“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.

50 years and still going strong!

In January 2022 I celebrated my 50^th year since I did my first article in the pigeon fancy press and in that time, I had the great honour to visit some of the ‘legends’ of pigeon racing and showing. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to do some ‘highlights’ articles to celebrate my 50 years as a pigeon scribe. We will look at some of the many premier racing and show racer loft visits I made all over Europe, my nine years as a ‘Classic’ pigeon convoyer taking the birds to France and the countless National and Society shows I have judged at over the years. We are kicking off in the good old days when I was a young man and played drums in several top rock bands, which are very special to me!

I have been asked many times to put pen to paper and record some of my best memories of the 1960’s when I played drums in a rock group, but really it was all traveling up and down motorways, playing cards in the back of a van and playing. They say if you remember the 1960’s you weren’t there!  As the saying goes, it was all drugs, sex and Rock n’ Roll for some, but I not for me, I never went near or took drugs or alcohol. I still don’t drink or smoke today! I played with several top groups in the 1960’s, with the main one being six years with ‘The Impalas’ and for most of the time, the line-up was Tony Claiden on lead guitar and vocal, Oonagh Ellis on vocals, Keith Read on bass guitar and vocals and myself on drums. I was born in Feltham, near Heathrow Airport in 1950. I can remember my dear late grandmother, Caroline, telling me at a very young age that her brother was a drummer in a dance band. I  played the drums and was very involved at the time with the top rock n’ roll band, ‘The Impalas’, and we played with  many top artists, including, Dave ‘Screaming Lord’ Sutch, Shakin’ Stevens , Heinz Burt (The Tornados) and  two sold out shows with Gene Vincent at the London Palladium in 1969. I was 11 years of age when my parents, Fred and Iris, purchased my first drum kit and I used to practice in the back bedroom to all the old Beatles and Rollin’ Stones records. I attended Rivermead Secondary School in Kingston and I did my first drum solo in public at a big school ‘gang’ show, when other local schools, and all the parents attended. Our next door neighbours, in Chestnut Road where we lived soon got fed up with my drums beating out to the best of the 1960’s music scene in the spare bedroom and called the police in a couple of times to shut me up. My dad couldn’t wait for me to join a band and was highly delighted when I finally took the drum kit on the road. I was soon sitting in on recording and television dates playing the drums, and was lucky enough to record tracks at ‘Morgan’ studios, which was one of the best recording studios in the UK at that time and Shakin’ Stevens was recording there that same day. One of ‘The Impala’s’ tracks was played on BBC Radio One several times at that time. My first drum kit was my white ‘Olympic’ set up and I learnt on that great set up, and used it on the road for several years after going on the road. The second kit was my big blue pearl ‘Premier’ kit which consisted of bass drum, snare drum, two mounted tom toms and two floor tom toms, the same as used by Keith Moon of ‘The Who’ at that time. That was a lovely kit and I used that one on the London Palladium in 1969. My third and last drum kit was a mixture of what I thought was the very best in percussion at that time, with the main kit being a light blue ‘Hayman’. At that time the George Hayman were the very latest in top drum design, along with ‘Ludwig’, ‘Rogers’ and ‘Slingerland’.

I was a teenager drummer who learnt his trade by playing to ‘rock’ records in the spare bedroom. We had a lot of complaints from the pissed off neighbours, who called in the Police several times to shut me up. Although I was playing little gigs around the Kingston area, my dad was keen to get the drum kit and me on the road properly. Dad worked with Tony Claiden, the founder member of the ‘Impalas’ rock band, at a lorry firm in Kew and they were very friendly, so he had a word with him and I eventually joined the ‘Impalas’ in 1967. I had six great years playing in the band with Tony and the lads, and we shared some great experiences together. We played at many top gigs all over the UK, including the Norwich Music Festival with ‘Heinz’, plus many gigs with Screaming Lord Sutch and Shakin’ Stevens. The highlight must be playing with the late great Gene Vincent several times on his last two tours of the UK, including two sold out shows at the London Palladium in 1969. This was extra special for Tony because he was a massive Gene Vincent fan and he got to meet him and get his records signed. He had all Gene’s records, including ‘Be Bop A Lula’ on the old 78 record! We also recorded at the Morgan Studios in 1970 and at that time it was one of the premier recording venues in the UK. Tony married the band’s girl singer, Oonagh Ellis and I can remember having many all-night ‘Rock n’ Roll’ record sessions with Tony at their flat in East Sheen and then walking home through Richmond Park at 5 o’clock in the morning. Great days! We had our regular Sunday night ‘Impalas’ club at the Swan PH in Mill Street, Kingston, which ran for many years and was always packed out with some really great ‘Rockers’. Tony was there at the beginning and there at the end of that very special club and we all loved playing at the wonderful Swan PH! Sadly, Tony Claiden passed away in March 2020 at the age of 79. He was the founder member of the very successful rock band, The ‘Impalas’ and we had six great years playing together. Tony was a very special guy, a brilliant musician and loved his Rock 'n Roll music.

The ‘Impalas’ played all over the UK, every night of the week if the workload required it and we had our own club at ‘The Swan’, Mill Street, Kingston, where we played every Sunday night and practiced there on a Monday night. That brilliant club ran for many years and it got so packed on a Sunday night, the sweat ran down the wall of the dance hall. Wonderful days! We played at most of the big venues in the UK, including several times at the Nottingham and Swansea universalities, which were two of the biggest gigs at that time and I can remember we played on several pleasure boats on the River Thames in central London, and we played while passing all the famous landmarks, including Tower Bridge and The Houses of Parliament. I did a drum solo at every gig to a number called ‘Manhattan Spiritual’ and on one practice night I did a sponsored none stop four hour marathon drum solo for charity. I had known a wonderful girl named, Betty North, for a few months in 1970 and I asked her out for our first date while at the big Gene Vincent gig at the Kingston Coronation Hall, when we were playing on the same bill. I knew she was there that night and I went out into audience to find her. My life started on that night in 1970 and we got married in May 1972!

For about the first three of my six years playing drums for the Impalas, the band members were: Tony Claiden on lead guitar and vocals, Keith Read on bass and vocals, Keith Mott on drums and Oonagh Ellis on vocals. Several premier musicians joined the band in later years, but someone who never seems to get a mention is our Oonagh! Oonagh Ellis was a lovely girl with a ‘world class’ voice. She did her own songs on stage, but also did some beautiful duets with Keith Read. Whenever I hear those great old Everly Brother’s songs like ‘Let it be me’, it always reminds me of our Oonagh. She married Tony Claiden and when they started their family, her singing career faded away. I can remember having many all-night ‘Rock n’ Roll’ record sessions with Tony at their flat in East Sheen and then walking home through Richmond Park at 5 o’clock in the morning. Great days! Oonagh Ellis was one of the major talents of the Impalas rock band! Keith Read and I were at Rivermead Secondary School together and we shared the love of rock music from an early age. We played music together at several pubs in the Kingston area when we were teenagers and learnt out trade. We both finished up joining the premier rock band,’ The Impalas’ in the mid 1960’s, alongside the very talented couple, Tony Claiden and Oonagh Ellis. We had six great years playing in this wonderful rock band and shared some great experiences, traveling all over the UK playing gigs. We had our regular Sunday night ‘Impalas’ club at the Swan PH in Kingston, which we all really enjoyed. I think Keith would agree, our greatest experience was playing two sold out shows at the London Palladium with the late great Gene Vincent in 1969. Betty and I got married in May 1972 and Keith married his lovely wife, Pam, a couple of weeks later. We played at Keith and Pam’s wedding and we are all celebrating our 50^th wedding anniversaries this year. After six great years with ‘The Impalas’, I moved over to ‘Rockmobile’ and a couple of years earlier Keith had joined the ‘Wild Angels’. Keith is a very talented musician, one of the very best and has enjoyed a lifetime playing at the top level in the music industry. He is still playing his guitar and gigging today and has a regular radio show with Pam on the Angel Radio station. We hadn’t seen one another for a lot of years, but had a brilliant meet up in September 2020, which was a great couple of hours. Keith Read is a smashing lad and a very special friend!

It was a great time in my life, but as you get older you want different things. Music was my life in the 1960’s and early 1970’s and is still very dear to me today, and I still derive a lot of pleasure from listening to all types of music, but love ‘rock’ music’. When I was a kid and was kicking a drum kit all over the UK, I always maintained that to be a good musician you had to appreciate all types of music. The main music we played was ‘rock’, but in our spare time our bass player, Keith Read, and myself used to sit in on jazz jam sessions around the London area. The best drummer I ever heard was the late great John Bonham of Led Zeppelin and he was everything I wanted to be as a musician! A few months ago I put an old recording of one of my drum solos on my YouTube channel and it was greatly received. I did my first drum solo in public as a school boy at the Rivermead School ‘Gang’ Show in about 1966 and it was a full house, with all the kids and their parents in attendance. I did drum solos at nearly every gig all over the UK, with every band I played with over the next ten years and I must say it was great fun doing my own thing up there on that stage for the crowds! The best ‘buzz’ was at our beloved Impalas Sunday night club at the Swan PH in Mill Street, Kingston. It was great to have a hall full of ‘drape jackets’ bopping and keeping up with my drum solo. Great times and a wonderful crowd of lads and girls! I did a four hour non-stop drum solo at one of our Impalas Monday night rehearsals at the Swan for charity and raised a lot of money to help purchase an electric wheel chair for a local Mill Street disable person. Great memories! I recently put ‘The “Shed” Recording Sessions (1969)’ out on my ‘YouTube Channel, featuring Keith Read on guitar and vocals, and me on drums. In the late 1960’s we built a recording studio in my parents garden in Durlston Road, Kingston and when we were not out on the road with the Impalas, Keith Read and I spent time in there working. Keith did the vocals and over dubbed the guitar parts, I played drums and our late friend, Charlie Chaplin, guested on some of the tracks with guitar. After 50 year, eight tracks survived on acetate records, being stored in a cupboard in Keith Read’s house. The photo show film features some of those 1969 ‘Shed’ recording studio tracks. Wonderful memories for Keith and me!

Graham Fenton and I back to the 1960’s, when he and his best friend, Trevor Hawkins, came to our ‘Impalas’ gigs and were also regular visitors to our Sunday night Rock n’ Roll club at the Swan PH, Mill Street in Kinston. They are two of the nicest people you could hope to meet and two very talented guys! Trevor is a brilliant piano player and Graham is a first singer, and in the late 1960’s they decided to form a band, naming themselves ‘The Wild Bunch’. I remember their very first gig was in London and they didn’t have a drummer, so I stood in and did the gig with them. The rest is history, Graham Fenton sang for several years with the successful ‘Houseshakers’ and then formed the world famous ‘Matchbox’ rock band, which had several hit records including ‘Rockabilly Rebel’. Graham and the band are still going today and are still touring all over the world. My ol’ mate Trevor Hawkins, went on to join the great Shakin’ Steven & the Sunsets and played on the ‘Legend’ album, and finished up playing with us in the ‘Impalas’. Trevor and his lovely wife, Deirdre, now live in Australia. I played at Trevor and Deirdre’s wedding and Graham Fenton was the best man! Great days and wonderful memories! I must say, it is great that we all still friends after all those years and still in touch through ‘Facebook’!

'The Impalas' played with Gene Vincent several times on his last two tours of the UK, including the two sold out shows at the London Palladium in 1969. We played the two Palladium shows in the company of Gene Vincent, Wild Angels, Nashville Teens and Emperor Roscoe compared the show. The ‘Nashville Teens’ were formed in Surrey in 1962 and had several hit records, including ‘Tobacco Road’ in the 1960’s. Their brilliant piano player, John Hawken, played with us in the ‘Impalas’ at several gigs in later years and now lives in New York and still contacts me today.  ‘Heinz’ Burt had a massive hit called ‘Telstar’ with his group, The Tornados, in the early 1960’s and then in 1963 he had a hit with his solo single, ‘Just like Eddie’, which was tribute to the late great Eddie Cochran. In those days he had Steve Marriott of The Small Faces on drums and Richie Blackmore of Deep Purple on guitar in his backing band. We played with Heinz at the Norwich Music Festival, which was a big all day gig with several bands on. At that time the ‘Houseshakers’ drummer went on holiday and Graham Fenton and the lads asked me to sit in for him for the two weeks. I was out every night for two weeks playing with my band, the ‘Impalas’, or the ‘Houseshakers’! The Norwich Music Festival fell on the middle Saturday and I played two sets at the gig, one with the ‘Impalas’ and one with the ‘Houseshakers’, and went home knackered. Heinz was top of the bill and it was a great day! The ‘Impalas’ played with ‘Screaming Lord Sutch’ many times over the years and backed him on several occasions. Although Dave Sutch was the ultimate ‘show man’ when performing on stage, when sitting in the dressing room have a cup of tea with him, I found him to be a very nice, down to earth lad. When on stage you had to keep him away from your instruments! We were backing him one night and he jumped on Tony Claiden’s back for a ‘piggyback’ across the stage and he broke Tony’s beloved blond guitar. Dave was a nice guy, but turned into another person when he was carried on to the stage in that coffin! He is sadly no longer with us, but went on in later life to be a MP and stood at several elections. A band I rated very highly in the day was Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets and in my opinion ‘Shaky’ was one of the best Rock n’ Roll singers on the scene at that time. All the top bands played all over the UK, but we all often gigged at the regular premier Rock n’ Roll venues, including ‘The Swan’ PH in Kingston, ‘The Fishmonger’s Arms’ PH in Wood Green, ‘The Northcote Arms’ PH in Southall and ‘The Gun Tavern’ PH in Croydon. Quite often two bands would play these venues on the same night and we doubled up with Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets many times. My ol’ mate Trevor Hawkins, was a member of the Sunsets at that time and played fantastic piano on the band’s ‘Legend’ album, and finished up playing with us in the ‘Impalas’ a few years later. The Sunsets’ drummer, ‘Rockin’ Louie’ was a nice guy and we aways had a catch up in the dressing room when we gigged together. ‘Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets’’ and ‘The Impalas’ were both on the very successful 1970 album ‘Battle of the Bands’ and both bands were in the Morgan Recording Studios putting their tracks down on the same day, and I remember we had a good couple of hours in the studio bar with the lads before they drove home to Wales. I must say it was a bit strange to see our two young kids dancing around our living room in Claygate to Shakin’ Stevens’ number one hit records a few years later!

I think it is common knowledge amongst people who know me that I have a very low boredom level and climb the walls if I’m doing something. I’m retired now and with being grounded my ongoing leg problem, I spend a lot of my time these days writing for the British Homing World and playing with photographs and my YouTube channel. With being ‘banged up’ for many months with the Covid 19 virus lurking outside my front door, even all these actives were not quite enough to take up my time. I’m not a great fan of social media and got rid of my short lived ‘Facebook’ account many years ago, because of the rubbish that came through to me on a daily basis. During the ‘lockdown’ I had a conversation with my granddaughter, Katie, who is wiz at the internet and she suggested that I start a new account, but this time be more selective and stay away from ‘Facebook’ groups. I thought to myself, with a new ‘Facebook account I could make up some photo shows to put on and get some of my massive archive of photograph out there on the internet for people to enjoy. It’s been great fun and helped me through the Covid 19 ‘lockdown’. Of course most of the photos have been based around pigeons, but I did do some large photo shows of my time when I was ‘rock’ drummer, which were brilliant received. I had comments and messages from musicians and fans that I haven’t had contact with for fifty years. I had messages from old band members, four different musicians I have worked with that have had number one hits in the ‘hit parade’ and fans that were at the London Palladium gig in 1969. I spent many hours messaging them back and a couple of times stayed up half the night in conversation with them.

I had a wonderful surprise one morning in September 2021 when we had a knock on our front door and my great friend, Keith Read, was standing on our doorstep. He had popped around to give me a copy of his CD of our rock group 'The Impalas'. Keith and I had six great years playing together in the band in the late 1960's and early 1970's, and this was the first time I have seen him for 50 years. We had a great hour catching up and I must say it was brilliant to see him looking so well! We both went to Richmond Road School and as kids we were always messing around playing music together in different groups. We finely both joined the Impalas and hit the ‘big time’. Music was our lives then and if we were not on the road with the Impalas, we were out recording or jamming in clubs and pubs with other musicians. We were always playing music! After about four years with the Impalas, Keith left to join the ‘Wild Angels’ and about two years later I left and joined the brilliant ‘Rockmobile’. Keith Read is still playing in the pub and clubs today and has a regular radio show with his wife, Pam, on ‘Angel Radio’ on the south coast. ‘Rockmobile’ was a great hard working trio, with Tony Collick on lead guitar and vocals, Terry Glasse on bass guitar and myself on drum, and we played the club circuit alongside top acts including Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets, and ‘The Houseshaker’. Tony and Terry are sadly no longer with us, but were two great guys and very talented musicians. Tony Collick was a brilliant singer and guitarist and was a driving force in two other premier bands, namely ‘The Rock n’ Roll All Stars’ and ‘Tony Vincent & CSA’.  At that time I owned a very good portable tape recorder and one night in 1974 we were playing at a bid gig at the Telegraph in Brixton (London) and Betty recorded us playing 22 numbers from the front of the stage, in front of the PA system, including a five minute drum solo. That tape recording has been in a cupboard in my office for nearly 50 years and while in Covid 19 lockdown, I dug it out and played it. Raw and unproduced it might be, but to hear it again was great, all those wonderful memories came flooding back! I must say the whole experience of seeing Keith Read and hearing that old ‘Rockmobile’ tape was wonderful and it certainly helped me through the Covid 19 ‘lockdown’.

Well, that’s it for this week and I must say I’ve really enjoyed that little walk down ‘memory Lane’. If you win and want a write up in this space, contact me on telephone number: 01372 463480 or email me on: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT (www.keithmott.com)