For many Newcastle teenagers in the mid-sixties, the Club a’Gogo was their own piece of Heaven. The unlicensed part of the club, known as the Young Set was an exciting place to go to get away from the humdrum routines of daily life. It was a place where people could meet friends, make new ones, see some of the UK’s best bands, dance to excellent music and generally have a great evening in a club with an atmosphere second to none.

Perhaps the night wouldn’t end when the Young Set closed at around 11.00pm. For older teenagers or those who could convince the door staff they were over 18, they could continue partying into the small hours next door in the Jazz Lounge, the licensed room that catered for a slightly older clientele.

Many ex-Club a’Gogo members and attendees, now into their late sixties or seventies remember the club with great affection. Over the last decade or so advances in technology and the familiarisation with social media have reunited a lot of the Club a’Gogo crowd that were around in the mid-sixties, some of whom hadn’t seen each other for decades. They now have the means of reliving times gone by and sharing their memories of club nights and other social activities with their contemporaries. Not only do some remember their evenings inside the Club a’Gogo but also the anticipation and growing excitement before they actually set foot in the place. Some recall being in the queues that formed outside the club, in particular if a popular band was due to appear. Often on a busy night the queue would stretch back along Percy Street as far as the Co-op store near Gallowgate. Others remember the queue turning into Leazes Lane towards St James Park football ground. For those in the queue the excitement would build as they approached the club doorway past Jeavons record shop and Faglemans the jewellers. But the anticipation didn’t end at the ground floor entrance to the club.

The Club a’Gogo doorway wasn’t an elaborate fixture worthy of a top city music venue. Neither was the stairway leading up to the Young Set and Jazz Lounge on the second floor. The corridor leading to the stairs and the flights of stairs were uncarpeted. They were purely functional with a shared route to several businesses including a canteen for Newcastle bus crews on the first floor. But once past the door staff, the music filtering down from the second floor was a taste of what was to come. On ascending the stairs the sound of recorded Soul music, Tamla Motown or Rhythm & Blues music became more recognisable – the Four Tops, Junior Walker, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, the Isley Brothers or the Rolling Stones. Then at the top of the stairs a short walk and a left turn into Heaven for an evening of unrivalled enjoyment.

Back in 1962 when Mike Jeffery opened his Newcastle venue, the Club a’Gogo, as a Jazz and Latin American club he would never have contemplated that a few years later his venture would become one of the country’s top clubs for rock and beat music; a club that is still revered over five decades later. Neither would he have thought that the Club a’Gogo would eventually be honoured by the City of Newcastle for generations to come.

For the last year husband and wife team, Paul and Jools Donnelly have put a lot of energy into campaigning for the Club a’Gogo to be commemorated with a blue plaque. The couple are too young to have been around when the Club a’Gogo was thriving but they are both passionate about Newcastle’s musical heritage, in particular the music and mod scene in the mid-sixties.

Armed with a lot of facts about the Club a’Gogo’s illustrious musical history and a petition signed by a lot of ex-Gogo club members, the Donnellys convinced the authorities that the Club a’Gogo was indeed worthy of blue plaque.

Mike Jeffery and his iconic club no longer exist. Mike was killed in a plane crash in 1973. The building that housed the Club a’Gogo was demolished in 1987 to make way for the Eldon Gardens Shopping Centre.

Well it’s not possible to place a plaque on a building that is no longer there. The only option would be to mount it at a spot relevant to the old Club a’Gogo. As the club was actually on the second floor of the Handyside Buildings, the best street level spot would be the site of the afore mentioned doorway leading to the flights of stairs that accessed the upper floors. The problem is that all the adjoining buildings are gone so there are no longer any visible points of reference to help locate the position of the long lost portal to the Club a’Gogo.

A few weeks ago I was asked if I knew the position of the Club a’Gogo doorway. I could only stab a guess based on old photos of the Handyside Building in relation to some photos I had taken of the Eldon Gardens Shopping Centre back in 2007 for the Club a’Gogo page on this site. However, with a combination of old and new technology it is possible to come up with a fairly accurate grid reference. By overlaying a 1940s Ordnance Survey map, which shows both the Handyside Arcade and what was to become the entrance to the Club a’Gogo, over an up-to-date aerial shot of Percy Street the old Gogo doorway in relation to it’s modern surroundings can be pinpointed.

I believe the unveiling of the plaque will take place early in 2022. So if you’re an old Club a’Gogo member or attendee and you’re interested in being a part of the ceremony keep an eye on the local Newcastle media or one of the Club a’Gogo Facebook pages.

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Many of us who were around during the mid-sixties through to the early seventies will look back on the music scene of that period with great affection. Some of us will particularly remember the great R&B, Rock and Soul acts we saw performing “live”.

These days top bands and solo artists tend to perform at very large venues such as arenas, large theatres and open air festivals to thousands of people. Back in the sixties things were different. Well-known UK bands were booked to play at much smaller venues holding just a few hundred people. You could experience your favourite musicians at close quarters and even get to within touching distance of them. It wasn’t just UK acts that you could see at your local venues. In the latter half of the sixties when Soul and Motown records were filling the dance floors in clubs and ballrooms, many of the American artists responsible for those songs started appearing at venues throughout the UK, including the northeast.

But can we be sure that the famous US Soul stars we saw were actually who we thought they were? If you saw a Motown act or a Soul singer as part of multi-artist tour or at a large venue then you were probably seeing the genuine article. However, if it was at a smaller venue, in particular from 1966 onwards, there is a good chance that you were being entertained by an impersonator.

A recent post on a Facebook page dedicated to Newcastle’s Club a’Gogo prompted me to look into the question of fake Soul and Motown acts. The post concerned a poster for the Ronettes’ appearance at the Club a’Gogo on 2nd May 1968. A question arose as to whether or not the poster, which is currently on sale, was genuine. One fan suggested that the Ronettes couldn’t have appeared at the Gogo in 1968 because they had broken up in 1967 and didn’t reform until 1973.

It wasn’t difficult to find out that the poster is a modern repro artwork based on a gig advert that appeared in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle in May 1968. As for the gig itself – well that’s another mystery but everything points to the likelihood that the Ronettes who appeared at the Club a’Gogo were part of a widespread scam perpetrated by a London based entertainment agent. More about the “Great Pretender” later – in the meantime here’s some first hand experience to set the scene.

In October 1969 my band, Sneeze, was booked to back an American Soul singer called Don Covay at a small club in Lynemouth, Northumberland. Don Covay was fairly big in the States having had a number of hit records earlier in the sixties such as – “Sookie Sookie”, “Mercy Mercy” and “Seesaw”. Don Covay was travelling from London to Newcastle on the day of the gig and we were told to meet him at Newcastle Central Station that afternoon. We were to drive him to the venue in Lynemouth, which would give us three or four hours to rehearse before the performance. We expected him to turn up with some musical scores or chord charts but all he had was a bundle of Soul albums including a couple of his own. He also assumed that he would be using the band’s PA system. At the time we thought this was a bit unprofessional for someone who was supposed to be a major star in America.

Before we began rehearsing the club owners approached us. They asked us to keep the volume low so Don Covay’s vocals could be heard well above the band. We did as he said and made sure that our instruments were turned down low. After listening to a couple of songs the owners were clearly unhappy. They must have realised that the vocals weren’t quite what they were expecting. When Don went outside for a comfort break they approached us again – “Hey lads – you need to crank the volume right up!”.

That evening his performance went down a storm. Strangely, it wasn’t his own hits that went down the best. The number that brought the house down was Don’s version of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’, which we had to play three times to keep the crowd happy.

A few weeks later we got call from our agent. Don Covay wanted us to back him at a gig at the Boat Club in Nottingham. The club was situated on the banks of the river Trent in a converted boathouse and, unlike the Lynemouth gig, it was full of ardent Soul fans. We had no opportunity to fit in a rehearsal before the second gig. Don turned up with a friend who he introduced as Clarence “Frogman” Henry. Clarence had a couple of big hits in the UK in the early sixties.

After the performance I was approached by the DJ at the club. He was convinced that the vocalist appearing that night was an impostor. He had a couple of Don Covay albums with photographs that didn’t look much like the singer we had backed. This was yet another factor that made us wonder who our “Don Covay” actually was.

One incident in particular left a nasty taste in our mouths. Rod, our normal vocalist went into our dressing room at one point while the rest of us and Don Covay were on stage. He caught Clarence “Frogman” Henry rifling through our jacket pockets in the dressing room! After that gig we saw neither Don Covay nor Clarence “the dipper” Henry again.

On 8th December 1969 an article appeared in the Daily Mirror about a performance by Don Covay at Nantwich Civic Hall on 6th December 1969. Crewe council had received an anonymous tip-off that the Don Covay due to appear at Nantwich was an impostor. The caller demanded an investigation into a breach of the Trades Descriptions Act. A council official confronted “Don Covay” before he went on stage. The allegation was denied by the performer but he was unable to confirm that he was the genuine Don Covay, saying that his passport was held by his London agent. The show’s organiser was undeterred and the show went ahead. The organiser said “We have a contract saying that this is Don Covay and we accept him as such.” I don’t know if the matter was ever followed up but the same Don Covay continued to perform at many other small venues all over the country.

It turns out that “Don Covay” was just the tip of the iceberg. We now know that many other Soul and Motown acts were being impersonated in the late sixties. To cap it all, the impersonators were mostly amateur or semi-professional singers from America with no connection to the artists they were imitating. Some of the names of the bogus acts that have been bandied about include the Temptations, the Drifters, the Four Tops, the Isley Brothers, the Impressions, Little Anthony & the Imperials, the Marvelettes, Mary Wells, Fontella Bass, William Bell, Percy Sledge, The Ronettes, Clarence “Frogman” Henry and, of course, Don Covay.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the impersonation fraud was widespread involving elements of exploitation and even modern day slavery. So who was responsible for the deception? Step forward Royston Kenneth Jeffries, better known as Roy Tempest, who ran a London based booking agency along with his girlfriend Lorna Wallis. Royston Kenneth Jeffries was born in Cardiff in 1939. He relocated to London as a would be singer around 1960 changing his name to Roy Tempest. After a few years in London he established an entertainment booking agency, which became very successful in the first half of the sixties – “The Roy Tempest Organisation”.

Tempest’s company, which at one time was advertised as the largest band agency in Europe represented some of the UK and American top recording and touring groups including Stevie Wonder and, at one stage, the Rolling Stones. He also had numerous lesser known groups and singers on his books. In addition Roy Tempest ran a couple of subsidiary agencies called “Global Promotions” and “Universal Dancing Ltd”, which were used to provide UK venues with some well known US acts and backing musicians. In fact, the Roy Tempest Organisation was one of the first agencies to bring American artists over from the States.

At first the American Soul artists booked through the agency were genuine. However, around 1966/67 things would change. Many of the famous US acts that Roy Tempest supplied to venues throughout the UK turned out to be impostors.

So why did a successful agent with a glowing reputation in the world of entertainment turn to scamming venues and music fans by promoting fake acts? The answers are that it made him a lot of money and secondly he thought he could get away with it. According to an ex-tour manager, Phil Luderman who worked for the Roy Tempest Organisation in the sixties, Tempest made a lot of cash from the genuine US artists he booked. However, he was unhappy about the increasing amounts of money that some of these artists were demanding for their performances in the UK.

Things changed when he tried to bring over US Soul singers, William Bell and Percy Sledge. Both refused to come to the UK and work for Tempest for the money on offer. At that point Roy Tempest had a “eureka” moment and decided to find some vocalists that could pass themselves off as Bell and Sledge. In the event he discovered someone who could double as both of these artists. Luderman believes that the person he found was an American living in Brixton, London. The Londoner was booked for a series of shows in the UK. One night he would be William Bell performing hits like “Never Like This Before” and the next night, as “Percy Sledge”, he would be singing “When A Man Loves A Woman”. To make it clear to the Londoner who he was actually supposed to be on any given night, Luderman came up with the idea of him wearing a false moustache but only when he appeared as “Percy Sledge”.

The Percy Sledge/William Bell hoax led to another of Roy Tempest’s scams. Hoping that not many English fans knew what US Soul artists looked like, he began bringing obscure American vocal groups over from the States and booking them out to UK promoters as top US Soul and Motown acts. Only he would slightly change the name of the obscure artists by applying an adjective to the name of the original act. For instance his fake Temptations were sometimes called the “Fabulous Temptations”, his Drifters were “The Original Drifters” and his Isley Brothers were the “Fantastic Isley Brothers”. Using this ploy he would then fool promoters into thinking they were getting the genuine article.

The UK promoters and their clientele weren’t the only people being hoodwinked. Roy tempest also duped the relatively unknown American vocalists and vocal groups that he recruited in the States. They were led to believe that they would be performing as themselves at UK venues – not appearing as fake acts. Once they were in the UK he would get them to rehearse the songs of a well known act, such as the Temptations, and in effect turn them into what is now known as a tribute act. They had no choice but to go along with the deception if they wanted to be paid and flown back to the States. They had no means of escaping the clutches of Tempest. He housed them in accommodation that he owned in London, charging them a hefty rent. He also retained their passports for the duration of their contracts. Some of the US groups and vocalists known to have worked for Roy Tempest as impostors were: the Invitations, the Diplomats, the Topics, Oliver Bush.

Tempest would use UK bands on his books to provide backing for the vocalists and vocal groups that he brought over from the States. One such band was the British blues band – Bluesology, which included a young piano player named Reggie Dwight, later to become Elton John. Bluesology band member, Pat Higgs, remembers that working as an artist or in a backing band for Tempest wasn’t easy. The musicians were sometimes on the road for two to three weeks doing up to three gigs a day. Any rest days that they were promised were filled by Roy Tempest once they started touring.

Roy Tempest’s dubious activities lasted for around four years. But it wasn’t all plain sailing for him. In September 1967 the Sunday People and the Melody Maker reported that 1,400 fans had gone to see who they thought were Tamla Motown stars – the Temptations at Manchester’s New Century Hall. The group they actually paid to see was one of Roy Tempest’s fake acts who he was calling the “Fabulous Temptations” for a UK tour. When approached by a reporter Roy Tempest shrugged the matter off saying – “I certainly didn’t tell anyone they were the Tamla group. At £250 per night how could anyone expect a group which can earn 10,000 dollars for a one-nighter in the States?”. There was a subsequent case brought by Motown Records in which a Court ordered Tempest not to use the name “The Fabulous Temptations”. The judge described Tempest’s activities as “filching somebody else’s name and reputation”.

A year later the Sunday People ran another story about Roy Tempest’s activities with the headline – “The Flip Side Of Roy Tempest”. The People exposed Roy Tempest for booking more Soul impostors including Chuck Jackson, Carla Thomas and the Ronettes. The article also mentioned an injunction brought against Tempest in respect of a fake Marvelettes act plus other injunctions relating to the “Isley Brothers” and “William Bell”. Once again Roy tempest was flippant when interviewed by a Sunday People reporter. He told the reporter: “I have the biggest clientele of any showbusiness agent in Europe. I’m known as the Robin Hood of showbusiness. I’m in it to make a living and that’s all I’m worried about.”

Time did eventually run out for Roy Tempest. The cost of the legal actions taken by various organisations against him in respect of the fake acts took its toll. The Roy Tempest Organisation, Global Promotions and Universal Dancing Ltd were all forced into bankruptcy.

Fast forward over four decades to 2016. Film company Studiocanal announced that it would be producing a film about Roy Tempest entitled “The Great Pretender”. Pre-release information stated that the film would be based on the autobiography of the London-based music promoter, who organised UK tours in the 1960s for some of America’s biggest Soul acts – even though the acts were fakes. As far as I’m aware the film never came to fruition.

Around 2016 Roy Tempest was interviewed in Las Vegas by an American author who was researching another deception relating to a fake Aretha Franklin. Tempest was not directly connected to the Aretha Franklin matter but he did admit to the author that he “industrialised” the imposter scam when he was in London in the sixties. He said that he had recruited amateur singers from America and toured them across the United Kingdom as bands like the Temptations. According to Tempest, his performers were “the world’s greatest singing postmen, window cleaners, bus drivers, shop assistants, bank robbers, and even a stripper”. He told the author that the reason he got away with it, for a time, was that there was no satellite television. No one knew what the real musicians looked like.

As for the Ronettes appearance at the Club a’Gogo on 2nd May 1968. By all accounts the Gogo wasn’t busy that night. The lack of interest was probably because the club was losing popularity and did, in fact, close down six week later. Also the gig wasn’t extensively advertised in the local press.

The Ronettes that performed at the Club a’Gogo, backed by one of Roy Tempest’s stable of bands – Edwin Bee & the Protection Racket, were undoubtedly impostors. They had no connection to the real Ronettes (Ronnie, Estelle and Nedra} who had recorded “Be My Baby” and “Baby I Love You” in the mid sixties. It would be nice to think that the Club a’Gogo management at that point in time weren’t involved in the deception. However, the ambiguous newspaper ads in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle referred to the group as the “fabulous” Ronettes and wrongly attributed two hit records to them – “Then He Kissed Me” and “Da Do Ron Ron”. Both of these songs were hits made famous by the Crystals!

The post The Soul Deceiver appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

What was it that drew an American jazz pianist over from New York to a city street in Newcastle upon Tyne for the unveiling of a plaque honouring a long lost local music venue?

On the morning of 8th September 2022 a crowd of well over fifty people assembled on the pavement outside the entrance to the Eldon Garden shopping mall on Percy Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. Eldon Garden with its unremarkable facade was built in the late eighties to replace an elegant Edwardian building named Handyside Buildings that housed the Handyside Arcade, a well known Newcastle shopping gallery. But the crowd wasn’t there for the shops – it was there to celebrate the memory of an iconic sixties music venue called the Club a’Gogo, which at one time was a part of the Handyside Buildings. A lengthy campaign led by a Gateshead couple, Paul and Jools Donnelly to have the venue officially recognised had resulted in the mounting of a commemorative plaque on the wall outside the entrance to the modern shopping centre. The position of the plaque marked what was once the entrance to the Club a’Gogo.

As well as the Club a’Gogo, the plaque also paid tribute to the Handyside Arcade plus the two people who had founded the club – Ray Grehan and Mike Jeffery. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mike Jeffery ran a number of clubs in Newcastle including the Club a’Gogo. Although it was opened as a Jazz club in 1962, over the following years the Gogo gained its iconic reputation as a music venue by booking some of the best blues, rock and soul acts on the national gig circuit; acts such as the Rolling Stones, the Who, Cream, Spencer Davis, Chris Farlowe, the Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Blues Breakers, Wilson Pickett and John Lee Hooker. In its heyday in the mid sixties the Club a’Gogo was the number one club in Newcastle attracting a mixed clientele, which included mods, students from Newcastle University and young people who were just there for the music and dancing.

After launching the career of The Animals at the Club a’Gogo in 1963, Mike Jeffery became the band’s manager. However, in the history of popular music he is probably better known as the man who managed Jimi Hendrix from 1966 until Hendrix’s tragic death in 1970. The Animals and Jimi Hendrix were undoubtedly the most successful acts that Mike Jeffery managed but there were many other well known artists under his wing. Some of the other acts that he managed were: Goldie and the Gingerbreads, the Alan Price Set, Soft Machine, Eire Apparent and New York band – the Third World.

Those who were there to witness the unveiling of the plaque included people who had once been members of the original Club a’Gogo during the period 1962 and 1968; local musicians who had performed there and others with a previous connection to the Gogo or were just simply interested in Newcastle’s musical heritage or the once thriving Handyside Arcade. Most in the crowd were local to the area but others had travelled far and wide. As well as from various locations in the UK some had come from further afield in continental Europe. There were also at least a couple of people from the States.

One of the Statesiders in the crowd was Amanda Trees from Brooklyn, New York who I’ve known since she first began posting comments on Ready Steady Gone a number of years ago. We’ve never actually met in person but over the years have communicated regularly via this web site, email and social media. When I found out details of a forthcoming plaque unveiling ceremony I passed the information on to Amanda. I never really thought that someone who lived so far away and had never stepped foot in the Club a’Gogo or even travelled to the UK before would be that interested in attending the event. But I was wrong. In spite of the absence of tangible connections to the club, Amanda was drawn to the site of the Club a’Gogo because of a spiritual connection to the man who founded the club – Mike (or Michael) Jeffery. She wanted to experience the “great energy and feelings of the place where Michael originated his music scene.”

Amanda had once been one of Mike Jeffery’s stable of US artists along with others such as Cat Mother & The All Night Newsboys and Jimmy & Vella. At one stage Mike Jeffery had wanted to bring Amanda to England as an aspiring singer/songwriter with a unique style. Unfortunately that never happened. Over five decades later when Amanda found out about the plaque she decided the time was right to make the 7000 mile round trip – “when the moment came that there was to be a Blue Plaque Ceremony taking place where Michael was from – I knew this was the calling, the exact right time to go”.

In her teens Amanda, under her birth name of Andrea Christine Martinez, trained as an actor. She found work mainly in off-Broadway productions and children’s theatre workshops. Her career as an actor moved up a notch when she was given a part in a long running American soap opera called “Love Of Life”. Under the name of Andrea Martin she played the part of a rebellious teenager Lynn Nelson.

Around this time Amanda decided to diversify and attempt a parallel career as a singer/songwriter. She was already writing songs and recording them on some home equipment.

At the height of Flower Power in 1967 she changed her name from Andrea Martin to Amanda Trees. The following year she was introduced by a showbiz colleague to Mike Jeffery who by this time had relocated from the UK to New York. The first time she met Mike Jeffery was in his East 37th Street office, New York. At first she was fascinated and mesmerised by his persona – a sort of spiritual gangster but later grew to know him as a shy, kind and reflective person.

Amanda was totally different to the other American acts that Mike Jeffery managed. Nevertheless he was keen to sign her and from then on took an interest in her development as an artist. According to Amanda, Mike Jeffery had a clear plan of how he wanted to present her to the world. The plan definitely didn’t include her touring as a support act for some of his better known artists.

While her future career was in the planning stage, Mike Jeffery introduced Amanda to the most famous member of his stable – Jimi Hendrix. Because of Hendrix’s reputation as a serial womaniser Amanda was understandably worried about how the introduction would affect her career prospects. Subsequently Mike Jeffery warned Hendrix off and told him that he should treat Amanda as someone who needed guidance, both musically and spiritually. Amanda and Jimi Hendrix became good friends, sometimes playing their guitars together for hours on end. Other times with Hendrix on a Martin 12 string guitar and Amanda on an electric piano. When she started recording in a studio Hendrix was never far away.

In 1968 Mike Jeffery and Jimi Hendrix jointly bought a nightclub in Greenwich Village, part of which they intended to convert into a studio in order to keep Hendrix’s future recording costs under control. A year later the plan changed in favour of the premises exclusively becoming a recording studio. The Electric Lady Studio at 52 West 8th Street was born. Amanda says she was involved in the project at an early stage and was told that she would be recording at the studio when it was completed.

Amanda Trees subsequently recorded an album entitled “Amanda”, which was released by Poppy Records in January 1972. However, only one of the ten tracks was actually recorded at Electric Lady. The album credits show Mike Jeffery as director, executive producer and spiritual advisor. At the time of the album’s release Poppy Records was on the decline. Little money was spent on promoting “Amanda” and consequently it flopped, leaving Amanda’s career as a recording artist very much in doubt.

The final straw came a year later when her manager and influencer Mike Jeffery perished in a mid air collision over France. He was one of the 68 passengers and crew who lost their lives on a Douglas DC-9 en route from Mallorca to London Heathrow on 5th March 1973.

The death of Jimi Hendrix in September 1970 had been a huge blow but now with Mike Jeffery gone Amanda had lost two of her closest spiritual mentors. Her source of income also came to an abrupt end. The unfortunate set of circumstances made it exceptionally difficult for Amanda to progress as a recording musician and she fell back on her many other talents to make a living in New York.

It’s almost fifty years since Mike Jeffery died and Amanda’s dreams of becoming one of his major recoding artists were dashed. So as a 21st century New York musician, what is Amanda Trees up to now? She continues to perform in New York bars and restaurants playing jazz and other music, mostly on piano. Her current gig is at “Caravan Of Dreams”, a Bohemian vegan restaurant in Greenwich Village. In addition to her music she also does occasional acting work and modelling.

Over the last decade she has co-written a musical play called “Alice Are You?”, a modern day Alice in Wonderland adventure set in the world of modern showbiz and tech. Amanda starred as Alice in the production. She has also scored music for a variety of films including “Transgender” by author/poet Gladys Justin Carr and Natascha Engelmann.

Nearly five decades after the release of Amanda Tree’s inaugural album “Amanda” she recorded a new album of self penned songs called “A Box Of Crayons”, which was released in 2020.

Influenced by her past connection to Mike Jeffery’s and Jimmy Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studio she has recently created her own mini “Electric Lady” home studio in her New York apartment where she is busy recording her own compositions.

Both of Amanda’s albums are still available on various internet sites. Her music past and present can also be heard on Youtube. As long as this is the case and she continues to produce music and perform her name will live on.

Similarly, Mike Jeffery will be immortalised through the heritage plaque on Percy Street, Newcastle. Future generations may not recognise his name or know how he introduced great music to Newcastle. Neither may they be aware that he managed the career of Jimi Hendrix one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music and probably the most celebrated musician of the 20th century. But they will see Mike Jeffery’s name on the plaque and will be able dig deeper if they so wish.

I’ve no doubt that in years to come when Amanda looks back, one of her favourite memories will be her trip to Newcastle upon Tyne to witness the unveiling of the plaque honouring, amongst other things, the Club a’Gogo and Mike Jeffery. She will also recall that on the same day that the plaque was unveiled it was announced that Queen Elizabeth II had died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. The following day in London Amanda was able to witness in person the aftermath of the death when thousands of people assembled in the capitol to pay tribute to the Queen.

Only Amanda will know if she was able to connect spiritually to Michael Jeffery, the man who truly believed in her – and she in him.

_______________________________________________

Ackowledgements and sources: –
Without the efforts of Jools and Paul Donnelly over the past couple of years there would have been no heritage plaque unveiling to write about.
Brian Wheeler’s article about Amanda Trees in the June 2020 edition of Shindig magazine was a great insight into Amanda’s early career.
Newcastle Evening Chronicle – for their reporting of the unveiling ceremony,
Newcastle City Council for their video coverage of the event.
Finally thanks to Amanda Trees for her assistance in putting this blog together. Her video coverage of the trip to the UK can be seen here: –
Trip to Newcastle
Trip to London

The post Unveiling the past – Amanda, Mike and the plaque appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

My previous blog on Ready Steady Gone was about the unveiling of a heritage plaque commemorating a Newcastle venue called the Club a’Gogo – a club that came to an end in 1968. This article features another commemorative plaque marking an event that took place in 1973, five years after the Club a’Gogo closed. The second plaque is over 500 miles from Newcastle but the two plaques have a common link.

The connection is a man who has featured a lot on this website over the years and who died in France exactly fifty years ago today. In the late 1950s and early 1960s this man’s vision and energy changed Newcastle’s night life and music scene for the better by establishing several clubs that were on a par with some of the vibrant London clubs of that era. The same man played a large part in shaping the course of rock music. He was jointly responsible for introducing the world to one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music. At the time he died his name was not that well known so consequently his passing went largely unnoticed. Although the circumstances of his death only caused ripples in the north east they had a devastating effect on the population of a small French village. Something that is still engraved in the memory of the community of that village to this day and continues to be marked with annual remembrance services. The man in question is Mike Jeffery and the French village is La Planche in western France.

My earlier article described how Mike Jeffery opened the Club a’Gogo over six decades ago. On the 8th September 2022, sixty years and a few weeks after the venue first opened the Club a’Gogo was honoured with the plaque. Quite rightly, the plaque acknowledges Mike Jeffery’s achievement and displays both his name and the name of his business partner at the time, Ray Grehan.

Many of those who attended the plaque’s unveiling ceremony were regulars at the Club a’Gogo in its heyday between 1964 and 1967. People went to the Gogo for the music, dancing and to see the great bands of the day. At the time they probably had no interest in the club’s roots as a jazz venue or its founder, Mike Jeffery. In fact in 1964, although Mike Jeffery still owned the club he had left the north east to concentrate on the career of The Animals who he “discovered” at the Gogo in 1963. Some years later he went on to manage Jimi Hendrix along with Chas Chandler, The Animals bass player.

Even as a musician who played at the Club a’Gogo in 1965 and 1966 I knew nothing back then about Mike Jeffery or the part he played in shaping the Newcastle music scene. It is likely, therefore, that the majority of ex-Club a’Gogo members and north east fans of Jimi Hendrix are unaware that today marks the 50th anniversary of Mike Jeffery’s passing. He was only 39 when he died in a plane crash on 5th March 1973.

Over recent years Mike Jeffery has been the subject of very bad press over the way he managed The Animals and, in particular, Jimi Hendrix. Many people believe that Jeffery was either directly or indirectly responsible for Jimi Hendrix’s untimely death. Nevertheless, the way in which he changed the northeast music scene in the sixties and brought enjoyment into the lives of thousands of people cannot be denied. Neither can his influence on rock music for developing the career of Jimi Hendrix. Who knows what else Mike Jeffery may have achieved but for his premature death in La Planche, France in 1973.



La Planche in the early seventies was a small farming community in the Loire-Atlantique area of France. It was quiet, sleepy with not much happening on a day-to-day basis. However, fifty years ago La Planche became the centre of a momentous event – a disaster that had a devastating effect on many lives in France, Spain and the UK. The incident continues to play a part in the psyche of La Planche villagers. Two Spanish passenger planes passing through French air space on their way to the UK were involved in a horrific accident. A Douglas DC-9 flying from La Palma, Mallorca appeared to collide with a Convair Coronado en route from Madrid. The DC-9 exploded in mid air killing all 68 passengers and crew members. The Coronado suffered damage to a wing but was able to safely land at Cognac airport with no loss to life.

The incident involving the DC-9 and Coronado happened on 5th March 1973 at 12.52pm fifteen miles from Nantes at a height of around 29,000 feet (approximately 5 miles). People in the small village of La Planche were going about their daily business. Some farmers and labourers were working in the fields surrounding the village whilst others were engaged in their lives as normal. Some people reported seeing a flash in the sky when the two planes came together. However, it would be around 25 seconds later when the sound of an explosion reached ground level that most of the villagers stopped what they were doing and looked towards the sky. By this time the broken DC-9 and debris from the accident had started falling to earth. It would be a further 20 seconds before the wreckage, frozen bodies and luggage landed in and around the village of La Planche.

Shortly after the midair collision when the skies had cleared thousands flocked to La Planche in order to find out what had happened and offer assistance. Police and ambulances from the neighbouring town of Aigrefeuille-sur-Maine were among the first on the scene. In the meantime the mayor of La Planche, Monsieur Richard was coming to grips with the unfolding tragedy. With the help of locals and the available gendarmes, Mr Richard began gathering up bodies and body parts. Using a tractor and trailer corpses were transferred to a field on the outskirts of the village before being covered over and then placed in makeshift coffins.

The world’s press focussed on the La Planche incident trying to find an explanation for the accident. Was it pilot error; a systems malfunction or more likely the result of a strike by air traffic controllers who had temporarily been replaced by military personnel?

The following day stories about the air disaster started appearing in the press all over the world. Newspaper reports included eye witness accounts of the collision some of which were not easy reading. One witness said she had seen the sky illuminated with streaks of light and flaming torches and then watching the fuselage of the plain landing near her home. Others described the condition of bodies following their five mile plunge to the ground – “… they were broken and completely torn apart.” Several newspapers reported that a two year old baby was among the casualties.

The Times newspaper was quick to publish a list of the passengers and crew who had died. The victims were mostly either English or Spanish citizens with only a few from other nations. Some papers picked up on the fact that several notable people lost their lives. Among those mentioned in later press reports were the race horse owner, Lady Ashcombe from Newbury and Michael Jeffery.

The Times also reported on the row that had broken out between the French and Spanish governments. Both the Douglas DC-9 and the Coronado were Spanish owned planes. Spain alleged that the accident occurred due to negligence by the French military air traffic controllers. France put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Coronado’s Spanish pilot.

Several days after the crash the mayor had the grisly task of trying to match up unrecognisable bodies with the list of passengers and crew supplied by Iberia Airways. In an era that preceded DNA testing by several decades this wasn’t easy but, nevertheless, Monsieur Richard was able to accomplish the task in a few days. After a week most of the bodies and human remains had been repatriated allowing families and loved ones to arrange funerals and cremations in their countries of origin.

Although the loss of 68 lives is tragic, the disaster could have been much worse. There should have been a further 39 passengers aboard the wrecked DC-9 plane. They missed take off because they were travelling from Menorca and their connecting flight to Palma airport in Mallorca was late. The other plane involved was able to land safely with no loss of life or reported injuries to the to the 107 people on board. Unlike the air disaster in Scotland in 1988 in which residents of the town of Lockerbie were killed and buildings were destroyed by aircraft wreckage, no lives were lost on the ground at La Planche. Apart from damage to ploughed fields, the infrastructure of the village remained intact.

Eventually a commission of enquiry was set up to determine the cause of the accident. The conclusion was that there was a failure in communications between the aircraft and air traffic control. This failure resulted in the pilot of the Coronado making an unauthorised manoeuvre which caused the planes to collide.

The people of La Planche erected a stone monument near to the place where the victims bodies and human remains had first been placed. A plaque was attached to the monument as a permanent reminder of the day that aeroplane wreckage and bodies rained down on the village. In 2003, on the thirtieth anniversary of the event, a further plaque was added to the stone monument. None of the victims are named on either plaque but those of us with an interest in Mike Jeffery know that he was one of 68 passengers who perished.

Half a century has now passed since the collision between the Douglas DC-9 and the Convair Coronado. Information about the crash can still be found on the internet and in books about air accidents. Most of these reports focus on the cause of the accident and are aimed mainly at people who want to read about the grim side of aviation history.

Apart from the community of La Planche and relatives of the victims, the human side of the tragedy has largely been forgotten. However, I believe it’s likely that interest in every aspect of the crash will be revived in a few months time. An author friend of mine has been thoroughly researching the life and death of Mike Jeffery for the past ten years for a biography he is writing. In the course of his investigations my friend has interviewed many people who played a key part in Jeffery’s life. There will be a lot of new revelations in the forthcoming book. Amongst other things, it will reveal shocking new facts about the air accident at La Planche in which Mike Jeffery perished.

I’ll be writing about the book once it has been published later this year. Watch this space!

The post Remembering Mike Jeffery – 50 Years On appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

Back in the sixties the best ways of keeping abreast of what was happening in the world of popular music was either through radio or by reading weekly or monthly music papers. Sometimes these musical journals would feature articles about the music scene in the north east of England and artistes from that area. In the mid sixties the phrase “Geordie Beat” was coined to describe the musical output from up-and-coming northeast bands.

In my early teens when I was just starting to play the saxophone, the Melody Maker was my favourite music paper. It was an invaluable source of information. Not only did it cover information about jazz, blues, soul, folk and popular music, it featured technical articles by experts aimed at musicians. There were also lots of adverts for musical equipment manufacturers, music shops and firms selling sheet music.

I wasn’t alone in using the Melody Maker to help me progress as a musician. I read in one Bryan Ferry biography that as a youngster Bryan had a paper round in the area where he lived. One of the papers that he delivered was the Melody Maker. On his round he would read that paper from cover to cover. This gave him an early start in appreciating all kinds of music; something that would benefit him in his later career as a vocalist and song writer.

A little later in the sixties another publication started appearing on newsagent’s shelves. This one was called Beat Instrumental. Like the Melody Maker, Beat Instrumental was aimed at both music fans and musicians. Whereas the Melody Maker and its nearest rival the NME (New Musical Express) were in tabloid format and were published weekly, the Beat Instrumental was half the size with a glossy outer cover and came out on a monthly basis. Early editions had black and white graphics but later on in the sixties colour photos started to appear on the front cover and inside pages.

Recently, while reading through an old copy of Beat Instrumental from May 1965 I came across an article entitled “Geordie Beat”. I was very interested to read about the northeast music scene in the mid sixties as seen through the eyes of a London based journalist. Before reading the article I cast my mind back to 1965 and tried to remember what it was like playing in bands at that time. What was different back then, both in the northeast and elsewhere? Did anything change music wise in 1965? In fact when the Beat Instrumental article was probably written in March or April 1965, I’d just started playing in my first serious band. I remembered some of the venues I played at and some of the groups I’d shared the stage with. A couple of local groups that came to mind were the Junco Partners and the Invaders, both favourites at the Club a’Gogo. Early in 1965 Rhythm & Blues was the most popular music genre in clubs and at dances. It would be a further six months or so into the autumn of 1965 before American Soul music and Tamla Motown really started to take off in the UK.

Before saying any more about the Beat Instrumental “Geordie Beat” article I should mention another difference between the sixties and now. In 1965 the word “Geordie” was much more of a generic term than it became later on. Anyone with a hint of a northeast accent could be labelled a Geordie back then regardless of the area of the northeast in which they lived. People from Newcastle, Northumberland, Sunderland, County Durham and even as far south as Middlesbrough could be perceived as Geordies by those living further south. Nowadays the term “Geordie” is much more specific, mostly referring to people who hail from Newcastle or are a part of Newcastle United’s “Toon Army”. People from Sunderland who at one time could fall under the “Geordie” banner are now referred to as “Mackems” – a rediscovered word relating to Sunderland’s ship building industry; i.e Wearsiders made the ships (hence Mackems) and other people took them (Tackems). I can honestly say that when I lived in Sunderland through the sixties and up to 1973 I never heard the word Mackem used as a term for Sunderland people.

So moving on to the actual article about the northeast music scene written by the Beat Instrumental journalist John Emery. To his credit Emery had done his research before venturing up north from London. The “Geordie Beat” article kicks off with a comparison between the Merseyside groups of the sixties and their northeast counterparts. It describes, in the wake of the Beatles, the success of many Liverpudlian bands. It suggests that the success of The Animals in 1964 should have spearheaded a serge of northeast bands and the recognition of a Geordie Sound similar to the rise of Mersey Sound in the Liverpool area. Of course, that didn’t happen.

John Emery blamed the failure of northeast groups to make the big time on the reluctance of their members to give up their day time jobs. According to Emery, musicians in Merseyside bands were all too willing to become fully professional in an attempt to emulate the success of the Beatles. It seemed that the meteoric rise of The Animals wasn’t enough to inspire fellow Geordie musicians in the same way as had happened in the Liverpool area.

As an example of what could go wrong for those groups who were willing to take the plunge, the article mentions an ill-fated attempt to raise the profile of a number of northeast groups. In 1964 “The Geordie Sound Tour” was put together by Keith Beckett from Tyne Tees Television. The show, which featured a handful of local groups was scheduled to tour the UK. It was also going to include a number of national acts at various stages of the tour. Unfortunately “The Geordie Beat Show” lost its impetus after just a few performances and was never completed. Those northeast musicians who had given up their day jobs and had cancelled local gigs in order to take part in the show had their hopes dashed. The groups that I know of that took part were: Kim and the Kinetics, The Delemares and Paul Ryan & The Streaks. As a teenager I actually saw the “The Geordie Sound Tour” at the Sunderland Empire. The guest artist on that occasion was Joe Cocker before he became really big. At that time Joe Cocker was still being described as an ex-gas fitter from Sheffield!

The Beat Instrumental article goes on to describe another series of thirteen TV shows showcasing northeast bands. “Rehearsal Room” was a fifteen minute music programme hosted by Tyne Tees Television. Each programme featured one northeast band plus an appearance by a “name” artist. The final programme featured the best six groups of the thirteen that had previously appeared on Rehearsal Room. At the end of the show a panel of judges picked the best group of the six. The Silver Dollars were judged to be the winners and went on to record a single called “Rainbow”.

Following the success of Rehearsal Room, Tyne Tees Television subsequently produced another show called “The Geordie Beat” (not to be confused with “The Geordie Sound Tour” described above). The Tyne Tees two and a half hour show took place at Newcastle City Hall on 25th September 1964. It was edited down to forty five minutes and was subsequently aired on Tyne Tees Television and other regional networks on Sunday 27th September 1964. The northeast groups that took part in the show were: Paul Ryan & The Streaks, the Del Five, the Starliners, the Silver Dollars, and the Caesars plus The Animals. The Yardbirds also had a slot on the programme. The Geordie beat was intended as a showcase for local bands. Tickets for the show were given away free to 2,000 lucky fans.

John Emery’s article goes on to cover local entertainment agencies and recording studios before describing northeast clubs and venues. As this is probably the most interesting part from the Geordie Beat feature, I’ll take the liberty of copying that part of the article word for word: –

‘There are a countless number of little clubs in the North-East. I’ll single out the most popular ones, with of course the ballrooms. “The Club a’Gogo” in Percy Street, Newcastle, is undoubtedly “The” club in the North-East, thanks principally to The Animals who started there – and have let everyone know it. In fact they recorded a sort of “tribute” titled “Club A Gogo” on the back of their single “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. Mr Myer Thomas started at the club as a doorman but is now manager since Mike Jeffery left to become The Animals full-time manager. “When we first opened” recalled Mr Thomas, “The scene was all jazz with Johnny Dankworth, Eric Delaney and Tubby Hayes playing here. But things started slipping. Then a bloke called Eric Burdon visited the club and kept raving about this R’n’B thing he was doing with the Alan Price Combo”.

Mike decided to give the group a try. They expanded to become The Animals and started off the whole scene up there. The club, itself, is quite unique in the way that it is divided into two sections. There are two ballrooms – one for the 13 to 18 age group, the other – which is licensed – is for those from 18 upwards. “We have ‘em here from the cradle to the grave” joked Mr Thomas.

Compared to London clubs, admission to the club is very cheap. Membership for juniors (13-18) is 2/- per annum; and for seniors it is 7/6d. Entrance fees vary from 1/6d on disc nights to 3/6d when a group appears. Sometimes when a “name” group or artiste appears this has to be raised. “But we never go beyond 6/-“ said Mr Thomas.

Local groups that appear at the club are the Junco Partners who are resident, the Von Dykes, Outliners, Downbeats and V.I.P.’s. The pianist of the V.I.P.’s wrote “Blue Feeling” which The Animals used on the “B” side of their American hit “Boom Boom”.

Still in the club field we move across to the Blue Note in Sunderland and “The Scene” in Middlesbrough. Ray Grehan promotes both clubs and shows there is a contrast in the North East. They might worship R’n’B in Newcastle, but Sunderland and Middlesbrough are fed up with it.

Ray told me: “It’s extinct. They’ve listened to it and want something else. I’m now aiming for the big-band type sounds, Cliff Bennett for example.
Both these clubs are open seven nights a week and five nights have groups appearing.

The main ballroom in this part of the country is the Majestic, a Top Rank concern, in Newcastle. It is open seven night a week, four of which feature groups, two a show band and one for discs.

There are also Top Rank ballrooms in Darlington and Middlesbrough. These are open five night a week.’

Despite the efforts of promoters, Tyne Tees Television and the cream of the north east’s local groups the “Geordie Beat” avalanche, similar to the rise of the Mersey Sound, didn’t happen in the sixties. John Emery argued that this was because of a lack of ambition on the part of the north east’s groups. Another view was put forward by Paul Ryan, whose group the Streaks had taken part in the ill fated “Geordie Beat Show”. In an interview with the Newcastle Evening Chronicle he put the blame on northeast teenagers for their lack of support for local bands. He claimed that in Liverpool the kids were only interested in their local groups whereas in Newcastle teenagers behaved like sheep and only supported well-known national groups.

In spite of the failure in 1964 to establish a “Geordie Beat” and launch the careers of northeast groups, through the decades there has always been a steady stream of northeast bands and individual musicians who have made the grade. There are too many to mention here but some from the sixties and seventies that spring to mind are: Paul Rodgers, Lindisfarne, Bryan Ferry, David Coverdale, Mark Knopfler, Chris Rea, John Miles, Sting and Brian Johnson. The stream continued from the sixties and seventies through to the present day with artists such as the Tygers Of Pan Tang, Jimmy Nail, the Toy Dolls, Prefab Sprout, the Futureheads and more recently Sam Fender. There are also many northeast musicians who have been a part of well known successful bands. They include – Nigel Olsson (Elton John’s drummer), Dave Stewart (the Eurythmics) and Don Airey (keyboardist with Rainbow and Deep Purple).

Even if there is no recognised Geordie Beat or Geordie Sound I think all of us who fall into the sixties definition of a Geordie can be proud of our home grown musicians and the part they have played in shaping the history of popular music.

The post That Geordie Beat appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

I suppose the phrase “Pop Parade” sounds a bit outdated these days. The word “Pop” has many meanings but in the sixties, when the world of popular music was expanding and becoming more accessible to young people, “Pop” was being used extensively to describe magazine articles, films, TV and radio programmes about the contemporary music scene. There were names such as “Pop Gear”, “Top Of The Pops”, “Colour Me Pop”, “Pick Of The Pops” and “Monterey Pop”.

Saturday Pop Parade was actually a section of the weekend edition of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle running throughout 1965. It included articles about popular national and international singers and groups of the day, stories about local northeast groups and the places where they performed plus the top twenty best selling singles in the Newcastle area.

From 1965 to 1967 the four groups I was in were all based in Sunderland where I lived. I never read the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and therefore never got to see Pop Parade. Although I sometimes played gigs in the Newcastle area, my knowledge of Newcastle groups and venues at that time was very limited. Of course I knew about those groups that were performing over a wider area such as the Junco Partners, Sect and Elcort. Back in those days I used to read the Melody Maker and New Musical Express so the articles in Pop Parade about the national music scene probably wouldn’t have interested me. However, had the opportunity arisen for me to read Pop Parade I would certainly have been curious about some of the up-and-coming Newcastle groups of the day.

A lot of my research into articles and blogs for this website involves me delving into the archives of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. Most of the site’s gig diaries for the Club a’Gogo, Mayfair Ballroom, Quay Club and City Hall are based on adverts in the Evening Chronicle’s entertainment pages. During my research for Ready Steady Gone I became aware of Pop Parade and in particular articles written by a Chronicle Journalist named Albert Watson.

Over the fifteen months or so that Pop Parade ran, its format changed several times but essentially it was a three page spread that was designed and intended as a pull-out feature. Some of the earlier versions of Pop Parade featured a large photograph of a well known pop act, which took up most of the first page. The remaining two pages contained articles about a variety of “pop” related subjects by several journalists. Later on the content relating to popular music was reduced to two pages with articles about, TV programmes, drama, Jazz and classical music taking up the third.

At the outset the main feature writer was Maureen Cleave whose weekly column was entitled “Maureen Cleave’s Pop Spot”. Her weekly articles weren’t exclusive to the Evening Chronicle though. In fact they were syndicated throughout the UK and would have been published in many regional newspapers. Maureen was a respected London music writer and journalist. She became well know because of an interview she conducted with the Beatles in 1963. She was also known for her sixties interviews with Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.

Following Maureen Cleave’s first interview with the Beatles she became a friend and confidante of the four members of the Beatles and in particular John Lennon. In March 1966 she conducted an interview with John Lennon. In that interview Lennon gave his controversial views on Christianity and made the claim that the Beatles “were more popular than Jesus now”. Months later the American press picked up on this remark causing a huge uproar in the States which in effect led to the decline of the Beatles popularity across the pond.

Whereas Maureen Cleave was a nationally recognised journalist based in London, the other main contributor to Pop Parade was originally from Gateshead and lived in the northeast. Albert Watson started work as an office boy at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle in the early sixties and worked his way up to being a journalist for the paper. In his teens he had a strong interest in Rock ’n’ Roll and the popular music of the era. It was probably his good knowledge of music that landed him the writing position for the Chronicle’s new Pop Parade feature.

It was apparent from the outset that Albert Watson wasn’t going to try and compete with Maureen Cleave’s stories about top UK and US performers. Albert’s first article for Pop Parade on Saturday 3rd October 1964 was about a failed UK tour called the Geordie Beat involving a number of northeast groups. In the same edition he also made it clear that his column would be biased towards northeast groups and national bands performing in the region. He invited people to write to him with any relevant stories.

Albert Watson must have had a good response from managers, band leaders and fans of local groups keen for some publicity in Pop Parade. In subsequent weeks Albert wrote about many northeast groups and solo artists. To his credit Albert didn’t just accept what had been written in the letters he received. He made an effort to actually go to venues and see groups performing as well as interviewing them. His articles were all intelligently written with Albert often adding his own slant to basic information he had been given in the first place.

On 20th February 1965 Albert Watson’s column was promoted to the first page of Pop Parade with Maureen Cleave’s Pop Spot slipping onto the second page. This arrangement continued until the end of the year when Albert wrote his last article for Pop Parade. Over the period October 1964 until 18th December 1965 his column featured many well known and lesser known local groups. Here are some of them: –

The Alibi, Bits ’n’ Pieces, Blue Shades, Caesers, Chosen Few, Colts, Concords, Consolidated Sounds, Denims, Don Juans, Four Fables, Gamblers, Go-Gos, Heatwaves, Junco Partners, Originals, Pieces of Five, Sect, Urge, Vermen and Why & Where Four. One of his favourite solo acts was a young female vocalist from Monkseaton called Val McKenna who he wrote about several times in his column.

Pop Parade made its last appearance in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle on 1st January 1966, sadly without a contribution from Albert Watson. The following week a new revamped pull-out section of the Chronicle called “Weekend At Home” was launched. Maureen Cleave retained her pop music column alongside a writer called Charles Fiske whose column was about current disc releases. Newcastle’s Top Twenty still featured on the first page followed by several pages of TV listings.

Albert Watson’s efforts to stimulate readers interest in local northeast groups through his Pop Parade column only lasted for about fifteen months. I was unable to find out why Pop Parade was suddenly pulled by the Evening Chronicle in January 1966. Perhaps the publishers thought the format of their weekly feature was becoming a bit outdated and had run its course. After all, in the autumn and winter of 1965 pop music was undergoing a bit of a change with Soul and Tamla Motown music starting to make an impression in the UK, both in the charts and in clubs and ballrooms. Not many local bands had switched over to covering that type of music at the end of 1965. A lot of Albert Watson’s articles featured the type of groups that played mainly generic pop music or standard R&B songs in Working Mens Clubs so maybe interest in his column was on the wain. Nevertheless, there’s some great information about the Newcastle music scene in his historic articles, which I’ll no doubt continue to draw upon for future Ready Steady Gone blogs.

The post Pop Parade appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

In the vast landscape of rock and roll, few voices resonate as powerfully as that of the northeast’s own Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson’s journey from small venues in Newcastle and County Durham to the global stages with AC/DC is nothing short of legendary. His resilience in the face of adversity, coupled with his timeless vocals, has solidified his status as a rock icon.

This article is a not a full history of Brian Johnson’s musical journey. It’s more of an account of how he got started in music through to the time his first professional band started its rise to fame. As I’ve done in my previous articles about other successful northeast artists such as Bryan Ferry and Lindisfarne, I’ve concentrated on the period covered by Ready Steady Gone and have broadly kept to its theme: “Gigging in the North East 1965-1972. A personal perspective ..”

1965 to 1972 was a time when local bands were thriving and adapting to the ever changing tastes in music throughout the period. In the late sixties I was playing in bands. at the same venues as Brian Johnson. We knew the same local musicians and even played in our respective bands alongside two of the same musicians. (For that reason I got a mention in Brian Johnson’s ‘Rock Family Tree’ in his autobiography).

I can’t remember how many times I actually met Brian Johnson. The only ones that come to mind are when my band and his shared the stage at a hippy “Love-in” in Newcastle’s Haymarket area in October 1967. The other was in 1969 when he came to one of my band’s gigs as a guest and travelled with us to the venue in our van.

From choirboy to a world renowned rock star – this is how it happened: –

The Early Years

In his autobiography Brian Johnson claims the moment in his life that turned him on to Rock ’n’ Roll was seeing Little Richard singing “Tutti Frutti” on an American TV show. Not long after he heard the same song coming from a neighbour’s record player. Tutti Frutti became popular in 1956 so Brian would have been under the age of ten at the time. At such a young age he could never have dreamt that in less than three decades the whole world would be watching him perform on TV, turning a whole new generation on to Rock ’n’ Roll.

Brian Johnson’s first taste of singing in public was in a local boy scout’s production of the Gang Show. He enjoyed the experience and the reaction of the audience but after all the weeks of hard work rehearsing for the show it only lasted for two evenings. To Brian this was a bit of an anti-climax and would have given him a thirst for more of the same.

Brian’s next musical adventure was when he joined a church choir. Being a roman catholic church most of the hymns were sung in latin. The peak of his career as a chorister came as a thirteen year old at Christmas 1960 when he was chosen to sing “Silent Night” as a soloist. He remembers there not being any applause because this wasn’t allowed in church, but the appreciation from the audience shone through and was palpable.

Another scout gang show came and went bringing Brian Johnson’s aspiring career as a singer to an end for the time being

In 1962/3 at the age of sixteen Brian got a job as an apprentice at Parson’s ship yard in Wallsend on the banks of the Tyne. By this time tastes in popular music were changing. The American teen crooners such as Bobby Vee, Bobby Rydell, Johnny Tillotson, Ricky Nelson and Pat Boone who had been a fixture is the UK charts for several years were being pushed aside by UK groups like the Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five, Beatles and many other bands from the Liverpool area. Countless young people were itching to join or form groups and follow in the footsteps of the successful British bands that were hitting the charts. Initially, many of these would-be musicians, in particular guitarists, were influenced by Hank Marvin and the Shadows. A few years later it would be the likes of the Beatles and Stones that they wanted to emulate. Those who had no inclination to learn to play the guitar chose singing as a route to potential fame and fortune, singing along to their favourite records in front of a mirror with a sauce bottle or hair brush as a make-do microphone.

The First Band

While he was at Parsons Brian Johnson got to know some fellow workers who were keen to liven up their lives by playing music together. A four-piece group was formed consisting of Brian as vocalist, a guitarist, Bass player and drummer. In spite of the four-piece lineup, they named themselves “Section 5”.

Like a lot of young start-up groups around 1963/4, Groups 5 began rehearsing in the family home of one of the band members. In this case it was in the home of the bass player’s parents in Dunston. The bass player in question was Steve Chance who continued to be part of Brian Johnson’s musical journey over a number of years until 1971.

In his autobiography Brian mentions some of the songs Group 5 was attempting to learn. They were mostly covers of Rhythm & Blues songs by the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf and Bo Diddley. At the time many other young would-be groups were learning the the same songs. Not only did they sound more rocky and raucous than most of the songs in the UK charts but they had a basic structure with no more than three chords so were fairly easy to master by inexperienced musicians.

Section 5 eventually fizzled out without making too much of an impression on the local music scene. With 1966 out of the way, 1967 promised a lot of new exciting horizons as far as popular music was concerned. Jimi Hendrix was starting to wow audiences with his complete mastery of the guitar and exciting live performances. Numerous bands were entering a psychedelic phase by experimenting with hallucinating drugs such as LSD. The Hippie movement in the States had morphed into ‘Flower Power’ and was having an impact in the UK. The era of the kaftan, beads, flowery attire, ‘peace & love’ and psychedelic liquid light shows was born. Music shows were being billed as “Love-Ins” or “Happenings”. This was the year of the long, hot ‘Summer Of Love’.?

Gobi Desert Kanoo Club and Fresh

Not long after Brian Johnson witnessed Jimi Hendrix performing with The Experience at Newcastle’s iconic Club a’Gogo on 10th March 1967, he teamed up with some other local musicians to form a new group called the Gobi Desert Kanoo Club. The lineup was; Brian, his buddy from Section 5 Steve Chance on bass, Ken Brown (guitar), Dave Yarwood (guitar) and Fred Smith (drums).

While he was a member of Gobi Desert Kanoo Club Brian Johnson had invested in a PA system which he bought from Windows music shop in Newcastle’s Central Arcade. He didn’t really want this to go to waste so the following year he teamed up with some musicians who had been playing locally in a group called Hanibal Kemp. In contrast to the heavy blues material played by Gobi Desert Kanoo Club, Hanibal Kemp played more pop inspired songs. There was an optimism on Brian’s part that this new venture would not only be a fresh start but that it was also going to be a successful one. He did one gig with Hanibal Kemp in June 1969. After that the group’s name was aptly changed to Fresh. However, Fresh was fairly short lived coming to an end at the backend of 1969.

The Jasper Hart Band

Brian Johnson didn’t have to wait too long before putting his “pride and joy”, the PA system he’d bought from Windows, to good use again. The Gobi Desert Kanoo Club had risen from the ashes, albeit under a new name. After the Gobi Desert Kanoo Club split up in the summer of 1968, the band’s guitarist Ken Brown formed another band called Crusade with some other members of the Kanoo Club plus a keyboard player named Alan Taylorson. Crusade became fairly successful on the local gig circuit with a run of around 300 booking from 1968 until the band folded in October 1970. After Crusade, Ken Brown wasted no time in getting the old Gobi Desert Kanoo Club team together, including Brian Johnson. He called his new venture The Jasper Hart Band. The line-up was Ken on guitar, Steve Chance on bass, Fred Smith on drums and Brian on vocals. There was no-one called Jasper Hart in the band. The name was a figment of Ken Brown’s imagination. The new band’s material was more melodic than the bluesy style of the Gobi Desert Kanoo Club and featured songs that would be popular in the region’s working mens clubs.

‘Hairy’ Days With Ruth Saxon

After only a few months Brian Johnson with the Jasper Hart Band built up a good name and were getting regular bookings at local northeast venues. Then something happened that would have a big impact on Brian and the rest of the band members. They were approached one night by a black comedienne and singer called Ruth Saxon who had a solid showbiz reputation with regular performances on the national cabaret circuit. Although she was a Mancunian by birth, in 1971 she was living in Whitley Bay. In the sixties she had worked for ITV (Granada Television) reputedly being the country’s first black TV presenter. Ruth Saxon and her manager were looking for a change of direction, which would include a rock type backing band as part of her show. She was a big fan of the hippy based musical “Hair” and wanted to include a Hair tribute as part of her new act. Apparently her brother Les Saxon was a member of the London based cast of the Hair stage show.

Ruth Saxon clearly must have thought the Jasper Hart Band would be the ideal backing band for her and her new show, although it was not the first Newcastle band that she had invited to join her. My own band Sneeze was approached by Ruth Saxon a few months earlier at Newcastle’s “Change Is” club, Newcastle, saying that she was looking for a backing band. She promising a lot of well paid gigs on the national cabaret circuit. After a further few meetings she began talking about her vision of a mini Hair type show. One band member suggested that this would mean the band would have to “sell-out”. Ruth Saxon flew into a foul mouthed rage and stormed out of the meeting. I distinctly remember her parting words; “F*** off back to your rat holes!”. This was probably a lucky escape for Sneeze. “Ruthless” Saxon moved on to the Jasper Hart Band, a coalition that eventually resulted in an ill-fated outcome.

Ruth Saxon offered Jasper Hart the opportunity to join her in her new venture. Without too much deliberation the band members accepted her proposal even though the nationwide touring meant they would have to give up their day time jobs. Certain other conditions were stipulated: firstly everyone would have to dress smartly; secondly they would have to learn a lot of the songs featured in the Hair stage show; thirdly they would have to rehearse a lot to bring them up to a professional standard and finally they would have to add a keyboard player to their lineup. Alan Taylorson who had been in Ken Brown’s former band, Crusade, was recruited.

So the deal was struck. In due course, when Ruth Saxon deemed that the Jasper Hart Band was ready, they would all go on tour as a cabaret act featuring their Hair extravaganza. In order to get up to the standard that Ruth Saxon was demanding and learn the required Hair material, the band booked a lot of rehearsal time in Studio 1, in Newcastle. They also spent more money on new stage wear and an expensive photoshoot in Manchester.

In the meantime The Jasper Hart band continued to gig locally as a five-piece while Ruth Saxon kept up her appearances as a solo cabaret act in far flung places such as Belfast and the Isle of Man. In order to set the scene for her new venture and showcase Jasper Hart playing the Hair material, Ruth arranged for a week of bookings for the band starting on 15th February 1971 at a Newcastle night club called Stage Door. Jasper Hart’s “cabaret” spot would start just after midnight and last for forty five minutes. The week’s residency was timed to coincide with a provincial staging of the Hair musical by the London cast at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal. Ruth Saxon invited the cast of Hair, including her brother Les, along to Stage Door after their performance at the Theatre Royal had finished. According to Brian Johnson in his autobiography the entire cast of Hair turned up at the Stage Door club to see Jasper Hart. Unfortunately there weren’t many other people there – just the actors jumping and dancing around in a near empty room, some of them partially clothed as if they were performing their Hair stage act.

The Ruth Saxon chapter of Brian Johnson’s life ended around the end of May 1971 when she disappeared with some of the band’s funds just before the planned cabaret tour with was due to start. The disappointed band members were left with a lot of debt but on top of that bass player Steve Chance and keyboard player Alan Taylorson decided they’d had enough and left the band.

Jasper Hart’s Final Year

But before that happened the band had another chance of fame and fortune. A local music entrepreneur called Mike Forster who had started up a record label called Circa 2000 wanted to record and promote the band. He arranged a recording session at Studio 1 in Clayton street Newcastle (the same studio where the band had rehearsed in preparation for the Ruth Saxon act). The sessions took place between the 31st May and 9th June 1971 resulting in three recorded tracks, all songs written by Mike Forster. This was the first time that Brian Johnson had recorded in a studio with a professional quality studio microphone – something that left an impression on him. Unfortunately due to lack of funding the recordings came to nothing.

Here’s a short compilation of extracts from the tracks recorded at Circa 2000: Down By The River, Overload, and I Want To Be Around


In spite of the loss of their bassist and keyboard player the remaining band members (Brian Johnson, Ken Brown and Fred Smith) decided to continue as Jasper Hart playing at the many local northeast venues that were around in the early seventies. After all the rehearsing they had done to become a cabaret act with Ruth Saxon the Jasper Hart Band was now very tight and performing their sets to a professional standard. Their new material, which now included well-known songs from Hair, was popular in working mens clubs leading to many lucrative bookings. The good thing for Brian Johnson is that he hadn’t got around to leaving his steady job at Parsons. So when the band’s debts were discharged he would be reaping the benefits of gig money on top of his salary. With a pregnant wife and young child to support the extra income would be very welcome.

After the departure of Steve Chance, Jasper Hart did a couple of gigs in June 1971 with a stand-in bass player before recruiting the Gateshead musician Tom Hill. Tom was an experienced, competent bass player who’d been on the local music scene for a number of years. I’d been in a band called Sneeze with him two years earlier for around six months. After leaving Sneeze in the summer of 1969 Tom Hill had led a couple of local outfits called Yellow and Blondie. By the summer of 1971 he was available for hire.

The drummer with the Jasper Hart Band, Fred Smith, who had been in the band since it was formed, also decided to throw in his sticks around August 1971. The timing of Fred’s departure worked out quite well for the band. It roughly coincided with the break up of my band, Sneeze. Five members of Sneeze already had other projects lined up; all except drummer Brian Gibson. Jasper Hart was quick to use Brian as a replacement for Fred Smith. Bassist Tom Hill and Brian Gibson had worked together in Sneeze between February 1969 and August 1969. This duo was very tight together and a great addition to the Jasper Hart Band, which now consisted of Ken Brown on guitar, Brian Johnson on vocals, Tom Hill on bass and Brian Gibson on drums. It wouldn’t be too long before the latter three would go on to be part of Newcastle’s own rock stars – “Geordie”.

Geordie

The Jasper Hart Band fronted by Brian Johnson continued to perform at Newcastle and County Durham venues throughout January 1972. However, things were about to change. Vic Malcolm, an exceptional guitarist from South Shields wanted to form a new band to showcase his own self-penned material. Vic had previously been in a local band called “The Influence” whose members included the notable musician John Miles and drummer Paul Thompson who went on to join Brian Ferry in Roxy Music. His choice of musicians consisted of three members of the Jasper Hart Band – everyone except guitarist Ken Brown. Vic Malcom arranged a trial session with Brian Johnson, Tom Hill and Brian Gibson at a scout hut in South Shields. If Brian Johnson had been apprehensive about singing original material at an audition rather than covers he needn’t have been. The musicians immediately clicked and all three of the Jasper Hart members accepted Vic Malcolm’s invitation to join him. The band named themselves “USA”.

Vic Malcolm’s strategy was to play as many gigs as the band could muster on the local working mens club circuit in order to get as tight as possible. Then they would record a demo tape, which they would take to London where Vic had contacts. The band members hoped that this would eventually lead to a recording contract.

The first part of the strategy seemed to be working. USA’s first gig on 1st February 1972 at a working men’s club in Peterlee, County Durham went very well. The audience were probably used to hearing bands play cover versions of well known songs but nevertheless they accepted Geordie’s performance of their own original songs with open arms. More gigs at similar clubs followed. The band was quickly earning a reputation as a strong act resulting in bookings at more up-market venues, including a three day stint at Newcastle’s Cavendish Club in June 1972.

With a demo tape under their belt, two members of USA, Vic Malcolm and Tom Hill, headed down to London to hawk their wares around the many record companies in the capital. One of the companies they visited was Red Bus Records, a part of the EMI group. The two owners of Red Bus, Ellis Elias and Eliot Cohen were so impressed with the demo they immediately offered USA a recording contract.

On their return to the northeast Vic Malcolm and Tom Hill broke the news of their successful trip to Brian Johnson. Brian was faced with a life changing decision. He had a wife and young family to support, which he was currently able to do by means of his steady office job plus the extra income from the USA gigs. Even with a contract from Red Bus there was no guarantee that USA would become successful recording artists. It was a tough decision but in the end Brian chose Rock ’n’ Roll over a steady job.

Dreams of seeing the name “USA” on a record label or in lights outside prestigious venues were shattered when the owners of Red Bus Records told the band members that they wanted the band to forget about USA and start using the name the name “Geordie”. Back in the early seventies the term “Geordie” was applied as a general term to all people from the northeast as opposed to today’s Geordies who are deemed to live in the city or support Newcastle United football team. Nevertheless the band members weren’t convinced about the name change. They thought that “Geordie” was a bit too parochial and not nearly as universally appealing as “USA”. In the end Red Bus Records got its way and Geordie was born in early September 1972.

The Next Steps

That concludes Brian Johnson’s life as a northeast musician during the period 1965 to 1972. Geordie went from strength to strength in 1973, 1974 and into 1975. In all, Brian Johnson recorded half a dozen albums and numerous singles with the band before getting the call from AC/DC in 1980 inviting him to join the Australian outfit as a replacement for Bon Scott. The histories of Brian Johnson’s time with Geordie and AC/DC are well documented elsewhere on the internet. Probably the best place to find out about his life as rock icon, also his various TV projects, is in his autobiography – “The Lives Of Brian”. (Available on Amazon)

As with Eric Burdon, another vocalist who made the grade, and the band Lindisfarne it’s impossible to separate Brian Johnson from his Geordie roots. The working-class spirit of Gateshead and Newcastle, the energy of its music scene in the sixties, and the resilience ingrained in its people all shaped the persona of those rock legends we know today. Brian Johnson’s journey from local northeast venues to the world’s largest stages is not just a musical story; it’s a testament to the power and energy of a region and its people in shaping the destiny of a true rock icon.

The post Brian Johnson appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

As someone who was a brought up in Sunderland and who played in several Sunderland bands I thought it was high time I wrote about some of the Sunderland venues that were around in the mid to late sixties. Although there was a lively music scene for live bands in many Working Mens’ Clubs at the time, I’ve chosen to concentrate on Sunderland night clubs, teen clubs and dance halls for this article.

One of the most viewed pages on this website is the page I first published in May 2011 called 60’s Clubs. This page was inspired by a visit I made to Newcastle on 8th May 2011. During that visit I was a guest at a get-together of people who had been involved in the city’s nightclub scene during the sixties. The event was held at Keith Crombie’s Jazz Cafe on Pink Lane, Newcastle. Amongst those attending were the owners, managers and staff of the Club a’Gogo, La Dolce Vita, Greys Club and el Toro.

My 60’s Club article describes the above mentioned get-together and includes several photos taken at the event. However, the 60’s Club page concentrates on Newcastle venues with little mention of clubs south of the Tyne.

So in no particular order, these are the Sunderland venues I’ve chosen to write about: –

Annabel, Club 11, el Cubana, Sunderland R & B Club, the Jazzboard Club, Bay Hotel, Bluenote, the Locarno, the Rink (Top Rank) and finally a coffee bar that, although not a music venue, was frequented by a lot of the Sunderland “In” Crowd in the mid sixties – the Bis-Bar on Park Lane.

Annabel

Throughout the mid to late 60s I was a gigging musician living in Sunderland. I played at most venues in the town that featured live music. However, Annabel was one club that I missed out on.

Despite being a popular and thriving venue I never visited the club as a musician nor in any other capacity. One reason for this is that by the time Annabel opened in late 1968 I was playing in Newcastle based bands. Most of my gigs were north of the Tyne so I wasn’t spending much time in Sunderland.

Annabel opened on 28 November 1968 above Jackson the Tailor’s shop on High Street West Sunderland. The premises occupied the site of the former Porama Night Club, which ceased trading some time earlier. In its early days the club hosted a lot of top national and international acts and built up a solid reputation. Despite some early setbacks including no fewer than four seemingly unconnected fires, at least two of which involved arson, Annabel had a long shelf life of over two decades stretching from 1968 into the 90s.

Annabel was the brain child of a Persian born entrepreneur named Kayumarss Poostchi. As a young student Kayu had attended art school in Newcastle before relocating to London. By all accounts Kayu Poostchi was a bit of a party-animal. Whilst living in London he travelled a lot and visited many night clubs around the world including some in New York. This ignited the notion that one day he would like to open his own club. After a four year course of catering administration in the States Kayu returned to the UK in 1968 and began researching the prospect of opening a London style night club in Sunderland. Why did he choose Sunderland rather than Newcastle? His plan to create a prestigious club on a par with London clubs was not new. Mike Jeffery had opened the Club a’Gogo in Newcastle six years earlier with the same intention. The Club a’Gogo had been successful for many years but started to go into decline in 1967. The club finally closed down in the summer of 1968 at a time when there was fierce competition from a lot of other clubs in the Newcastle. There weren’t too many venues in Sunderland in 1968 offering the type of entertainment that young people wanted so this town was probably a good choice for the type of club Kayu had in mind.

Kayu worked on his club plans alongside ex-Club a’Gogo employee, architect and designer Keith Gibbon who he knew from his days as a student when Gibbon was studying architecture in Newcastle in the early sixties. Keith Gibbons’ partner, Harvey Phiilips from the company Gibbons and Phillips Design Group was also involved in the design of Annabel.

Kayu’s plans came to fruition on 28 November 1968 when Annabel opened its doors for the first time. The club was certainly well presented and was offering some first class acts on its agenda. In a press release the club was described as follows: –

“The club is lit by an electronic system which transforms waves of sound into flashes of light. It produces an eye-catching background for the couples who dance to the music of records and to the live group which plays in the dancing area. The club. which covers an area of 5,000 square feet, is reached by climbing five short flight of stairs, and comprises two large split-level areas joined by a short flight of steps.

An outstanding feature of the first area is a large circular bar, set on a raised plinth. Set around this area are secluded booths where member can enjoy meals and drinks.

Decorative, sculptured panels are set sound the bar. These and the two larger than life gold painted figures, that dominate one wall are the work of Mr Phillips a sculptor and artist. In the lower area are a 24 feet by 20 feet dance floor and more booths. The furniture in the club is the latest painted type and is formed in geometric shapes. In one corner of this area stands a circular “DJ” booth where London disc jockey, John Smart controls a switchboard panel of light-and-sound push buttons that look something from the pilot cabin of a space ship. A light hearted touch, among all this opulence is the huge collages, set at intervals around the walls, composed of blown-up pictures of Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, a youthful General De Gaulle and – as a local touch – a scene from the Jarrow Hunger March”.

The opening act on 28 November 1968 was Chris Farlowe who had a number one hit two years earlier with “Out Of Time”.

With its live music and warm atmosphere, Annabel became very successful in Sunderland attracting members and guests from all over the north east. Here’s some of the acts appearing at the club in 1969:

1969 Gig Dates At Annabel

Kayu Poostchi’s partner, Keith Gibbon, took over ownership and the running of the club in 1972. However, the pair continued as successful business partners for a long time working on many projects together including a Newcastle Fashion House in Newcastle in 1972 called “Victoria & Albert”.

In 1974, Keith Gibbon opened the very successful Newcastle club – Julies, which he described at the time as being the “sister club” to Sunderland’s Annabel.

THE FIRES AT ANNABEL

During the sixties and early seventies night clubs in the northeast seemed to be prone to bursting into flames and either being destroyed or badly damaged. Some examples are: Newcastle’s Marimba and el Toro (1961), Club 11 in Sunderland (1965), the Quay Club, Newcastle (1966) and the Crescendo Club, Whitley Bay (1971). Other clubs such as the Downbeat in Newcastle were routinely closed by the authorities because they were considered to be a fire hazard.

As mentioned above, Annabel was no exception, experiencing no fewer than four separate fires in the first half of the seventies. Only one of these fires occurred in the period covered by the main theme of Ready Steady Gone (1965 to 1972). It took place on 9 February 1970 at a time when Kayu Poostchi was the main owner of the club. Not only was the club damaged but also stock belonging to the retail outlet of Jacksons The Tailor on the floors below. A police and fire service investigation failed to identify the cause of the blaze. In spite of the damage, the club was only closed for a short period.

The second fire at Annabel happened four years later while Keith Gibbon was the owner. This blaze on 17 March 1975 was considered to be more serious than the first with damages estimated at £20,000 (worth between around £140,000 and £400,000 in today’s economy). The club’s dance area was destroyed and there was extensive smoke damage throughout the rest of the premises.

No sooner had the club been repaired and restored, another fire took place on 14 May 1975. Fortunately the fire brigade were able to contain this fire fairly quickly so there was a lot less damage than on the previous occasion. This time the authorities strongly suspected that the fire was the work of a “fire bug”. However, they were unable to prove this and a culprit was never found.

Six weeks later on 23 June 1975 there was yet another fire at Annabel. This time it was patently obvious that arson was involved. Intruders broke into the club through a skylight and set fire to the place using cans of petrol. Less than a week later the police arrested a 22 year old Sunderland man named Peter Burnikell who appeared in court on 25 June 1975 charged with arson. At a later court hearing January 1976 he was jailed for three years for starting the fire at Annabel which caused £15,000 of damage.

Burnikell’s version of events was that he was approached by a man who he knew only as “Mickey”. Mickey persuaded Bernikell to assist him in burning down Annabel. At the time of the court hearing “Mickey” wasn’t identified. However, over a year later a Sunderland night-club doorman named Michael Clery was convicted of being the second man involved in the Annabel arson attack. He was jailed for three years. In court Clery claimed he was just a “hired hand” and was paid £400 by others start the fire. He either wouldn’t or couldn’t name the people who had hired him. In court it emerged that Clery was badly burned after starting the fire and fled to the nearby Zhivago Club (formerly the Manhattan). Two men in that club allegedly drove him to a hospital in London for treatment.

In spite of the set backs in the seventies, Annabel is still considered to be one of the best night clubs to come out of Sunderland. At its peak it boasted to having a as many as 15,000 members from Sunderland and beyond. Annabel is still remembered with affection by many people from the northeast.

Club 11

At the beginning of January 1961 Harold McMillan’s Conservative Government revised the Betting And Gaming Act making it easier for clubs and casinos to run their businesses by legalising betting in such establishments for small sums of money. At the same time Betting Shops were made legal.

Two enterprising Sunderland businessmen, Mike Pemberton and Frank Pickering started up a company manufacturing gaming furniture and equipment. The company, based in Wickham Street, Sunderland was called FR & MP Gaming Equipment. They began to supply their goods to clubs and casinos all over the country including George Raft’s Colony Club in London, which was allegedly owned by the American East Coast Mafia boss, Meyer Lansky.

After a year or so they transformed the venue from a coffeee bar to a night club with gaming facilities. Over a three year period the club underwent a £6,000 make-over incorporating a cocktail lounge and an American style grill.

In the mid-sixties (1964 and 1965) Club 11 regularly featured live music on a weekend. One of the groups that played there a lot with a sort of mini residency was called “Time Out”.

I actually played at Club 11 twice in 1965 with Jazzboard (on 30 September and 1 October). These two gigs were, in fact, my first two when I joined the Jazzboard in September 1965. I remember that on the two occasions I played at the club there was group of American servicemen present who liked Jazzboard’s style of Rhythm & Blues.

Unfortunately only a week or so after my first two gigs with Jazzboard a fire destroyed Club 11. It never reopened.

el Cubana

Long before Annabel opened its doors in November 1968, Sunderland’s el Cubana club had already established itself as the town’s best small live music for teens and twenties.

I’d already done a few gigs at the Cubana early in 1965 with the Kylastrons before joining Jazzboard in the September of that year. In October 1965 I did a run of four gigs at the el Cubana with Jazzboard. The experience of playing R & B in a crowded cellar with a great atmosphere and an appreciative audience left a long lasting impression on me.

Two Sunderland entrepreneurs, Eric Punson and Cliff Balbach opened the el Cubana club as a teenage coffee bar on 29 November 1962. The club was situated on the east side of Toward Road opposite Mowbray Park.

With a mixture of recorded music and live music from local bands, the club became a great success with teenagers.

In July 1963 Eric Punson and Cliff Balbach were granted a drinks license for a discrete venue on the floor above the el Cubana. The new club was named la Cubana into which a games room was subsequently added.

As well as local bands, some acts from the national gig circuit became an additional feature at the clubs. I remember a great buzz around town when it was announced that the Spencer Davis Group would be appearing at the club. Newcastle’s Junco partners remained a number one draw along with other popular local groups such as the Chosen Few, the Sect and Consolidated Sounds.

The el Cubana attracted a lot of the Sunderland “In” Crowd. A year or so earlier these young people would have been referred to as Mods. From my recollection the term “Mod” wasn’t being used as much in the later pat of 1965 – it had been done to death and highly commercialised (see this link). The Sunderland “In” Crowd, though, still looked and dressed the part; typically in Ben Sherman shirts; white jeans, hipsters or elephant cords; lots of checks; dessert boots or Hush Puppies. Scooters were the preferred mode of transport. One of their favourite venues (other than the el Cubana) was the Bis-Bar in Park Lane Sunderland (see below).

Before making their way to the el Cubana a lot of these kids, predominantly teenagers both male and female (and some underaged) used to fill up with alcohol at the Pallatine Hotel on the corner of Mowbray Road and Borough Road. The el Cubana, of course, was unlicensed.

1967 saw imminent changes in gaming laws which, amongst other things, signalled the decline of the Cubana clubs, in particular the la Cubana.

You can read Eric Punshon’s story of the el Cubana on this Ready Steady Gone page – click here.

Sunderland R & B Club

Sunderland R & B Club was a fairly short lived venue that started up in the Londonderry Hotel, Sunderland in the autumn of 1966. I have it on record that I played on at least one occasion at the club with Jazzboard around November that year.

The club probably wasn’t that successful. Firstly, because of competetion from other larger venues in Sunderland such as the Bay Hotel, the Locarno and Top Rank. Secondly: A lot of bands in 1965 or earlier described themselves as R & B bands, performing covers of classic blue songs by the likes of Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and Bo Diddley. However, by 1966 tastes in live music were changing. Soul music coming from the States was becoming a lot more popular in the repertoires of bands playing at local north east venues. The name “Sunderland R & B” club may have just have been a year or so too late to take off in a big way. Sunderland kids seeking live music were most likely looking for something a bit more up tom date.

The Jazzboard Club

The Jazzboard Club was another Sunderland club with a short shelf life. In the latter half of 1965 there was a bit of a void as far as live music venues for young people was concerned. The Bluenote on Roker Avenue was running into difficulty regarding the renewal of its license and was about to close. Club 11 on Villiers Street burned down and closed its doors in October 1965. Virtually all that remained was Eric Punshon’s el Cubana and its sister club the la Cubana.

Bert Lowes, the manager of the Sunderland band Jazzboard, of which I was a member, had the idea of creating a club as an alternative to the el Cubana. His plan was to draw the Sunderland “In” Crowd, many of which were fans of the Jazzboard, away from the Cubana. His plan would also give Jazzboard a ready made platform to build up a bigger fan base in Sunderland and give the band a local venue to play at if work further afield became scarce. I recall that at that time Bert had fallen out with the el Cubana owner, Eric Punshon for some reason – I can’t remember the details. Jazzboard had been a regular band at the el Cubana long before I joined but the bookings there had suddenly come to an end.

Another part of Bert’s strategy to keep Sunderland’s “In” Crowd onside was to hire coaches and ferry them to other Jazzboard gigs outside of the Sunderland area – a bit like a football team taking fans to their away games. This worked for a short time when a coach took Jazzboard Club members on a weekly basis to the Guys & Dolls club in Newcastle where Jazzboard had a short residency before Christmas 1965.

Bert found suitable premises not far from the town centre at the eastern end of Chester Road. It was a church hall type building in the vicinity of The Retreat and The Royalty with a suitable room on the first floor. The venue, of course, was not licensed to serve alcohol but nevertheless Bert Lowes took out a lease on the building hoping that it would attract teenagers on the basis of good live music and a great atmosphere. Free membership was offered with members receiving a “Jazzboard” membership card similar to the band’s business card.

An opening night for the new Jazzboard club was planned for Saturday 20 November 1965 with weekly Saturday night sessions thereafter. A week before Jazzboard did a try-out gig at the empty venue to test the stage electrics, sound quality and lighting. There may have been a few invited guests to give their opinion but I can’t remember. The hall seemed ideal for its intended purpose – dancing and congregating. Although it didn’t have an alcohol license there was a small bar for serving of soft drinks and coffee. When I first saw the film “The Commitments” I couldn’t help thinking that the hall used for the Commitments’ first gig was exactly the same as the Jazzboard Club – a high stage, oblong shaped room with a door at the bottom right.

The opening night on 20 November featuring Jazzboard went well. The club was full of young people who were dancing and generally having a good time. The gig went without a hitch with a promise of more of the same. Due to gigs elsewhere Jazzboard weren’t able to play at the club every Saturday night so other bands, mostly from the Newcastle area, were booked to appear. Apart from 20 November, Jazzboard were there 11 December and 18 December. A band called Seldom Seen appeared on 27 November and the Chosen Few on 4 December.

Unfortunately things started to go wrong at the club after a few weeks when drunken youths started fighting. The fights spilled out into the surrounding residential streets resulting in complaints from the locals. Bert’s lease on the premises was prematurely terminated and the club was forced to close. The last night was on 18 December 1965.

Bay Hotel

The Bay Hotel was a fairly large venue in a nice location overlooking the sea at South Bents, Whitburn. With its large ballroom its weekend dances had been popular in the sixties. Saturdays had been mainly aimed at an older clientele with traditional style fifties style dance bands providing the music. Friday nights attracted younger dancers with either recorded music or a local pop bands.

I played at the Bay Hotel with a coupe of bands in 1967; Jazzbord and James South. In spite of its nice location I didn’t regard it as a particularly prestigious place when I played there. I much preferred playing at some of Sunderland’s other venues such as the Locarno, Rink and Club Astec, which were a lot nearer to the town centre.

However, the Bay’s prominence as a venue in the Sunderland area changed dramatically in 1969 when promoter/entrepreneur Geoff Docherty started using it to promote music events

After working as a doorman at the Bay for a while, Geoff Docherty persuaded the management to let him and a couple of associated run their own live music events there. It started off slowly in 1968 with Geoff booking local bands such as the Junco partners, Sect, Gas Board and This Years Girl. They then started to book relatively unknown bands from locations further afield such as Manchester and Leeds.

By January 1969 Geoff Docherty’s two associates had pulled out leaving Goff as the sole promoter. He felt that the time was right to step up his operation and began to book the nations top touring bands.

The first nationally known band that he booked on 6th January 1969 was Family. Family had a solid reputation in the northeast having played at colleges and universities as well as smaller venues such as the Argus Butterfly (Peterlee Folk & Jazz Club), the Cellar at South Shields and the Club a’Gogo. Their album, “Music In A Dolls House” had been released six months earlier and had reached number 35 in the albums chart. The inaugural night was a great success and earned Geoff a lot of kudos in the Sunderland area. Geoff was soon planning his next coupe at the Bay – the appearance of Pink Floyd on 17th February 1969.

The Pink Floyd gig was a great success and another feather in Geoff Docherty’s cap. It added enormously to to Geoff’s reputation as a promoter and to the importance of the Bay Hotel as an emerging top music venue in the northeast.

Over the next few months, between February 1969 and July 1969, Geoff Docherty booked top class bands at the Bay Hotel on a weekly basis. Some of the bands that appeared were: Black Sabbath, Spooky Tooth, Country Joe & The Fish and Three Dog Night (from USA), The Who, Chicken Shack, Jethro Tull, The Nice and Geoff’s favourites – Free.

In July 1969, Geoff Docherty switched his operation to the Locarno on Newcastle Road, Sunderland.

Here’s a list of Geoff’s promotions at the Bay in 1969:

You can read more about the promoter Geoff Docherty here.

Blue Note

The Blue Note Club at 174a Roker Avenue, Sunderland was a popular club in the mid sixties but it was another Sunderland venue that was fairly short lived. Although some of the top touring bands of the era appeared there to packed audiences in the twelve months or so that it was open, the Blue Note had attracted some bad publicity which ultimately led to problems when it came to the renewal of its license.

The Blue Note was opened in September 1964 by entrepreneur/business man Ray Grehan, who was involved in several other music ventures in the North East. Although the club was licensed, its target audience was teenagers and it became known as a ‘booze & beat’ club. There were other licensed clubs in Sunderland at the time, such as Club 11 and La Cubana, but they tended to attract an older clientele.

The main room in the club was housed on the first floor of a large building, which was part of a terrace of houses and shops on the South side of Roker Avenue, not far from its junction with Church Street North. As well as local bands, well know national bands were booked to appear – the likes of the Mindbenders, Alex Harvey Soul Band and the Pretty Things.

On its opening night on 18th September 1964, a rumour spread through Sunderland and beyond that the Rolling Stones would be putting in a guess appearance at the club. Crowds of people turned up and congregated in the Roker Avenue area trying to get a glimpse of Jagger and the rest of the Stones. In the event the Blue Note was packed for its launch night but the Rolling Stones failed to show up. Owner Ray Grehan was asked by the Newcastle Journal how the Rolling Stones rumour started. This was his response; “I asked them to look in for a drink and see the club. I thought only my partner and my manager knew about it. I just don’t how it leaked out.” Ray Grehan denied starting the rumour, even though his adverts for the opening night included the phrase -‘the surprise of the year as mystery guests‘. Ray Grehan went on to say; “The club did not start the rumour. I had a sell out even before the rumour got around. My problem is getting everybody in.”

In April 1965 the Blue Note was the subject of some adverse publicity in the local press. It was one of the first establishments in the area to have a condom machine installed in the gents toilet. The bad press, predominantly in the Sunderland Echo and Newcastle Journal, was not due to the existence of the machine but because the resident DJ, John Harker, encouraged club goers, over the house PA, to go to the toilet and pick up their supplies of Durex. Ray Grehan was subsequently interviewed by the Journal and pledged to have the contraceptive machine removed.

In the months following the Journal’s articles, the club was raided several times by police looking for under-aged drinkers and drugs. When the club’s license came up for renewal in September 1965 all the bad publicity came back to bite Ray Grehan. The police objected to the granting of a new license citing, amongst others things, the contraceptive dispenser incident, the fact that a 16 year old girl had been employed as a barmaid and that schoolgirls were admitted to the club.

Ray Grehan attempted to rescue the situation by placing an advert in the local press inviting parents to come and view his much aligned club. His attempts to keep the club afloat failed and the Bluenote closed roughly a year after if opened.

To read more about the Blue Note click here

The Locarno (Mecca)

The Locarno Ballroom was a large venue on Newcastle Road, Sunderland quite near to the Wheatsheaf roundabout. It was owned and run by the Meccas Organisation.

From the early 60s onwards the Locarno hosted dances plus party functions and events for factories and businesses. Mostly the music was provided by an orchestra or big band for formal ballroom dancing with a combo or paired down orchestra playing versions of current pop songs.

Towards the mid 60s, local bands were sometimes featured. Sometimes enterprising local businessmen would hire the Locarno and its facilities (i.e. bar and security staff) to stage their own promotions.

My first experience of playing at the Locarno was on 18th November 1965. Jazzboard’s manager, Bert Lowes, had entered the Jazzboard into a “Battle of the Bands” type competition, which was being staged at the Locarno. I think we must have sailed through that heat as the band appeared the following week for the final.

The bands appearing in the final on 25th November were: the Solenoids, Dynatones, Jades, Time Out and Jazzboard. I’m not sure what criteria the judges used to rate the bands but it appeared to hinge on how many people in the crowd were cheering them on. Jazzboard had good support that night from the crowd that used to follow the band at the el Cubana – the “In” Crowd mentioned above. But it wasn’t enough to sway the judges. By far the noisiest crowd was the supporters of the Solenoids, a young band with a large fan base from a local youth club where they were the resident band. The Solenoids took first place in the Locarno’s “Battle of the Bands” competition with Jazz board coming second. I read recently that the Solenoids was the very first band of Sunderland musician Dave Stewart who later rose to fame with the Tourists and the Eurythmics with Annie Lennox. Dave went to the same school as me but was quite a lot younger – probably about fourteen or fifteen at the time of the Locarno gig.

Like the Bay Hotel the Locarno really took off as a top Sunderland venue when the promoter Geoff Docherty started using it for his “live” music events. Geoff had been booking top UK bands at the Bay Hotel from January 1969. The Bay was nowhere near as big as the Locarno, which had a capacity of around 3,000 so he switched his operation to the Locarno in July 1969. Geoff named his promotions at the Locarno after Bill Graham’s two famous venues in the States; the Fillmore East and Fillmore West. On certain nights of the week Sunderland’s Locarno became “Fillmore North”.

The first band to appear at the Fillmore North was The Who on 28th July 1969. On 22nd August 1969 Geoff’s first big band at the Bay – Family appeared at Fillmore North. This time Family performed to over 2,000 people instead of the few hundred who had seen them at the Bay Hotel in January of that year.

Geoff’s biggest gig by far up that point happened on 12th September 1969. He’d booked Free plus support from a relatively new band – Mott The Hoople. Free had appeared at the Bay Hotel on 13th January 1969 to a fairly small audience but since then had been building up a huge following in Sunderland. Strangely, their popularity was still not strong in the rest of the UK at that point in time. The Fillmore North was filled to capacity with hundreds more unable to gain entry. The big Free crowd pleaser at the time (before the release of ‘All Right Now’) was a song called ‘The Hunter’. The entire audience erupted into a frenzy when the band played this song towards the end of their set.

According to Geoff in his book “A Promoter’s Tale – Rock At The Sharp End”, his worst ever gig at the Fillmore North (Locarno) was when Ginger Baker’s Airforce appeared on 26th March 1970. The band, which featured a host of well known and respected musicians, had been bigged up by their agent, Roger Forrester. Geoff was confident that the appearance of Airforce in Sunderland would be a real coupe in spite of the fact that a sell-out would be required for him to break even. In the event, Airforce’s performance was a shambles with some of the musicians barely able to play due to the effects of pre-show drug taking.

From the outset he was never comfortable with the doormen-cum-bouncers provided by the Mecca Organisation. As far as he was concerned their attitude was completely at odds with the way he had conducted himself when he had been the doorman at the Bay Hotel. Matters came to a head at the Locarno on 8th May 1970 when Geoff was promoting Steve Winwood’s Traffic. After a confrontation with the door staff regarding their unreasonable behaviour, Geoff told the management he wasn’t prepared to tolerate Mecca’s employees at any of his future promotions and that as an alternative he would provide his own security.

Mecca refused to back down so Geoff Docherty stopped using the Locarno and reverted back to his first venue, the Bay Hotel for a short time before eventually moving on to the Mayfair Ballroom in Newcastle.

Of course, Geoff’s departure wasn’t the end of the Locarno it continued to flourish as a top Sunderland rock venue way beyond the sixties and early seventies. Here’s a list of just some of the Locarno gigs from 1971 through to 1973:

The Rink (Top Rank) & Bis-Bar

I’m lumping the last two Sunderland venues together mainly because I don’t have as much information about them as the other venues I’ve written about on the is page but also because they were situated very close to each other on Park Lane, Sunderland.

The Rink was a large ballroom type venue similar to the Locarno which started in the 1940s. It could hold up to 4,000 people.
It’s heyday was probably in the 1950s when it had resident dance band and hosted regular Saturday night dance. During that period the band was Al Flush and his Orchestra. These dances continued into the sixties with Bill Sowerby and his Orchestra still attracting capacity crowds.

During the early sixties famous pop groups started appearing at The Rink, the most famous being The Beatles who appeared there on Tuesday 14th May 1963. For the sum of 5 shillings those lucky enough to gain entry got to see the Fab Four whose record “From Me To You” was number one in the charts. Beatmania was at its height. One person who was there remembers the Beatles as appearance as follows: –
“ I remember that the queue was about 12-deep and wound around a nearby carpark and then about 200 yards into the town centre.
They were fantastic and everyone was delirious. It got so silly and boisterous that in order to give the boys some space and safety on the stage, numerous benches were brought from somewhere in the building and were stacked on each other to a height of about Eventually the benches came tumbling down and The Beatles had to retreat to their ‘refuge’; I saw Paul McCartney whack a very interested female fan on the head with his guitar in order to make his escape. I particularly remember John Lennon belting out ‘Twist & Shout’ with sweat pouring down his face.

The mid sixties saw the demise of big dance bands and brought about the introduction of DJs to The Rink as well as appearances by popular stars including a young David Bowie. Other acts to appear were the groups Status Quo and Thin Lizzie who appeared there together on the same bill on September 29, 1972.

I can only remember playing at the Rink once with Jazzboard in April 1967 at an event featuring several local bands. The only other time I was there was in December later that year to see Jimmy James & The Vagabonds.

The Rink continued as a Sunderland venue until 1974 when it was remodelled and renamed The Fusion.

Here’s a list of some of the bands that appeared at the Rink in the sixties and early seventies.

THE BIS-BAR

So finally the Bis-Bar on Park Lane, Sunderland: As I mentioned earlier the Bis-Bar certainly wasn’t a music venue but was a recognised haunt for the Sunderland “In” Crowd that I’ve mentioned a few times above.

The Bis-Bar coffee bar was owned by Criastofo Notarianni of the Notarianni family that ran several ice cream parlours in the town during the sixties. It was situated next to the ABC cinema on the corner of Holmeside and Park Lane, not far from the Rink (Top Rank).

In the mid-sixties, in particular on a weekend, the Bis-Bar was the place “In” Crowd hung out, drinking coffee from glass cups, before moving on to the Pallatine Hotel and the el Cubana. It was also frequented by Sunderland football players and well off foreign students (mostly of Greek nationality). I recently saw one quote on the internet about the Bis-Bar’s clientele: “The well heeled Mods hung out there. You couldn’t get moved for nearly new Lambretta SX200s and Vespa SS180s out front. Always regarded by us proper but more impoverished mods as a bit of a poseur’s hang out.”

One regular customer at the Bis-Bar was the acclaimed promoter Geoff Dochert noted for his promotions at the Bay Hotel and Filmore North (Locarno). In his book “A Promoter’s Tale – Rock At The Sharp End” Geoff recalls a conversation he overheard at the Bis Bar between two trendy young ladies. They were bemoaning the fact that that they had to go down to London to see any decent bands such as Pink Floyd because nothing ever happened in the town. Perhaps that chance incident was one of the sparks that ignited Geoff’s desire to bring top tier bands to Sunderland.

Finally, here’s an old Sunderland street plan showing the locations of some of the town centre venues mentioned above: –

The post Sunderland Venues In The Sixties appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

In a blog last year about the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix’s manager, Mike Jeffery, I mentioned that an author friend of mine was researching the life and death of Jeffery. I also said that the research would lead to the publication of a book on the subject. My friend Ian Wright is now almost ready to publish the long awaited book which is entitled “Uncovering Deadly Secrets – Jimi Hendrix & Mike Jeffery”.

Jimi Hendrix died young. He was just 27 years old when his lifeless body was removed from a seedy London flat on the 18th of September 1970. Michael Jeffery, Hendrix’s manager also died prematurely on the 5th of March 1973. He was aged 39 when a plane en route from Mallorca to London in which he was travelling exploded in midair over France

The death of Jimi Hendrix has been the subject of speculation for a long time. Was it suicide, murder or just a mishap resulting from an overdose of sleeping pills as was reported back in 1970? Many people have put forward theories as to the cause of Hendrix’s demise. Some vehemently claim that Jimi Hendrix was murdered whilst others say with some certainty the death was no more than an unfortunate accident. Both sides of the murder/accident divide put forward compelling evidence to support their points of view. You will need look no further than this website to see what some have said about Hendrix’s death and their supporting evidence. You can check out the various arguments by looking at the comment sections on these two Ready Steady Gone articles: Flights of Fantasy and Remembering Mike Jeffery – 50 Years On.

Ian Wright is a native northeasterner who now lives in Reno, Nevada. Ian has had a varied career a photographer, author, journalist and lecturer. Back in the 60s as a young press photographer he played an important part in the UK’s pop music industry.

From around 1962 as part of his job, Ian Wright began photographing rock, pop, Soul, R&B bands and jazz artists who were on tour in the northeast at that time. Ian’s photos were different to contemporary photos of well known musicians because most of the artists and bands he photographed were in the early stages of their careers. They had not yet become household names. Many were on tour promoting early singles so the photos were taken on the hoof rather than at planned sessions in a studio. In 2008 Ian’s book On The Brink Of Fame containing lots of his early photos was published.

Some of the artists/bands he photographed were: –

Beatles, Chuck Berry, Cilla Black, Cliff Richard, Gene Pitney, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Ike & Tina Turner, Long John Baldry, Manfred Mann, Peter & Gordon, Rolling Stones, Ronettes, Roy Orbison, The Animals, Tom Jones and the Walker Brothers.

I first got to know Ian Wright through this website around 2009. In 2011 I met him in person at a gathering of Newcastle club owners and personnel which he had arranged. At this stage Ian had started researching the lives and deaths of Mike Jeffrey and Jimi Hendrix for the book he intended to write and used the gathering as a tool to conduct interviews with some of the key players involved in the lives of Hendrix and Jeffery. Since 2011 Ian and I have kept in touch, sharing our knowledge and research.

Ian’s solid 15 year investigations have now come to fruition in the book. The list of people he interviewed during his exhaustive research is truly impressive. They range from a fellow guitarist who served with Jimi Hendrix in the US army and then became a session guitarist for Motown through to Mike Jeffery’s secretary Trixie Sullivan, and Mike Jeffery’s wife who he married in 1965 when he was managing The Animals.

The book covers topics other than the mysteries that surround the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Mike Jeffery. Here are some of the subjects Ian Wright has written about : –

• His own early career as a press photographer.
• How Newcastle clubs evolved and thrived in the sixties following changes to gambling laws. How Newcastle club owners at the time travelled to Los Vegas in order to learn all the tricks of the trade used in American casinos.
• Mike Jeffery’s early life and how he became a soldier specialising in intelligence and covert operations. His army life including service in conflicts at Trieste and the Suez
• The Club a’ Gogo in Newcastle – a club that Mike Jeffery owned in the 60s.
• How Mike Jeffery’s entertainment agency “MJ Promotions” narrowly missed out on managing folk singer Paul Simon (before he teamed up with Art Garfunkel).
• Mike Jeffery’s marriage to actress Gillian French.
• Mike Jeffery’s role as the manager of The Animals, Jimi Hendrix and others and how he set up the Yameta tax haven in the Bahamas, initially for The Animals and then Hendrix. Millions or pounds of the artist’s earnings went into Yameta never to be seen again by The Animals or Hendrix. Attempts by The Animals to recover money owed to them and held by Yameta were unsuccessful. Ian Wright’s own investigations, including a visit to the bank in the Bahamas that administered the Yameta account also failed to yield conclusive evidence that Mike Jeffery was withholding money from his acts. However, reliable hearsay information obtained by Ian suggests the Yameta account holding substantial funds is still in existence. What’s more, money from various sources is still trickling into the account.
• Jimi Hendrix’s early life in the US Army through to his death in 1970.

Much of the material mentioned above has already been covered in other books. However, some of the information, in particular about Mike Jeffrey has never been published before. Although much of the book’s content isn’t new, it’s Ian’s revelations about the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Mike Jeffery that make the book groundbreaking.

As mentioned above the arguments about how Hendrix died have been going on for years. Ian Wright’s research has led him to believe that there was a different explanation for Hendrix’s death – something that, as far as I am aware, has not previously been put forward – manslaughter. Furthermore, Ian has firmly pointed a finger at a perpetrator responsible for the death. All is revealed in the book.

As far as the death of Mike Jeffrey is concerned there is little doubt that he died in an air crash over France in 1970 when two Spanish passenger planes seemingly collided, one of which exploded killing all the 68 passengers and crew. Since the crash there has been a lot of speculation as to who was responsible for the collision. Was it the Spanish pilot of the second plane, which managed to land safely with no loss of life? Was it military air traffic controllers standing in for civilian air traffic controllers who were on strike at the time? At the time of the accident there were some unanswered questions connected to the debris found on the ground. How did traces of paint used by the French military find their way onto the fuselage of the crashed plane. Why was there fragments of wreckage belonging to another plane found?

Ian Wright and co-author Oliver Wright (a French citizen) spent many frustrating years trying to gain access to transcripts of the “black box” flight recorders from the planes. Although limited access to records was eventually granted to Oliver, their experience of trying to obtain information about the crash has led Ian to the conclusion that there’s still a lot that the French authorities don’t want people to know.

Ian’s research has come up with confirmation that a third plane was involved in the collision something, that the French government has kept under wraps for five decades.

The book answers a lot of previously unanswered questions but it will no doubt lead to more speculation about what really happened in London on 17th and 18th September 1970 but in particular concerning the mystery surrounding the air crash that killed Mike Jeffery. For instance: there were 68 passengers and crew aboard the ill fated plane. However, it was reported that a 69th body was found at the crash site – someone who wasn’t on the plane’s manifest. French secret agents from the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire were sent to the site to recover the body but were not specifically told by their superiors who they were looking for. Could it have been the pilot of the “third” plane mentioned above?

Ian Wright’s book – “Uncovering Deadly Secrets – Jimi Hendrix and Mike Jeffery” will be available available on Amazon on 18th September 2024 (the anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s death).

The post Jimi Hendrix – Deadly Secrets Uncovered appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

Sixteen or so years ago I wrote a brief article on Ready Steady Gone about one of Newcastle’s iconic sixties clubs – the Club a’Gogo. Back then the website was in an embryonic stage. The website was based on my own diaries and memories of the bands I’d played with and the venues that I’d performed at in the northeast between 1965 and 1972.

At the time I felt that I should publish an article about the Club a’Gogo. Not just because I’d played there in 1965, 1966 and 1968 with several local bands but also because I was aware of the club’s rich history. Most music buffs will know that The Animals started their life at the Club a’Gogo. Their name will always be inextricably linked to the club in the same way that the Beatles will always be associated with the Cavern in Liverpool. Similarly, the names of certain individuals such as Eric Burdon and Alan Price continue to be linked with the club. Also Jimi Hendrix who, under the management of former Animal Chas Chandler, performed at the Club a’Gogo in 1967 at one of his very early UK gigs.

My Club a’Gogo page started off mainly as a history of the club based on my own memories, information I’d gleaned from the internet and old newspaper archives. (There wasn’t too much about the Club a’Gogo on the internet at the time.) However, after a short time visitors to the page who knew about the club in the sixties began feeding me information. They included musicians, ex-Gogo staff, club goers plus others with information that wasn’t already on the page. The page began to expand and with it the number of daily visitors.

While this was going on the legend of the Club a’Gogo was also growing on a global platform. The club was being mentioned in books, magazines, TV and film documentaries in particular in connection with Mike Jeffery, the club’s owner who was later to become the manager of Jimi Hendrix. A few years ago Newcastle City Council erected a commemorative plaque on the building that replaced the original Club a’Gogo premises.

Static web site pages containing historic information tend not to attract repeat visitors and for that reason I added material to the page whenever I came across something new. But the thing that really kept the Club a’Gogo page alive and active was when I opened it up to comments in 2013. Ex-Club a’Gogo members and others began to post their memories of the club and also communicate with each other via the Comments Section at the foot of the page. Between 2013 and 2020 over 750 comments and messages were posted.

A prolific commenter on the page was Michael (Mick) Dunn. His comments stood out amongst others because of his detailed recollections of Club a’Gogo events, bands and even the names of the individual people he knew from the club over fifty years ago. He didn’t keep a diary or memorabilia from those days. He didn’t need to – his memory is all he needs. To say he has a phenomenal recall of his own experiences at the club during its heyday would be an understatement.

After his days at the Club a’Gogo, Mick had a very busy career working his way up from an engineer to chief engineer, mainly in the oil and gas industry. He travelled extensively all over the world working, amongst other places in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Gabon, UAE, Turkey, Qatar, Italy, Taiwan and Japan. Eventually he worked as a senior manager for one of the largest contractors in the world before retiring.

As a teenager Mick first started going to the unlicensed Young Set at the Club a’Gogo around 1962. In 1965 he started venturing into the licensed Jazz Lounge, the part of the club designated for over 18s. In spite of a very active and interesting career Mick regards his time at the Club a’Gogo as a very important part of his life. As he says – “We had our moment and it lasted forever.”

I’ve been fortunate to connect with Mick Dunn recently and ask him about his memories of the life and times of the Club a’Gogo as seen through his eyes. Memories that he’s kept fresh in his mind for over five decades. Here’s what he had to say: –

Why do you think the Club a’Gogo was so special for you and others?

Why was the Club A’Gogo so special? Well, it was a culmination of many factors. It wasn’t just about the music, it was primarily about us, the former teenagers, who had so much enthusiasm for life and we interacted accordingly.  Anyone who was a regular knew everyone else and you could always go there and meet up with someone you knew, be it the Haymarket crew, those who drank in the Bridge on folk nights, the Olde George, and the long-gone pubs such as the Adelaide, the Bacchus, Burgoyne’s and the Plough. Let us not forget this was THE era of the last century and we were all privileged to be a part of it and to make it what it was. We were the first ever teenagers with the freedom to enjoy being young.

A while ago I wrote an article on Ready Steady Gone called Stairway To Heaven about how getting into the club was all part of the Gogo experience. Let me ask you about your memories of that.

There used be a girl on the door who took money and sat behind a counter, she had a calliper and a stick and had short black hair in a Cilla Black type style and she wore a slide too. She was around for most of 1967. The other girl who took money was Sandra Young. Tommy Crum was on the door looking distinctly like ‘Oddjob’ with his bald head and tightly belted black leather coat. Along with Keith Gibbon there was a tall guy called Terry with a pock marked face. The membership cards were a ‘yellowish’ colour and you had to sign it. It had your date of birth on, which some would scratch out. I had mine laminated by my old friend Johnnie Bell who at the time was working in the CA Parsons drawing office and had access to a laminator. Apparently, they brought out a red booklet type membership card after some time, but I never had one. 

I understand there were sometimes long queues to get into the Club a’Gogo.

Queues were often quite long and sometimes stretched around the corner of Leazes Park Road. In the queue you would invariably see someone that you were familiar with to chat to or even make a new friend. One not so wholesome aspect of the queue was the Skinyard (not a slaughterhouse as some would have it) with its creaky, split wooden gate held closed by a chain through two heavy iron rings set in the wood and a heavy padlock. The gate was about a foot off the cobblestone entrance, which was made for 19th century carts with the blood running through the cobblestones at the entrance. If you leaned against the gate (and many did) the gates would go into a ‘Vee’ and you would move into the gate by around a foot.

Unlike some I never walked to the  front of the queue but just waited with the others chatting/smoking or whatever. Waller Morton and Kenny Langlands would roll up in front of the club in a taxi from the Labour Club on Leazes Park Road, maybe 300 yards away around the corner, wearing three-piece suits and ties complete with pocket watches and chains. They would go straight in without queueing. Waller thought this was great, so he told me. The only other person I ever saw wearing a waistcoat and pocket watch was Dave Slattery.  

What do you remember about the Club a’Gogo DJs and staff?

One of the DJs was older than us, maybe around 20? However, in those days it was not an age gap – it was more like a chasm. I remember him playing the Beatles first album in its entirety and as I recall the only album that he played. I once came up from down south in ’64 the week the Stones Not Fade Away was released and I asked him if he had it. He hadn’t even heard of it – age chasm! I think his name was Dave. As to Mary Kegg, another DJ (not Cegg or Clegg as some would have it). I always liked her she was more for guys than girls). Sorry she is no longer with us. I last had a drink with her in Carters around ’74 time. 

What do you remember about the Club a’Gogo’s manager, Meyer Thomas?

I saw a post elsewhere recently that Meyer Thomas was seen as ‘scary’. Total nonsense, he was a gentleman of the old school and I remember him as being so.One Saturday afternoon it was quiet in the Young Set and I saw Meyer Thomas coming over. He just came to say hello and asked me if I knew where he could get his double breasted dinner suit remodelled to single breasted. I have no clue as to why he would ask a kid dressed entirely in Levi cord such a question. I didn’t know and told him so. I always addressed him as ‘Mr Thomas’ as did another Gogo DJ, Brian Hetherington (Hethers).

I understand you sat quite close to Eric Clapton at some of his great performances at the Club a’Gogo?

When my old friend Brian Hetherington (Hethers) was DJ in the Young Set I sat in the DJ box with him a few times. I watched Eric Clapton play his white Fender Stratocaster from three feet away when he was in the Bluesbreakers. Over the years I saw many great guitarists but none as accomplished as Eric Clapton. I have always been eternally grateful to Hethers for affording me the opportunity to witness greatness at such close quarters. I last saw Brian in The Three Bulls when he was visiting Newcastle  in 2017 and I told him that I had always been grateful to him for that.  

A lot of people went to the Club a’Gogo, not necessarily to see the bands, but for the records that the DJs were playing and for the dancing. What can you remember about the dancing at the club?

The Twizzle was popular in the early days it consisted of standing with your feet at an angle and driving your right knee backwards and forwards whilst swinging your dangling arms loosely around your body. Some would jump and change their position. It was a dance done well to the Rolling Stones ’Come On’. 

The Prince Philip consisted of holding your hands behind your back whilst bending from your midriff and doing some pecking motion – bizarrre or what! 

There is always conjecture as to who was the best dancer – Kenny James maybe. Seeing him dancing to Lou Christie’s ‘Lightnin’ Strikes’ at the Club a’Gogo is something I’ve always remembered. When I hear the track on the radio all I see is Kenny getting right down to it. Let’s not forget Louie Lumsden and Ernie Bell too along with Tony Cook who apparently picked up the beat from the floor vibrations as he had a hearing problem. I remember Paul France dancing with his hands in his combat jacket too.There was one dance where the girls would fold their arms out in front of them and raise themselves up on the balls of their feet whilst sticking their lower halves out, it was usually done slowly.

Another Gogo “character” was Kenny James. You’ve already mentioned him dancing to Lou Christie’s “Lightning Strikes”. What else do you remember about him?

Yes, Kenny’s dancing was great. We went to the now defunct Banqueting Hall in Jesmond Dene a few times together too and it was the same scenario. He usually wore his famous green tartan jacket. Sometimes there were altercations but we didn’t get involved. I hoped to bump into him again but that was not to be. The last time I saw him was at the top of the Bigg Market when it was raining heavily, and I was waiting to cross the road he was moving quickly, and I saw him out the corner of my eye as he passed behind me with two friends. I said ‘Ken – but he was gone, and the lights had changed then he was away. Thanks for the memories, Kenny.

I found out that Marcus Price died in September 2018 aged 84. I thought that as he was a part of our young lives and he clothed many a Club a’Gogo regular (including me) that he deserves a mention. I used to come up from down south and I would visit the Percy Street store. Marcus was always very amiable. His father was sometimes there. He was a true gentleman and liked to chat with us young folks.

Marcus Price (inset) and his Percy Street shop near Club a’Gogo’s entrance (photo courtesy of Newcastle Evening Chronicle)

Alan Hull had a band that played at the Gogo maybe twice? I personally never saw them. His band was The Chosen Few, who later evolved into Skip Bifferty minus Hull. I did see Skip Bifferty at the Gogo though. Mick Gallagher from The Chosen Few replaced Alan Price in The Animals in 65 prior to his Skip Bifferty days. When Skip Bifferty split they went on to become The Blockheads (Ian Dury’s band),Mick Gallagher later went on to join The Animals and Friends. 

Alan Hull later formed Lindisfarne and his Winter Song was considered by Elvis Costello to be the finest song ever written. I am not so sure about that, as music is very subjective. 

Years later Alan Hull became the mentor to my former stepson who plays for Stiff Little Fingers (SLF) and has done so for over twenty years. One time I decided to clear out my garage at my former home and put two cycle frames up for sale. So this beardie-weirdie guy came to buy them. Amongst the things due to go to the dump was a tea chest full of reel-to-reel tapes brought home from a now defunct recording studio in Carliol Square (Mortonsound) by my former stepson. The guy was quite excited about the tea chest and asked if he could have the tapes. So I gave them to him. Among them was the original Winter Song tape, which mentions Felling School Choir on the label.

There was also the original ‘Gascoigne Tapes’ which featured Paul Gascoigne from when he did his version of ‘Fog on The Tyne’ along with some comments and ramblings which would never be aired. 

Footballer Paul Gascoigne with Alan Hull and other members of the band Lindisfarne

Alan Hull was a frequent visitor to my former home, mostly when I was living in Holland in the mid-eighties. We were not exactly each other’s favourite persons. I will leave it at that.

Mick’s memories of the Club a’Gogo days are clear, concise and paint some great images of what the club was like in the mid-60s and what it meant to be part of one of the groups of friends who were regulars there. These are the people who made the Club a’Gogo what it was.

Of course there would be many Club a’Gogo visitors that Mick didn’t know. For instance – casual attenders, students, visitors to the Newcastle area, different groups of friends and people out ‘on the town’ in Newcastle. Amongst those there will be people who have their own memories of Newcastle’s iconic club.

Many Club a’Gogo members and others regularly used to post comments on the main Club a’Gogo page. These comments became less frequent at the outset of the Covid pandemic in 2021.

There were probably two reasons for this. Firstly, most people only have a limited recall of past times and events. Perhaps their stories or memories about the Club a’Gogo were drying up and they had no more to say. However, I think the main reason was that a Facebook page in honour of the Club a’Gogo was set up at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Through social Media the organisers traced people who had previously contributed to the comments section on this site’s Club a’Gogo page. These people were contacted and invited to join the new Facebook group. Many took up on the offer and began posting their memories on the Facebook group rather than on Ready Steady Gone.

Facebook is clearly a better medium for communicating online in real time than a comments section on a website such as Ready Steady Gone. However, anything posted on Facebook tends to ‘disappear’ after a few days and is not always easily accessible at a later date. Consequently, some cherished memories of the Club a’Gogo have now been lost. For this reason both Mick and I hope that people will begin to share their memories of the Club a’Gogo again, either on this page or the main Club a’Gogo page on this site.

The post Club a’Gogo Remembered As It Was appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

The Who’s first gig on Teesside was at Mister McCoy’s in Middlesbrough on 7th January 1966, a couple of months after the release of the band’s first big hit single – “My Generation”. It was a memorable occasion for many people including myself. I was a member of the support band that night.

My time playing in live bands spans six decades (1964 to 2024) albeit with a break between 1973 and 1997 when I was building up a home and raising kids. During my performance years, the quality of the gigs I played at was variable. Some were mind blowing but most were run of the mill. Others were quite dire – the type of gig where you want to turn your back on the ten indifferent members of the audience and go home. Thankfully most of the gigs I did over the period were enjoyable.

My first experience of a truly mind blowing gig happened in January 1966. I’d joined Sunderland based R&B band Jazzboard four months earlier. At the time Jazzboard had a good name in Sunderland with quite a lot of followers. However, most of the band’s gigs up to that point had been in and around the town of Sunderland. After I joined Jazzboard, the band’s manager Bert Lowes went all out to raise the band’s profile throughout the whole of the northeast and fill up the bookings diary. Pretty soon he had established links with many northeast promoters including John McCoy who ran Kirk Levington Country Club and Mister McCoy’s Club in Middlesbrough.

Within a few months of me joining Jazzboard the band began to build up a good reputation in the northeast performing at venues further afield than Sunderland. When we heard that we’d been booked to appear at Mister McCoy’s in Middlesbrough on the 7th of January 1966 supporting The Who we were all in a state of ecstasy. A week before that, on New Year’s Eve we’d played only our second Teesside gig at another of John McCoy’s clubs – Kirk Levington Country Club supporting John’s band – the Crawdaddies. It was a great gig. It seemed that the whole of the crowd was on our side. It certainly whet our appetites for the forthcoming Who gig.

Mister McCoy’s Club opened on 3rd December 1965 with a lineup of Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames supported by the seven-piece Soul band – John McCoy’s Crawdaddies. The club promised an amazing array of top bands over the coming months. In the club’s diary were appearances, amongst others, by :

Stevie Wonder, Specer Davis, the Small Faces, Steam Packet, Jimmy James & the Vagabonds and Solomon Burke.

It’s most likely that John McCoy struck lucky when he booked The Who for the January gig. Up to the autumn of 1965, although the band had achieved two top ten hits – ‘I Can’t Explain’ and ‘Anyhow Anyway Anywhere’ and were fairly well known through their TV appearances on Ready Steady Go, they were by no means as famous as they would become throughout 1966 after the success of My Generation.

The Who recorded their first album ‘My Generation’ between April and November 1965. The release of the album on 3rd December 1965 was preceded by the single My Generation on 29th October which shot to number two in the charts. By the time of the Mister McCoy’s gig the single had slipped ten places or so but by this time The Who were much in demand.

So what are my memories of The Who gig at Mister McCoy’s on Friday, the 7th of January 1966?

Well, we travel down the A19 from Sunderland to Middlesbrough in our Commer van. Jazzboard’s personnel is: Bruce Lowes (vocals,) Jimmy Hall (keys), me – Roger Smith (sax), Brian Hughes (bass) and Nigel Olson of Elton John fame (drums). Manager Bertie Lowes is at the wheel. Some of our fans and a couple of girlfriends wanted to travel to the gig in the van with us but with six people plus our equipment it isn’t possible – nor do we want it to be!

We arrive at Mister McCoy’s on Bottomley Street Middlesbrough well on time. This is our first time there. The exterior of the club is quite mundane on a fairly narrow thoroughfare off Linthorpe Road. To its right is another of John McCoy’s ventures – the Purple Onion coffee bar.

We take all our equipment into the club’s main area. The Who’s equipment is already on stage so we set up around that. In those days bands didn’t have stage monitors – just back line amplifiers, a drum kit and front of house speakers. The stage is fairly wide anyway so it leaves us enough room for our gear.

The dressing room or green room, call it what you will, is a fairly narrow room at the end of a longish corridor. When we enter, we expect to meet The Who; Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwisle and Keith Moon. But they’re not there. The two roadies tell us that the band members have gone off for something to eat and drink and would be back before their set. The roadies regale us with stories about The Who. One of them comments that if our band (Jazzboard) were to be the same position as the Who we would be more successful because we’re all better looking. He emphasises that each member of the Who has some facial flaw making them quite an ugly band – (I’m not sure I agree with what he says).

Jazzboard play the warm up set to a fairly crowded room and seem to go down well. Some of our fans from Sunderland have made the 30 mile journey and are in the audience.

We come off stage and go back to the green room. This time The Who and their roadies are all there. John Entwisle is wearing the Union Jack jacket as seen on the ‘My Generation‘ album (most photos of that era show Peter Townshend wearing it). Pete is wearing a mohair jacket with a long vent in the back. Keith Moon is wearing a white T shirts bearing the text “POW” with smaller letters “Dave Berry” below that – (more about the T shirt later).

After chatting for fifteen minutes or so The Who take their leave and go on stage. By this time the club is packed out. The Who put on a great performance which builds up to the finale – ‘My Generation’. There’s a couple of things in The Who’s set that we don’t expect. We’d heard that in their live version of My Generation Roger Daltrey doesn’t sing the line on the record that goes “Why don’t you all f-f-fade away?” substituting it with “Why don’t you all f-f-f*ck off?”. We’d heard wrong! He sings the same line as the record. Neither does the “on-stage” systematic demolition of Keith Moon’s drum kit and Pete Townshend’s amplification happen.

By the time The Who launch into ‘My Generation’ the club’s bouncers are already lining the front of the stage in anticipation of a stage invasion. One of those bouncers recalled decades later: –

”As to “The Who” at Mr McCoys Club, this was the only time that I was ever engaged in “club-security”. Chief-bouncer Chris “Buff” Harding, insisted that us Purple Onion coffee-bar staff joined a hand linked cordon of door staff in front of the stage to prevent any “surge” toward the band. This gave us a magnificent vantage-point of just four feet away from their performance, up on the small two foot high stage. Afterwards, I think most “punters” were secretly disappointed that Messrs Townsend and Moon had not gone into their infamous “auto-destruction” mania with the instruments and amplifiers. Perhaps, a two hundred capacity crowd of young Teessiders on an early January night, was simply not the right “showcase” for that extra-over part of their stage act? The only other factor I recall of that evening, was the “magnificent” vent in the back of Pete Townsends mohair suit jacket. It stretched up, almost to his shoulder blades. Amazing, how little things like that seemed “important” way back then, eh?”

Towards the end of the set the crowd surges forward and some attempt to mount the stage. The bouncers succeed in holding them back. Our manager Bert Lowes, an elderly gentleman built like a brick shit house decides to help the bouncers. When things look as if they’re getting under control, the bouncers try and herd the band back to the dressing room ably assisted by our manager. Bert’s focus is getting Keith Moon off the stage in one piece. Seeing Keith’s “POW – Dave Berry” T-shirt he wrongly assumes the wild drummer he has been watching all night and is now protecting is called Dave Berry and starts addressing him as such – “Are you okay Dave?” “This way, Dave” and so on.

The members of Jazzboard also make their way back to the dressing room. There are a few more people in there now – The Who, their roadies, some of the McCoy’s people and a handful of girls but the bouncers aren’t letting too many people in. Keith Moon is saturated with sweat. He takes off his POW T-shirt, wrings it out and throws it on the floor. He changes into another T-shirt.

Over the next half hour or so The Who and Jazzboard unwind in the dressing room. Other people come and go. Mr McCoys isn’t licensed to sell alcohol so the lights go on in the main club and it empties before midnight. It’s time to dismantle our equipment so we all move out of the dressing room into the empty club. The Who and their roadies follow us.

Nigel Olsson, our drummer is talking to Keith Moon. They seem to be hitting it off fairly well. I ask Keith for a couple of autographs for my girlfriend and sister.

After we pack up our equipment and take it back downstairs to our van, Bert our manager (and driver) is ready to go. Nigel is invited back to The Who’s hotel by Keith Moon to continue the party with him and the band. The rest of us get into the van and trundle back on the A19 to Sunderland.

As regards Nigel and Keith Moon, here John McCoy recalls some of the happenings at the Corporation Hotel, Middlesbrough where the Who stayed after the gig. (The interview was recorded with BBC radio Teeside in 2016); –

The commentator, Bob Fischer first asks John if he remembers the Jazzboard” John McCoy replies: –

“Jazzboard – they were from Sunderland. Nigel Olsson was the drummer. I think they supported the Who the night the the Who came up. Caused mayhem. They did for the Corporation Hotel. I sat in the little side bar with Pete Townshend and rapped on until about 6 o’clock in the morning. He was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met – extremely interesting guy you know. Mooney was just systematically dismantling the premises. Fire extinguishers going off you know, wrecking the lifts. All bloody sorts you know.”

By all accounts, Nigel Olsson spent the night partying with Keith Moon and the rest of The Who at the Corporation Hotel in Middlesbrough. The following day Keith paid for Nigel’s taxi fare back to his home in Sunderland. The fare was £17 (around £300 to £400 in 2024), an amount Nigel said Keith wasn’t happy about at the time.

What went on that night is something Nigel kept to himself but as the weeks and months went by he did occasionally let the odd thing slip. For instance, every time Jazzboard played in Teesside after The Who gig, Nigel seemed to instantly click with some good looking female. When asked how he knew them, he would say “they were in Keith Moon’s hotel room after the night we played with The Who.” On other occasions Nigel would use the expression “doing a Moon” when referring to various exploits with the opposite sex.

I have it on good authority that among the two hundred strong audience that night there were at least two musicians who found fame on an international level. They are Paul Rodgers (Free and Bad Company) and Mick Moody (Whitesnake). At the time both were members of the local Teesside band – the Roadrunners and were friendly with John McCoy.

As for the T-shirt worn by Keith Moon that night. Well, after coming off stage he discarded the sweaty, sodden T shirt in the near proximity of my saxophone case. Somehow, it found its way into the case before the end of the evening and ended up in my possession.

So as well as the memories of an outstanding gig, I still have a tangible memento. My original intention was to give the T-shirt to my then girlfriend, Julie, but in the end decided to keep it. For a few months after that I wore it at Jazzboard gigs, which proved to be a great chat up line.

I suppose if I could actually prove the T shirt was worn by Keith Moon it may have some monetary value. Unfortunately people didn’t have iPhones or small digital cameras back then so only the three remaining Jazzboard band members and know the T shirt’s origins.

In spite of the unknown value of the T shirt, my memories of the gig are priceless.

It would be another two years before The Who performed on Teesside again. On Sunday 2nd February 1969 the band appeared at Redcar Jazz Club. In fact, for the five year period from their first Teesside gig at Mr McCoys in January 1966 through to the end of 1970 The Who only appeared on Teesside three times – twice at Redcar Jazz Club (2/2/69 and 27/7/69) and at the ABC Cinema, Stockton on 22/10/70.

The post The Who On Teesside appeared first on Ready Steady Gone!.

It’s with a very heavy heart that I must share some sad news. Roger, who had been battling cancer for the past year, passed away on Monday, 21st October.

Ready Steady Gone started simply as a list of Rog’s gigs with the bands he played in—Jazzboard, Scallywag, James South, and others—but he was always proud of this site and the stories he could share here. As the site evolved into full-length articles and recollections pulled from his scrapbook, what made him most proud was the community he created through all of your contributions, comments, and memories. He particularly loved that he had managed to connect others who were part of the 60s music scene and that his blog posts became a way for people to reminisce alongside him. He truly appreciated everyone’s comments and the conversations you all shared. With that in mind, I’ll make sure the site remains active and the comments stay open; before he passed, he made it clear how important it was to him that you all could still access the site even after he was gone.

Rog wasn’t just a talented musician (and music historian); he was an incredible painter, and his house here in Wiltshire is filled with the art and music he created over the years. Personally, I like to think that his lasting legacy will be how he inspired others with the creativity he brought into life. Both my brother and I picked up instruments in our teens thanks to his influence, and now we both work in visual arts-related fields, and our mum—his wife, Eileen—has a home full of happy memories. If you’d like to remember Rog, I hope you’ll do so by going out and creating something yourself and by continuing the spirit of Ready Steady Gone, sharing more of your recollections here.

Mae Smith

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