UK gigging started in February when we got back from Berlin, and that was when Barry Revett left and Dick Gunnell, who was with me and Dave in the Vampires, joined us on rhythm guitar. (Barry had left after Berlin to go overland to Australia by VW camper with a couple of his mates!)

Dick also occasionally did vocals with Dave, which was an added bonus. Not always too seriously either – I can recall a couple of ‘novelty’ numbers from our set, one with Dick and Dave singing the Paul & Paula song ‘Hey Paula’ – and Dick coming on stage with a blond wig and singing the ‘Paula’ part in a falsetto voice! The other was a a tongue-in cheek take on the Sonny and Cher hit ‘I’ve Got You Babe’ – with Dick singing the Cher parts.

Dick somehow ended up nicknamed ‘Dungle’ (a corruption of his initial/name ‘DGunnell’) – I am not sure where the name came from but I suspect it originated from one of our drummers – either Roy or Geoff.

At Margate - prior to a gig at 'Dreamland' Our original Van... (signwriting by Dick!) At Margate Margate again....

Our 'improved' transport! (not the one, but one just like it)

First record - Publicity handout Photo shoot for the first record - around Marble Arch! Daily Mirror writeup - first record release Town Hall, Clacton

I can remember trying to get around in the bad winter of ’63 in our old Austin J1 van. Dick did the signwriting  – the monochrome photos, taken at Margate, do not really do it justice – the artwork was in full colour in the style of a ‘Ben Hur’ poster! I think our first gig as a touring band was at The Assembly Rooms, Melksham – where coincidentally I lived only a handful of miles away between 2010-2012!

Our next transport was a Bedford CA Dormobile and Jack did all the driving. No side windows, very cramped with us plus guitars, amplifiers, drums, sound system, and no heater. The engine was between the front seats, so when it was cold Jack regularly took the engine cover off to provide some warmth! Jack is also remembered as being able to drive for hours without the need for a ‘comfort break’ – a source of many an argument! We will have averaged around 50,000 miles a year, and much of that at night. It should be said that – all credit to Jack – he never had an accident.

Occasionally the van would be recognised when parked outside a gig and written with lipstick messages from some of our ‘fans’ – yes, we did have some! They didn’t always get the right van though, and the occasional van driver may have had a cleaning job to do the following morning!

Our music sets comprised mainly covers of the hits of the day (which was at that time what the audiences wanted to listen and dance to anyway), mixed with a few obscure American songs and the occasional original arrangements of material such as jazz standards not normally associated with a 5 piece rock band. We did a version of Gene Pitney’s ‘Town Without Pity’ (the original title song from the film was with a full orchestra) and which was very popular with our audiences – we should have recorded that one! We also did a few instrumental numbers to give Dave’s voice a rest. Jack was a master at creating original adaptations of classical music in rock style, such as ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite and Offenbach’s ‘Infernal Galop’ – the Can-Can music – and which we occasionally performed complete with high leg kicks!!!

Our agents had little thought to geography when they made our bookings, so we regularly criss-crossed the UK, travelling hundreds of miles every week, a lot of it during the night on the way home or on the way to the next gig. We rarely saw much of the places we went to. We ate poorly, probably pie and chips or greasy sausage, egg and beans from a trucker transport café! At late night visits to transport cafes (or motorway services – only the M1 and a part of the M2 existed in those days) we occasionally met up with other tour bands who were all doing the same thing.

We earned on average around £25 – £30 per gig between the 5 of us and the transport costs came out of that – and if we got £50 or more then we did really well. For the German club gigs, we earned around £30 per week each with accommodation thrown in – good money in the early ’60s, when the average wage was around £12 per week!

The Stage – June 1963

Our demo disc was touted around the record companies, and we obtained a record deal with Philips in the spring of 63. Jack recollects that the day after we signed with Johnny Franz at Philips he got a phone call from Norrie Paramor wanting to sign us for EMI!

We were never happy with the Philips production of our sound and I often wonder how we might have fared if we had waited just 24 hours…..

After that, things get very hazy.

I have no recollection or record of the period until summer 63, when we did our second Butlins season.

Our first record ‘You Don’t Love Me Anymore’ c/w ‘This Sweet Girl Of Mine’ was released around May/June 63. The A side was written by Dave and the B side by Dick. According to Jack, this charted for one week at number 30, but I could find no record of this in the official hit parades of the day. However, this is more than possible as at that time, and although ‘official’ charts were compiled by the Record Retailer, this was a music trade paper. The different public music papers of the day (New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Record Mirror, etc.) all had slightly different hit parade charts compiled from sales in their own selected record shops. This anomaly remained for almost a decade until music papers begin to publish the ‘official’ version

We were ‘green’ in those days and encountered some of the various fiddles and back-handers within the music industry. While Dave had solely written the A side, he had to split any royalties and add the publisher’s name to the credits, so the song is also credited to a ‘Ray Playford’ – a pseudonym of the publisher.

As for any royalties for us as performers, there were none. Somehow we were persuaded to take a recording session fee at Musicians Union rates instead! Had we have had a hit record, then we would have lost a substantial amount.

After that season our agents arranged for us to have made to measure stage suits – maroon mohair – which we wore for years, the drummer’s suit being passed around and altered for each successive drummer! Our agent paid for them – they must have felt guilty at all the 10% commission they were earning from us!

On 8th August 63, on our Sunday off from Butlins, we had a gig at The Cavern Club, Liverpool. Our fan club magazine (yep – we had a fan club too!) says that we were the first southern group to appear there! There is even a brick engraved with our name in the Cavern’s ‘Wall of Fame’.

Cavern Club flyer for early August - we were on the day after The Beatles!

Liverpool Cavern Club's Wall of Fame (see second row from bottom, one in from the right)

Our Brick in The Cavern's 'Wall of Fame' Cavern Wall of Fame - Dedication Plaque

We worked alongside Elton John when he was still called Reg Dwight in Long John Baldry’s backing band; Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch when they were still just Dave Dee and the Bostons, plus many others who achieved various degrees of fame. At one point, not long after our first record was released we were actually supported by The Hollies. Our first record had come out before theirs so we were the ‘recording artists’ on the bill! At the same gig, at Leyton Baths,  Jack recollects a local support band asking if it was alright if they played our song “You Don’t Love Me Anymore” – quite an honour to have our own record ‘covered’ by another band.

I can also recall a gig in Pontypridd, where some of the audience told us to watch out for the singer from local band Tommy Scott and the Senators – he would be big one day. They were certainly not wrong – he became Tom Jones!

At some point during that year Jack, who had recently married, moved to Welwyn Garden City while the rest of us remained in the Clacton area. I was the only band member with a reliable car at the time so I often took the rest of the band to meet up with Jack either at his place or the gig itself. I have recollections of running out of road on the way home late one night on a corner (either due to speed or fatigue), into someone’s garden and colliding with a house. We weren’t hurt and the car was only cosmetically damaged so we quickly pushed and revved the car back onto the road, with the owner shouting abuse at us out of a bedroom window!

Our second record was released in November – ‘What Kind Of Girl Are You’ – a Ray Charles number – c/w ‘Dreamers Funfair’, written by Roy. This was played on the regular TV music programme Juke Box Jury that month – regrettably voted a ‘miss’ by the jury.

NME_22_11_63

New Musical Express Nov 22 1963

On 17th November 63 we recorded our one and only TV appearance at the ATV Studios in Birmingham, and which was broadcast the following Saturday. Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Gene Pitney and The Rolling Stones were also on that show so we were in good company. We got paid £70 for that and only had to mime one song! I can vaguely remember that we stopped off somewhere like Chatham on our way to a gig at Gillingham that night – maybe a café, pub or chippy – in order to watch our appearance. The picture above is of the full cast.

Daily Mirror TV Listing 17 Nov 1963 (alongside Dr Who!)

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(Page last updated on 13th November 2022)