-
Nick Simper changed from Flowerpot Man to a Deeper Purple
Nick Simper changed his music after seeing Vanilla Fudge playing in a heavier style joining Jon Lord who was depping with the Flowerpot Men having left The Artwoods. Former Lord Sutch colleague Ritchie Blackmore joining them on guitar and the roots of Deep Purple were planted firmly in the ground
-
Richard Ames got one over that Noddy Holder
The games that were played by groups on the road to keep themselves amused through the boredom of touring in the Seventies – or then again just the fun of playing pranks on fellow musicians.
-
The Teenage Rage starts a new label
Falling out with Dick James when he started his own label, DJM, Larry struck out with a whole new world wide label called Penny Farthing Records with considerable success. They enjoyed many hits in many countries with the likes of Johnny Pearson Orchestra’s track, “Sleepy Shores”, let alone “Blue Is The Colour” by the Chelsea…
-
how Neil Rock went from Gonks to Beatles
Hear the saga of how trying to manufacture those lovely Sixties soft toys called Gonks led them to acquiring the rights to merchandise those Beatles
-
Terry Slater the eternal musician
The stories from musician / publisher / manager of his life in the British and American music industry are the envy of many of those of us who are just a touch younger. Talk about right place, right time as a young market apprentice caught the the Rock ‘n’ Roll bug which swept him into…
-
from piano tuner to Abbey Road chief engineer
Today’s treat was meeting up again with Haydn Bendall and that has been a while. He started at EMI’s Abbey Road studio in the early Seventies and rose through the ranks receiving as he says, a fantastic education working with all types of music, classical, pop, rock, middle of the road. The all round insight…
-
Johnny Remember Me – Great British Record labels – Top Rank
In hindsight, the shortlived TOP RANK label would appear to have been a magnificent folly, perpetrated by the mighty Rank Organisation. Launched in 1959, at their peak they were pumping out a vast amount of material, clocking up hits with both licensed-in US repertoire and UK artists, The man whose initials prefixed the label’s catalogue…
-
Teenager In Love – Great British Record labels – Philips
Launched under the proud slogan “The Records Of The Century”, their first UK releases appeared in January 1953, via a series of Popular 78rpm singles, with 331/3rpm LPs following in July ’54 and 45rpm EPs a year later. Surprisingly, perhaps, Philips would be the last major label to issue 45rpm singles in the UK,…
-
Ginger Baker gets a lesson drummed into him
Ginger learns a lot whilst starting out with Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies. He learnt lessons that he has obviously never forgotten