Recent Facebook confabs with the estimable Bobby Taylor got me meditating on the fact that over a fifty plus year career in music, I’ve been fortunate to have had wonderful luck with the boyz with all the noize.
My first band in Liverpool , Mike & The Creoles, had a fourteen year old redhead named Roy Dyke on the throne, and compared to our callow efforts, he played like a grown man. Roy, of course went on to great things: The Remo 4, Ashton, Gardner & Dyke, a session career, and so on.
Next up was the late Lewis (Lew) Collins with The Kansas City Five, and although he made his great mark as an actor in later years, most notably in “The Professionals” he was a very good drummer, and charismatic, to boot.
Lee Castle & the Barons had Ian Broad, followed by Mel Preston, who played on the Parlophone sides. They were both very solid cats, each able to swing as well as rock.
When I moved to London in late ’63, it was largely because I wanted to play with a great, yet still underrated, drummer named Gerry Wood. I worked with him in several configurations: West Five, who had a minor hit with the first Jagger/Richards song cut outside of The Stones, but, more importantly, backed Doris Troy on her first U.K tour with The Stones and The Hollies which led to my long association with Mama Soul. She Trinity, which featured Margo and Carol from Goldie and The Gingerbreads (very talented New Yorker’s who had a funky, jazzy, feel) with Margo kicking bass pedals on her B-3 and playing deep, gritty solos along with Carol’s cool, blue Fender guitar. I was very happy to play rhythm guitar, with Gerry swinging like the clappers, along with a fine sax player, Don Jones, who covered baritone up through soprano.
After that, Gerry, bassist Mick Fitzpatrick and I backed Diane Ferraz and Nicky Scott on that duo’s ill-fated, but interesting assault on the Top 40. There’s always something good to be found, though, and when I joined the Checkmates, I brought Diane in to morph it into Ferris Wheel with the late Barry Reeves behind the kit. A bit of a wild one at that point, as he was rather close to Brian Jones – he was a powerhouse player, nonetheless, and went on to a successful stint with Blossom Toes, before becoming a fixture with the James Last Orchestra.
Barry’s exit led to the entrance of another teenage phenomenon, Dennis Elliott, then a mere lad of seventeen, but frighteningly accomplished, and perfectly capable of executing all the intricate moves that occurred on the later jazz/psych stuff we did with the soaring Linda Lewis, who was just sixteen at the time. Dennis went on to anchor The Roy Young Band and England’s greatest jazz-rock band “If”, before hitting pay dirt most deservedly with Foreigner. He set a template for stadium and arena drumming that is still hard to beat. But I betcha’ he could still play a Max Roach groove right now that would make you check your watch.
When I started to supervise all the publishing demo output for R.S.O. we were cutting ten to twenty tracks a month, and Tony Knight helped ease that workload, along with Rob Townsend (of Family), when he was available. Both excellent and versatile drummers.
Putting The Gospel Truth soul and gospel revue together for Doris Troy was quite an undertaking, as it involved anywhere from fifteen to thirty players and singers, including a horn section, choir, percussionists and three keyboard players, but NO GUITARS. I brought in the great Jamaican drummer Byron Lye-Fook for all of that, including the live album “The Rainbow Testament” recorded at London’s Rainbow Theatre.
Apart from his chops, Byron exhibited an almost preternatural Rasta calm at all times, which I found very reassuring given the volcanic and open-ended nature of the proceedings. I could always be sure he’d have his eyes and ears wide open, watching both Doris and I like a hawk, in case the improv took on unexpected directions.
During this same time frame, my old pal from The Zombies, Colin Blunstone, had a surprise big hit – the Denny Laine song “Say You Don’t Mind” (from his first solo album “One Year”), but performed with only a string quintet for backing. It was brilliantly arranged, like most of the album, by Chris Gunning. Colin had never worked with anyone but The Zombies and had never had to put a band together from scratch. So, he asked me if I’d do the necessary, which involved an electric rhythm section and a string quintet, as he was expected to do The Zombies hits in addition to the new solo material. His management had the very innovative idea of only booking into the symphony halls and opera houses, with Roy Wood’s freshly minted brainchild Electric Light Orchestra as the opening act. Very exciting stuff, except that the tour was supposed to kick off barely weeks away. I didn’t have to worry about the string players, as the guys who’d played on the album were already signed up, but I had to put the electric band together in a hurry.
If you know The Zombies records, they are not pushovers….very jazzy, with complex chords, and we also had to deal with the new material, which required an excellent guitar player, both on electric, but also on acoustic and classical, and a versatile bassist. Of course, the keyboards and conducting end of things was totally on me. God! The confidence of Youth!
It being the start of the touring season, my Rolodex ran dry in a hurry, but I’d heard on the vine about a really good up and coming bass player Steve Bingham, who I’d not booked before, so I called him and he proved ideal at once (these days he’s leading Geno Washington’s very successful resurgence in Europe).
I was still making drum calls, but I didn’t feel this would be Byron’s cup of tea, although I knew he’d be available, as Doris had put the Gospel Truth on hiatus for the summer, with George Ford, Phil Kenzie and other key players otherwise committed, including myself with Colin, and the live album in the mixing stage.
I was still short a guitar player when I had my initial meeting with the string section. Fortunately one of them gave me Derek Griffiths’ number, and he proved to be just the ticket, as he could read, and although more a specialist in acoustic and classical guitar, he was also a capable electric player too……which left drums.
So I dropped the dime on Byron….as expected, he was initially dubious, but I had my selling shoes on, so he agreed to come over and listen to the proposed set list. He was familiar with “She’s Not There”, of course, and he got into the syncopation of “Tell Her No”. By the time we’d got to “Time Of The Season” he allowed that it was pretty happening stuff and telling him that he’d have a break when we did the string quintet portion of the set….well, that sealed the deal. By that point we only had a week for rehearsal in the old Ken Colyer Jazz Club, off Shaftsbury Avenue. Two days without Colin, so I could routine the rhythm section, two days with Colin and the section, one day with the string quintet, and two days with the full ensemble, including the finale, an arrangement of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee” which I wrote at the last-minute, at Colin’s suggestion, for all nine pieces.
Byron was rock solid from day one and his island nuances really sat well with the older Zombies material. The tour was a great success, and our dreadlocked drummer, possibly the first West Indian to ever play in some of those old concert halls took to it all like the proverbial duck to water. It went so well that at tour’s end we all went into Abbey Road to cut Colin’s follow-up album “Ennismore”, which resulted in the big hit single “I Don’t Believe In Miracles”.
My involvement in Rockin’ Horse was initially strictly as a session player.
The concept was built around the vocal and songwriting talents of the already successful Billy Kinsley (Merseybeats, Merseys, and later Liverpool Express) and a lesser-known artist, Jimmy Campbell, who’d caught attention for his distinctive confessional writing style and a vocal delivery to rival John Lennon (in The Kirkbys and The 23rd Turn-off). Billy and Jimmy were based in Liverpool, and their producer/manager Hal Carter felt that what they had would benefit from building a studio band around the two of them. Jimmy was a more than serviceable rhythm guitarist, Billy, a studio quality bass player, and Hal rounded it out with Stan Gorman on drums, Bobby Faloon on lead guitar and banjo, and I on keyboards and 12-string guitar. The hired guns were encouraged to join in the group-think, and band cohesion built quickly. Stan intuited that a certain flavor of Ringo’ness would suit the overall picture, and we went on to make an album “Yes It Is”, that as a result of its many reissues over the years has been lauded as “the first Power Pop album” and “the best album The Beatles never made”. Stan’s drumming was a big part of the slightly retro nature of the overall sound, which in 1973 was viewed as passe, but has proved to have staying power.
In a strange twist of fate, the only touring Rockin’ Horse (or a variant thereof) ever did was a European trek, backing Chuck Berry. It was probably as a result of Hal Carter’s contacts, but it was initially weird, as the gig was purely to back Chuck, which suited me fine. What Liverpool lad worth his salt wouldn’t want that gig? Mr. Berry’s reputation as a difficult cat preceded him, so Hal had wisely set up a warm-up show at the University of Lancaster before the main tour kicked off. Just as well!
I had heard that Chuck preferred to communicate with the piano player, if there was one, so I was duly summoned to his dressing room beforehand. He was silkily courteous, and when I asked what the plan was, he replied that the plan was to play some Chuck Berry music. When I shamelessly name-dropped both Johnny Johnson and Lafayette Leake (his most famous piano cohorts) he replied that we ‘d get on well, which indeed proved to be the case. He demonstrated some physical cues for breaks and endings, and that was it. No set-list, no keys…
I took this scant information back to the lads, and next thing we were up on stage in the thick of it. Chuck’s tuning was casual at best and he was blasting a stereo Gibson 345 through two Marshall stacks, while the monitor set-up left much to be desired, so considering we were hanging on for dear life, I didn’t think it had gone too badly. Not so Mr. Berry. I was summoned again “You, the rhythm guitarist and the bass player are fine. I don’t need no lead guitarist getting in my way, so he’s gone, and that drummer’s too fancy. He’s gone too. Find me a meat and potatoes guy who’ll stick to me like glue .” Dismissed. This was not the kind of news I wanted to be carrying back to the band room, but when I did, Stan and Bobby seemed relieved, and were probably glad to bail and get back to the studios. Billy was thinking fast on his feet, and immediately brought up the name of Dave Harrison, back in Liverpool, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of Chuck’s work, and fitted Mr. Berry’s description to a tee. There were no recriminations. It was chillingly business-like as Stan and Bobby arranged to ride back to London with the gear and after Billy had a quick confab with Chuck, he, Jimmy and I jumped in Chuck’s limo to make the thirty mile trip to Liverpool right now!
You cannot make stuff like this up…on the ride Chuck was affable, and obviously had a comfort level that all three of us were from Liverpool. He inquired where Stan and Bobby were from, and when we replied London and Glasgow, he grinned ” Naw, I need me a Liverpool band’. We arrived on the outskirts of town at about 2 a.m. and Billy navigated us to where Dave lived, above an auto repair shop he operated. It was a serious lights-out situation when Billy started trying to knock ’em up. There were no mobile phones back then, of course, so we’d just had to fly blind with no warning. I didn’t know Dave at all, so as Kinsley loped over the forecourt, I was watching everything-Chuck in the corner, with a lazy smile on his face, Campbell clenched and quiet.
A light came on upstairs, a blond bloke in his skivvies was shouting, “Whatcha’ want?” I could see Billy yelling up and pointing towards the car. Jimmy jumped out and did a soccer sprint to the scene of the action, and also started yelling and pointing.
Chuck, vastly amused, drawled…”Yeah, this is what I figured Liverpool would be like.”
A few minutes later, Dave came down and opened the front door, with his missus yelling away behind him. Billy and Jimmy walked him barefoot to the limo. He put his head in the open back window, his eyes saucers. Chuck looked at his prominent gold watch, and said “Hi, Dave, these gents tell me you’re the man for the job. You comin’ or what?”
“Give me half an hour to pack a bag and get the drums out of the shop,” he replied. There was room in the trunk for his kit, as all the rest of the gear had gone south with Stan, Bobby and the road crew. Given the circumstances, Dave conducted himself pretty calmly, which was a good sign, and when we arrived in London, he had a free day to rest up and adjust. Again, the only rehearsal was me showing him Chuck’s body cues, and when he asked about the duck walk, I replied “That’s when you get your head down and drive it hard,” as the walk was usually the signal for some heavy guitar/piano soloing.
Dave’s debut and the official start to the tour was seamless, and he played all the dates, including live T.V. concerts in London and Germany, with great distinction. Chuck was happy, we were happy, and a good time was had by all. When it wound up, the guys went back to Liverpool on the train with their gear in the luggage car, and I never saw Dave again, but he had his moment and rose to the task magnificently.
The Skelly 