Dave Atkins and I met at Alice St Johns music shop in Old Road, Clacton in the mid ’50s where we both went for initial guitar lessons. As a result we formed a skiffle group – the ‘Blue Star Skiffle Group’ – with various tea-chest bass and washboard players, and played the occasional gig (if ‘play’ was ever the right word!). Skiffle was all the rage then – it being a form of music that only required limited ability. Get a guitar, learn 3 or 4 chords and you could become a part of it all. Lonnie Donegan and his group was one of the top UK skiffle acts of the day, and I can recall going to see him with Dave at a stage show at the Savoy Theatre, Clacton in June 1958. We waited at the stage door after the show to meet them – star struck in those days I guess.
I can also remember our entering a skiffle competition at the Town Hall Clacton, where all the entrants had their efforts recorded on an acetate 78rpm disc. We were awful – thankfully that record no longer exists.
It is interesting to see from the photos that we had a different tea-chest bass player in each shot – that must have been a very unpopular instrument at the time!
As a side note, at that time I lived almost opposite Geoff Gordon in Knox Road, Clacton, and who was later to play drums with the Tremors on and off at various times. I think he was also in one of the better skiffle groups in that competition……
Rock and Roll was just beginning to catch on in popularity, initially via imported records and bands from the US, and our attempts at skiffle quickly progressed toward this new and exciting form of music. As I was the probably the least skilled guitar player of the two of us I changed to the bass guitar. I remember my first one – a Vox, purchased for about £25 – ordered from a music shop in Tottenham Court Road, London. The cost reflected the quality and I eventually upgraded to a Burns, and finally (well after we had turned pro) my ultimate – a Fender Precision Bass – costing in the early 60s around £110!
Our amplification in the early days was mainly what we could find second-hand, or a mix of mail order amplifiers and home-built speaker cabinets. As a bass player I ‘blew’ several speakers before eventually being able to afford an amplifier and speakers that could successfully handle it!
(Page last updated on 24th November 2021)