@Brian amazing footage Bri, thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcjbc22MKQI
Look at this you guys... This is why I probe Gail Zappa occasionally to know when this will be released.
That wrecked my working day, got me almost weepy with nostalgia, reminded me of my age and sent me scrambling to look through all manner of vinyls (got 78s even), CDs and whatever and for all of that it let out some steam. Nice one, just always remember the golden rule - never start this face to face in the presence of my missus or there may be loud Italian swearing and tantrums, plus a bit of French and English for good measure.
Sorry guys. Guess it's one of the reasons I turned my back on the music scene 1000%. I was never going to make it as a musician but just loved being right in the middle of it all. Pity about the sour bits!
And there's me going down Nostalgia Lane. I got thinking to myself and then the big gong struck. Not blues or rock but folk with a little toe into rock. We had probably the greatest British female folk singer of her time in SW19 and all of the crowd loved her. Sandy Denny. Sandy who died in 1978 and I guess my mate Vinnie who is on the way out and I talk about on Skype occasionally because he and I amd probably all other survivors miss our Sand to this day. One of the best memories was that the king of Scots folk Dich Gaughan was living down in London for a while and his sister was going out with one of the bigger crowd. So he was in the public bar with one and all and in comes Sand. They had never met. But there was this lady of Scots blood and this giant of Scots folk and they began singing over a pint or two. They did things like Flooers o' the forest and the 51st Highland Division's Farewell to Sicily for a couple of hours, well after lock in (closing time - remember that?). I was working in Peru when she died in '78 and cried when I got back spring of '79 and something in me is still doing that to this day. Wow, a great great lady and before she did the Zeppelin, Fotheringay and such stuff a fabulous, funny and charismatic lady to be with. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Hey Mark, yes business ( busy-ness ) does get in the darned way, who needs it? Brinsleys were great, as was Free, who were a prime example of the following: you see it in black 'n white now, on the 'live' Top the Pops, Whistle Test etc. ( oft with a drummer using jazz sticks style ) all so, well... tight, in tune, few effects, and un-laboured.
The musicianship seemed so good, not a Vocoder or backing track in sight.... keep it live! Also sorry B. for inviting myself over, how rude! I was assuming you were near Pau (?) and I have friends in Pamploma. Laters Dudes and Dudesses.
I wish I weren't so cotton-pickin' busy today, because I'd love to join in. I'm desperate for someone to talk music with. But Barbara, I must just tell you that a) my sister loved Free (I did quite) amd b) Brinsley Schwarz were one of the few bands to venture across the St. George's Channel and play in Belfast during The Troubles. They were lovely chaps. I caught them in Bath at the Theatre Royal some years later, playing with Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers and Bees Make Honey (how's that for a pub-rock bill?). I sneaked backstage after their spot and chatted to them, a star-struck yoof, and got them to sign a copy of Silver Pistol for my girlfriend of the time, who loved the Brinsleys as much as wot I done. Surrender to the rhythm!
Bob Hall and Bob Brunning were a team, so the Saveloys (as really they were known by many) were part of the Robinson Road, Colliers Wood (both lived on that nondescript road quietly unlike yer Weybridge set) crowd. Yeah Google them, but Bob and Bryce were founders and Ray and Leo (don't remember family names) probably, vaguely remember. Brycee was the first British black blues singer on the scene, he left and a useless prat called Chris something took over. Over and out for the band from there on in. My sidekick Bill (see: http://www.incrediblephotographymag.com/billgreensmith.html) and I were thinking about setting up a label but Mike and Richard Vernon set up Blue Horizon and renamed the Nag's Head club the same before we got a foot in. They got Chicken Shack, Peter Green as solo plus Fleetwood Mac and Ten Years After along with blues giants like Champion Jack Dupree and Eddie Boyd and Otis Spann. Mike went on to Bowie and the likes. Bill stuck with photography and I became a real anthro. QED
Hi Gang, been trying to sort out my hard drive. @ John...coo, and John Cale, good grief! did a bit of graphics work for him, and Cat Stevens when we worked for the likes of Island, EMI, Bronze, CBS etc.
( very peripheral )
Barbara, Brian has put a little meat on the Savaloy Brown query, although well worth a Google. As to Chris Chesney, yes, multi-talented musician, fine artist, art director, and I dunno how one ratifies coming second to Poodle headed Brian May, at the Taylor Mercury 'need a guitarist' interviews. ( b*ggered either way! ) To all. We have enough people now to form a band. As I suffer from travel sickness, are you guys happy to relocate to the South?
Oh yeah, Paul Kossoff son of David and Co. He went young of heart failure? Did a lot of blues stuff but only recorded things like 'Alright Now'. Yes... what a history.
Sorry, Savoys. Well Bob Hall from Colliers Wood, Brycee singing (Bryce Portius), Ray and Leo. Somebody else perhaps.
Yep, Ginge as in mad as a hatter x 10 or more himself Baker. Savoy Brown. Yes, when my friend Bill and I used to be on the door of the Nags Head in Battersea for Mike and Richard Vernon we had them play, and Free and a few others. I was lucky I was not sent down from Cantab then because I spent more time Cambridge to Liverpool Street than at lectures, etc.
Who was in Savoy Browns Blues Band?
My band was called Skye Wine...WORKED with Ten years after and Eddie Boyd.
Did anyone like Free?
Brinsley Schwartz. Esperanto?
Yeah, the missus willing. She'd need to go home for a visit though, she's had the nostalgia with my sister (who was married to Johnny Mar's drummer and Johhny lived upstairs!) and put up with my mate Johnny Almond (the sax player) trashing her place, plus other witnesses that OH will not want to hear about again! Yet again, oh yawn... for her. She did not believe the stuff like big heroes Cat Stevens until she got stuck in a gas with friends... Sheet, time to go to do a quick shop, collect kids and remember to call my mate Vinnie who was part of that crowd too but is going down not so slow at present and I ought to go visit before too late. Given he lives two minutes walk from my sister...
Ginge as in Baker.
Oh my gosh JACK BRUCE and Mr Baker alaways off their trolllies.
Guess my bit of rock n roll living- on -the periphery came to an end some ten years ago back stage at a New Order Albert Hall gig.
It all started at school when I was the stand in bass player for a band photo that made it into the News of the World ( We were trying to upstage some mates who made it into the Express' William Hickey columns)
Going to the UK's first ' Love in' at Alexander Palace,Marquee Club, Yardbirds (Clapton, Beck) live at Chislehurst Caves, Albert Hall's Mothers of Invention gig ( RAH bans rock shows for a decade after )getting pissed with John Cale in the Kings Road and finishing up the evening with his ex band mate Nico at the Chelsea Arts Club... (where I also once 'played' piano alongside Slim Gaillard) etc etc and all that vicarious but fun 'dancing round the edge' type scene.
The Albert Hall thing? The lady slumped on my lap – and probably several other people's -was one of the group's aunties.
Now most aunts are loverly people but rock n roll ?! ' twas time to grow up ( well, a bit)
There was a great 'Blues' scene in Oxford, with bands such as 'Steamroller' Doc Copock's Bues band, etc. Many of the enthusiasts went to folk/blues venues featuring Bennett, Fred 'Mississip' McDowell etc. My fave recording artists at the time was the Savoy Brown Blues Band, best track 'It hurt me too'. Got bought a re-press by my sis-in-law courtesy of Virgin. ( the label not her )
I'm sure the folk clubs grew from the Mingus loving beatnik meets, all fags 'n coffee, saw a little Zimmerman at 'The Bridge Hotel' Wheatley...is it me, or was everything in black and white? Brian, would it be out of order to visit you, in the Summer? for un petite Boeuf?
CC some history... I was thinking of other people who had real talent. Roger Pearce, guitarist out of Kingston Art College who played early on with Keith Relf et al, was a brilliant illustrator so moved aside for young Eric to join the Yardbirds. Loads of of them, booof talent haning out of the seat of their pants and they nearly all did something else. CC seems to have done good stuff but missed the real big bus too. Some got it right. I knew people who said that going with Ginge and Jack would destroy Eric's chances (he did the last J M Bluesbreaker's gig at our school fair in Merton Park - guess what kind of school fair committee we had?) but he survived, well except for picking up Ginge's bad habits. Nearly all of the guys who did not make it in the UK but went across the pond did not but a fair few of them ended up in production and stuff like that. No big pay but not that bad and in a way much more creative because of who they got to work with.
Moot point, the Scousers hit the scene what late '62 early '63 when I was 14. A fair few of us were already blues fans by '62 which is when the Stones appeared. Alexis Korner and Cyril Davis got together before that but both had been around a while. I went to the closing night of the Blues and Barrelhouse Club in Richmond and Blues Incorporated turned up a few months later. They had guest American blues artists way back, I was 12 or 13 then. Danny Thompson who lived two minutes from us and gave me some double bass lessons joined them. (Dan Jnr who I knew when he was at the end of primary school and I was about to leave was Hawkwind's dummer - small world). Dan took some of us to see them. Like the Stones were at Dan's house with Alexis in South Wimbledon and that is where I had my first untipped Gauloise off the guvner and continued to smoke until about 10 years ago... The blues was there before the Robert Johnson stuff (which I have too and love) was dragged over the doormat.
Yes, given the US guys like Memphis Slim. John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy and BB King all did gigs like Antibes, nothing stuck. One day they might discover the blues and then get round to iventing decent rock music instead of the mediocre drivel they churn out now.