, which sounds wonderful, so it’s been very
important to preserve that, because it’s part of the spirit
of the vocal performance. We never moved the vocal
to fit into a new track, everything was fitted to the
original track.
“We’d then record new drums, bass and guitar over
the original track and there’d be a very extensive editing
process where we’d microscopically edit the new
performances to the old performance. That gave us the
opportunity to push up the instruments and create a
more contemporary sonic quality that isn’t possible with
the original master.”

Are we hearing Buddy’s guitar?
“We kept all the significant solos that Buddy did,
because those are very specific. We used the original
track at that point, using the extraction process again to
give us a bit more control over warming up the guitar
solo a little bit and treating it in a way that works with
the new elements. So you get a sense of never knowing
where the old finishes and the new begins. It’s a
seamless stream that goes through the tracks.”
It sounds like a painstaking labour of love. How long
did it take to make the album?
“It took about three months, but the orchestra took
about two days. It’s all the other stuff that takes a long,
long time. It’s like a film where the actual shoot doesn’t
take forever, but it’s all the pre- and post-production
stuff that moves around the artist to make it sound
coherent and not bolted on. It’s very important that
everything is a fit for the artist and nothing sounds out of
whack, sonically.”
Was Buddy’s widow, María Elena, involved in
the project?
“It’s very important that these things don’t appear to be
in any way opportunistic and that they have the support
of the remaining close relatives, as was the case with
Priscilla Presley on the Elvis albums. That’s been a big
thing for us on all these projects, so we’re enormously
ABOVE Members of The
Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra at work giving
Holly’s hits a 21st century
makeover
grateful that María Elena has been so enthusiastic and
supportive of it. The first tracks we did were True Love
Ways and Raining In My Heart and I was incredibly
nervous about playing them for her. Thank goodness,
she really loved them and felt it was something Buddy
would have done, should he have had that opportunity.”
One of the lesser known tracks is Moondreams.
Why did you choose that?
That was actually a suggestion from Buddy’s estate,
along with Words Of Love. They weren’t on our list,
initially, but they’re really great contributions because
it gives people an opportunity to have not just a
‘Greatest Hits’ but to discover some songs they
might not necessarily have been aware of. It’s got an
opening guitar riff that appeared on so many of the early
Beatles records. It really was an influential record
for them.”
Do the classical musicians of the RPO enjoy rocking
through things like Oh, Boy! and Rave On?
“They love it. It’s not every day that you get to have
the voice of an absolute icon coming through your
headphones. It lifts everybody’s game. People suddenly
think, ‘Blimey, that’s Buddy Holly!’ I had to pinch myself
constantly and think, ‘Can you believe this?’ It’s been an
enormous honour to get that close to being in the room
with Buddy Holly.”

64 VINTAGE ROCK
9

Are there any moments from the sessions that
particularly stand out for you?
“I think the first time we did True Love Ways with the
orchestra. It felt so beautiful, warm and rich, and seemed
to enhance his vocal performance. It’s funny how that
sometimes happens. The vocal has a new clarity and a
new emotional depth, because you can hear more of his
voice. You can hear all the tonal quality that is sometimes
lost in some of his earlier recordings, purely because the
technical stuff wasn’t available at the time.”
Are there any guest duets?
“It’s not actually on the album, because it came in too
late, but we’ve done a beautiful duet with Gregory Porter
on Raining In My Heart, which will be a track that goes
to radio. We gave him the choice of True Love Ways and
Raining In My Heart and he wanted to do Raining In My
Heart. We sketched out an idea of how the vocal could
be split up and he recorded it in his home in Bakersfield,
in California.”
Will there be a Buddy and Royal Philharmonic tour,
as there was with the Elvis albums?
“I hope so. I’m really hoping there will be a significant
reaction to this record and that it will bring Buddy
not just to his existing fan base but expand that and
introduce people to an artist who deserves to have a
real resurgence of popularity.” 9
BELOW Producer Nick Patrick
at his mixing desk in
London’s Angel Studios
Buddy Holly and the RPO
...OH BOY,
IT’S GOOD!
BUDDY+STRINGS
IS A WINNING COMBO
It takes just a minute to
realise that Buddy Holly’s
posthumous date with The
Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra is a marriage
made in rock’n’roll heaven.
That first minute is spent in
the company of a sweetly vulnerable orchestral
overture that slowly builds in power and provides the
perfect curtain raiser for what’s to come.
While Buddy was one of the most delicate balladeers
of the 1950s, he was also a fierce rocker and some
rock’n’roll purists may question the wisdom of adding
violins to such raw and energetic singles as Rave On
and Oh, Boy!. They shouldn’t worry, because it’s on the
rockers that this album’s good taste is most evident.
On Peggy Sue, for instance, the orchestra stays out
of the way completely for the first third of the song,
allowing one of the most iconic drum intros in history
to bash away as brightly as ever. When the strings
finally arrive, in the chorus and behind Buddy’s
blistering guitar solo, they’re added with a delicate
touch that adds sparkle and sheen to the performance
without taking over.
Rave On similarly still begins with Buddy’s famous
stuttering vocal, and the plucked violin adornments
have an energy fit for the dance floor. At every point
it’s easy to imagine Buddy and The Crickets on stage,
with their instruments up front, driving the tracks,
while the orchestra follows them.
The less familiar symphonic ballad Moondreams
mixes with popular favourites like Heartbeat on an
album that puts a new frame around Holly’s artistry
and takes nothing away from it.
VINTAGE ROCK 65
9
Roy Orbison

Buddy-plus-orchestra may
be a first, but the new Roy
Orbison album Unchained
Melodies is a repeat team-
up with The Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra.
Vintage Rock looks at the
‘new’ Big O album and
revisits some of the
original recordings…
WORDS BY PETER HERNDON & BILL DAHL

I
f a ‘with-orchestra’ collaboration was likely
where Buddy Holly was headed, it was
something that Roy Orbison already
mastered in his own lifetime. So it was certainly
no surprise when A Love So Beautiful – an album
which saw archive recordings of Orbison overlaid
with fresh orchestral arrangements courtesy of The
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – was released in 2017,
becoming The Big O’s highest charting record for almost
30 years. And so a follow-up, Unchained Melodies, once
again with the RPO, makes total sense. Whether it is
“rock’n’roll” is another matter. But Orbison’s rockin’
years were brief anyway: with that voice and a taste
Evening Standard/Getty

for the lovelorn romantic ballad, The Big O and a big

orchestra were always a match made in heaven and
were a part of his sound from the early 60s onwards.

66 VINTAGE ROCK
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 Roy Orbison

“I grew up
listening to my dad
sing Roy Orbison.
Those melodies are
so ingrained in
my soul” CAM

Roy Kelton Orbison, AKA

‘The Big O’ (1936–1988)

VINTAGE ROCK 67
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Roy Orbison

Recorded and released to mark 30 years since

Orbison’s death in December 1988, Unchained Melodies:
Roy Orbison With The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
digs a little deeper into the Orbison catalogue, with
the first album already symphonically expanding his
biggest hits. It’s fully ‘approved’ again: it was overseen
by Roy’s Boys LLC, the Nashville company founded by
Orbison’s sons to administer their father’s catalogue,
and it includes performances by Wesley, Roy Junior and
Alex Orbison. The recordings were again produced by
Don Reedman and Nick Patrick, and tracks such as Walk
On, Leah and Crawling Back were included after a poll of
Orbison fans. It’s a broad range of material, though, with
songs dating from the early 60s to the year of Orbison’s
passing all making the cut.
Roy Junior says he hopes the project will again
“break new ground” for his late father’s music.
“From the control room in Studio Two at Abbey Road
back in June, I indeed tried to close my eyes and guess
at which song we were recording next based on the
prelude building from the room below,” he says. “Listen
closely to Danny Boy and Unchained Melody for perfect
examples of where we tried to break new ground with
this record.”

CO-PRODUCER DON REEDMAN is keen to

acknowledge: “The challenge was, how do we make an
album that equals and goes beyond what we achieved on
A Love So Beautiful? We knew we needed to delve deep
into the vast body of work that Roy had created in his
recording career.
“There were exciting moments where I felt that
we could make something that would be a natural
progression, but also surprise many of Roy’s fans with
songs that were new and fresh sounding. To therefore
make our new album exactly that… a new album.”
There is one new duet on the album. Last time, on
A Love So Beautiful, it was UK country-pop twins Ward
Thomas on I Drove All Night. For 2018’s Unchained
Melodies, it’s a version of the rarer track Heartbreak
Radio which features the vocals of both Orbison and
current country star Cam. Heartbreak Radio itself was
only released posthumously, on the 1992 Orbison album
King Of Hearts that compiled various demos and works-
in-progress that Roy had recorded with producer Jeff
Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra and, of course, the
Traveling Wilburys. It may seem a surprise, but Cam
– born Camaron Ochs, 34 years ago in California – is
perhaps typical of latter-day Orbison fans for whom ABOVE Roy Orbison in his like I was in the back seat of my dad’s car. It’s a big deal
Roy’s music was then ‘new’, and had more vintage prime: “The Caruso of rock” and I’m really grateful they asked me to be a part of it.”
Orbison music passed down by family. Wesley Orbison, co-founder of Roy’s Boys and son of
She recalls: “I grew up listening to my dad sing Roy the late singer, said: “It’s nice that we get to have Cam
Orbison. Those melodies are so ingrained in my soul. sing on the new record. Heartbreak Radio sounds like a
Singing on Heartbreak Radio with him is unreal, I can’t new, fresh track, which it is. She really brings a terrific
fully believe it. It felt really natural to jump into it… I felt energy to it – just so bright and creative.”
Whatever the reasons for pairing Orbison master
“We knew we needed to delve deep recordings with new orchestral arrangements and

into the vast body of work that Roy

even new singers, the massive success of the In Dreams
hologram tour suggests there’s a hungry fanbase.
had created” DON REEDMAN Are you ready for more of The Big Orchestra? 9

68 VINTAGE ROCK
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 Roy Orbison

6
THE GREAT
PRETENDER 1961
KEY BIG O TRACKS ON
UNCHAINED MELODIES
The Great Pretender was
already a standard when
Orbison recorded it for his
Crying album. A 1956 hit by
The Platters, with Tony
Williams on lead vocals, its
words and music were
written by Buck Ram, the
group’s manager in (he
said) “about 20 minutes”.
Jackie Riggs, the US
doo-wop singer, also
released a version in ’56,
then Sam Cooke recorded
the song in 1960… but it
seemed a song custom-
built for Orbison. Bob
Moore’s Orchestra featured
on the original, which is a
pretty straight cover, but
the more impressive cut is
on the Crying album, where
Orbison and his team
indulged in a much more
elaborate and expensive
recording than Nashville
studios normally practised.
Fifteen strings players in
1961 to 2018’s full RPO isn’t
actually much of a leap.
BLUE BAYOU
1961 (RELEASED 1963)
Co-writer Joe Melson
initiated the creation of
Blue Bayou, later
completing it with Orbison,
who took two cracks at the
song (the first one, from
June of ’61, is lost, so we’ll
never know how it
contrasted with the
extraordinarily
atmospheric released
version). It’s one of Roy’s
story songs; he’s a poor
boy pining for his girl and a
return to his beloved Blue
Bayou. Floyd Cramer added
rolling keyboards and
Charlie McCoy trilled away
on harp while an all-female
vocal backing chorus
decorated the edges of the
delicate ballad. Why Foster
kept Blue Bayou in his
archives until the summer
of 1963 and then buried it
on the back of Mean
Woman Blues is anyone’s
guess. Linda Ronstadt
certainly recognised
its beauty.
FALLING
1963
From the same three-hour
session as Orbison’s epic
In Dreams, Falling was
another massively
orchestrated ballad, with
Orbison wracked with
romantic doubts over his
head-over-heels descent
into a love that threatened
to be strictly one-way.
Nashville producer Fred
Foster booked two
drummers, Buddy Harman
and John Greubel, either to
double the percussive
attack or else to give one a
breather while the other
took on the challenges of
Orbison’s arrangements
(bassist Bob Moore
remained his studio
bandleader and orchestral
score kingpin). Falling was
huge in the UK, but less so
in Orbison’s home country.
CRAWLING
BACK 1965
Busy Nashville arranger Bill
McElhiney got the call to do
the charts for a good
portion of Roy’s MGM
long-player The Orbison
Way, that alternated
between band tracks (with
The Candy Men) and huge
orchestral ballads. The
latter included lush opener
Crawling Back, which sold
quite a bit better in the UK
than in the US. Its pleading,
down-and-out narrative
and Roy’s stratospheric
vocals were tailor-made for
one another – this was a
real tearjerker – but the
commercial returns
couldn’t compare to his
incredible sales figures at
Monument. This was a time
when Orbison’s lusher
material was trying to
compete with the sharper
rock sounds of The Beatles
et al.
TOO SOON TO
KNOW 1966
One legendary Acuff-Rose
songwriter paying
album-length tribute to
another; that’s what
happened when Roy
Orbison Sings Don Gibson
was released in January
1967. Gibson, who had
plenty of insight on pain
and heartbreak, had
recorded for MGM before
switching over to RCA
Victor in 1957 and finding
stardom. Too Soon To Know
was a song from Don’s
second RCA session, the
B-side to his C&W
chart-topper Blue Blue Day,
and Orbison recorded it
nine years later. Orbison
cut the moving ballad only
five days before his wife
Claudette was killed in a
tragic motorcycle accident,
making its heartbreak
prescient and even
more poignant.

She’s A Mystery To Me remains

acclaimed as one of Roy’s greatest
tracks, despite its unlikely source –
it was written by Bono and The Edge

SHE’S A MYSTERY TO ME 1989

Mystery Girl was Orbison’s final album, completed just a month before his death at
the age of 52 in December 1988. She’s A Mystery To Me remains acclaimed as one of
Roy’s greatest tracks, despite its unlikely source – it was written by Bono and The
Edge of U2. Bono later explained how, during a restless night in June 1987 in
London during U2’s Joshua Tree tour, he had slept with the soundtrack to the
movie Blue Velvet on repeat. Aptly, Orbison’s own In Dreams is featured, and
when the U2 singer awoke from his half-slumber with a tune in his head he
assumed it was from the CD. He soon realised it wasn’t, so wrote down the basic
song structure. Later that day at U2’s Wembley soundcheck on 2 June 1987, a
nascent song was born. And then? After that very evening’s show, Roy Orbison
paid U2 an unannounced visit. Convinced of the song’s final destiny, Bono played
it to Orbison... The pair met later in LA to write more lyrics together, and the rest
is history.
VINTAGE ROCK 69
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Ronnie Dawson

ROCKIN’
RONNIE His underground classic Rockin’ Bones was released
in 1959, but Ronnie Dawson had to wait until the
1980s to gain true acclaim. To mark 20 years since
his induction into the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame,
Vintage Rock profiles the late, great Blond
Bomber… and speaks to those who knew him best
WORDS AND INTERVIEWS BY JULIE BURNS

R
onnie Dawson was a rare
rocking talent who seemed to
operate in reverse: the man
known as the Blond Bomber actually
got better as he got older. He achieved
regional success in his native Texas back in
the 1950s, but it was between 1988 and his
premature passing in 2003, that the singer
enjoyed heroic cult status across Europe’s
revivalist circuit. While many of his peers’
careers had packed up early, Ronnie burned
more brightly second time round.
“Ronnie’s UK fans were very important
to him,” his wife, Chris, tells Vintage Rock
today. “He received more recognition from
those fans than he ever received here in the
US. Actually, all over Europe he was more
appreciated than at home. I am so grateful
for that, as was he.”
With a handful of hot albums including
Monkey Beat (1994), Just Rockin’ And
Rollin’ (’96), and Live At
The Continental Club (’98),
Ronnie returned with a
bang. From London to the
Netherlands, cuts such as
Still-A-Lot-Of-Rhythm,
Rockinitis and the wildly
urgent Up Jumped The Devil
became UK clubs’ bopping
anthems in those later years.
Visit any European real roots r’n’r club
today, and it remains the case. Dawson’s raw,
rhythmic and kinetic tracks sounded like
a more subversive version of the 50s, and
packs a mean contemporary punch.
It must have seemed
surreal to receive the
adulation that he deserved
so late in his career. Yet
according to collaborator
guitarist Tjarko Jeen,
“Ronnie didn't consider
his albums a comeback
as such – he just saw
them as a continuation of
what he considered to be
unfinished business.”
That unfinished business began when,
out of the blue in 1986, No-Hits Records
founder Barney Koumis knocked on
Dawson’s door at his apartment in Dallas,
Texas. Koumis was already
a major DJ on London’s
rockin’ scene, and
essentially brought Dawson
back from the wilderness
in 1990 by releasing the
Rockin’ Bones compilation
album. Co-producing a
clutch of subsequent new
recordings with Ronnie,
Koumis was integral in helping him pick
the right material and musicians (such as
The Polecats’ Boz Boorer) and getting him
exposure that spanned John Peel recording
sessions at the BBC in 1993, performing
on the Conan O’Brien
primetime American
chatshow, playing at
Carnegie Hall; and later
Yep Roc recordings
that featured in the
movies Primary Colors
and Simpatico.
On his Rockin’ Bones
CD liner notes, Dawson
confessed to having
been “a wallflower” in his pre-musical
youth, but by the 80s and 90s, he
transformed onstage into wildfire
personified. Importantly, he was still
evolving and generating fresh material.
Uniquely relevant to the rockabilly
revival, Dawson delivered real rockabilly
with a distinctly modern twist of hard
blues, country and garage rock. His vocal
was unique in markedly improving with
age, lending a gruff, rugged swagger to
that startling, scorching sound. Fans still
wax lyrical online, describing his music as
“just the way this stuff should be – rough,
edgy, and sounds like it was recorded in

70 VINTAGE ROCK
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 Ronnie Dawson

As a teenager, the young Ronnie

appeared regularly on Dallas radio’s
Big D Jamboree show
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

VINTAGE ROCK 71
9
Ronnie Dawson

With his boyish voice

and cute platinum
blond crew cut, 21-
year-old Ronnie was
primed for teen-idol
stardom

someone’s bathroom.” Elsewhere they say

it was “like being hit by a truck, in a good
way”, or the definitive “If this doesn’t move
you, you’re dead.”

FLASHBACK TO THE 1950s, and

Dawson had nearly made it big back then,
having first formed a band in ’56, and
appearing on the popular Big D Jamboree
talent show in his local Dallas, Texas. As he
explained to the Phoenix New Times in 1995,
“If you won the contest 10 times, you were
invited to be a regular on the programme,

and they would offer you a recording
contract… I won 10 times, and in three
months I was looking at a record with my
name on it.” In terms of screaming girls, he
held his own against other upcoming Big D
acts of before, including one Elvis Presley.
Billed as Ronnie Dee & The D-Men,
Dawson signed to the R&B-oriented Back
Beat label and delivered Action Packed b/w
I Make The Love in 1958. Despite a lengthy
promotion – even a place on an Alan Freed
package tour – the single only gained
scattergun airplay, as did 1959 release,
Rockin’ Bones, this time credited to Ronnie
Dawson ‘The Blond Bomber’. But despite
only ripples back then, both tracks are today
regarded as highly influential.
After a spell playing sock-hops with
Western swing group the Light Crust
Doughboys, Ronnie shared the same
manager as Gene Vincent and toured
nationally with him. By 1960, he witnessed
Vincent’s American career nosedive as
rock’n’roll turned into teen-tuned pop. With
his boyish voice and cute platinum blond
crew cut, 21-year-old Ronnie was primed
for teen-idol stardom. Signing with Dick
Clark’s Swan label, he cut two pure poppers:
Summer’s Comin’ and Hazel, showcasing
both on Clark’s famous
American Bandstand
TV show. But
just as his career
was about to be
pushed, the
Payola scandal
hit, and Clark had
to get rid of his
REMEMBERING
RONNIE
BY TJARKO JEEN
#1
GUITARIST WITH RONNIE FOR 12 YEARS
How did you first get to play
with Ronnie?
“Aged 13, I was in a rockabilly band from
the Netherlands called The Tin Stars.
Within a couple of years we were playing
all over Europe, backing many visiting US
original 50s artists.
“At 16, in 1989, I met Ronnie at our
Slagharen Rock & Roll Weekender. I
gathered all my courage, introduced myself
and said: I know all of your songs and I’m
going to play in your band. He looked at
me with that big smile and said, ‘Oh yeah?!’
“A few weeks later, I was playing a gig at
another festival, and from the stage
I saw Ronnie watching me. Boz Boorer
– Ronnie’s regular guitar player at the
time – started getting busy with Morrissey.
Fast-forward a few months, and I get a call:
could I play the next day with Ronnie at
the Cruise Inn in Amsterdam? When
I got to the club, Ronnie said, ‘So you know
all my songs, huh? Well, let’s see!’ I then
played with Ronnie regularly – first with
my band The Tin Stars, and on a tour with
The Planet Rockers replacing Eddie Angel.
At 21, Ronnie moved me to the USA to tour
Robbert Bleys
with him there, which I did for several
years, joining his band with Lisa Pankratz
on drums, and Kevin Smith on bass.”
Any particular highlights of your
time together?
“It’s hard to pick favourites, though shows
in New York, Chicago, Austin and New
Orleans were always extra-special – those
were real music towns back then. The
crowd went with us all the way, I can only
explain it as going on a trip to another
place together! That just doesn’t happen
very often. In that respect, as a performer,
Ronnie was in an elite class, up there with
people like James Brown, Aretha Franklin
or Ray Charles. Unfortunately it wasn’t
witnessed by large crowds… So at this
point it almost sounds like legend.
“The Continental Club shows in Texas
were always fantastic, and I remember the
time we played the Hemsby Rock’n’Roll
Weekender was especially great.”
Which of Ronnie’s recorded tracks did
you play guitar on?
“I played on three Ronnie Dawson albums:

72 VINTAGE ROCK
9

Monkey Beat, Just Rockin’ & Rollin’ – both
myself and Eddie Angel together on
guitars – and Live At The Continental Club.
The first thing I recorded with Ronnie in
1992 was Up Jumped The Devil, during his
UK tour with The Tin Stars. I was initially
miscredited on Monkey Beat, finally
properly credited on the subsequent 45.
On tracks such as Up Jumped… and
Rockinitis, did Ronnie detune his
guitar to get that distinctive choppy
riff sound?
“Yes, Ronnie tuned his guitar down,
regular Spanish tuning but from C to C.
He would call that sound ‘funky’!”
Do you agree that Ronnie came into his
own second time around, when he was
in his 40s and 50s?
“Unlike many of his contemporaries,
Ronnie never stopped playing. He was
a musicians’ musician who just never
happened to get famous. He was an
excellent guitar player, on both rhythm
and lead. Ronnie could sing pretty much
anything – rock’n’roll, blues, rhythm &
blues, country, folk, jazz and standards,
and that’s a rarity. Some of my favourite
memories are of Ronnie singing backstage
warming up, or simply in his living room:
usually Harry Nilsson’s Everybody’s
Talkin’, Frankie Miller’s Backland Farmer
or Mickey Newberry’s Why You Been
Gone So Long. Plus standards like Scotch &
Soda, or his no-nonsense country singing
reminiscent of Jerry Lee Lewis’s Smash
era… Jerry was one of his favourite
country singers.”
During the 1980s rockabilly revival,
Ronnie became a cult figure in Europe.
Why do you think he was bigger here
than in his native United States?
“It’s important to note that Ronnie didn’t
considered himself originally as rockabilly.
In his opinion, the only rockabilly he ever
recorded was on the comeback albums.
He regarded his 50s sides as blues, and
rhythm & blues-based rock’n’roll records,
and that was really his first love. The only
rockabilly he really loved was Carl Perkins,
although of course he respected the hell
out of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
He loved Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little
Richard, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker,
Gatemouth Brown, and also Jimmie
Rodgers, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell,
Milton Brown, to the Nat King
Cole Trio, Al Hibbler, Duke
Ellington and Count Basie.
“As to his European ‘comeback’,
he loved it, was grateful for it,
and completely embraced it. We
talked about it often but I can’t tell
you what his opinions were. To
me, it’s because we Europeans are
nostalgic and tend to look back
into the past and embrace our
own history, and even the history
of others, whereas Americans generally
look forward to the future.”
What are your favourite Ronnie tracks?
“I like the Live At The Continental Club
album as representation of what Ronnie
live shows were about. The records
were good, but the live shows were often
magical. Tracks that I didn’t play on that
I particularly love are Shim Sham Shimmy,
Yum Yum Yum, Rockinitis, Party Time and
Bad Case Of A Broken Heart. Of the early
stuff, I especially love Jump And Run and
Do Do Do but also, of course, Rockin’ Bones,
Action Packed and Congratulations To Me.”
Onstage, Ronnie performed like a
man possessed… What are your more
personal impressions of him as a man?
“He was calm and grounded – and also
knew how to have fun. I saw Ronnie dance
one time. It was after a show in Germany
at the Life Club, and he was relaxing,
talking to fans and enjoying some Cognac.
Next thing, I look over and he’s dancing
with all of us to Carl Perkins. Ronnie was a
great, loving, supportive spirit. Everybody
that worked with him long-term had a
deep personal connection with him – and
became a better musician. To me, he was a
mentor as well as a friend, in some ways, a
father figure.”
When was the last time you saw, or
performed, with him?
“The last time I saw him was a couple of
days before he passed away, in 2003. The
last show I did with him was also his last
at the Lonestar Roundup in Austin, Texas.
It was very emotional, one of the most
moving experiences of my life. He and all
of us knew he didn’t have much time left.
Before the show he could barely walk or
talk. I was worried – how were we going
to pull this off? He somehow reached deep
within, and got onstage totally charged.
Ronnie Dawson
Al Shelton
It immediately was business as usual. He
gave us all his customary, one-by-one ‘are
you ready?’ look, and sang and played his
ass off. People in the audience were crying
and laughing and singing along.
It was incredible; a testament to what
the human spirit can do. When Ronnie
was in remission after the first time, he
asked me to join the band again full-time.
It wasn’t to be. The cancer came back
and he was gone not long after. It’s one of
the big regrets in my life that we couldn’t
make that happen. He had big plans for
the future.”
How would you sum up Ronnie’s lasting
musical impact?
“Ronnie showed a whole generation how
it’s really done, and set the bar. People
still tell me all the time that Ronnie shows
were the best shows they’ve ever seen.
His records, old and new, are still much
loved. He showed us that new records
could be as great and as exciting as the
original records; that every show should
be played giving it your all; that you can be
a skilled musician and also flat-out rock.
“To me, Ronnie was the greatest
exponent of all the 50s rock’n’roll artists
still active after the 50s: impressive in a
contemporary way, without sounding
like a throwback. Ronnie is not so
much underrated as overlooked.
“Nobody rocked harder or did it
better than Ronnie, and I know that
many who had the privilege of seeing and
knowing him feel that way. He didn’t have
any kids, but he saw all of us – his band
– as his kids, and his continuing musical
legacy. I think that the impact Ronnie
had on all our lives says it all.”
For more on Tjarko Jeen’s projects –
The Modern Don Juans, Shaun Young
& The 3 Ringers and The Hunt Sales
Memorial – see www.reverbnation.com
VINTAGE ROCK 73
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Ronnie Dawson

REMEMBERING
RONNIE #2
BY LISA PANKRATZ DRUMMER IN
RONNIE’S HIGH NOON BAND

“The very first gig I ever did with him and High
Al Shelton

Noon – at the Continental Club in Austin, Texas – was

insane. It was full, everyone in a frenzy for Ronnie.
I had a bunch of used drumsticks, and passed them
out to the audience. For the ‘cliquey-clack’ part on
Rockin’ Bones, they all joined in!
“Our live CD here is a real testament to the fun and feeling at those
shows. It is very live – a few mistakes, some crowd noise – but the band is
burning, and you really feel you are there. No fake overdubs or sweetening
later, just a great sound. If it had to be the only recording I got to do with
Ronnie, I’m proud of it.
“The Conan O’Brien appearance was also memorable. It felt like a
victory to get this real roots music on national TV. Ronnie’s crowd showed
up and packed the place. The feel and sound of our performance on
Monkey Beat City is a perfect moment. It keeps surfacing on YouTube and Comeback kid: Ronnie

Paul Harris
people get so happy when they discover it!” found his popularity grow
in the 1980s and 90s

non-Bandstand interests. rockabilly’s Ronnie (centre) with his latter day

Ronnie later reflected originators. touring band, High Noon, including
Lisa Pankratz (left) and Sean
this did him a favour, in Thanks to Mencher (second left)
taking his music in his psychobilly group
own direction. The Cramps’
Recording under 1981 recording of
various guises as Ronnie’s Rockin’
Johnny And The Jills, Bones, interest
Snake Monroe, and grew in Dawson’s
Commonwealth Jones back catalogue.
for Columbia and Riding a wave
Do-Boy, he also played of reissued
drums on sessions recordings, he
including Bill Channel’s Hey Baby, and Paul embarked on his first ever tour of England
& Paula’s Hey Paula. Mid-60s, he joined in 1986. Reflecting on the sensational
Dallas based folk/blues band The Levee reaction, he said, “All these people started
Singers, who were successful enough to embracing me. It was heaven. I didn’t want
guest across network TV. By the early 70s, to go home.”
Ronnie established a Buffalo Springfield- Mid-90s, exciting new material for
style country-rock band Steel Rail, which Koumis’ No-Hits label (leased to Crystal
he juggled with a more lucrative line in food Clear in the US) followed. Ronnie mentored
and drink jingles. promising new acts, notably his own
Come 1977, and the death of Elvis support crews – The Tin Stars and High
triggered a renaissance of interest in Noon – plus Boz Boorer and The Frantic
Flattops. In 1999, came More Bad Habits
(Yep Roc), his final album. Keen to keep
Thanks to psychobilly pleasing his fans, the inveterate trouper
group The Cramps’ 1981 continued to work. He toured as and
when, despite the onslaught of cancer, and
recording of Ronnie’s in 2003, at the age of 64, went out just as
Rockin’ Bones, interest he’d come back: like a light, in true rebel
grew in Dawson’s rocker spirit. 9
For up to date Ronnie Dawson news, visit
back catalogue www.ronniedawson.com

74 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 Ronnie Dawson

REMEMBERING
RONNIE #3
BY SEAN MENCHER GUITARIST IN
RONNIE’S HIGH NOON BAND

“At Carnegie Hall with Ronnie,

we appeared alongside TD Bell,
Erbie Bowser and Mingo Saldivar,
representing the music of Texas.
It was just brilliant, each delivering
a different set. Ronnie was on
last, and at the end invited all the
musicians back out for a Texas-style
jam, everybody rockin’! It was like
music heaven. Ronnie, who had a
wireless guitar, beckoned to Mingo,
who had a wireless accordion, and
Ctd 2005

they both jumped off the stage and

into the cheering, adoring crowd to
rock’n’roll with the audience! For the usually formal Carnegie, it was just
Al Shelton

amazing, jaw-dropping… and once in a lifetime.”

VINTAGE ROCK 75
9
Singles & EP Reviews

----- SUPERB
 ---- RECOMMENDED Al Dual
 --- AVERAGE THE SUN SESSION
 -- PATCHY EL TORO RECORDS
 - AVOID ---
From the title alone you can be
Rock’n’roll is a universal pretty sure what you’re about to
receive on this EP and you do
language this issue, as rockin’ indeed get four original songs
7 "s fly in from Germany, recorded in Memphis’ most
legendary studio. On this 7" the
Austria, Spain and the French- Spanish singer/guitarist offers a stiff
measure of rockabilly served hot
speaking quarter (huh?) of alongside a large portion of deep
Bradford. Label names of twanging riffs. With a few releases
already under his belt, Dual took the
Migraine, Hip Shakin and Fury award for Best Rockabilly Male at
this year’s Ameripolitan Awards.
tell their own story… His train keeps a-rollin’ with this
release and it finishes off his most
REVIEWS BY CRAIG BRACKENRIDGE successful year so far very nicely.
Les Razerbills
LA TOMBE
NEXT PHASE: NORMAL RECORDS
----
Although this four-track EP has a
Gallic theme, it is actually from a
combo based in Bradford. Within
these grooves are a series of spooky
surf instrumentals with a splash of
B-movie sensibility and a hint of
the exotic. Organs wail, guitars
twang and horrific sound effects
whisper in the background as we
take a trip on a West Yorkshire
ghost train while Joe Meek’s eerie
spirit hovers above us. The whole
package is wildly entertaining,
wrapped in period French artwork,
and comes complete with your own
Razerbills mask and business card.

Trini Lopez
SINNER NOT A SAINT
HIP SHAKIN RECORDS
-----
The Hip Shakin label is an offshoot
of the well-respected Pink’n’Black
Records, and they focus on reissues
with a more soulful twist. This 45
features Trini Lopez on the A-side
with his Latin-infused song Sinner
Not A Saint from 1964. Although
this record failed to set the US
charts alight on its initial release,
it’s a real dancefloor filler from the
Texas tornado and one of his last
real rockers before he moved off
into more folky territory a year
later. Over on the other side is the
very exotic swinger Palm Of Your
Hand by Dolly Lyon, a real slow
burner from 1957 that positively
seeps with sauciness. The single
comes in a die-cut retro sleeve and
it is well worth checking out the
label’s previous releases which
include other reissue singles from
the likes of Fats Domino, Wanda
Jackson, The Sapphires and Big
Mama Thornton.

76 VINTAGE ROCK
9

The Royal Flush
ALL NIGHT LONG
MIGRAINE RECORDS
----
Europe continues to offer a rich
seam of fairly new rockabilly
combos and this Swiss four-piece
prove the point with style. The band
have been in action since 2007 but
have really turned up the heat on
their career in the past few years.
This is only their third single and
both All Night Long and the flipside,
Running Square, are written by the
band and have that solid foot-
stomping beat that they describe as
“wild and raw rockabilly”. Judging
them on these two tracks alone they
have obviously got that description
bang on.
Louisville Boppers
MEANEST THING
MIGRAINE RECORDS
----
Proving that there is no generation
gap in the world of rock’n’roll,
Louisville Boppers are a father and
son guitar duo accompanied by a
bass-slapper. This is their debut
single but these South German
rockers have already built up a
strong live reputation. They have a
drummer on board for this
recording and Meanest Thing is a
rock-hard blues bopper while the
B-side, Rockin’ Rolla Mama, features
a delightful driving twang. Both
tracks are lifted from their LP,
Howlin’ To The Moonlight, and the 7"
is a hand-numbered limited edition.
Crazy Cavan &
The Rhythm Rockers
TEDDY BOY BOOGIE
FURY RECORDS
-----
Fury Records continue their series
of 7" reissues with this two-track
offering featuring a double helping
of Crazy Cavan’s finest recordings
from 1975. The title track is a Ted
anthem oozing with menace and
some violent lyrical content that
reflected the reality of life on the
streets for many UK revivalists in
the 1970s. Over on the B-side is a
good-time floorfiller in the form of
the short, sharp shock of Teddy Boy
Rock’n’Roll. If you’ve yet to discover
the brilliance of Crazy Cavan, this
single is an ideal starting point.
Merle Kilgore
EVERYBODY NEEDS A LITTLE LOVIN’ ROCKABILLY SCRAPBOOK
SLEAZY RECORDS
---
As well as releasing new material,
Spanish label Sleazy also bring
many original rock’n’roll whoppers
back onto vinyl. On this single, they
have partnered two of Merle
Kilgore’s finest moments from the
period when he had been bitten by
the rockabilly bug. Everybody
Needs A Little Lovin’ is a jiver from
1955 and Ernie is a stripped-down
rocker from the following year.
Unless you are determined to track
down the original releases on
Imperial Records, this is a great way
to capture these rockin’ nuggets on
7" once again.
The Cheating Hearts
CHEATING HEARTS EP
TRASH WAX RECORDS
---
Rock’n’roll comes in many varied
forms and this duo from St Pauli,
Hamburg’s raunchiest quarter, have
a stripped down guitar and drums
sound that is raw and rowdy in
equal measure. This is a powerful
package featuring four original and
very twisted love songs delivered
with a spiteful sharpness and with
all of the rough edges intact.
Don’t expect any low-key acoustic
musings here as this couple create a
raucous wall of sound that can put
most full bands to shame. Only 300
of these have been pressed, all in
luscious light blue vinyl.
Various Artists
PLAN 9 TRASH RECORDS
---
This 7" EP captures three great
rockabilly acts live onstage in
Austria. Jetting in from the UK, John
Lewis And His Trio get two tracks on
one side while local boys Crazy
Cubes and Chili And The Baracudas
get a track each on the flipside.
The disc is presented in a unique
8" ring-bound hardcover which
includes additional info and pictures
from the event itself. It must have
been a lively night out and this
chunk of limited edition blue vinyl
offers a perfect snapshot of that
evening’s entertainment in just
under 10 minutes.
Singles & EP Reviews
The Rusty Robots
SWEETHEARTS, KISSES,
BLOODY KNIVES
KILLJOY RECORDS
-----
With two full-length albums
already under their belt, The Rusty
Robots are a relatively youthful
German trio with a sound that
drags you right back to that period
in the early 80s when the
pubescent psychobilly movement
was still closely entwined with the
rockabilly scene. The three tracks
featured on this 7" are all original
compositions, and if you have a
taste for the frantic early recordings
of bands like The Ricochets, The
Sharks and Batmobile then this
is unmissable.
Fia Sco & The Majestics
ICEBEAR!
RHYTHM BOMB RECORDS
---
Austria is a stronghold for a great
variety of rockin’ acts and here is a
welcome blast of female-fronted
hillbilly boogie from the wild Alpen
backwoods. Both Icebear! and the
B-side Shame On You take you back
to those pre-rockabilly times when
country folks had real class! The
vintage sound of this single reeks of
authenticity and harks back to the
very roots of rock’n’roll. Fia’s vocals
sound as if they are slipping
straight off a shellac 78 and the
atmospheric steel guitar slides
comfortably close to the slapping
bass and hot club drums.
VINTAGE ROCK 77
9
Vinyl LP Reviews
--- SUPERB
-- RECOMMENDED
- ----
 --- AVERAGE
-
 -- PATCHY
 --
- AVOID
 promise of its title: 16 tough electric
This month, it’s vintage soul
and R&B, wacky 50s weirdness
and best-ofs featuring the likes
of Bill Haley, Ike and Tina
Turner, Vince Everett, and
many more…
REVIEWS BY BILL DAHL
Tex Harper
DIG ME LITTLE MAMA
BEAR FAMILY
-----
Known variously as Tex Harper,
Rudy Preston and Harry Head,
singer Freddie Jean Harper got
in on the ground floor of
rockabilly as featured vocalist
with Tommy Scott And His
Ramblers. Bear Family’s 12-song
dip into Harper’s limited but
fascinating catalogue, a
78 VINTAGE ROCK
9
10-incher with a gatefold cover
and Martin Hawkins’ notes,
features both sides of his two
killer 4 Star singles— Cat Music
and the LP’s title track, from
1954, were followed by the
equally wild Jumpin’ From 6 To
6 and Dance With Her Henry, a
cover of Etta James’ smash, the
next year. Four Tired Car and its
flip, Don’t You Go Chicken, out in
1957 on Scott’s own Katona
logo, are just as riotous.
Various Artists
ROCKINITIS: ELECTRIC BLUES
FROM THE ROCK’N’ROLL ERA
VOLUME 1
JUNO RECORDS
----
This LP certainly delivers on the
blues from the 50s and early 60s,
led by Lightnin’ Hopkins’ blasting
Had A Gal Called Sal, Champion Jack
Dupree’s thundering Shim Sham
Shimmy, and Chicago harpist Billy
Boy Arnold’s Rockin’ Itis. There’s
plenty of pungent blues harmonica
courtesy of Papa Lightfoot’s Mean
Old Train, Sonny Terry’s Hoopin’ And
Jumpin and Kid Thomas’ The Wolf
Pack, while slashing guitar abounds
on Bobo Jenkins’ Tell Me Who.
Various Artists
RICHARD SEARLING’S MUSIC &
MEMORIES FROM WIGAN CASINO
OUTTA SIGHT
----
If only for its scalding lead-off
track – Gloria Jones’ incredible
gospel-tinged original version of
Tainted Love – this Northern Soul
anthology from Outta Sight would
rate its fair share of spins. Its 16
selections also include Vickie
Baines’ Country Girl, Billy Woods’
Let Me Make You Happy, the
mysterious Connie Clark’s My Sugar
Baby, and Matt Lucas’ Baby You
Better Go-Go, while Carl Douglas
was still six years away from kung
fu fighting when he waxed this LP’s
Serving A Sentence Of Life.
Ray Sharpe
MONKEY’S UNCLE
MINIGROOVE
Ray Sharpe was a unique hybrid on
the late 50s rock’n’roll scene: an
African-American performer with a
mile-wide Texas drawl that was
tailor-made for rockabilly crossed
with a stinging lead guitarist that
exhibited more than a bit of Lone Star
blues influence. A dozen of Sharpe’s
best rockers for the Hamilton and
Jamie labels are here collected on a
10-incher by the French Minigroove
label. Sharpe’s best-known number
from 1959, the driving tongue-
twister Linda Lu, is aboard; so are
the title track, Long John, Silly Dilly
Millie and Kewpie Doll.
Various Artists
KEEPING THE FAITH: WIGAN
CASINO 45 1973-1981
OUTTA SIGHT
----
There’s no shortage of albums
paying tribute to the UK’s Northern
Soul heritage, but this anthology
socks it home extraordinarily well
with a cross-section of pumping
60s sides that hail from the Scepter/
Wand and Musicor/Dynamo
archives. Both were New York
labels, yet there’s a wide
geographical array here: Chicago’s
Betty Moorer, Detroit’s Jack
Montgomery and Stanley Mitchell,
Miami’s Clarence Reid, and The
Masqueraders, then recording
in Memphis.

Ike & Tina Turner
THE SOUL OF IKE & TINA TURNER
WAX LOVE
----
After years of scuffling around
Mississippi, Memphis and St Louis
with his crack combo The Kings Of
Rhythm, Ike Turner finally
discovered a talent worthy of
superstardom. He renamed her Tina
and billed the new pairing as a duo,
even though Ike shied away from
singing. Ike and Tina’s first album
for Juggy Murray’s Sue label, newly
repressed by the Italian Wax Love
imprint, showcases Tina at her
rawest and most primal; she’s so
ferocious on their first smash A Fool
In Love and I Idolize You that she
threatens to melt the microphone.
The Louvin Brothers
LOVE AND WEALTH:
THE LOST RECORDINGS
SUNDAZED MUSIC
-----
The sweet vocal harmonies of
The Everly Brothers were no
doubt swayed by other
legendary country sibling duos
that preceded them, high
among the ranks being Ira and
Charlie Louvin. Just when you
think you’ve heard everything
Various Artists
SHAKE-O-RAMA VOLUME 2
JUKE BOX MUSIC FACTORY
----
Juke Box Music Factory offers it both
ways on this combo platter: a
16-song slab of long-playing vinyl is
accompanied by a CD containing the
exact same material. This comp
spotlights R&B singers Freddie
Houston, Erma Franklin, Arthur
Alexander and the rowdy duo of
Jackie Wilson and Linda Hopkins, as
well as rockabilly-based vocalists
Billy Brown and Vince Everett.
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ delightfully
unhinged Little Demon, and perky
pop chanteuse Margaret Whiting’s
bouncy Pretty-Eyed Baby (all minute
-and-a-half of it) are good too.
The Louvin Brothers ever
waxed, along comes this
sparkling two-disc set from
Sundazed Music’s Modern
Harmonic imprint, consisting of
29 previously unreleased
songwriter demos from the
1950s. Packaging is gorgeous,
with liner notes by Colin Escott
and lots of vintage photos. Ira’s
spoken message, another newly
unearthed artifact, opens the
deluxe package.
Maxine Brown
THE BEST OF THE
WAND YEARS
KENT
----
When vivacious soul singer
Maxine Brown commenced her
hitmaking run at Florence
Greenberg’s Wand Records she
was already an R&B star thanks
to All In My Mind and Funny on
the tiny Nomar logo. She
compounded her fame at Wand
Various Artists
SHAKE-O-RAMA VOLUME 3
JUKE BOX MUSIC FACTORY
----
The same LP/CD combo format
defines Volume 3, though there’s a
wider stylistic range here. Relative
old-timers Louis Jordan (Big Bess)
and John Lee Hooker (She’s Mine)
share microgroove space with
blue-eyed soulster Matt Lucas’ 1963
hit revival of Hank Snow’s I’m
Movin’ On, Roy Lee Johnson’s
cooking Black Pepper Will Make
You Sneeze, ill-fated Drifters lead
Rudy Lewis’ solo Baby I Dig Love,
Red (Hot) Russell’s tough rocker
Stop, and underrated Motown
belter in Gino Parks’ scorching
Same Thing.
Vinyl LP Reviews
with the Carole King/Gerry
Goffin-penned Oh No Not My
Baby and many more slices of
majestic uptown soul. Kent’s
new 14-song compilation of
Maxine’s Wand masters
encompasses that classic and
It’s Gonna Be Alright, as well as
gems that were discovered in
Greenberg’s vaults, notably It’s
Torture, I Want A Guarantee,
and the Otis Redding-penned
stormer Baby Cakes.
Various Artists
AHBE CASABE: EXOTIC BLUES &
RHYTHM VOL 2
STAG-O-LEE
----
Stag-O-Lee chose the dozen tracks
on this LP with weirdness in mind,
be it Kip Tyler’s Shadow Street, R&B
chanteuse Mamie Perry’s Lament, or
Bill Haley & His Comets’ Chick Safari.
Guitarist Rene Hall’s Cleo qualifies
as extreme exotica, while Dickie
Thompson’s Thirteen Women And
One Man earned him a lot of
royalties when Haley placed it on
the other side of (We’re Gonna)
Rock Around The Clock. Jamie Coe,
Bruce Cloud and Marti Barris’ title
item send the set even further on a
one-way trip to Crazyville.
VINTAGE ROCK 79
9
CD Album Reviews
UPERB
----- S COMMENDED
E
 ---- R ERAGE
V
 --- A TCHY
 -- PA
 - AVOID
Included on your rock’n’roll platter this month
are some festive stompers from the all-star
Embassy Studios Band, a barnstormin’ debut
from soul-singing drummer Lindsay Beaver, a
Royal Philharmonic team up with The Big O, and
reissues from Ike Turner and James Brown…
REVIEWS BY JOHN HOWARD AND MIKE STEPHENS
The Overtones
THE OVERTONES
GAMBLIN’ MAN
---
There’s no doubt that The Overtones are the UK’s biggest selling quasi-doo-wop group in decades.
After eight years, and now a quartet, the group release their sixth album and back it up with a tour that
seemingly visits every town and hamlet in the country.
Alongside a few originals, the group’s repertoire encompasses material from the 70s disco era such as the
first single from the CD, You To Me Are Everything, originally by The Real Thing, who started their musical life
as doo-wop group The Chants, and
Billy Ocean’s Love Really Hurts
Without You.
Revivals like The Drifters’ Save
The Last Dance for Me, and the
Motown standard My Girl work in a
pleasant middle-of-the-road way,
but they really come unstuck with
their attempt at Bobby Day’s
Rockin’ Robin, which sounds like
a cover on the Woolworth’s
Embassy label.
Part of the problem may be the
missing member from this
one-time quintet was the lead
singer, and instead of replacing
him, they share leads. However, the
late Timmy Matley’s voice does
appear on one track. Your next
mission: Which track?
80 VINTAGE ROCK
9
The Same Old Shoes
LET’S GO MESS AROUND
EL TORO
----
Here are four Italian cats on a
Spanish label mixing rockabilly with
classic country – but they write
most of their own numbers, and do
their own back-up singing, too.
This is their fourth album for El Toro,
so they benefit from label faith in
their authentic talents, and do a
good job. Sag, Drag And Fall by Sid
King & The Five Strings is the most
obvious cover, and they acquit
themselves well in comparison with
the original. Good cover art on this
12-tracker, with English lyrics
concerned with life’s staples of
drinking and dancing.
Smiley Lewis
ROOTIN’ & TOOTIN’: THE
COMPLETE IMPERIAL SINGLES
1950-61
JASMINE
-----
R&B singer, guitarist and songwriter
Smiley Lewis of New Orleans cut
more than 90 sessions in a 10-year
period, most of which are real
rock’n’roll. But he never conquered
the pop market, and it was left to
others like Fats Domino with Blue
Monday and Elvis Presley with One
Night to sell shedloads of songs
Smiley cut first. This double CD runs
to 61 tracks, and there’s not a duff
one among them. The cream of
New Orleans R&B, from Huey Piano
Smith to Fats Domino, back him.

The Embassy Studios Band The Bullets
A FOOTTAPPING CHRISTMAS
FOOTTAPPING RECORDS
----
With an all-star line-up including
Darrel Higham, John O’Malley and
Bill Crittenden among them it
would seem likely that a quality
seasonal product would emerge.
And it has. The 14 tracks here mix
standards with originals, plus an
inspired rockabilly revival of the
novelty Grandma Got Run Over By A
Reindeer from The Accidents. John
O’Malley’s take on Santa Looked A
Lot Like Daddy from the Buck Owens
songbook is also notable. This is
great fun and a must for any rockin’
gift list. Season’s greetings to all of
the acts concerned!
El Camino
8 DAYS ’N’ DUSTED
WESTERN STAR
---
A second album from hard-driving
rockabilly band El Camino, who
present some fine originals
alongside a logical Lee Dresser
cover and a less likely revival of an
Elvis Costello hit. The Lee Dresser
track is Beat Out My Love, while
Costello’s Oliver’s Army gets a
worthwhile re-tread in El Camino
style. Their originals are well-
observed commentaries and spoofs
including The Nutter, No Neck Nelly
and In The Pit. Strong vocals
throughout against an authentic
backing suggests this latest offering
will win them more fans.
BOPPIN’N’SCREAMIN’
WESTERN STAR
----
A novel concept, putting three vinyl
four-track EPs, plus a bonus track,
onto one CD for those who missed
the seven-inchers. This is solid
rockabilly from a band who have
shown consistency on every format,
offering 12 tracks plus Boppin’ n’
Screamin’ as the bonus. Brett
Waters not only has a fine voice,
but writes great songs, too. We
loved the instrumental Missin’ Link,
a tribute to the late twangmeister
Mr Wray, and Adam Burney
guesting on harmonica on Let The
Bad Times Roll shows the band are
no slouch at blues boppers either.
The Collins Kids
ROCKIN’ AND BOPPIN’
JASMINE
----
So sad that this greatest hits
compilation should turn into a
memorial album for the late Lorrie
Collins who passed away in August
2018. They were a rockabilly novelty
in the 50s, with Lorrie standing tall
over her ace guitarist little brother
Larry, but there was no faulting
their harmonies and onstage
confidence. They will be
remembered for Beetle Bug Bop,
Hoy Hoy, and Whistle Bait, along
with many other tracks that defined
the 70s rockabilly revival and which
are still played today. Great value
with no less than 35 excellent tracks.
CD Album Reviews
JD McPherson
SOCKS
NEW WEST
-----
The least likely person to cut a Christmas record has to be roots
rocker JD McPherson, who first came to our attention with North Side
Gal. However, JD claims this is not a Christmas cash-in, but a fully
fledged rock’n’roll release. And he’s right. The title track is an
amusing, child-like complaint about receiving socks for Christmas,
and many of a certain age will sympathise with that. But it’s
untypical of most of the tracks, most of which rock like the clappers.
There are 11 originals written by JD and musical friends, covering
every seasonal subject, from the magical All The Gifts I Need to the
‘Bah Humbug’ of Ugly Christmas Sweater. The absolute stand-out
track, and one likely to get played when Christmas 2018 is just a
memory, is a solid
rocker called
Twinkle (Little
Christmas Lights)
which JD has
performed live but
never released on
any format until
now. We suggest
buying the full CD
album to get it,
since it’s not on
the digital
download.
Wanda Jackson
THE COMPLETE SINGLES AS AND BS 1954-62
ACROBAT
-----
This 58-track 2xCD set tracks Wanda from a country cowgirl to her
exalted title of The Queen of Rockabilly over an eight-year period
that saw Elvis Presley’s sometime girlfriend become a star.
She erupted on to the UK scene with a storming take on Elvis’ Let’s
Have A Party on Capitol, but American country audiences were
already familiar with her thanks to Decca label hits, included here.
Stand out tracks include her original of Silver Threads And Golden
Needles, Honey Bop and the oft-recorded Fujiyama Mama. Wanda’s
versatility allowed her to croon country ballads, and then give the
rough end of her tongue to roar out rockers like Mean Mean Man.
She was always given A-list backings, particularly on Capitol,
where piano often dominated, and she not only wrote many of her
biggies, but was also offered first chance to record new songs from
top writers. This release
contains a detailed,
illustrated booklet that
also lists her chart
positions in both country
and pop charts, both in
the US and the UK.
Considering her ongoing
influence, it’s fascinating
that back in the day she
struggled for hits despite
the quality of the output.
VINTAGE ROCK 81
9
CD Album Reviews

Roy Orbison
UNCHAINED MELODIES
SONY
---
The key credit here is… ‘with The
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’.
Where 2017’s RPO-aided A Love So
Beautiful focused on Roy’s hits,
Unchained Melodies is driven by
material that “specifically lends
itself to the orchestral format”.
Which means ballads Blue Bayou,
Danny Boy, Falling… that often
already had strings on them.
Add a whole orchestra and you
have a syrupy middle-of-the-
road mix that sometimes drowns
Roy’s astonishing voice – and
that will be a big NO to Big
O aficionados.
Jack Scott
THE SINGLES AND ALBUMS
COLLECTION 1957-62
ACROBAT
-----
There have been a number of
big-voiced Jack Scott compilations
over the years, but few as
comprehensive as this fine offering.
Every one of his charting singles,
both A-sides and flips, are included
among the 60 tracks here, and
there’s not a duff one among them.
There’s also selected tracks from
LPs that were never singles. Scott’s
versatility ran from wild rockabilly
to deep dark ballads, and
fortunately he is still with us, and
his voice is in good shape. Buy this,
and see him when you can.
Lindsay Beaver
TOUGH AS LOVE
ALLIGATOR
-----
I’ve got a new favourite female singer. So apologies to Vicky Tafoya,
you’ll have to make do with second place. Chanteuse in question is
Lindsay Beaver, a stand-up tattooed drummer from Canada now
based in Austin, Texas, who has been described as halfway between
Little Richard and Amy Winehouse by Alligator Records boss
Bruce Iglauer.
This stunning 12-tracker covers 50s rock’n’roll, swamp pop, blues
and ballads but with a voice as powerful as this she could sing the
phone book and still impress. Many of the songs are originals, but
her wide tastes encompass Slim Harpo’s Got Love If You Want It, Art
Neville’s Let’s Rock and fellow Austinite Angela Strehli’s Lost Cause.
Stand out track, if I had to pick one, would be her original entitled
Too Cold To Cry, a rolling, bluesy offering that could be an out-take
from Little Richard’s first
album. Her band is
exceptional, too, with
Brad Stivers on guitar and
Josh Williams on bass,
and guests such as Marcia
Ball on piano.
This is Lindsay’s debut
under her own name, and
it’s safe to say: a career
is born.

Ike Turner And The Kings Of Rhythm

TRAILBLAZIN’ THE BLUES
JASMINE
-----
Ike Turner, one of the true architects of rock’n’roll alongside Johnny
Otis and Sam Phillips, was so prolific in his early years that even a
60-track double-CD collection only skims the surface of his huge,
pre-Tina, career. Many suggest his Rocket 88 from 1951 as the first
rock’n’roll record, even if a label mix-up gave the credit to vocalist
Jackie Brenston And His Delta Cats.
Most of this well-curated collection has Ike writing, producing, Gona Lehtinen James Brown & The
playing guitar or piano no matter who got the credit on the label, as FLY NOW! Famous Flames
he made his mark not only as a performer, but as a talent scout for, BLUELIGHT THE FEDERAL & KING SINGLES
among others, Sun, Chess, Meteor, and Modern records. So every cut --- 1956-62
has Ike’s stamp on it, and from 1951 to 1960, the trademark sound Guitar maestro Gona may choose to ACROBAT
was uptempo jump blues or, as some call it, rock’n’roll. record tracks from rockabilly stars ----
Turner was like Nick Curran, or jump blues from Long before James Brown was the
responsible for the the likes of Roy Brown, but this self-styled Minister Of New New
first recordings of showcase is most likely to appeal to Super Heavy Funk, he was a jump
artists as diverse as fans of well-played guitar. There are blues and ballad singer. Certainly,
Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, only four vocal tracks, with Chonnie-On-Chon, included here,
Little Milton and songstress Ria Korhola guesting, was out-and-out rock’n’roll and
Johnny O’Neal, some while the eight remaining tracks there are various other uptempo
of whom became show why Gona has been lead gems among the 57 tracks spread
latterly famous. This guitarist of choice for a host of across two CDs. But it was the
is a truly fabulous Scandi, and international, stars. ballads Try Me and Please Please
compilation which no Listen for influences as diverse as Please that established brother
record collection Django Reinhardt and Chet Atkins James as a national powerhouse,
should be without. but this is no MOR album, as the out and he remained at the top for the
and out rockers prove. rest of his life.
82 VINTAGE ROCK
9
 *COLLECTOR’S 10” VINYL SERIES
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Hemsby Weekender

Even at 79, Gary ‘US’ Bonds still

performs with the vocal firepower
of someone half his age

84 VINTAGE ROCK
9

HEMSBY
ROCK’N’ROLL
WEEKENDER
The final Hemsby Weekender of 2018
was the end of an era, as veteran
organiser Willie Jeffery announced he is stepping
down. But a host of great acts saw this landmark
event go out with a bang… setting a high standard
for the new Hemsby that is coming in 2019
WORDS BY JOHN HOWARD PHOTOS BY GARRY LETTS
H
itmaker Gary ‘US’ Bonds proved he was
a good investment when he headlined
a packed Hemsby 61 Rock’n’Roll
Weekender at the Norfolk holiday park. Still with
an impressive head of hair and a powerful voice, he
delighted the crowds with a selection of his party hits
including, of course, New Orleans and Quarter To Three.
Co-headliners Rip Masters, also from the USA, and
Jack Baymoore And The Bandits, from Sweden, kept
up the international flavour for a great weekend, tinged
with sadness since Hemsby organiser Willie Jeffery is
handing over control after a 31-year run.
A Hemsby Weekender is more than simply a string of
acts. There’s also record and clothing stalls, a car cruise,
a jive contest and a Sunday boot sale, while the vintage
rail excursions and trips on the Broads often turned a
visit to Willie Jeffery’s weekender into a fun holiday.
But it was Gary ‘US’ Bond the crowds had come to
see and hear, an infrequent UK visitor making his
weekender debut…
WHEN GARY ‘US’ Bonds’ New Orleans was
released in 1960, Disc magazine declared that the record
– with its wild, party atmosphere – could not have been
made in Britain, and they’d have no doubt believed its
spaced out, echo sounds couldn’t be reproduced on
stage either.
But they were proved wrong when Gary headlined
over The Beatles on his first UK tour in 1963… and
recreated that sound exactly once more at Hemsby in
2018. Now 79, Gary – by hobby, a champion golfer –
Hemsby Weekender
#61
remains agile, and had an easy rapport with the crowd.
Producer and owner of Virginia’s Legrand Records
Frank Guida may have written and engineered Bond’s
early hits, but apparently didn’t share the royalties with
the singer, as Gary told the audience.
He erupted on stage to his debut hit New Orleans,
ably supported by UK backing band, the oddly-
monikered MFC Chicken, and members of the ever-
reliable vocal group The Chord Royales.
Confiding with a smile that he had sung his hits
more often than he cared to, Bonds conflated some of
his classics into a medley which included Twist Twist
Senora, School Is Out and Dear Lady Twist. His second
single, he explained, sold “only” 900,000 since it was
believed by some radio jocks to be a tad salacious, but
failed to find “fun” too near the mark as he reprised
1960’s Not Me. Seven Day Weekend featured in the
British film It’s Trad, Dad!, and was included, if not
attained, while I Wanna Holler (But The Town’s Too
Small) got a good response.
Bruce Springsteen was a fan of Bond’s back in the day,
and gave his boyhood hero a second bite of the cherry,
and chart hit, with This Little Girl, which The Boss
produced in 1981. Perhaps surprisingly, it garnered the
best response to the set so far.
His biggest seller and number one US hit Quarter
To Three reliably brought the house down, and having
successfully delivered one medley to the crowd,
switched to full-on party mode with a running mix
including Johnny B Goode, Hound Dog, Shake, Be-Bop-
A-Lula and Lucille.
VINTAGE ROCK 85
9
Hemsby Weekender
Rip Masters wowed the
crowds with his version of
Swansee River Boogie
The crowd had found its dancing feet, and sent Gary
off with a huge cheer.
THE WEEKEND HAD started off with a
Thursday night pre-show party headlined by the man
who re-introduced America to rockabilly, Levi Dexter.
Now living back in the UK with top model spouse
Bernie, Levi always gives good value both vocally
and visually with a set list enhanced by a scattering
of rockabilly standards. Rip Masters, playing both
keyboards and guitar, is as well known as a songwriter
and sidesman as he is as an artist, but he hit the ground
running on his Friday night slot. Swanee River Boogie
showed his keyboard mastery, and the vocal Trouble Is
Her Name is his own composition recorded by fellow
Rip’s main claim to fame
is writing Rockabilly
Man, and his own version
was greeted warmly
86 VINTAGE ROCK
9
Jack Baymoore And
The Bandits flew in
from Sweden
Scottish combo Rockville brought
their Johnny Burnette-influenced
rockabilly to the weekend
Levi Dexter (formerly of
80s revivalists Levi And
The Rockats) and his
wife, Bernie
Californian Jackie Lee Cochran. Mark Kemlo’s band
backed Rip and are members of The Shufflers with
Mark on drums, Tony Biggs on bass and Rob Nedin on
guitar. It was mainly an uptempo set, but Rip varied the
pace with what turned out to be Gene Vincent’s last
recording, a plaintive ballad entitled The Rose Of Love,
on which Rip played piano. He also played piano on most
of the early Rollin’ Rock label recordings organised by
Ronnie Weiser. Possibly his main claim to fame, however,
is writing Rockabilly Man, covered by Ray Campi and
20 others, and Rip’s own version was greeted warmly.
Amazingly, this was his first Hemsby appearance.
 Hemsby Weekender

GOODBYE, ROCKIN’ WILLIE

IT’S THE LAST EVER WEEKENDER FOR LONG-TIME ORGANISER WILLIE JEFFERY

Hemsby 61 Rock’n’Roll Weekender proved
historic in more ways than one. Organiser of the
festival Willie Jeffery (above with wife Varrick)
announced he was standing down, bringing
down the curtain on the longest run of any
promoter on the weekender scene. Willie, now
78, is handing over the reins to promoter, disc
jockey and group manager Bill Guntrip, a
well-known figure in retro music.
Willie explained: “When we started 31 years
ago, it was just us. Now there are 76 similar
festivals each year in the UK, Europe and
beyond, which means no-one is more than two
hours drive from a show. Our aim when we
started was to bring over original American acts
from the 50s who had never been seen in
Britain. We attracted audiences from all over
the world, from Japan, Spain, Germany and
even Australia.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to book
the originals. Many have passed on, others have
retired from music. I am aware that rock’n’roll is
changing, and I am pleased to hand over to Bill,
who has got his finger on the pulse and knows
what today’s audiences want.
“We are immensely proud of what we’ve
achieved, both for the artists and for the fans,
and we wanted to go out on a high rather than
dilute the quality and quantity of the acts we
book, and watch the weekenders gradually
peter out.
“Obviously, I’m saddened to stop running
Hemsby, which has been a huge part of my life,
and that of my wife Varrick, who has been
essential in the continuing success of the shows.
I didn’t imagine when we started that we would
still be running all these years later.
“But the time is right for me to stop, and
hand over to the next generation, whose
members are as enthusiastic about rock’n’roll as
we are. We can look back on what we have done
with the confidence that we did it right and our
legacy continues.
“We invested in a superb PA system, the
engineers to keep it sounding as good as it
could be, lighting technicians, the top comperes
and disc jockeys, offering our guests the chance
to meet the stars, what I believe to be the best
printed programme with details of all the acts
and many other aspects that turned our
weekenders into unforgettable events.
“I would like to thank the many, many people
I’ve come to rely on for the smooth running of
the shows, and our thousands of regulars who
ceased to be customers and turned into friends.
Our records show we brought in 127 original
American acts over 31 years, which speaks for
itself. I would like to reassure everyone that
I’m not hanging up my leather jacket and
abandoning rock’n’roll, the only music I love,
and will still keep my hand in with other
promotions.
“Finally, I would like to thank all those who
came in both May and October to attend
successive Hemsby weekenders, without whom
we wouldn’t have been able to reach the
milestone of 61 consecutive successful shows.
“I’m sure they will remain loyal to the new
promoters, and I’m particularly pleased Hemsby
is going to be in a safe pair of hands.”
Vintage Rock will have more on the future of
Hemsby in the next issue, out 7 February 2019.

Jack Baymoore And The Bandits from Sweden now. Their influences are
preceded him, and Jack broke a string on his guitar Johnny Burnette, Johnny Cash,
almost immediately. The Bandits reacted swiftly, moving and The Planet Rockers.
straight into the instrumental Cottonpickin’ and should Tex Speed Combo from
consider adding that sublime Night Raiders tune to their Bolton played Hemsby 46, 48
regular set. Jack, fronting the band for 22 years now, and 50 with much acclaim
both looks and sounds the part in his black shirt and and, made up of previous
rockabilly attitude. The highlight, of course, was the members of The Crawdads and
iconic A-V8 Boogie, but other originals like Drunk Tank Rhythmaires, they play raw
Boogie, Flat Out and I’m Not Crazy sat well alongside rockabilly and classics.
standards like Charlie Feathers’ One Hand Loose and The Danny McVey Trio is
Marlon Grisham’s Ain’t That A Dilly. Baymoore was based in London: Danny first
rewarded with two encores. played Hemsby at an open mic
Elsewhere, some of the newer acts shone on a slot many years ago, and is now
The Danny McVey Trio,
generations-spanning lineup. Race With The Devil, a respected act releasing CDs blasting their way through
formed in 2013, play Gene Vincent’s classics of the on Rollin’ Records and he kept some prime rock’n’roll stomp
Cliff Gallup era, but were unfortunate in their opening up his reputation here. Deville
slot on Thursday when most of attendees were yet to Rebels, a four-piece hard rockin’ rockabilly
arrive. They still played however like they would in band from Wales, play a mix of covers and originals
front of a full house. Also on were The Busboys from and will be recording some tracks at Sun Studios in
Swansea, who play classic rockabilly. They formed in Memphis in July 2019. Dime Store Dukes, formed
1983, disbanded in 1985, but then got back together again in 2015, hail from Lancashire and have just played
in 2016. This was the first band in which Rob Nedin the Shakedown Weekender in Gloucestershire and
(Rimshots/Shufflers) started playing lead guitar. performed their original rockabilly – influenced by
Rockville, the three-piece rockabilly band from Sonny Fisher, Jumpin’ Gene Simmons and Carl Perkins
central Scotland, have been performing for five years – to an appreciative crowd.

VINTAGE ROCK 87
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Hemsby Weekender

Glenn Doran And The Prairie

Echoes brought the spirit of
Nashville to Hemsby

French rockers Barny And 17-year-old Dylan Kirk

The All Stars delivered a showed that rockabilly is
ferociously energetic set about attitude, not age

Dylan Kirk And The Killer Combo are from
Faversham, Kent. Proving 50s rock’n’roll still has appeal
across the generations, Dylan started performing two
years ago at just 15 years old, but even at his young age
he has played at both the Good Rockin’ Tonight Festival
in France and the Firebirds Festival in Germany. The
song that inspired him to start playing piano was Jerry
Lee Lewis’ Crazy Arms but he is also influenced by Gene
Vincent, Sonny Burgess and Carl Perkins.
A different flavour of retro was provided by Glenn
Doran And The Prairie Echoes, who play hillbilly bop
and have a passion for honkytonk. They are a quality
Dylan Kirk is from
Faversham, Kent, and started
performing two years ago at
just 15 years old
band, with members from Hertfordshire and Devon,
their influences being The Maddox Brothers And Rose,
Jimmy And Johnny and The Delmore Brothers, not
to mention plenty of 50s country and Johnny Cash.
Barny And The Rhythm All Stars, meanwhile, came
in from Paris and can’t be faulted for their enthusiasm
and fabulously energetic set which saw frontman Barny
stage diving and singing from the audience at the end.
MFC Chicken, who were also backing band for
Gary ‘US’ Bonds but also had their own set, are highly
entertaining too, and look the part in smart black
Maverick ties and white shirts.
Last Call Romance flew in from Fort Collins, Colorado,
and have plenty of US festivals under their belt. The
five-piece are not tied to any particular style, write their
own songs, and offer a blend of rockabilly, blues and
swing influenced by Elvis and Patsy Cline, fronted as
they are by the talented Emily Winters.
From closer to Hemsby came Harry Violet And

88 VINTAGE ROCK
9
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Hemsby Weekender
Last Call Romance delivered
a heady cocktail of
rockabilly, blues and swing
Harry Violet And The Sharks
brought some dark, psychobilly
grooves to the weekend
The Sharks, an explosive sax-driven rock’n’roll quartet
from London that dished up raw versions of their
favourite sounds of the late 50s and early 60s. For fans of
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, The Cramps and The Lounge
Lizards, they’re great.
Back in country territory came Johnny Trouble and
his band from Germany. Johnny’s a busy gigger back
home and has a number of albums to his name, and he
and his boys performed a fine set of 50s-style country, a
little rockabilly, certainly with a debt to Johnny Cash but
with their own lighthearted twist.
Also popular in Europe is The Del Prince from
Madrid: not fronted by a guy called Derek, but a five-
piece doo-wop vocal group who, unfortunately, didn’t
90 VINTAGE ROCK
9
The Playboys closed
Hemsby this year
have the easiest time. Their act was marred by delays
between numbers, but it didn’t put off the audience, who
gave them a roaring reception and two encores. They
seemed surprised, but probably shouldn’t have been –
their reputation and quality was enough to see off any
technical troubles and show how strong, along with The
Velvet Candles, Spain really is for classic doo-wop.
So to the end of the weekend, and The Playboys were
the only band who could close out the last Hemsby
under Willie Jeffery’s reign. The lineup of Ricky
McCann (drums), Wayne Hopkins (bass), Clive
Osbourn (sax) and Rob Glazebrook on lead guitar have
backed more than 20 original American acts at Hemsby,
and remain the go-to guys for authentic rockabilly.
I’ve seen their break-up show at Hemsby, their reunion
show, and it’s still great to see them once more whatever
the circumstances. It was a great finish to another
excellent weekender with, fortunately, many more
to come. 9
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Vince Eager
L I F E I N
A
It’s not all rock’n’roll for Vince Eager, as he recounts days
of brief encounters with West End theatre producers as
he gets pushed towards auditions for stage plays, musicals
and even the movies…
D
uring the
1950s
and early
1960s, showbiz
agents were in many
ways much more
important than the
artists’ managers.
The general public
were often under
the impression that
it was the managers
who were solely
responsible for the success of an artist, but more often
than not it was their agents too. And agents dealt in
all sorts.
During the 1950s, there were various agencies located
in London’s West End who solely put together variety
shows for the hundreds of theatres across the UK.
My manager, Larry Parnes, was involved with the
Foster’s Agency of Piccadilly Circus which had various
specialist departments handling theatres, films and
television. Head of the variety department was one
Hymie Zahl. Hymie was approximately five-feet tall,
and that’s being generous, and his eyesight was even
worse than that of Mr Magoo. When he read anything,
it would, on occasions, have to be as close as two inches
from his face; likewise when he was meeting you! With
me at 6ft 4in, I had to lean forward… otherwise Hymie
would have been talking to my navel. I really enjoyed
Hymie’s company, however, and I think he did mine.
Occasionally, unbeknownst to Larry Parnes, I would
call into Hymie’s office for a chat: he was always
very gracious and would suggest artistes I should see
perform in order to learn my craft, and tell me of the
dos and don’ts of the business. He knew I was a massive
Johnnie Ray fan and, as he was Johnnie’s European
92 VINTAGE ROCK
9
representative, he arranged for me to see every
performance of Johnnie’s when he appeared at the
Cambridge Theatre for two weeks in the late 1950s.
AT THE TIME of Larry Parnes hearing about Tommy
Steele via the Fleet Street journalist John Kennedy,
Larry had already become an impresario by taking over
a struggling touring play that was due to appear in the
West End. It was a somewhat seedy script based on
London’s ladies of the night, and the advance booking
for its opening in the capital were far from favourable.
John Kennedy told Larry not to worry, as he “would sort
it out.” But John’s method of “sorting it out” came as a
shock to Larry Parnes – when he arrived at the theatre,
there were what appeared to be prostitutes accosting
theatre-goers as they entered the building. “Don’t
worry,” whispered John in Larry’s ear, “everything is
going great” …and it was. As the curtain went up, John
was outside the theatre watching the police arrive and
questioning the “prostitutes” who had been accosting
the general public. He said nothing as the police moved
them on with a warning not to return or they would
be arrested, but this didn’t deter the “prostitutes” and
they were back the following night causing yet more
embarrassment to theatre-goers. But watched from
afar by John Kennedy, the devious plan fell into place
as Fleet Street photographers snapped away to record
the mayhem developing around Cambridge Circus.
The morning’s newspapers were full of the story, and
within hours the booking office was inundated with
calls culminating in the run of the play actually being
extended. The actors/prostitutes got off with warnings
after being suitably rewarded by John for their services.
Larry Parnes quickly learned that the power of the press
was just that… very powerful!
“Publicity is everything” soon became Larry’s
mantra and having signed a partnership deal with the

© Graham Fowell
mischievous John Kennedy, Parnes & Kennedy became
major players with the signing of the first of their many
artistes – Tommy Hicks, soon to become Tommy Steele.
With Steele, Larry would control the business side of the
partnership; John, the publicity.
With Elvis Presley and Bill Haley fast establishing
themselves in the British charts, John Kennedy realised
that rock’n’roll was the way to go, and persuaded
Tommy to take up the challenge. And, as a merchant
seaman, Tommy had discovered rock’n’roll in the
United States when he saw Buddy Holly, so he was
slightly ahead of the game compared to most
British artists.
With crafty publicity manipulation on John
Kennedy’s part, and Larry’s support from Hymie Zahl,
it wasn’t long before Tommy was charging up the charts
with his first Decca release, Rock With The Caveman.
Concerts and more hits followed for Tommy, but he was
soon having to deal with UK rock’n’roll competition
in the form of Terry Dene, Wee Willie Harris and The
Most Brothers – all of whom had been discovered by
Paul Lincoln, the owner of the 2i’s coffee bar in Old
Compton Street (see page 30). Such was the popularity
of the 2i’s, that artistes were queuing up to play for free
in the hope Paul Lincoln would sign them up; but with
Paul using Hymie Zahl as the agent to represent his
managed artists, it appeared there could be a conflict of
A Life in Rock’n’Roll
Both Larry Parnes and Hymie Zahl were gay
and partners in a recently opened gay club in
Old Compton Street called the Golden Guitar
interests. There were certain personal factors in Larry’s
favour however – both he and Hymie were gay and
partners in a recently opened gay club in Old Compton
Street called the Golden Guitar.
With Marty Wilde and myself being the next signings
to the Parnes & Kennedy stable, Tommy began to feel
that the rock’n’roll market was developing way too fast
for his liking and decided to diversify in the hope of
becoming more of an all-round entertainer. The lead
role in the musical Hans Christian Anderson made a
quick transition complete, and it wasn’t long before
Tommy signed with musical impresario Harold Fielding
who he remained with for much of his career.
Regrettably, Tommy and his fellow performers
didn’t always see eye to eye, and there are numerous
stories of altercations and reprisals he was subjected
to. One example is that whilst performing in the hugely
successful Singing In The Rain, such was his perceived
behaviour to the dancers and stage-hands that, prior
to a performance, they would pee in the water-holding
tank over the stage. With the water gushing down on
VINTAGE ROCK 93
9
Vince Eager
Felkin/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty
Tommy in the rain shower sequence, they considered
they’d got their ‘revenge’.
THE SIX-FIVE SPECIAL BBC TV show, followed by
ITV’s Oh Boy!, were both produced by Jack Good and
were major productions when it came to showcasing
rock’n’roll talents. Both managers and agents alike
soon got wise to offering all manner of rewards to
persuade Jack to feature their charges in his shows – an
appearance on a Jack Good production really could add
a zero to an artiste’s fee overnight.
As powerful a person as Hymie Zahl was in the
world of agents, Jack Good was his equal in the world
of television. Hymie knew an appearance on any of
Jack’s shows was priceless for one of his artistes, and he
was desperate to get Jack to use Terry Dene on TV.
Terry was going through a bad time. He was thrown
out of the army, arrested for being drunk and smashing a
shop window in Wigmore Street, and then his marriage
to Edna Savage failed. What Terry needed was positive
press and under Jack’s guidance he could get it.
I knew that before being approached by Hymie, Jack
Good had already decided he would use Terry on the
show. However, not knowing this, Hymie contacted
Jack and put a proposal to him. The offer was: if Jack
featured Terry on Oh Boy!, Hymie would buy Jack a
vacuum cleaner. Jack thought this was hilarious, but
didn’t have the heart to tell Hymie he’d already decided
to use Dene. Terry did eventually appear on Oh Boy!,
Terry Dene was going through a bad time.
He was thrown out of the army, arrested for
being drunk and smashing a shop window
94 VINTAGE ROCK
9
TOP LEFT Oh Boy! producer and
manager to the stars Jack Good
ABOVE Army-bothering,
window-smashing, alcohol-
abusing bad boy Terry Dene
RB/Redferns/Getty
of course… but we never did find out if Jack actually got
his vacuum cleaner.
WHEN I WAS contemplating leaving Larry Parnes,
I confided in Hymie and he suggested I look beyond
music. He said I should meet a Mr Kitchener who was
the head of another department of Foster’s Agency, the
movie and stage division. Unbeknownst to Larry (again),
a meeting was arranged and Kitchener first commented
on my height and then my features, indicating I would
be excellent for both stage and screen. This really
cheered me up and brought back the memories of my
being hit on by Burt Lancaster at Churchill’s nightclub
with the offer of a part in his movie Elmer Gantry,
subject to playing my cards right.
“They’re looking for an understudy for Officer
Krupke for West Side Story, Hymie!” said Mr Kitchener.
“The boy [ie, me] could be great for that role. Let me put
him forward.”
The audition was held late one morning at Her
Majesty’s Theatre in the Haymarket, and I felt sick as
I went through the stage door. Ticking my name off
his list, the stage door manager directed me to the rear
stalls where I registered and awaited my fate. It wasn’t
long before I was called, and a script was thrust into my
hand. As I stood centre downstage I was asked to read
the lines in a New York accent whilst walking across the
stage. What followed were the most nerve-wracking
few minutes of my life. Within a few minutes I was on

Governor Films/Getty
my way back to the tube station, having been told that
I was “too young and inexperienced for the role”, but I
“looked good on stage.” With no comment forthcoming
on my New York accent, I assumed they were sparing
my feelings.
It came as something of a shock when, two years later,
and post-Larry Parnes, I received another phone call
from Mr Kitchener inviting me to visit him once again.
“You’re from the north country, Vince, aren’t you?” he
asked when I went to his office. I replied, “Well, Mr
Kitchener, Grantham in Lincolnshire is certainly up
north from here… but I think it’s classed as the East
Midlands and it’s surrounded by fields full of spuds and
carrots.” “Can you do a Lancashire accent?” he asked.
I explained that I’d certainly give it a try, but why?
“There’s a film entitled A Kind Of Loving being cast, and
I think you could possibly be what they’re looking for.
It’s set in Lancashire and it’s being directed by a man
called John Schlesinger and produced by Joe Janni…
and they’re happy to meet you.”
It was only a matter of days before I found myself in
Curzon Street, Mayfair, looking at the property I had
been given the address of. It had a palatial façade with
Roman-style marble pillars leading to a double front
door that appeared to be twice my height. I gingerly
pulled the bell handle and the door opened slowly to
ABOVE June Ritchie and
Not Vince Eager (AKA Alan
Bates) in John Schlesinger’s
kitchen sink classic, A Kind
Of Loving
A Life in Rock’n’Roll
reveal a very glamorous middle-aged lady who politely
invited me in and offered me a throne-like chair in the
reception area. Feeling my heart racing I was already
beginning to regret having agreed to come at all, but
here I was – so I had to make the most of it.
Within minutes, two more doors of giant proportions
were opened to reveal what looked like a ballroom with
a very grand desk situated about 30 feet away at the
far end. Behind the desk sat two gentlemen. Following
what seemed like an eternity, I was asked to walk
towards them slowly and take my place on yet another
regal-looking chair. After a few personal questions and
small talk, I was asked to read from the script in my
“best Lancashire accent”. Mr Janni and Mr Schlesinger
thanked me profusely following my reading, shook my
hand and said they would be contacting Mr Kitchener.
A few days later, Mr Kitchener phoned me with the
news that my audition “went very well, but they felt that
I wasn’t rugged enough” and “my Lancashire accent not
strong enough.”
Any aspirations I may have had to become a film
star soon faded. And when I eventually saw the movie,
it was with a guy named Alan Bates in that role I had
auditioned for. He turned in an amazing, award-winning
performance… and the only comfort I could draw from
his future successes was that Alan couldn’t sing! 9
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Soundtrack of my life

Peggy Sue
BUDDY HOLLY
1957
Like most 13-year-olds at school,
I didn’t know what I wanted to do
and it was my art teacher Alan
Glover who sowed the seeds of my
rockabilly passion. He had an old
acoustic guitar which he played
occasionally in class, and he played
a song I’d never heard called Peggy
Sue. I was so infatuated that he
taught me the chords, and as I was
left-handed I had to play them
upside down. But before long I was
playing along and little did I know
that this song I was playing would
be the deciding factor as to my
musical direction.

The Bullets’ lead guitarist

and vocalist, Brett Waters

GER
INTERVIEW BY VINCE EA

Barefoot Baby
JANIS MARTIN
1956
Dingwall’s in Camden Town was the
place to be seen, other than on
Thursdays when there was a special
rockabilly night around the corner
at the Camden Working Men’s Club.

Brett Waters
The first evening I visited the club
there was this amazing record
being played titled Barefoot Baby

OF The Bullets
The Bullets have been pumping out prime-cut
rockabilly for over 30 years now. Here, vocalist
Brett Waters shares his personal rockin’ Top 10
96 VINTAGE ROCK
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by Janis Martin. Janis was being
marketed as the female Elvis and
she was young, she was beautiful
and she was wild. She’d had a few
hits in America, but for me, when
Barefoot Baby kicked in I suddenly
realised that this was all I wanted
in life – I had to become a
professional singer.

Till The End Of The Day
THE KINKS
1965
Following my discovery of Peggy
Sue, I bought myself a guitar.
I couldn’t find anyone interested in
starting a band, but two mates who
were into 60s music said they’d be
up for a jam. I wasn’t too keen at
first, but they gave me a ‘Best Of
The Kinks’ album to give me an idea
of the music they liked. I listened
over and over and the track that
blew me away was Till The End Of
The Day. Even though the track
wasn’t rock’n’roll, the raw energy
sent shivers down my spine and my
first band was forged
The Slide
THE RHYTHM ROCKETS
1957
When I decided to put a band
together with some scene buddies
in the 80s, this was the first song
we rehearsed and to this day it’s
still one of my all-time favourites.
The Slide has such a killer beat and
it resonates right through to my
bones. Once this music is in you
then I think it never really goes
away. Most of my song choices are
1950s tracks, but this one is very
special. It reminds me of being free,
feeling like I could do anything
I wanted. Camden was an incredible
place to be back then, and still is.
Dirty Robber
THE SONICS
1965
When we formed our band, and as
I was the one with a guitar, it was
suggested that I should be the
singer. I’d never sang before, but
I gave it a go with the response
being, “That’s it! You’ll do!” I was
given an album by a band called
The Sonics, my mates said they
were a bit like The Kinks but from
the US, wilder and more dangerous-
sounding. I listened and I especially
loved this track, Dirty Robber.
Even now when I’m writing, I often
think of the energy that tracks like
this deliver.
Rock-A-Cha
JACK RABBIT SLIM
2008
One of the top rockabilly bands on
the worldwide scene for over a
decade has been Jack Rabbit Slim
and I’m a massive fan, especially of
their recording Rock-A-Cha. What a
track! I’m very fortunate to call
frontman Bob Butfoy and Western
Star Records owner Alan Wilson my
good friends – without them both
there would be no Bullets. Bob and
the band were number one on the
Western Star record label and they
encouraged me to contact Alan with
a view to recording. In 2012 I called
him and within a matter of weeks
we were signed.
Four O’Clock Baby
DARRELL RHODES
1958
In my teens, I was very fortunate in
finding a few rockabilly clubs in
Camden Town, London, where
I lived. I was totally unaware of
what rockabilly really was back
then, but I soon found myself being
drawn more and more towards it
with every track that the DJs
played. One of the songs that
I remember was Four O’Clock Baby.
When I first heard this mono,
screeching, and treble-heavy track,
it proved to be the most amazing
sound I’d ever heard – to this day,
my vinyl copy is still a favourite and
one of the most prized possessions
in my record collection.
Roadside Diner
LYNETTE MORGAN & THE
BLACKWATER VALLEY BOYS
2015
After 30-odd years, I still have a
real passion for rockabilly music
including connected genres like
blues, western swing, hillbilly and
early country music… to me, what
Lynette and the band do is pure
class and they have combined many
of these great musical influences.
It is all skilfully arranged to produce
a true vintage sound that excites
me every time I hear and see them
play. Their musicianship is a
pleasure to watch, and Lynette’s
vocal style is spot on. I love the
vintage sound they’ve perfected
and Roadside Diner is a classic.
Soundtrack of my life
Cat Squirrel
DOCTOR ROSS
1961
With a new found love of rockabilly
music and a new gang of friends,
I discovered an underground scene
that was really rockin’! The original
Dingwalls in Camden Town was
where you went on a Saturday
afternoon and a Sunday night, and
I did every single week. My
now-good friend, DJ Mouse, still
runs the club and one track that he
played made the crowd go wild.
It was Dr Ross’ Cat Squirrel and it
has a thumping beat with
harmonica, guitar and drums.
A blues boppin’ sound that still
makes me just want to dance
all night!
Plantation Boogie
PEE WEE KING
1955
Tracks like this are not to everyone’s
taste on the rockabilly scene, but
this song is a guaranteed floor-filler
when it’s played in any club. It has a
great feel to it and to me it’s simply
a beautiful piece of work from the
era. It’s not overly wild as many
early rockabilly tracks were, but
the musicianship and quality of
performance shines through.
Pee Wee King was older than most.
He was 41 when this was released in
1955 but, like today on the rockabilly
scene, age means nothing. When
it’s good, it’s good, and I love this.
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Coda

CONNIE
FRANCIS
IS NOT
STUPID
The career of Connie Francis had been
up and down until Neil Sedaka came
along with a “puerile” song that he
thought would be an insult to a “classy
lady” like Connie. But what the heck,
reasoned his co-writer Howard Greenfield:
“What have we got to lose, she hates
everything we wrote, doesn’t she? Play it
already!” After hearing only a few lines, Francis
recalled: “I started jumping up and down and I said,
‘That’s it! You guys got my next record!’”
She was right. Stupid Cupid charted both sides of the
Atlantic, and reached No. 1 in the UK in September 1958. Lipstick
On Your Collar went to No. 3 in summer 1959, and – masterfully
playing the “cute” card to contrast with the “masculine kind of
music” of the male rockers – Connie soon racked-up 15 overall
UK Top 20 hits.

Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty

98 VINTAGE ROCK
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 “Buddy Holly “He made it OK to “Buddy Holly
was way ahead wear glasses. was a
of his time” I was Buddy Holly” beautiful writer”
BOB DYLAN JOHN LENNON MICK JAGGER

CELEBRATING 60 YEARS OF

OUT NOW