“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT

The 1960’s Revisited

Since my recent walk down ‘Memory Lane’ with my article on the 1960’s, I’ve been blown away with response it has generated from friend, family and the pigeon fancy in general. It all happened over forty years ago and until recently; I’ve never given it much thought and certainly have never been tempted to write about those great days, which I thought were dead and gone. Several people have previously said I should record it in an article, but really it was Matt Bentley on my back and chewing my ear off for months, saying I should be recording that time in my life, which got me on the job. Since I put it in my column a few weeks ago the response has been many, many emails and phone calls from music lovers like myself and many of them telling me about their memories of the great 1960’s. I have visited and judged at several premier shows this winter and many fanciers approach me to talk about the article and the music.

After the events of recent weeks I thought to myself, I wonder if there was anything on the Internet about the Gene Vincent tours, but I was very doubtful as it was 45 years ago. I Googled in ‘Gene Vincent London Palladium 1969’ and to my utter disbelief up it all came! On You Tube there was an audio recording of one of Vincent’s eight songs sets at the Palladium, which someone had recorded in the audience on a portable tape recorder. As you can imagine being recorded on a 1960’s recorder it was very crude and noisy, but man, it was really great to hear! We were all in the wings of the Palladium stage listening to him that night and that old tape recording bought it all back. We played two shows with him at the Palladium and the ‘Swan’ PH ran a coach up to London that night, and my mum and dad were in the audience, so it was a great occasion for us all. I don’t know how many people the London Palladium holds, several thousand I would think, but both shows were completely sold out. When you are on stage at that great old theatre, you can’t see the audience because of the stage lights and it is like looking out at a big black screen. In our set on the night we played a slow number and the stage crew dimmed the light down for its duration, and all I could see was thousands of people’s faces from the floor to the roof.  I don’t know if this was our biggest gig audience wise, but we played at some big auditoriums, including the open air Norwich Music Festival with Heinz Burt (The Tornados) and there was several thousand people there that day. Heinz was the blond bass player with The Tornados who had a massive hit record with ‘Telstar’ and he had a solo hit with his Eddie Cochran tribute single, ‘Just like Eddie’. I did session work from time to time and was on loan to another top group on the UK circuit, The Houseshakers, for two weeks, with their drummer being away on holiday and played two sets at the Norwich gig, one with The Impalas and the other with The Houseshakers. I went home knackered that day! An interesting fact about the Palladium gig was they used one of the biggest PA systems on the planet that night, wattage wise and the super groups these days are ten times louder. LOL!  They were asking for photos taken at the show on the Internet and I have several, including Gene Vincent and us in the dressing room, Emperor Roscoe, who compered the show and Gene waiting back stage to go on and perform. Delving further into the Internet I found all Gene Vincent’s tour dates and we played with him twice on the 1969 tour and then again twice on his last tour in 1971. To my amazement I found an old press cutting advertising the Palladium gig on the Internet and had to laugh, as the most expensive tickets were 40/- (£2). LOL! The Impalas, Shakin’ Stevens & the Sunsets, Screaming Lord Sutch, The Houseshakers, Wild Angels, The Rock n’ Roll Allstars, we all played regularly on a circuit of clubs and three of the venues were at the ‘Fishmonger’s Arms’ PH in Woodgreen, the ‘Northcote Arms’ PH, Southall and the ‘Gun’ PH Croydon. Our second gig with Gene Vincent on the 1969 tour was at the ‘Fishmonger’s Arms’. I also found a ticket for the Coronation Hall, Kingston gig displayed on the Internet, which was on the 1971 tour and was the night I first asked my wife, Betty, out for our first date. In my previous article I stated this gig was in 1970, but in fact it was February 1971. After finding the ticket (number 1623) on the Internet, Betty went through her personal effects draw and found her ticket (number 1164) for the 1971 Coronation Hall gig. Just amazing! This was our last show with Gene Vincent, previously playing at the ‘Northcote Arms’ with him on the 1971 tour and he died in the USA in October 1971.

Still delving even further into the Internet, I Googled ‘Morgan Recording Studio’! We worked at several recording establishments, but the main one was ‘Morgan’ in Willesden, North West London and I can remember Shakin’ Steven & the Sunsets were also recording there that same day. I can remember, after we had all put our tracks down we had a couple of hours in the studio bar with them, before they went home to Wales. I personally always thought ‘Shaky’ was a major talent and of course he went on to have a string of hit records in the 1980’s, and it was funny then to see my kids, Mark and Caroline going out and buying his records. I still have a copy the first Shakin Stevens and the Sunsets 1960’s vinyl album, ‘Legend’, and still enjoy seeing the ol’ boy singing his Christmas hit on the TV every year. Trevor Hawkins was the piano player in The Sunsets and later on he joined us in The Impalas. I played at Trevor’s wedding and I will never forget that day, he wore a bright red drape suit and his best mate, Graham Fenton singer with The Houseshakers, was his best man on the day and he wore a drape suit and Wellington boots! LOL!  Graham Fenton went on to have a major hit record, ‘Rockabilly Rebel’ with a group called ‘Matchbox’ and after releasing several albums, is still performing today. We were produced by Donnie Marchard that day at Morgan Studio and he was a top man in the USA, producing many top artists, including Bobby Darren. We were there at Morgan in 1970 and although it was still a young establishment, being opened at Maybury Gardens in 1967, it was one of the best in the UK at that time. Looking at the history of the studio on the Internet, I was amazed to see the list of people who have recorded there over the years since, including: Blind Faith (Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton), Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd (David Gilmour), Gary Moore, Cat Stevens, Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart, but to name a few. I can remember the Morgan Studio was a white building on the corner of two roads, but I see the building has now been greatly modernized, including a loft extension. I still have a copy of the vinyl LP and they took photos of us in the recording studio, one of which appeared on the LP sleeve. I have included the old black and white photo of us from the record sleeve, which shows us in the studio and you can see my drum kit miked up ready for recording. The second picture is of Shakin’ Stevens and The Sunsets taken in the Morgan Studio bar. The photos are 45 years old, black and white, and very grainy, but they are priceless to me. Great days!

All the lads I played Rock n’ Roll with in The Impalas were in main a lot older than me, in fact Shakin’ Stevens is about two or three years older than me, so my favorite music was 1960’s. As a musician the late 1950’s music was far better to play and from that era I enjoyed the music of Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly best. I played in a 1960’s pop group called ‘Ram Rod’, but it was never as good as my seven years playing at the top level with The Impalas! I finish my playing days with Tony Collick, ex Rock n’ Roll Allstars singer, in a group called ‘Rockmobile’ and that was a brilliant trio. Although I kicked a drum kit around the UK for many years and loved listening to great drummers like John Bonham and Brian Bennett, it was and still is great guitarists who ‘blow’ me away. I love the Rock music of Steve Winwood (Blind Faith / Traffic), David Gilmore (Pink Floyd), Gary Moore (Thin Lizzy), Paul Rodgers (Free / Bad Company), Guns n’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and so on. I promise you that’s my last word on music!

That’s it for this week. A bit more about my yesterdays and next time we will be back with pigeon racing!

My new mobile phone number is: 07535 484584.

I can be contacted with any pigeon ‘banter’ 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 & PHOTO BY KEITH MOTT

(www.keithmott.com).