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Tony Bell’s dad did not appreciate his son’s love of the 2Is
The joys of all this new music to a youngster in the 1950s was far too powerful for the older generation and resulted in Tony being kicked out of his dad’s house
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Rob Burns and bass playing memories
From starting touring aged just eighteen with the The Stylistics as they topped the charts in Britain as well as more soul legends such as Sam & Dave, Rob has made career of playing bass guitar with numerous parties such as David Gilmour, Albert Lee and Vivian Stanshall. His marvellous tales will be following on this…
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Ray Connolly was a Fleet Street legend
Hailing originally from Liverpool, he eventually met The Beatles and interviewed them many times for the Fleet Street papers as their pop specialist
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Zoot Money – The Book Of Life… I’ve Read It
Saw Zoot in fine form last night with the overview of his life so far with a band and the musical soundtrack to match. He went back to days of the Flamingo Club and a young Andy Summers on guitar playing R&B and Chuck Berry & Ray Charles numbers though those late, late nights till…
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Gary Compton, a Kingston man in a Panama jug band
Gary had the harmonica bug and so was a regular watching the The Rolling Stones and the emerging Yardbirds as well as the American Blues legends such as Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed all around the Kingston, Richmond, Twickenham area. Watching musicians at the Osterley Jazz & Folk Club eventually led to him…
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Top Topham was just 15 when he started in The Yardbirds
Yup their original lead guitarist was just fifteen and starting bands were not common place behaviour in those far off days he says, but of course the Skiffle Bug had hit him when he was twelve and his dad had kindly made him a tea-chest bass. Even taking him to the Ealing Club as a…
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10 Tales – Marc Bolan
This new mini E-Book featuring ten tales from people who worked behind the scenes with Marc Bolan is now available exclusively for your Kindle – just search their system for Mark Rye 10 Tales
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Tony Bell on bass guitar
Tony Bell recounted stories of the 2Is Coffee Bar where all the connections were made in the late Fifties with the likes of Screaming Lord Sutch, Tommy & Tony Hicks and Johnny Kidd – and while manager Tom Littlewood used to put people together into groups he was very ‘careful’ with the money and you…
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Ray Connolly was a Fleet Street youngster
Liverpool born Ray wrote about all the stars for the London Evening Standard as their young Fleet Street journalist, becoming very close to John, Paul & Ringo in the process – he still regrets not getting to know George more. He wrote the screenplay for the highly successful ‘That’ll Be The Day‘ which David Puttnam…
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Chris Peers – the making of Island Records
Oh dear this has turned into one of those weeks as I am sorry to see reports that Chris Peers has just left us. We filmed him a few years ago now in a home in Henley where he spent a lot of time recounting starting Island Records with Chris Blackwell and the nature of…
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Sue Steward – RIP
It was not many weeks ago that we did an interview with Sue, and then such a short time later she has left us. Here she is on good form remembering working for Richard Branson and how he (mis) treated her
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10 Tales – On The Road
The first in a series of short books is now available for your Kindle. 10 tales of life On The Road from Chris Barber through to David Bowie. All taken from the RockHistory interviews with more to follow on different themes and aspects of their British Music experiences.