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Terry Murphy ruled the roost in E16
There was a very famous club or pub in the East End of London that was called the Bridge House. It featured all sorts of music mainly for the locals between 1975 and 1982 and had a serious reputation with artists like U2, Dire Straits, Iron Maiden, Tom Robinson Band, Secret Affair and The Cockney Rejects. As…
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The British Record Labels
There are now so many releases in this marvellous series of 2 CD sets charting those early British Record Labels that we thought a short trailer was in order https://youtu.be/YCIsYZqZpX4
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Jim Cregan gets that Rod the Mod fellow
A while ago now various of us spent an amusing afternoon cruising up and down the Thames river picking up and dropping off various reprobates at public houses and getting them to sit and swap stories about their life on the road with bands big and small and the extraordinary things that they did to amuse themselves.…
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Shirley Collins and the dangers in those 60s coffee bars
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David leaves this world
It is hard not to mark the passing of such an important musician as Mr Bowie so here is a quote from our book ‘Over, Under Sideways, Down’ where Bob Solly recalls getting a new band member: In the early Sixties I was asked to go professional by a band called Band Seven, a seven-piece…
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Norman Beaker chucks in a few names he played with
there was a time in Britain when playing with the greatest musical legends was undoubtedly the best way to improve as a musician. Norman Beaker cut his teeth as a Blues guitarist by backing many of the American stars when they came over here and toured and they did not come any bigger than Mr…
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the first time the Blues toured Britain
some of the season’s break has been spent transcribing the Chris Barber interview from earlier in 2015 and it is proving absolutely scintillating. He covers so many periods in the development of British music, the early years of collecting old jazz 78s, Alexis Korner, Muddy Waters, the Marquee Club, the Rolling Stones, Trad. He was there…
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naming your band after the view
after making his name with the Graham Bond Organisation and finding himself without a band he could play for Jon Hiseman looked out over the holiday view and gave his band the name Colosseum https://youtu.be/QODlRgzH2oI
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Victor Brox was jamming with Jimi and Janis
Victor Brox has been a musician for all his life starting in those Sixties blues bands backing the American blues legends as they came to Britain. Later with the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation he toured and toured the world and at times jammed with young musicians the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
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when Rock ‘n’ Roll first hit Dundee
as a young apprentice piano tuner in Dundee, Alex went and saw Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran at his local hop, but when the fists started flying he found himself locked in their dressing room. https://youtu.be/2yKtYQ3l8Nc
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living in the recording studio
Starting as a tea boy and working your way up to engineering lots of stars at the hot Morgan Studios. Macca, Tull, Ozzie, Rod the Mod, it all seemed quite normal at the time in Willesden, North London in the Seventies https://youtu.be/4BP5jz74a_0
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Judy Dyble traces the route from Americana to British folk-rock royalty
Starting as a musician on part of the local scene and gradually the group got formed of amazingly good local musicians. Judy Dyble was their singer and she played the autoharp, they became known after the house they rehearsed in and they called themselves the Fairport Convention.