JOHNNY MORRIS
and the
CONVERTIBLES
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ISBN: 9781301834891
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© Copyright 2003 by Terry Aspinall
Table of Contents
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Other Books by this Author
Dedication
To the many friends I have made in the music industry over the past 50 years. They are numbered in there hundreds and this list is still steadily growing as we all embrace the internet, and pass around stories of actual events so that the public may learn and enjoy what we and others like us got up to.
Introduction
This story is fiction, however it is based on a collection of events that actual happened to me or some of my musician friends during my 50 years in the music industry.
The story takes you back to the late 1950's and through to the swinging sixties, when the musical world suddenly awoke to the sounds of a new musical revolution that was emerging from all parts of England. Johnny Morris and the Convertibles were part of that revolution that took them on one hell of a wild ride, as they slowly made their way to the top of their profession. While enjoying the brighter side of life along the way, they often fell victim to the darker side, that lay in wait, and in the end, it became their undoing.
This is a personal account of how Johnny Morris remembers his rise and fall.
I would also like to apologise in advance for any mistakes that you might find as I rely heavily on the so called latest modern spell checker.
Chapter 1
THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
Sitting up in my hospital bed, I opened my very old, tattered looking photograph album that had long since seen better days. I was trying desperately to recollect earlier events that had shaped and created my life. During the time when most of the photos had been taken, the people and events captured within each snap shot looked so realistic. They seemed to come alive and jump out at you, as you turned each page. In most cases no explanation was needed to the browser of the album, as to what dramatic moment had been captured on film. Each photo looked so real and modern to any viewer, even though they had been captured many years earlier. Unlike the old brown discoloured photos that my parents had clung onto, depicting their early family events that had taken place long before I was born.
However, a few years have since passed and now as I look through the album, all of my photos have somehow become faded and discoloured, so that they now look exactly like my parent’s old photo album. The subjects I had captured on film now seem to look like stone statues standing in artificial poses that have no meaning whatsoever to the casual onlooker. Although, to me they are still very real and each recalls events that showers me with every minute detail of the event in question.
I turned each page very slowly, trying to digest every crumb of information that lay before me. While at the same time I was very careful not to damage them further. The photographic experience was helping me recall the events in my life that recorded me chasing a dream for many years, and confirming that it had not been a figment of my imagination.
We all go to the cinema and watch the television, and whatever scene we are watching, it is usually enhanced and comes alive to the sound of music. Not only are our eyes witnessing the event on screen, but our ears are also being treated to a musical extravaganza that is designed to dramatically assist and enhance each scene. Unfortunately and sadly, in real life this does not normally happen. When we have a romantic moment there are no angels flying around our heads plucking harps in the background while singing melodically in our ears. Or if something has gone wrong or there is a disaster affecting our lives, there are no heavy orchestral masterpieces sounding in the distance. At least that is how I perceive life. Therefore, over the years, I learnt to create my own music deep within my head to suit the situation. Whenever something happened to me, I would conjure up some sort of musical theme to go along with the experience. Over the years, I turned it into an art form, and I must admit that it brought me through many problems in my life, as well as providing me with a wealth of ideas for songs and stories that I later found myself writing.
We had all been very young and reckless during those early years, setting a fast pace of life for others who wished to follow in our footsteps. In trying to reach our goals, we had set the world on a complete new path and direction, something that our grandparents would not have liked or agreed with. However, now that we have become the older generation, it is us that have to sit back and watch, as another younger generation take up the challenge, and start to create their version of history just like we did all those years ago, while all we can do is mob and criticise them, just like our parents did to us.
I could not help pausing at a page near the beginning of the album, as my eyes became focused on an old brown and white photo of my Mother Alice, who was sitting very stately like upon a stool by her beloved upright piano. This particular pose had stayed with me over the years, and was how I had always remembered her. Her hands were not on the keyboard but folded neatly in her lap, while she was sitting in a very rigid upright pose for the camera. This was a shame because she had been an excellent player and teacher, having taught most of the children in the area during the years I had spent at school.
The more I looked at the photo the more it seemed to come alive, as I imagined her turning and swinging her legs under the keyboard. She then proceeded to tickle the ivories, as I called it, and to play her favourite tune the "White Cliffs of Dover". She loved that song, and played it constantly during those early years, I guess it remind her of her loving husband Barry who had not returned from the Second World War.
As I had never met my Father I always associated this song with him, as it had a war connection and besides it was the very first tune that I could ever remember. Therefore, whenever I heard it being played, I would have to wipe a small tear from my cheek, as I tried to imagine how it would have been if we had grown up together.
My Mother was a beautiful woman with long, flowing auburn hair that was usually covered by a brightly coloured silk headscarf, as was the fashion for working class Mothers in those days. Her slender body always gave her an appearance of a young film star, and I can still remember the men folk of her age all giving her a second glance as we walked past, while some used to whistle at her once we were in the distance. I had learnt to copy them, so that I could whistle back some sort of reply. However, Mother hated that and would always be telling me off, by saying that it only encouraged them and drew further attention to us.
For some unknown reason she had never taken another husband. I guess she wanted to remain true to the only person she had ever really loved. To prove this she would constantly be telling me stories about my Father, and of what a nice person he had been. Unfortunately, it was left to my imagination to work out how we would have got on together.
However, it was not for the lack of chasing admirers, because we lived near an American Air Force base, and there were always many servicemen walking around the town at any one time while on leave. For some reason she chose not to take up the many offers that she must have had during those early years. Upon reflection, I can only remember her ever bringing home a couple. I gue
ss it never worked out for her. What I do remember is the struggle that she went through in order to provide for us over the years. She would take any job that was available to her, which was usually shop assistant work.
In the late forties, we moved to the suburb of Combs Wood and into what was known as a small prefabricated house, it being a low set building that was specially constructed very cheaply to house the local people just after the war. They had been designed to last for only ten years, when in actual fact most of them stood for nearly forty.
As I continued to turn the pages of the album, my Mother returned to her statue-like pose by the piano, as "The White Cliffs of Dover" slowly faded into the background. My eyes scanned the next page and settled onto a photo of myself sitting amongst a group of young school friends by the town’s swimming pool. What stood out to me more than anything was how sun tanned I looked and even at that age, I was already developing into a muscular lad. Suddenly I could hear Elvis Presley singing "Heartbreak Hotel". "Well since my baby left me", how could I ever forget those words? Therefore, I immediately knew that the photo had been taken in late May 1956, and that I would have been only thirteen years old at the time. This was the very first time that I ever heard Elvis sing, and to what later became known as Rock n Roll music. The people in the photo all started to come alive as the song in my head progressed.
In the background of the photo were two girls sitting on the rough wooden seats that were built around the viewing area of the swimming pool, while in between them sat the very first small portable radio that most of us had ever seen. However, it was the music that came out of its speaker that grabbed our imaginations, sounding unlike anything we had ever heard before. For some unknown reason we could not contain ourselves and we all launched into some sort of jitterbug frenzy, trying to dance to it by the side of the pool. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but it sure as hell felt good.
Until that day, not only did I not know what Elvis sounded like, but also I had no idea as to what he looked like. However, that was soon to change as one of the girls, known as Maureen, handed me a magazine with a coloured picture on its cover of the man himself. The first thing that caught my eye was the bright colour of his shirt, it being deep claret red. My attention was then grabbed by his hairstyle and to the way that it was plastered down on his head, by what looked like some sort of grease. Maureen, who was a few years older than me, told me to open the magazine, so that I could see a small article on the man himself inside.
Late that afternoon, as most of the public were leaving the pool, I walked over to where we had all been sitting to look for my towel, not wanting to return home without it, as my Mother would have given me a good talking to for losing it. Sure enough, there was my towel and lying right beside it was the magazine that Maureen had let me read. After looking around to see if I was being watched, I picked it up, wrapped it in my towel, and beat a hasty retreat before she came back to retrieve her precious magazine.
At home, I spent hours and hours just looking at the picture of Elvis, while wondering what it would be like to be on stage, and to be able to sing just like him, while besieged by hundreds of screaming girl fans. Then while standing in front of our very small bathroom medicine cabinet mirror, I tried to pout my lips in order that I could look just like him. I then tried to sing the only words of the song that I could remember at that time, "Down at the end of lonely street". I must have found over one hundred different ways of trying to sing those words, while prancing around the bathroom. I’ve often wondered what Mother thought was happening in the bathroom at that time. Because up until then, she would have to threaten me with physical violence just to get me inside the room, let alone get me in the bath, and now she could not get me out of the place.
I even tried to get my hair to look the same as Elvis. Not having any Brylcream, the normal hair-grooming grease that was available in those days, I borrowed some Vaseline from the medicine cabinet. Having applied the grease to my hair, I then spent several hours trying to make it look just like Elvis. In the end, I kidded myself that I had found a way of getting it to look as near as possible to the man. However, there was a down side to my experiments, the greasy black stains that mysteriously appeared on my bedroom pillow, after sleeping on it for a couple of nights. Not to mention my Mother’s constant nagging, wanting to know why all the Vaseline had suddenly disappeared from the cabinet. I hoped she didn’t think that I was using it for something else. Deep inside I knew that she was aware of where it had gone, so I tried to make a joke of it by telling her that I could not scrape it off the pillow and replace it back in the container. She must have forgiven me because, on her very next shopping excursion, she bought me a small jar of Brylcream and a brand new plastic hair comb, while I bought myself a small scrapbook and glued the colour picture of Elvis on the very first page. As far as I was concerned, he was my number one idol and I was his number one fan. I’m sure if I had known how, I would have built a shrine and prayed to him almost every day.
In order that I could accompany myself singing, I started tapping a beat on a small cardboard box that I found in my bedroom toy cupboard, while imagining I was a drummer. At times, I got quite good, or at least I thought so, and progressed into playing along with any tune that came on the radio. I guess I must be one of the only guys who accompanied classical music on cardboard boxes. I could already hear the announcer in my head; "And now, at great public expense to the tune of a refundable cardboard box, I introduce to you all, the melodic tapping of Mr Thumper Tune".
At a later date I returned to the swimming pool hoping to see Maureen and Patty, as I wanted to ask what station they had been listening to. I had spent time scanning the channels of my Mother’s radio, but all I could find were the BBC Radio bands. At that time there were only three of them. The Home Service that was strictly for people who wanted to listen to current affairs and debates. Then there was what was known as the Third Program that was for the highbrow upper-class people and it only played Classical and Orchestral stuff. For people like myself there was the Light Program, that played what was known as light music of the day, and consisted of a few ballads that had been around for a couple of years and were constantly being repeated, songs that were sung by local artists like Dickey Valentine, Anne Shelton and Vera Lynn, while from America there were Frankie Lane, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney.
On Sundays, at midday, there was a program called Family Favourites that was produced especially for the British servicemen and their families. The servicemen were usually based in Germany, Cyprus, Aden and Singapore, while their families were holding the fort back in the United Kingdom. Messages of goodwill were passed on to each other, and culminated in a request for a record for their loved ones. Mostly these requests consisted of some sort of orchestral masterpiece, but occasionally a more modern piece of music was requested. One of the more favoured ones at that time was by Pat Boone, an American artist singing "I’ll Be Home". I guess the title says it all for the servicemen to their families, and so this song was usually played at least once a month. Unfortunately, it was a ballad type of song, and so it was not really what I wanted to hear. To me it was what I called a wishy washy sort of song because it had no go in it. It was music that made you go to sleep and what I wanted to listen to made you want to jump up and dance. However, it was a change from the usual type of rubbishy music that was usually played on the program. Therefore, I guess the establishment was gradually changing their boring ways in order that they might retain a younger audience.
We had no record player but, even if we had, the records of the time known as 78s because they ran at 78 rpm (revolutions per minute) were all designed to attract the older generation, as they were the ones with the money. However, this was all about to change, and in doing so, it would ruffle a few feathers of the so called established music moguls in the country. It was also impossible to obtain American records in the United Kingdom, which was why we had to rely on what became known as substandard E
nglish versions of the original American hits. The Musician’s Union of that time had a stranglehold on what the radio stations were allowed to play, and to what proportion of overseas musical content was allowed to be slotted in between the local live and recorded music.
Maureen informed me that she listened to a Dutch radio station known as Hilversham, and that at certain times of the day they had special programs that played the latest music coming out of America. It did not matter that you could not understand the announcer as he talked in between tracks, because Elvis sounds the same in any language. Anyway, once the record started to play there was no mistaking who it was.
Back at home I spent a lot of time fiddling with the radio while trying to find Radio Hilversham, not really knowing where it actually was. The wave band number that Maureen had given me did not seem to be playing music that I wanted to hear. It was only after several attempts that I realised that the music I craved for was not played all the time, it was only on the odd occasion that you would hear it.
However, after a couple of days I convinced myself that I had found it, but this lead to two problems. One was that I had to sit through many hours of music that I hated and did not want to hear, in order to be listening when Elvis finally came on. The second problem was that the radio reception was poor, and during the day the station kept fading badly. Therefore, I decided to do something about it, by attaching a piece of wire to the radio aerial connection on the back of the radio and threading the other end through a hole in the glass window by the radio. I then climbed up the side of the house and attached the other end of the wire to the metal rainwater guttering. It did not solve the problem completely but it did improve the reception to an acceptable level. It was strange but I worked out that the signal to the radio always seemed to be much stronger in the evenings, and became stronger as we progressed into the night, although I never did know why.
Turning another page of the album, the sounds of "Heartbreak Hotel" suddenly started to fade into the background, as I found myself looking at a coloured portrait of myself. I was dressed in a bright blue and black striped shirt with my collar turned up, and was wearing a pair of black tight legged trousers with fourteen inch bottoms that became known as Drainpipes, trying my utter most to look like Elvis. However, what stood out was the fact that I had a guitar hanging from my neck, and an artificial trick cigarette which I had taken from the Christmas tree the year before, hanging from the corner of my lips. My left hand was around the neck of the guitar while my right hand looks like it is plucking the strings although I doubt it. My head was suddenly filled with the sounds of Elvis singing "Blue Suede Shoes", another one of his hits that came out a little later that same year. At that time, it seemed like every record that he brought out was destined to be a big hit.
Even though I credit my Mother with successfully teaching most of the children in our area how to play the piano, I was to be her one and only failure. I was the only person that she finally gave up trying to teach. Even after she took the time to write the actual notes in pencil on every single white key, it still did not help me. I do not know what the problem was, but for some reason I could not get a grasp what she was trying to explain to me. Mind you, my heart was not in it and I hated the hours and hours of constant practice, going up and down the so called scales, to me it was so boring. Knowing that it was my Mother teaching me I guess I knew that I could get away with not practising, and so I finally gave it up altogether. At that time most of the other children were all forced into keeping up the lessons because their parents had paid a lot of money for them to learn. Somehow, it was just not me; although with that wonderful tool known as hindsight, if she had taught me how to play Rock and Roll then I think I would have picked it up overnight. In those days the keyboard to me was not a swinging instrument or sex symbol, so who wanted to play it? Mind you, at that time I had not heard of artists like Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard, otherwise I’m sure things might have turned out very different for me.
However, when it came to the guitar that was different, because most of the latest up and coming stars of that time were all playing them, and anyway if I was going to emulate Elvis it was a necessity. I became very frustrated with my Mother’s constant answers, I was always pleading with her to buy me one. Unfortunately, she was having nothing to do with it, and kept reminding me at every opportunity that it would simply be a waste of money, as the guitar was just a passing craze and that it would be dead within a couple of years.
However, my persistence paid off big time, when she finally cracked under the strain. I persuaded her to take me to the nearby town of Ipswich by double-decker bus so that I could purchase a guitar with some money that I had managed to save from a morning newspaper delivery round that I had been involved in for a couple of years. She also agreed to give me a little extra as an early Christmas present, if I helped her around the house for the next six months. Now that was a good trade off and I grabbed it with both hands, knowing that I would be able to twist her around my little finger and get out of any future house chores.
We sat upstairs on the bus and, as there were not many other people around us, I sang to her as we drove along, while accompanying myself by tapping on the back of the seat in front of me. However, halfway through the song I had to refrain from tapping the seat, because I created a thick cloud of dust that came out of the upholstery, which also made my hands very dirty. "Singing the Blues" was her favourite hit song at that time, by the new rising English singing sensation, Tommy Steele, who just happened to play a guitar. It was another English version of an American hit record, by Guy Mitchell. Anyway, I gave her a good ten-minute version, throwing in every ounce of feeling I could muster, and loved every minute of it. Instead of being embarrassed, my Mother enjoyed what I had just sung for her and that made me very happy. If others did not like what I was doing, to heck with them my Mother did and that was fine by me. Anyway, I had just sung her favourite song and in doing so, I had also produced the finest performance of my life so far, and so I had good reason to be proud.
As we walked into the music shop, I felt like I had arrived in Aladdin’s cave, because there was six beautiful guitars all hanging along one of the walls by the counter. It was only then that I suddenly realised that I did not have a clue what to ask for. I had always imagined that there would only be one type of guitar in the shop, and so I would not have to make a choice. I imagined that I would be saying to the sales staff, "I’ll take that one over there, pack it up and I’ll be on my way". Suddenly things were not quite as clear cut as I had expected. I had walked into a completely different ball game, and I could sense that I was somehow getting out of my depth. Having convinced my Mother to take me to the shop, because I knew what I was doing, here I was lost for words, not knowing what to ask for or what to say to the sales staff.
As it turned out, my choices were severely restricted anyway and cut down drastically by the fact that I only had £5-10 shillings in my pocket, and that there was only one guitar in the shop around that price range, a steel-stringed acoustic one. To me, somehow it looked smaller than the other ones alongside it. When I pointed this out to the sales lady, she told me it was a three-quarter one, whatever that meant. It also looked different to the other ones, as its wooden body was very light in colour, unlike the other ones, which were all stained in dark browns. It even felt lighter as if it was made from orange box material, but who was I to complain. I wanted a guitar and here was one that I could afford. I’m sure Elvis never had these problems, and anyway in the end they all sound the same, don’t they?
Once I had agreed with the sales lady that it was the one I wanted, the lady threw in a soft material carry case for me, and I felt over the moon that I had got something for nothing out of the deal. Next, she offered to get it tuned up for me by one of the experts out the back of the shop. I did not have a clue what she was talking about, but I went along with her suggestion, as she knew more about these things than I did, and as for Mum, well, s
he just came along for the bus ride so she could look out the window.
After tuning it up, the so-called expert came to see me and asked if I had ever owned a guitar. Before I answered, I looked around the shop, noticing that a few people were looking at me and listening to the conversation. Not being one who makes a habit of lying, but being a little embarrassed, I had to admit in front of all the other customers in the shop that I had not. The atmosphere suddenly changed, after they realised that I was not some hotshot expert who could play one of these things, and most of the people walked away. The expert then showed me how to play the chord of G, although at the time I did not have a clue what he was showing me for. I was under the impression that your left hand only held the weight of the neck, and that your right hand just thrashed away on the strings over the hole in the middle of the body. The rest was down to how you snarled your lip and wiggled your hip.
The ride home on the bus turned out to be one of the longest journeys I think I ever experienced on public transport. I had the guitar propped upright in its own seat beside me, and my arm around it as if it were my new girlfriend. I could not wait to get it home and to start playing "Blue Suede Shoes," because I had already learnt all of the words to the song. I had finally been able to purchase my very first guitar; there was no way that I was going to be parted from it now. I even gave it a girl’s name. I called it Liz, after a girl at school who I had been chasing unsuccessfully for some time. The shape of it seemed to remind me of Elizabeth’s body shape. Therefore, as you can imagine I was glad that I was not learning how to play the double bass. However, there was a girl in my class that I could have named it after. Lucky for me I had not wasted any of my time chasing big Bertha.
Once home I ran upstairs and put on my blue and black striped shirt, smeared a little Brylcream on my hair and shook the guitar out of the bag. Within seconds, I found myself standing in front of the small mirror in the bathroom once again. However, my rendition of "Blue Suede Shoes" did not sound quite as good as the version I had heard on the radio. Although I was more than happy with my singing, it was the sounds that came from the guitar that seemed to spoil the whole song. It set me back in utter disappointment, after all I was expecting everything to sound perfect, and note for note exactly like the record. It took me several days to get over the bitter disappointment I had experienced after strumming my very first guitar.
Somehow, I kidded myself that Elvis must have gone through the same sort of disappointment when his Mother purchased his very first guitar. If that were the case, then I had to place this major setback to my ego behind me, and work on improving it. After all, Elvis never gave up. He must have picked himself up and just got on with life, while picking up tips along the way as he learnt to play the guitar. Although that could be a problem, as I knew of nobody who knew anything about a guitar.
As another page of the photo album was flicked over, the sound of "Blue Suede Shoes" began to die in the back of my head, as a fast guitar strumming Lonnie Donegan singing "Cumberland Gap" replaced it. I found myself looking at a brown discoloured looking photo of three scruffy looking schoolboys that was taken in early 1957.
My Mother had taken this photo of my very first pop group, showing me with my acoustic guitar once again hung around my neck, while alongside me is my school friend Steve Johnson holding his very nice looking, dark-brown stained acoustic nylon strung guitar, which had obviously cost a lot more money than mine. However, just like me, he could not play his either. Somehow, we had both managed to get as far as we had, by playing the one and only chord that I had been shown at the shop. Unfortunately, for me, during my bus journey ride home, I had forgotten the correct fingering of the strings on the guitar neck, and so we were both playing it all wrong. However, it did seem to fit in nicely to the tune of "Cumberland Gap", a song that I later learnt, and lucky for me, was based around the chord of G. However, we used to play the whole song in the same chord with no changes. Unfortunately, we were also playing a chord of G-7th. For some reason our untrained ears had not picked up a problem, and we both thought we were just great. Even if we had known another chord, I don’t think we would have been able to play it, as we both experienced great difficulties in trying to press the strings down onto the neck behind a fret. For some reason the strings seemed to be positioned at least an inch above the neck. Many times we both experienced bloody fingers during practice session, in our efforts to hold down the chord successfully although my fingers were usually worse as Steve’s strings were made of nylon while mine were of steel. It was also noted that the Lonnie Donegan song while only using one chord, meant to us that all other songs were also played the very same way. This is why we never bothered to learn another chord. Why bother we thought, we would just play and sing everything in G; at least it made sense to us.
The third member in the photo was my neighbour and good friend Colin Peters, and he is holding a mouth organ, something that he could at least get a tune out of, even if it was only "Nelly Dean". He had been a great fan of Larry Adler, the famous harmonica player, having heard him many times on the radio. Although when we accompanied him we always thought that he was playing the wrong notes and were constantly telling him off, it never entered our heads that we were the culprits.
As it was my group I had insisted that I chose the name, and wanting to be the star I had talked them into accepting 'The Johnny Viper Trio'. I chose Johnny because to me all the new stars that were emerging from the English music scene in those days were using it. Lloyd Price from America had even brought out a song titled "I’m Gonna Get Married" and it contained the line "Johnny you’re too young"; somehow it had a ring to it, and had stuck in the back of my mind. I liked the word Viper, because it was the name of a Skiffle group based in London. The viper is a snake and at one time, I had toyed with the word adder, which is another name for the viper. Somehow "Johnny and the Adders" would not have sounded quite right. Maybe in today’s society 'Johnny and the Calculators' would have worked, but not in those days, after all nobody knew what a calculator was.
In those days, I was a very persuasive and persistent type of person, as well as being dominant and forceful at times, used to getting my own way even if it hurt those around me at the time. In this way, I was always able to force Steve and Colin into playing whatever songs I wanted, and to doing it my way. However, there were times when I had to concur with their ideas because I was not the best musician around, and at times they actually knew a little more about it than I did. During those times, I would manage to turn everything around so that it looked like it had been my idea in the first place. I can even remember winning a vote that was taken, even though it ended up being a two to one result against me. I was always winding people up, and once I had them hooked, I would delight in laughing at them, telling them that as they had taken the bait I was only reeling them in.
In hindsight, I guess you could say that it all came about through me growing up without a Father figure in my life and a very kind Mother who although struggling to feed us, did not want me to go without. Others have described me as being spoilt and a bit of a bully during those early days at school. I like to look at it another way, that I only stood up for myself. There was no way that I was going to let others push me around, even if there were more than one of them. Over the years this worked in my favour, as most people thought twice before they picked on me. If ever I was beat to the ground and covered in blood, somehow I would manage to get to my feet and then throw the very last punch, nobody was ever going to beat me and they knew it. This ensured that the friends I attracted around me knew the stakes, and never disagreed with whatever I suggested. There were also those who chose to befriend me in an effort to use my reputation as protection from their enemies, but it did not worry me. Mind you, where Colin and Steve were concerned we were all good mates and I would have gone to the ends of the world rather than lose their friendship. Nobody and I mean nobody came between us, and we all watched each other’s backs.
L
ooking at an old black and white photo of the Secondary Modern School, with all of my fellow students lined up in rows across the playground, I was reminded of an incident that somehow became folk law amongst the pupils of that era. It all started off very innocently, when one of the teachers, a Mr Trowel, accused me of something that I had nothing to do with. Because I was innocent there was no way that I was going to accept the punishment that he ordered upon me. I remember as if it was yesterday, that I did not speak to him using bad language or by being flippant. All I did was try to explain that he had accused the wrong person and so there was no way that I was going to allow him to cane me, for something I had not done His favourite weapon at that time was a thin strip of wire inserted rubber that he championed upon many boys in the school for any minor misdemeanour that he accused them of committing. School children of the day were never believed and had no rights, whatever the teachers accused you of doing, you were guilty and it was no good trying to tell them different. An old saying of the time was "Little boys should be seen but not heard". You weren’t even allowed to cry when they caned you. Between each stroke of the cane if you cried out the teacher would order you to stop crying. Otherwise he would administer more strokes of punishment, which he did anyway in order that you received the correct amount that he had originally awarded you. This always made me believe that there were not many rocket scientists as schoolteachers. How the hell can you get somebody to stop crying if you keep hitting him? Anyway because of my constant refusal to accept the punishment I was sent home to wait for whatever punishment they could devise, to make an example of me in front of others at the school. Not wanting other pupils to react in the same way, thinking it might cause an uprising of disobedience.
At one time the police were brought in, although I had no idea what they were going to charge me with, as I had done nothing wrong other than to resist some sort of draconian punishment that was dished out on a daily basis in the schools at that time. However, once my Mother threatened the teachers with assault if they went ahead with the punishment, and to take them to court, the whole affair became bogged down, hushed up and finally mysteriously dropped. This was quite funny really as she would not have been able to follow through with her threat to fight them in court, because she did not have the money to take them on.
After two weeks I was finally allowed to return to school as a hero amongst my fellow students but not the teachers, who gave me a wide berth for a time. They had wanted me to be moved to another school, as they did not want to be ridiculed by me in front of the other students, but there were no other school within five miles of the town. It was their belief that if I was out of the way, then they could carry on with their reign of terror at the school, a tradition that had been carried out for many years unhindered. They were right in that belief, because the teachers never lived the incident down, as a few of the other tougher students took the same stance as me, which I considered wrong, after all I had not gone through this experience simply because I wanted to defy the authorities and to look tough. The whole incident had been blown out of all proportion, because I had been wrongfully accused of something that I had not perpetrated. The teachers were further embarrassed when the real culprit finally owned up to them. The crime itself was a minor one, which only involved the student taking home a couple of exercise books and a few pencils. However, they never took it any further while trying to hush the whole event up, and I was never given an apology for their wrongful accusation, something I played on during what remained of my time at the school.
It has been reported over the years that the birth of Rock n Roll music in the mid fifties was the start of the young people taking over the way in which we all lived. I like to think that my stand also helped them break away from the tight stranglehold that the older generation had on our lives. Even in the musical world songs were written and played only for the older generation, but this was all about to change as the young started to thirst for the new music that was coming out of America. It had always been accepted by most people that we were ten years behind the Americans, and that whatever they did today, then we would do tomorrow. This was just a continuation along that same theme, and the young people of England could see nothing wrong in that.
Unfortunately, my aspirations and ambition of becoming the next Elvis were temporarily placed on hold, as Skiffle music became the craze of the time, sweeping over the whole country. Numerous new groups were springing up all over England, all following the new music idol of the moment, Lonnie Donegan, who had burst onto the scene the year earlier with a hit record called "Rock Island Line". I can still remember every single word of that song, even though at the time I did not like it.
By now Great Britain had its very own top twenty hit parade of songs, and the new charts were being released every Thursday in the national newspapers. It became the topic of conversation amongst most of the young people of the day, whether at school or while at play. We all thirsted for rock and roll music and the trivia that accompanied it. Gradually, the new magazines that were specially designed and aimed at the young were being launched on a regular basis, and they all started answering our long sort after questions.
With all of this new information that suddenly flooded the younger generation, an 'If you cannot beat them, join them' attitude that took over, and so we joined the many groups that were springing up everywhere in an effort to break into the musical entertainment industry that had taken over.
Steve arrived at my door one morning puffing and panting while waving a piece of his Father’s newspaper at me. After he had calmed down, he explained that he had just found this gadget that played the chords for you on your guitar. I laughed and told him that he was imagining it. After all, if I could not play them how the hell could a flaming machine. Smiling at me, he opened the paper to show me an advert that claimed for 7 shillings and 6 pence you could be the proud owner of the new super guitar chord player. There was even a picture of this new wonder guitar attachment, which looked like a small black oblong box strapped to the neck of the guitar, with a few buttons sticking out of it.
I don’t know where he got the money from, but somehow he talked his Mother into buying a postal order from the local Post Office and he sent away for it. I laughed at him and told him that he had been conned and that it was the last time that he would ever see his money or the stupid-looking chord maker gadget.
Can you imagine the look on my face when a couple of weeks later Steve was once again banging on my back door with the thing in his hands. It turned out to be made of plastic and just like the picture showed, you attached it to the bottom of the guitar neck just where the strings went into the tuner pegs. There were seven buttons on the thing and by each one was a letter depicting the chord name. Unfortunately, there was only enough room for the major chords, so God help you if you wanted to play anything else. Mind you, at that time we could only play a couple of chords anyway.
Because of the bad tuning of the guitar, it did not sound very good, and I found myself laughing at Steve who seemed to be enjoying the overall sound. I think at that time it must have made him feel that he was better than me. He now owned a gadget that allowed him to play all the seven major chords. However, some of them sounded exactly the same as each other, because he was not pushing the buttons down hard enough. Unfortunately, the novelty soon wore off as he started feeling a little funny playing it, as there were no top artists on television who were using them. I used to kid him by telling him that he was cheating and that the real stars of the day had learnt the hard way. Mind you, I would have given my right arm to be able to play a couple of the chords that Steve was by now playing. He finally threw it away as the embarrassment got the better of him, not wanting to be seen with it in public.
The funny thing is if we had taken the thing apart and got an idea how it worked, we would have been able to at least work out the seven major chords that we thirsted for knowledge of. Because inside the box was a combination of levers and pads that cam
e down and made the necessary contact with the strings in the right order, to produce the chord. Unfortunately, it was all too advanced for us, and we reverted back to singing the whole song without a chord change. I later learnt that guitar necks are all different, and that this gadget had been designed for one specific guitar that was not even available in the United Kingdom, and that it was also made completely of plastic.
By this time, I had discovered Radio Luxemburg on my Mothers radio, a station that pumped out Rock n Roll music. Unfortunately once again it did not come on air until after 7pm in the evenings. However, there was also another drawback because it was also a foreign station, and the signal was not very strong and at times it was hard to hear as it constantly faded. Mind you, I would have tolerated anything just to hear all of the hit music coming out of America. A few of my favourites at that time were Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, and of course Bill Haley and his Comets, while Chuck Berry singing "Maybelline" just blew me away with his new thumping guitar sound. This was guitar playing at its best and I would have loved to be able to play like it. The song had been out for some time, having been released around the middle of 1955, while today it’s credited with being one of the all-time great Rock and Roll guitar numbers. Some people go as far as to say that it actually started the new guitar music craze.
I must say that at no time did my Mother ever try to dissuade me from trying to make it in the music business. I think that she knew that I would not have listened to her anyway and would have carried on regardless. She had the attitude that if I was to make it then it would all happen naturally, and that if I failed I would just drop back into becoming the ordinary sort of guy from next door. However, it did not stop her from buying me a small wooden radio from a local Women’s Institute Jumble sale for the grand sum of only £2. This was a great present, as it allowed me to lie in bed and to scan the airwaves all night in my eager search for Rock n Roll music. I solved the problem of a weak signal by attaching the wire from the aerial point in the back of the radio to the metal springs of my bed. I did not realise it then, but I had discovered the receiving dish way ahead of everybody else, and it worked perfectly even in those days.
It was Colin who brought a little experience into the band, because his brother was a drummer and played with a local dance band, what I called square music. Therefore, we could ask him all of the questions that required answering, and there were many. Like how do you make the guitars sound like the ones we listen to on the radio, something that took years for us to work out.
We used to practice in Steve’s backyard shed, which housed his Father’s many tools and two old bicycles, but only while his Father was at work because he could not stand young people making a lot of noise around him. Lucky for us he worked shifts so whenever possible we would creep round so that nobody saw us, which was a bit of a laugh really, because we might have managed to get inside without being seen, but once we started playing I would guess that half the street knew where we were.
A further brown-coloured badly stained photo of the three monkeys, as some people in the area nicknamed us. See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil, although I never did find out which one I was supposed to be. It reminded me of the day that Colin taught us how to smoke, when he turned up for a band practice in Steve’s shed with some tobacco, having taken it from his Father’s tobacco pouch. Unfortunately, he did not have any cigarette papers; instead, he had brought a couple of squares of Izel toilet paper, which was commonly used in those days. I guess the best way I could describe it is to say that it looked more like very thin greaseproof paper that your Mother uses for cooking, because it sure as hell did not absorb anything, instead it usually spread it around as they say.
We watched him tear a thin strip of the paper off and then to lay a small amount of tobacco on the paper. He then rolled it up, licking the edge of the paper to make it stick and hold the whole thing together. He then lit one end and proceeded to puff away on the other, while looking like an old hand who had been smoking for many years. The only drawback was the fact that, as he drew the smoke through the cigarette, the heat from the smoke dried out his spit, and so the whole thing came undone, dropping the tobacco onto the floor. Therefore, we devised a way of re-licking the edge of the paper after taking about three puffs. That very first day we were all violently sick after our little escapade, not realising that there is a difference between pipe and cigarette tobacco, and Colin’s Father just happened to smoke a pipe.
We all became hooked on the smoking craze and would show each other different ways of holding the cigarettes, in order that we might look hep as they say. I favoured the James Dean look, something I copied from a film I saw him starring in "Rebel Without a Cause". Colin favoured a style he copied from an advert he also saw at the cinema advertising Strand cigarettes. The caption usually read "You’re never alone with a Strand", which was usually accompanied by several versions of a joke. Like the guy who was bald, but had one solitary very long hair growing from the top of his head, and his friends would tell him that you’re never alone with a strand. Which always lead on to the guy who had a very long hair hanging from his nose, and when he sneezed he whipped himself to death with it. Anyway, Steve had found a different way for us, and so we all looked very cool. When you think about it there must be hundreds of ways of holding a cigarette, and I am sure we had not seen half of them.
This event had a long lasting effect on us all, as we picked up on what our parents described as a so called bad habit. Mind you it did not seem to hurt the film stars that we copied, as they were always puffing away while on screen.
There was a very small tobacconist shop in the town, standing right next to the cinema, and for those people who could not afford to purchase a full packet of 10 or 20 cigarettes, it sold a cheaper brand that came in a small open ended paper packet that contained just 6 of what became known as coughing nails, or coffin nails. Years later I was to realise that at first I thought it meant the first suggestion, however I later discovered that it meant the latter. Anyway, the tobacconist, a Mr Farrell, would even split these small packs of 6 up in to individual cigarettes, just so he could make a sale. So as you can imagine most of the young schoolboys of the day who had picked up the so called nasty bad habit, which almost everybody seemed to participate in, would call into his shop on a regular basis, before going to the flicks or pictures as we called it, spending their hard earned pocket money and then, after lighting one up, would watch it all go up in smoke, right before their very eyes. On many occasions, it was hard to watch the film in comfort as the whole cinema was completely engulfed in a thick layer of smoke.
As we became more and more hooked, and whenever we had the money, we would go for the cheap brands, such as Woodbines and Weights. I’ve often wondered how a cigarette got the name of Weights. After all, they were very small and felt as light as a feather. In fact, they were only half the diameter of the dearer ones known as Senior Service; I could never fathom that one out either. Although they usually portrait servicemen from the Royal Navy on their adverts.
Skiffle music became stronger and stronger, whipping up a quite a storm by not only taking over England, but most of the British Isle. Wherever you went it was the flavour of the time, and was being played constantly by everybody. To add to its phenomenon the young people of the day talked about nothing else. As far as they were concerned there did not seem to be anything else of relevance to discuss.
For a while Elvis was not the flavour of the month, something I subscribed to at that time. Although as far as I was concerned there was another reason, because at that time I could not get hold of the words to his songs. We had no record players to listen to, only our radios, if you were quick enough you might be able to write down a few words as the artist sang. However, if you still wanted to sing the song, then you had to make up the words that were missing, as we could not afford to purchase the musical song sheets, because they cost as much to buy as the record. Over a few weeks you became so used to si
nging the made-up words that when you finally learnt the correct ones if you did not like them, you stayed with the ones you had made up. To this day, I’m amazed when I check out some of the words to the songs I used to sing. Some were very crude while others were so totally off the plot that it’s amazing how I ever came up with them in the first place, and got away with them in front of an audience.
However, there was another reason that stopped us purchasing the song sheet music, and it was not the money side of it. For some reason they were hard to understand, we could not read music, and if you could work it all out, it did not sound like the record version of the song. It was several years later before we realised that the sheet music was written especially for a piano, which is totally different to the guitar chords. It was also noted that a hit tune of the day was actually written in a different key to the record version, and in this way the song did not sound exactly like the hit version. There was just no way that the record companies were going to allow you to sound as good as their up and coming new stars.
As the next photo came in to view, the sight of Colin holding a washboard brought back inspiring memories of songs like "Cumberland Gap" and "It Takes a Worried Man," two more Lonnie Donegan hit songs of the day that were by now being repeated over and over in my head. However, to make them sound more authentic, Colin had started playing a washboard that he borrowed from his Mother, although, I might add without her permission. On the tips of his fingers, he wore little metal sewing thimbles that he also borrowed from his Mother’s sewing basket. In order that he had one on every finger, we did the rounds of our families trying to collect any old plastic thimbles that had been left over from the Christmas Crackers.
He used to play with it laying flat on his lap, his left hand fingertips raking up and down the ribs of the board while the right hand tapped to the beat of the music.
It was also around this time that I changed the band name to The Johnny Viper Skiffle Group to the delight of my two companions, who by now felt they were part of a group. The word trio seemed to conjure up a jazz band to them, and we all hated that style of music. This must have been the first time that they both agreed completely with me and wanted to vote for the change. However, I told them that we were a democratic group, but that they need not worry because I had already voted it through democratic channels, so I did not need a show of hands. When Colin went home and told his parents what had happened, they told him that I would make a good politician, as I had already grasped the fundamentals of parliamentary democracy.
I was once asked by a dedicated follower of the band what a viper was. With a grin on my face, I told him it was a Vindscreen Viper and that it could usually be found sticking to car vinscreens. I then walked away before he had time to ask me to explain further.
A photo of the band’s very first public appearance was enough to remind me of the day we performed at a school friend’s birthday party. In my class at school were twin sisters Christine and Jenifer whose Father owned their own house and a small section of land. They persuaded him to let them throw their 15th birthday party in an old stable building that stood at the bottom of their garden. The twins decorated the building out with balloons and streamers, and even built a small stage for us to perform on all decked out with coloured paper. I must admit that I felt on top of the world that evening and that I had finally arrived on the scene as they say. This was what I was looking for in life and I just loved the attention that we attracted, especially from the girls.
The evening was great and we spent a long time congratulating each other on our performance. It was clear to see that the young people also enjoyed themselves, as it must have been the first time that they had ever seen a group playing live. With their untrained ears, I doubt very much that they would have been able to pick up the many mistakes that we all constantly made during the evening’s performance.
While Steve and I played our guitars and sang along together on most of the songs, Colin would add the odd little lead break tune on his mouth organ and then revert back to his washboard. During other songs, Steve used his hands to tap out a beat on two cardboard boxes that we had borrowed from Jennifer’s parents. I had shown Colin what I had learnt in tapping along to a tune at home, and he had taken to it very easily. In those days we travelled light as they say, especially when you realise what the bands of today are lugging around with them.
We had walked to the booking carrying our guitars under our arms, while wearing the clothes that we intended to perform in on stage. That consisted of blue denim jeans with very large turn ups, white tee shirts and black leather jackets, something that we copied from an early photo of the American rock star Gene Vincent that I had found in a magazine. This just happened to be the same clothes that we normally walked around town wearing.
By this time, I had also perfected what was known as a Tony Curtis haircut. The main features being that the sides were combed back around from the left and right to meet at the back. So that it resembled what we call a duck’s arse or a DA as it became known. The front was somewhat short and flat with a few of the front middle hairs pulled forward down over my forehead and brought to a point, while the whole scalp was drenched in Brylcream to keep it all in place. On our feet, we wore what later became known as brothel creepers, they were suede shoes with very thick ribbed crepe soles. We also wore wide black silver studded belts around our waists. Although the studded belt had its draw backs, as it badly scratched the back of the guitar as you were playing it. However, it was a useful tool if you found yourself involved in what became known as a ruckus or a fight as it’s commonly known. Unfortunately, these became quite common as the local guys became very jealous of the attention that their girlfriends took of us while on stage, and even more as they chatted to us during the breaks that we took quite frequently. I say frequently because we would only play for about twenty minutes, before we took a further twenty-minute break.
The very next photo was in colour and was a beautiful shot of Jennifer standing in front of the old stable building where the party had been held. I needed no further prompting to remind me that on that very same day, she had become my girlfriend. Not only that, but my very first steady girlfriend. She must have had a profound effect on me because that night I renamed my precious guitar "Jenny" after her. This would have also been the very first time that I kissed Jennifer full on the lips. However, the cuddling was soon broken up by her Mother who walked on to us in one of the darker corners of the building. Because of that embarrassment, for the rest of the evening we survived solely on hen pecks to the cheeks.
While looking at this photo, I could not help thinking of the song "Only Sixteen", by Craig Douglas, that was a big hit at the time. I felt that the words fitted Jennifer just perfectly. Secretly I would sing the song, but at no time would I ever perform it in public. After all I did not want to tarnish the image I was trying to create and put across to my fans, as being that of a rocker.
Later I was surprised to realise that I could have gone off with any of the many girls who attended the party that night. However, it made no difference to me as I had fallen hook line and sinker as they say for Jennifer. While I still looked at all the other girls and wondered, to me Jennifer was the prize and I was proud to parade her around in front of my friends.
As the band played I could not help noticing that most of the females attending were attracted to the band, and I could not help thinking that this must have been exactly how it must have been for Elvis, when he first started out. However, I was brought back to reality, when my wondering thoughts contributed to me making a few mistakes in my playing. As is usual in the music industry, when you make one mistake others are quick to follow, because of your embarrassment in front of a large crowd, especially if they are people you know, although these thoughts are soon forgotten as you get back into the song. The whole event made me feel good and now that I had tasted a little success, there was no way that I was going to give up this life style for the foreseeable fut
ure.
A photo of the three of us playing in the town’s market square surrounded by all of its very old historic buildings brought back some happy times. This location exposed us to a much larger audience than we had been used to. Most of the townsfolk would shop on a Saturday morning, and all had to walk past us at some time or other during that time. Therefore, you could say that we became the talk of the town, in one way or another. Either they liked us, or they disliked the way in which we blocked the footpath leading to their favourite shops.
Because we were not using microphones, we did not need electricity and so we had moved onto busking. Each Saturday morning we would take a bus ride up to the town square, where we would set up and play to the passing crowd. Several times the police moved us on, until the local people complained to the council that we were doing no harm, and that we helped brighten up the town on a cold and miserable Saturday morning. To our amazement, the council granted us a special license to play in the square every Saturday morning I say morning because in those days all of the shops shut at midday, but we were not allowed to accept money. However, it did not stop us from leaving an old cloth cap in front of us so that appreciative shoppers could contribute to a cup of tea to warm us up on the odd occasion. This period became known as our apprenticeship, and it certainly hardened us up for what was to follow.
On one such Saturday morning, a local guy from our school approached us, wanting to help us whenever we played. He loved the music, but not having a musical note in his body, he reckoned that this would be the best way for him to move around in the music industry. In his words, he wanted to brush alongside the rich and famous, which seemed rather strange to us, as we were neither. At one time he pointed out that as I played guitar, I must know hundreds of chords. I had to think about that for a moment, just wondering if he was trying to be smart and to catch me out in front of the other guys. I finally told him that I was not a rhythm guitarist and that I only played lead guitar. It seemed to satisfy him, and we moved on quickly to another subject. It was a good job that the conversation did not carry on about chords, because I would have to guess that we only knew about four of them at that time and that was between all of us. After a couple of weeks discussing it amongst ourselves, I finally gave him the nod to join us. William Jolly, or Billy as he became known, was allowed to follow us around as long as he did whatever we asked of him; unfortunately, he would have to do it all for love as there was no pay to go with the job.
Another page of the photo album and the music within my head moved on to the sounds of Lonnie Donegan singing "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour", taking me onto 1959. As Joe Brown, the Cockney guitarist, said later of Lonnie Donegan, he was like Jesus and we were his disciples, if asked we would have followed him anywhere, and many did.
It was also the year that the music died, according to the words of a song known as "American Pie" that Don McLean wrote and had a big hit with on both sides of the Atlantic. Sadly, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were all killed in an aeroplane crash in the USA. All were on the verge of brilliant musical careers, but were cut down in their prime. However, I always felt that it was the day that pop music was reborn but to a wider audience. The whole incident only strengthened the young people of the day, and all three stars had major hit records after their deaths, something that was unheard of in those days, and was to be emulated a dozen times over in the future.
I had been out of school now for almost six months, and having a daytime job, placed a small amount of cash in my pocket to be used in trying to improve my musical skills. At least now I could purchase some new strings for the guitar, having been playing a five-string for nearly two months. I might add that a five-string guitar does not sound too good, and turns a few heads if used during a performance.
After a time we became fed up with the sound of the washboard and anyway Colin’s Mother had found out that he was borrowing it. One day he turned up with an old set of drum sticks that his brother had given him, and a couple of different sized small cardboard boxes. He then amazed us by demonstrating to us some beats that his brother had taught him along with some sort of beat known as a para diddle, whatever that was. It’s what is known as progress and anyway it improved our sound and that was what counted. Both Steve and I could not believe what a different sound he produced along with the sticks while playing on different sized boxes and bottles and cans half filled with water.
A photo of the band as a five piece reminded me of an incident that happened one Saturday morning while we were performing in the town’s market square. The band was taking a short break when we were approached by a couple of other young guys who went to school with us but lived on the other side of town. They did not hold back, just came straight out and asked if they could join our band. Not being sure of their motives or talent, I came up with a few feeble excuses as to why at that very moment in time we did not need anybody else in our line up. If our music was not improving, then our use of musical terminology was. I told them that the main reason was that we were not earning enough money to split it another couple of ways, and anyway that was not a lie; because during the Saturday morning busking sessions the most we ever collected was about 10 shillings.
Jeremy Maynard, the one who was doing all of the talking, asked if he could look at my guitar. At first I wasn’t sure and hesitated. After all if he were to knock or drop it, it might get damaged or, heavens forbid, he might even knock it out of tune. This was a bit of a laugh as it had been out of tune for weeks. At that time, I had to take it to a music teacher to get it tuned up whenever I had five shillings to pay him. However, I need not have worried as Jeremy amazed me by first tuning it up, which left me with a gasped look on my face. Then as he strummed the strings, the sound that came from within the little hole in the middle of the body was like a breath of fresh air. It sounded so much better than I was used to, and furthermore he could play more chords than me.
He continued to amaze us with licks and riffs that he had obviously spent hours trying to perfect, wanting to impress us with the best of them. He was streets ahead of me, but there was no way that I was going to let him dwarf me. After all it was my band and I was its leader but, on the other hand his guitar work would certainly improve the band’s overall sound. Being so good it was obvious to me that some of his talent would rub off on the rest of us, and maybe with his help I would be able to advance my own guitar playing to a higher level. Compared with what Jeremy was playing, I’m sure we hadn’t even reached the first rung of the ladder, while he was already half way up and waving back at us.
Jeremy had a large mop of brightly coloured red hair and so it was obvious that at school he was known as Ginger. However, he was also very cocky, knowing that he was good and flaunting it to us at every opportunity. His playing was so good that we just accepted it without an argument, while hoping to tap in on his talent at every opportunity.
Later he was to confide in me that he had been lucky and had found a book called "Play in a Day" by British guitar legend Bert Weedon that had been published in 1957. Later it was to become the guitar learner’s bible, as almost every guitarist in Britain owned a copy of it at some time, after Bert had come to the attention of the British public with a hit instrumental record called "Guitar Boogie Shuffle". Ginger used to laugh when he told everybody that it was possible to play "Jingle Bells" in a day, and that he was living proof of that feat. I’ve often wondered how many up and coming guitarists could also admit to the same feat during those very early days.
I looked at the other members, who by this time were both standing with their mouths wide open. Without hesitation they both nodded in agreement that they wanted him to join the band. I then went through a few rules that they would be expected to adhere to, and finally held out my hand welcoming them to the Vipers Skiffle group. I had been so wrapped in what Jeremy had been playing that I suddenly realised that we did not know what his friend John Burgess played. It turned out that he played what was know
n in those days as a tea chest bass. It was made from an old tea chest and had a small hole made in the bottom of the chest. A piece of string was then threaded though the hole and a knot made on the end of the string that was on the inside of the box. The box was then stood with the opening on the ground and the flat bottom facing upwards. The end of the string that was protruding through the top of the tea chest was then measured, and after pulling the string tight was tied to the top of a broom handle that had the other end perched onto a corner of the box. The player then plucked the string and by applying pressure on the top of the handle by slightly pulling it backwards, the note it made would change. However, there was one big problem and that was the size of the thing, but J.B as we called him, had solved that problem by using his Father’s wooden builder’s wheelbarrow, and would push it around to each booking or practice that he attended. The only stipulation we made and placed on J.B. and his tea chest bass was that he had to paint it red, so it stood out to the crowd, and to paint the name of the band on the front, which he did with no complaints.
Jeremy also brought something else to the band that was to have a profound effect on us all, and that was his Mother’s wind-up gramophone. We spent many hours around his house constantly playing the same songs, in order that we could all learn our respective parts to play. This was not as easy as you might think, because in those days we had to wind it up after every record had been played. To complicate the operation further, after only two plays we also had to change the rather large brass needle that was lowered onto the record every time we played a song. This became a big joke because, once we had run out of new needles, we went back to the old ones that we had changed earlier. After a time nobody knew a new needle from an old one. The cost of purchasing a new tin of needles prohibited us from buying them very often. Somehow, we just got used to the crackling sounds that usually accompanied each song that we played.
Another big drawback was her record collection, which consisted of material from the late forties and very early fifties. However, Jeremy had grown up learning most of these old songs, it having been the basis of the guitar playing that was by now paying off for him. He was so good that he could pick up a tune very quickly and helped those around him with their parts to play. He had also bought a couple of Rock n Roll records from the local record shop that had just opened in the town, but at 5 shillings each they were not cheap.
As all of us by now had daytime jobs, we started buying our own records on a kind of roster basis, and so each month we would work out which one we wanted to purchase next and who was going to pay for it. However, our choices were still limited to what was available in the shop. At that time most shops would have a reasonable selection of the English released records, which in some cases were very poor versions of the American songs. The original American Rock n Roll versions were just starting to filter through to the shops, but up until then we did not have a very big choice to choose from at our local shop.
However, my Mother became the saviour of the moment when she took a cleaning job on the local American airbase. This meant that she was able to get hold of some of the highly sort after records from the States, as she was allowed to buy them from the base BX stores. She even found some of them in the waste bins, as servicemen dumped them before returning to the USA. As far as the band was concerned, she had walked into Aladdin’s cave. After a time I managed to get her to purchase whatever we wanted, as long as it was available.
The difference that the new guys made to the bands overall sound amazed me, as we seemed to grow in the popularity stakes around town. The work started to come in and we found ourselves playing somewhere around the town almost every Friday or Saturday night. Most of the work we undertook was just for the thrill of performing in front of people, something we all loved. It was a case of "hey look at me I am better that you, as I am up here playing, while you are down there paying to hear it". Most nights we would have been lucky if we received £2 for the night’s work, and when split five ways it only amounted to 8 shillings. When we took into account that most of us were earning around £3 a week from our daytime jobs, it places it in perspective, and so if we played twice a week it could amounted to half our weekly wage. While I was saving a further five shillings by having Ginger tune up my guitar for free.
Suddenly my eyes fell upon a photo that showed a group of girl fans, all pestering the band for kisses and autographs. It reminded me of the part that the girl fans were starting to play in our chosen careers. It was something that was starting to become more common, and we were not sure how to handle it. Especially after we had thought that only the very famous rock stars were treated in this way. Most of us had girlfriends that accompanied us around to the different venues. However, it did not seem to stop us picking up other girls during the night, whenever the situation arose. Although I must say that I had tried to stay true to Jennifer, as we had been going steady, ever since we played at her birthday party.
Occasionally I might have gone with other girls but, in most cases, I never even gave them a kiss on the cheek at the end of the evening. I would want to go through the thrill and dare of picking them up, but once I had achieved the pick up, I thought better of it, not wanting to cheat on Jennifer. It might sound strange, but that was how it was for me, deep inside I still worshipped Jennifer. Whenever I handled my Jenny, as I called my guitar, I would run my hands over its curves just thinking of her. In her hands, my personality changed completely, and I became putty to be manipulated by her in any way she chose. No longer was I the bully, who always wanted my own way, I completely changed in order not to lose her. However, all the time that I had been going with her, we had only cuddled and kissed each other.
The subject of sex is a strange one. Although by then I was sixteen years old, I had not experienced sex with any girl. I’m not saying that I was different, because most boys of that era were the same; we became sexually aroused whenever we looked at the odd picture that was handed around the young people of the day. Sex did not happen early amongst the average boy in the late fifties. Oh, there were the odd exceptions, if you could believe everything that other young people of your age told you. Most of the time I tended not to believe half of what I heard. I was of the opinion that they just loved to hear the sound of their own voices.
Fellow students in the playground had taught me all I knew on the subject, while I was still at school. Somehow I doubted half of what the boys usually boasted about amongst themselves. I had grown up thinking that you only had sex when you wanted to have children and until then, you did not participate. If you did, the girl would become pregnant and then you would be forced to marry her, in what was known as a shotgun wedding, and somehow that was not for me. I realised that once I was married then things would change, and anyway in those days most of the girls wanted a white wedding as they say. That is how I saw it, and as far as I was concerned, for the moment it was not going to change.
There was also another reason that attracted my attention to the question of sex, and that was that none of the pop stars of the day seemed to be married. It was why the girls all went mad trying to grab one to marry. I had also realised that girls made up a large proportion of our audience, and that they were paying just to see us, or so I thought.
During the early part of the evening, the crowd at the venue would mainly consist of girls, because the guys would all be in the pubs trying to get drunk. It was their way of trying to summon up a little Dutch courage to pick up a girl, when they finally made their way to the dance. Many never did as they became too drunk, and passed out before they even left the pub. The favourite drink of the time to get you drunk very quickly was a couple of glasses of rough cider and few small glasses of what was known as Rich Ruby wine, I think it was some type of port.
Others dipped out in the girlfriend stakes when they eventually turned up too late, to find that the girl they were after had already been grabbed by somebody else. A band notices these things very easily, because we are up ab
ove the audience and looking down at them. We have the best views in the house, and I used to watch other members of the band eyeing up the girls, and grabbing what they considered to be a good looking one before the yobbos returned from the pubs. That in itself would usually cause trouble for the band, as we became a target from the would be suitor, backed up by his drunken mates. However, my reputation from school had gone before me and once they realised that I would become involved, most of the incidents fizzled out without too much bother. That is not to say that there were no fights because in actual fact there were plenty, but somehow we never came off to badly. However, Billy took a bad beating one night after eyeing up one of the girls during the night. We found him bleeding badly and doubled up in a heap out the back of the venue by the outside toilets after a crazed, drunken boyfriend, along with two of his mates had taken his revenge.
A hit film and song of the day, sung by Anthony Newley, was called "Idle on Parade", and most young people liked to hear it, even though it was all about serving in the British Army as a National Service recruit. However, we became even more excited the day that National Service was finally dropped by the Government in late 1959. I had always said that you would never catch me in the Army, but I guess the truth is I would have gone if I were called up, because there is no way that I would have gone to prison as an alternative and of having been branded a conscientious objector. It’s a funny thing, but most of the objectors during the last war, who all went to prison, all ended up with good jobs like bank managers and insurance agents just a few years after the war was over. So it never hurt them in anyway, maybe it’s because the average person has a short memory or something I really don’t know.
We had all been worried National Service would spell the end of the band. We were all of slightly different ages and so the 18 months of training would have meant that it would have been nearly four years before we were all reunited and able to get it back together again. It was something that none of us wanted to go through, and somehow we never considered that we could have joined another band.
By this time I had gone completely off of Elvis when he had joined the American army. What with his very short haircut and some of the material that was released while he was away, he was no longer one of my idols and I thought that from that point he steadily went downhill. To me he had sold out and become a bit of a wimp. It was my big worry that we would all go downhill and end up just like Elvis. However, now it was full steam ahead and onto bigger and better things, as we all congratulated ourselves being saved a slow death as they say. It never occurred to any of us that this music craze might only last for a couple of years, to us; it was going to be a lifetime’s experience.
A colour photo of my new rock and roll idol Cliff Richards is all I need to remember my favourite hit song of all times, "Move It" and to hear its introduction usually sends a shiver down my spine. With Elvis having slipped down my list of all-time greats, it was Cliff who had replaced him at the top, although at the time it was the song "Move It", his very first record release that swung me over to him. Since then he’s had a steady string of hits that were all good Rock n Roll numbers, and most of them were originals and penned by English song writers. Steadily he was making progress into the heavily American dominated British Hit Parade, and at least I thought he was almost as good as the Yanks. Because he was British, we received a steady stream of publicity and information on his background, and that was what I wanted. However, he was always referred to as Britain’s answer to Elvis Presley. Well anyway at least I could pout my lips just like him, having already had a couple of year’s practice trying to copy Elvis.
Because of the growth of the band, our practice sessions had by now moved to Jennifer’s back shed with the blessings of her Father, as long as we did not make too much noise after eight o’clock at night.
Colin surprised us all at one of these practices sessions when he turned up with an old drum kit that he had bought from his brother, who by this time had moved on and was now playing in a Jazz band out of town. It was just a simple basic kit that featured a very large old military style big drum as the kick drum. The whole kit looked as though it had been through a hard life, but at least it was a drum kit. Furthermore Colin had secretly been having lessons from his brother, and shocked us further when he ran around the kit demonstrating to us a short drum solo. We were all amazed at what he did, and of the possibilities that now awaited us. However, when the practice was over, all of us had suddenly become aware that when you have drums in a band, they are loud. There were times when we could not hear ourselves sing, let alone playing our instruments. This brought on a complete new line of thought for us. To go fully electric, like Cliff Richard and his band, was going to cost us a lot of money. After all, we would all have to go and purchase new electric guitars, and then there would be microphones and a public address system, not to mention some sort of transport to move the gear around.
My attention fell upon a photo of Nobby Clarke, who had been one of my old school chums, reminding me of the day he had approached me with what looked like a small silver piece of metal about two inches wide and a half an inch thick, with a wire hanging from it. He went on to explain that he had always been interested in building radios, and that he had just read about how to build what he called a pick up in a book called "The Practical Wireless". It would electrify a guitar and would make it sound louder. He gave it to me and asked if I would like to try in out for him, and that if I tested it out, he might be able to improve on it. Unfortunately he did not tell me any other details; I guess he thought that as I was a guitarist I knew all about them.
I rushed home very eager to try it out, but was dumbfounded to find a funny looking plug on the end of the wire coming out of what I was now calling a pickup. I later found out that it was called a jack plug. However, Nobby had told me that it electrifies the guitar, so how was I going to plug it in to the power socket? I decided to cut the plug off and rewire it to a spare five amp 240volt electric plug that I found in our back shed. I then used a couple of three inch long brass screws to fix the pick up across the hole in the front of the guitar, about an inch below the strings. It did not enter my head that I was destroying the guitar, to me it was just wood, so you could screw anything you liked into it.
Lucky for me I laid the guitar on its back on the settee before I plugged the pick up into the mains plug and switched it on. There was one hell of a loud bang and the room was instantly filled with thick black smoke as all the lights went out in the house. The very bright orange flame that I saw spew out of the pickup melted all of the strings and left a black ugly looking burn mark, which I could not clean off from around the sound hole in the front of the guitar. So there was no way that I was going to cover up this major catastrophe and I was set back in my plans to become electrified.
Anyway, how was I to know what was going to happen? After all I’m just the guy who plays these things. I’m not a brain surgeon or electronic whiz kid. Mind you, I do not think I would be here today if I had been holding the guitar with my hands touching all the strings. My first reaction was that I had used up another of my nine lives, and put the incident down to experience, telling Nobby that it was his faulty wiring that had caused the problem. Not to mention the expense my Mother had in getting an electrician in to fix the fuses in the house. We never did get rid of the terrible smell of burning from the room, and so we had to entertain our friends in the kitchen for a couple of months until the smell had mellowed with age. At the end of the day, I was only too pleased that I did not have to go out and waste my record money on a new settee.
Unfortunately, I had to go out and buy a new set of strings and Nobby went back to the drawing board and built me a new pick up. Only this time he came home with me and attached the wire to the back of my little wooden radio that my Mother had bought me, all the time talking to me about speakers and amplifiers as he called them. Well, I had never heard the words before, let alone known what the hell they did. However, I
was amazed how good it sounded and he was right it did make it sound louder. Not only that, I could adjust the volume on the front of the radio.
At the very next practice session I turned up with my little wooden radio set, and placed it on a table beside me. I then plugged my guitar into the back and set the controls. I must admit that I cringed slightly as I switched on the electricity, whilst praying that it would not blow up in my face like it had at my first attempt. I then silenced the rest of the band as I strummed a couple of chords for them and turned up the volume to maximum. By this time the speaker was so overloaded that the little radio set was vibrating on the table, and the sound it was pumping out was distorted and not very clear, but I was electrified and that was what counted. Unbeknown to me I had also invented a Fuzz box without realising it, but that was to be invented years later.
You could have carved the atmosphere with a knife. Nobody said a word; they just stood there with their mouths wide open. I guess by today’s standards it was very small, being rated at only 3 watts, but to me it was like listening to 3000 beautiful watts.
Once the excitement had died down, both Steve and Ginger started bombarding me with questions, which basically came down to both of them wanting to go electric and whether I could help them. Suddenly I was the expert on the subject, and there was no way that I was going to let them know of my stupid mistake when I plugged mine into an electric mains socket. No, they thought I had all the answers and as far as I was concerned I was going to let them believing it.
For Ginger there was no problem, because he had a steel-string guitar and I got Nobby to make him a pick up, although this time Nobby wanted cash up front to purchase the parts. However, when it came to Steve’s guitar, the day we fitted his new pickup we could not get a note out of it. At first we all blamed Nobbys wiring, but after he had taken it apart three times, and concluded that there was nothing wrong with it, it suddenly dawned on us that Steve’s guitar was strung with nylon strings, and so the way the pickup was made, it could not detect the note each string was making. Steve was not pleased, because he had given Nobby the money for the parts and now he could not use it. That day Nobby beat a hasty retreat from the practice session while keeping Steve’s money firmly in his pocket.
We continued playing even though nobody, and that included the other members of the band, could not hear poor old Steve’s guitar playing. By now the sound from Ginger’s and my guitars were sounding quite loud, even though together they were only putting out about 8 watts of sound. Ginger had been able to purchase a much larger radio than mine from the local junk shop and it kicked out nearly 5 watts of sound, and so the race was on to out do each other for bigger and more powerful amplifiers. It never occurred to us that you could turn these things down. For some reason, we all thought that if it had a 10 on the volume dial, then 10 was where it should be set at all times. Anyway, together the 8 watts was quite loud and drowned everything else out on stage. This meant that the drummer had to play louder so that he could be heard, and you know what drummers can be like. It became one big vicious circle that ended up with the audience out front of the stage not being able to hear the vocals clearly.
In desperation and worried about not being heard, Steve restrung his guitar with metal strings, not realising that they would place an increased pressure on the neck and bridge of the guitar. However, with nobody around to guide us, how were we supposed to know of these things? What we didn’t know was of no concern to us. It was a case of sorting out your problems while trying to fix them the best way possible. For an amp, Nobby came up with a novel idea and talked Steve into purchasing a very old rather large tatty looking radiogram for about £5, they were all the rage in those days.
Most families had a radiogram, but they did not play them very often. They were usually positioned in the front room of their houses for show, and anyway not many people could afford to purchase the records on a regular basis. In most houses the front room was only used a couple of times a year, usually at Christmas when the family came round, or if anybody in the house passed away they were usually laid out in state, as they say, before being buried. Anyway, once the novelty of owning a radiogram had worn off, nobody would bother to buy any more records, and so most record collections were always very old. These radiograms had been designed more as a piece of furniture than as the record player cum radio receiver that they actually were.
Anyway, Nobby ran a wire from Steve’s lovely brand new shinny pick up, and joined it to the two wires that came out of the record player’s arm where the needle would normally run from. It was unbelievable; Steve was able to extort about 6 watts of power from that thing, which made him twice as loud as me. Now it would be me who the audience could not hear, and so it suddenly turned into a race as to who could out build the other, or at least until the money ran out.
Unfortunately, there was one big draw back with Steve and Nobby little invention and that was transportation. It was only after they had carted the radiogram on the builder’s barrow to the first booking that they suddenly realised what a task they had given themselves. Once at the venue it took at least three people to lift it off the cart and in to the hall. The mere thought of lugging it around every week was beginning to turn into a nightmare for the whole band.
During the first show when Steve used this big monstrosity, he experienced a few more teething problems when during one particular song the vibration that was coming from the speaker, and I do mean vibration, flicked an internal switch from record player over to radio, and the startled audience was instantly treated to the swinging strings of the Henry Mancini Orchestra at full volume. To hide our embarrassment we all kept playing. Unfortunately, Steve’s 6 watts of power drowned me out, and so Henry Mancini won the day. We had to stop playing while Steve reset the switch back to record player. This however was not an isolated incident as it was repeated a couple more times during the night with the grand finale being when the bridge of Steve’s guitar, not being able to with stand the tension of the new steel strings suddenly tore off, leaving a big gaping hole in the front of his guitar just below the sound hole. If it had happened today, you could have said that the guitar had stereo sound holes, but stereo had not been invented in those days.
Frustration started to creep in, and so once again the question of the band going fully electrified came up, time and time again.
As we all had fairly good daytime jobs, it did not take us much time to decide that it was the way to go. However, none of us would have been able to pay for our gear with cash, and so we approached our parents to sign for us, so that we could each buy our own instruments along with some kind of amplification for them on hire purchase payments, or on tick as it was known in those days.
As a first step in the right direction we all pooled what cash we could lay our hands on, and with £30 we bought a second hand public address system from a shop in Ipswich, along with three microphones. It had all belonged to the local cricket club, having been attached to the cricket club hut, and they were now up grading. Lucky for us, apart from the two very large trumpet like speakers it all came in an old leather case so it was easy to cart around. Talking of carts, at that time none of us could drive and so we scrounged another wooden cart from J.B.’s Father, so that those of us that lived the other end of town to Jeremy and J.B. could push our gear to the bookings and practice sessions.
However, when it came to J.B. having to change over to a bass guitar, well that was a whole new ball game. The day he purchased a small semi-acoustic Echo Electric Bass along with a Vox AC 100 Foundation amplifier with an 18-inch speaker which rattled the guts out of anybody on stage whenever it was played, was the day that our sound changed completely, taking us in an entirely different direction.
Up until then, all he really had to do was to just keep plucking the string in time with the beat. It did not really matter what tension he applied to the string, as the thumping note he made just seemed to fit in with what the rest of us were playing. It was more o
f a beat thing rather than the note. With the bass guitar, he had to wear it around his neck just like our guitars. So gone were the days when he could rest his foot on the tea chest as he played it, and it was going to be of no use asking me which string to pluck, as I had six of them and he only had four. For J.B. it turned into a complete new learning curve.
The bass guitar had not been around long at that time and so most players were still experimenting and finding new ways of playing it. About the first time that most people in England saw one was in 1958, while an American band known as the Treniers were touring the country along with the Chas McDevitt Skiffle group whose lead singer Shirley Douglas had shown great interest in the instrument and how it was played after being shown its workings by the Treniers. A year later, she brought one into the country from the States and then started using it on a later tour. Although at the same time, Jet Harris from Cliff Richard’s backing band is also credited with being the very first British person to ever play one in front of a live British audience.
J.B.’s task was made a little easier as he found a book that Shirley Douglas had written called "The Easy Guide to Rhythm and Blues for Bass Guitar". However, there was nobody locally whom he could turn to for advice. It was a case of sticking with it the best way he could, although Ginger would tell him the name of the chord we were all supposed to be playing, and together they worked out which one he could play. There were no riffs or runs for a start, it was only single notes until he realised that, after hitting a particular note, he could follow it by hitting the note that was immediately behind it on the next lowest string.
One of the big problems was that when the bass guitar craze kicked in, most players were using a double bass, which was a totally different instrument to play. Not wanting to change over they had put the word around that it was just a passing craze and would be dead in a couple of years. Now where have I heard that saying before? Therefore, most of them decided to stay with their beloved double basses and to watch what might develop. This meant that the vast majority of players were all new to the game, and that they had to invent ways of playing the instrument. Therefore, it was an exciting time where anything went, if it sounded right then it was okay to play it. During the middle sixties when the double bass players realised that the bass guitar was actually here to stay, they all rushed out to buy one to become part in the new music scene that was rapidly taking over the country. Unfortunately, most of them found that they could not adapt to the new instrument and died a slow death and dropped out of sight completely. Jet Harris, who had been a highly successful Jazz player of the double bass, was one of the few to make a successful transition over to the new sounds of the bass guitar, when he received his first big break into rock and roll music by joining Tony Crombie and his Rockets.
Steve and I both bought second-hand Red Burns electric guitars quite cheap from a pawnshop in Ipswich, in order that we might look, and sound, just like the Shadows, Cliff Richard’s backing band, which were using them on stage at the time. We were also lucky to buy two Vox AC15 amplifiers, each fitted with one 12-inch speaker, which went with the guitars. So now we both looked and sounded alike and would not be able to outdo each other in the volume department.
After changing the looks of the band along with its sound, it was only fitting that we change the name and so, after much deliberation, I finally announced to the other members of the band that, from that day on, we were to be known as 'Johnny Morris and the Convertibles'. For some unknown reason I still liked the name Johnny, I had even insisted on the band using it all the time, and so after just a few weeks it stuck. Even the public picked up on it and so the name Johnny was here to stay, along with the 'Convertibles'. There had never been a Morris Convertible car in England, but I liked the ring it had to it. The word convertible had come out of watching too many of the American films that seemed to flood the British cinemas in those days.
By now my old photo album was restoring my memory at such a rate that I was way ahead of its pages. As I scanned the photos they seemed to come alive, reminding me of so much detail that I no longer required them to remind me of my past. As each memory popped up it would lead me straight into another and then another.
I lay back on my pillow and continued my journey without the album that lay spread open on the bed beside me.