KEITH MOTT

“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT.

Memories of the swinging 1960’s!

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, so this week I’m going to give it a go! I was born in Feltham, near Heathrow Airport in 1950. I can remember my dear grandmother, Caroline, telling me at a very young age that her brother was a drummer in a dance band, but no one in the family was a pigeon fanciers. Myself and my younger brother, Phil, started keeping pigeons in our early youth and the Mott Brother’s pigeon career stared when we obtained a pair of birds, ‘Alma’ and ‘Charlie’, from a school friend, which were housed in a small rabbit hutch. This pair of pigeons was bred at the loft of Terry Smart, who was in partnership with the Groombridge family of Kingston and it is common knowledge that Terry with his wife Carole, became the secretary of the London & South East Classic Club some 25 years later. After a few years of flying our pigeons around the rooftops, we had to give them up for a short while, as we moved house. 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 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 bed room 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 neighbors, 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.

As I’ve previously stated, I have been asked many time by friends through the years if I would do a write up on the 1960’s, 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 ‘The Impalas’ and for most of the time, the line-up was Tony Clayden on lead guitar and vocal, ‘Charlie’ Chaplin on rhythm guitar, Keith Read on bass guitar and vocals and myself on drums. In the early days Tony’s wife, Una Ellis sang with us and she was a ‘world class’ singer, but in the mid 1960’s she had to retire from the band, when the Claydens started a family. We had one or two changes in personnel through the years, one of note, was the classical trained pianist, Johnny Hawkin, who came in and he was formally with ‘The Nashville Teens’, who had  had a massive hit record with ‘Tobacco Road’. 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 1998. 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’, which were used by all the best in the business. The drummer who played in two of my favorite groups, Simon Kirk of ‘Free’ and ‘Bad Company’ used a ‘Hayman’ drum kit at that time and I first became aware of them when my ol’ mate Doug Argent and I went to a ‘Hayman’ drum clinic and the late great Phil Seaman demonstrated them. What a great night that was! My kit was made up with the ‘Hayman’ bass drum and tom toms, ‘Ludwig’ chrome snare drum, ‘Ludwig’ Speed King bass drum pedal, ‘Premier’ lock fast stands and ‘Zildjen’ cymbals. I did a lot of my recording with this wonderful drum kit.  We played all over the UK, every night of the week if the work load 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 land marks, 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 five hour marathon drum solo for charity, which raised funds for an electric disable wheel chair. 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 in to audience to find her. My life started on that night in 1970 and we got married in May 1972!

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, from Guns n’ Roses through to Katherine Jenkins. When I was a kid and 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 Reed, 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! Another drummer I really rated from the other end of the spectrum was Brian Bennett of The Shadows; just listen to his solo on ‘Little B’. A fantastic musician! I think I was lucky to be a teenager in the 1960’s, because that’s where it was at and bands played live in those great times, and were not ‘Karaoke’ singers, performing with backing tapes running behind the stage curtain, as they do today. As I’ve previously stated I enjoy all types of music, but love Rock music! I really like Steve Winwood (The Spencer Davis Group / Traffic) and have been buying his albums since 1965, and have seen him play live twice. My cousin, Peter Creswell, was a top session guitarist in the late 1960’s and recorded with Steve Winwood at that time and promised to take me to one of the studio sessions, but I never did get to meet Winwood. My choice in music isn’t every ones cup of tea, but I enjoy listening to Guns n’ Roses, Paul Rodgers (Free / Bad Company), David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gary Moore and Led Zeppelin.

Being a busy rock drummer and playing at all premier venues all over the UK was my life for many years, but in 1970 Phil and I decided to start up pigeons again, this time to do the job properly. We obtained some good stock and start racing, which we had never done before. We acquired some Kirkpatrick and Kenyon stock from the late Johnny Winters of Kingston, which formed the basis of the Mott Brothers loft, and joined the now, disbanded Molesey & District H.S. We won many firsts and averages in the early years, mostly in hard channel races, and were top prize winners in the strong Molesey club in 1975, winning 1st club Avranches, 1st club Rennes, 2nd club Nantes, 1st club Niort and several inland races that season. The premier pigeon for Mott Brothers in the 1970’s was our great dark pied cock, ‘John Boy’, winner of many good positions including, 1974: 1st club, 1st Surrey Federation (2,673 birds), 3rd open S.M.T. Combine (6,823 birds) Nantes, winning the Federation by 23 ypm, with a velocity of 995 ypm, 1976: 1st club, 4th Surrey Federation, 12th open S.M.T. Combine (4,234 birds) Niort. This wonderful pigeon was a Kirkpatrick / Kenyon cross, bred from the original Johnny Winters stock and won several premier trophies, including ‘Pigeon of the Year’ in the Molesey club. Phil and I never looked back in channel racing, winning in the best of company! We considered Niort our personal favorite race point in the early days, winning three firsts in four seasons. Mott Brothers won the second longest old bird race four times in five seasons and the year we missed out, we won Bergerac (455 miles), the longest old bird race. The 1979 season saw the Mott Brother’s pigeon partnership split up as Phil got married and moved out of the area, and he took the 1978 young bird team to make a start at his new address. Phil raced in partnership with his wife, Pauline, and they were very successful in the channel races with the West Middlesex Federation. Phil left the sport in 1990, but still has an interest and comes out every winter and judges at one or two top shows with me. On the split in 1979, I then teamed up with my wife, Betty in 1980 and started racing at our present address at Claygate.

Well something a bit different this week and I hope my readers have enjoyed it! I can be contacted for any pigeon banter (not drum lessons) 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)