1st January 1968
THE SAFETY CATCH
1968 didn’t exactly start with a bang. Another local group making a 2nd appearance in quick succession.
8th January 1968
COLOURED RAISINS
At least with this band, we can provide some information. They were billed as “Britain’s No 1 Coloured Soul Show Live!” and were formed in South London in 1966. Featuring Brian Clarke on vocals, David & Keith Gamport on guitars, Peter Nelson on organ & Lyndon Steel on drums, all apparently originated from the West Indies. They enlarged their line-up to an 8 piece by incorporating Honey Darling, King Ossie and Earl Greene on vocals with Ossie also providing a DJ slot at this event, quite possibly as a support to the live gig. They reportedly became one of the most booked up London outfits during ’67/68, and after shortening their name to the Raisins they finally became Black Velvet in June ’69 following the tragic death of one of it’s band members after returning from a gig (quite possibly at The Hastings Pier). Whilst Black Velvet released several singles and at least 4 albums on the Beacon, Pye, and Seven Sun labels between 1969 and 1973, The Coloured Raisins had several 45’s released by Trojan Records, the London based label founded by Jamaican Duke Reid in 1968 and one of the most important and influential labels in the history of British popular music. Trojan were not only responsible for introducing the UK public to ska, rocksteady and reggae at a time when Jamaican music was slowly making it’s mark into the mainstream, but they also provided The Newmarket with several other artists, some of which were part of that mainstream. Their Trojan singles, most of which date from 1969, reveal a more than capable band that had apparently abandoned their “soul” epithet to embrace Jamaican rhythms.
15th January 1968
PINKERTON’S COLOURS
Another example of Westside Promotions influence as this was another band that were mooted to play the Town Hall back in 1967 prior to Westside’s removal from the local scene. The Pinkerton’s were probably past their sell-by date by 1968. Formed in Rugby as “The Liberators”, they became “The Wild Ones” prior to a further name change in 1965 to their most well-known, and it has to be said, rather silly sobriquet. Their career got off to a perfect start with their debut single, “Mirror Mirror” reaching No.9 in the UK charts, a hit that introduced the British public to that rarest of instruments, the Autoharp. For a band with a Top 10 record under their belt, singles were surprisingly sparse thereafter, only 5 more being issued over a 3 year period to be exact, of which only 2 charted, but only just, scraping into the Top 50 and Top 60 respectively. In fact the band had almost as many name changes as single releases, losing their “Assortment” to become “Pinkerton’s Colours”, then just “Pinkerton’s” and finally “The Flying Machine”, the latter of which enjoyed a solitary No 5 hit in the USA with “Smile A Little Smile For Me” in 1969. As with a lot of bands from this period, the most interesting factoid revolves around who was in it. Drummer Dave Holland left in 1968 to form Trapeze, and finally ended up in the heavy metal band Judas Priest whilst bassist Stuart Colman, a walking encyclopaedia of early Rock N’Roll, not only ended up working for the BBC as a producer and for Radio London as a DJ, but was later largely responsible for the commercial success of Shakin Stevens, who he produced. In fact, in 1982 “Music Week” magazine voted him “the top singles producer of the year”. As for Shaky……watch this space.
22nd January 1968
THE MIDROD ENDS
A band that appeared to be a permanent fixture at the Newmarket during it’s early days. They may well have been advertised as being “back by popular demand” but one can only guess that during it’s embryonic period the promoters were discovering that there simply weren’t enough groups to go round. Also mentioned in the Mercury was the release of the debut single, issued by Parlophone Records on the 19th January 1968, by “local folk singer Pete Martin” called “No-One Will Ever Know”. Quite a prophetic title as it happens as no-one will ever know exactly what happened to him. To give him credit, he was a label mate of The Beatles, albeit for a short while and his single can currently be purchased for the princely sum of about £25. He also was due to make an appearance at Taylor’s Record Shop in the High Street which, as we know, was a sure sign of future stardom.
29th January 1968
THE GRAHAM BOND ORGANISATION
Graham Bond was one of those British artists who, along with Alexis Korner and John Mayall, was responsible for providing a haven for several musicians who went on to achieve notoriety and fame elsewhere. Born in Romford, like Mike Cotton, Bond started out as a jazz musician and first achieved some success as a saxophone player in the Don Rendell Quartet before briefly joining Korner’s Blues Incorporated. Voted “Britain’s New Jazz Star” in 1961 he formed his own Graham Bond Quartet with musicians taken from Korner’s band. These were Ginger Baker on drums, Jack Bruce on bass, and guitarist John McLaughlin with Bond now favouring the Hammond Organ as his primary instrument. After the group became known as the Graham Bond Organisation, McLaughlin was replaced by Dick Heckstall-Smith on saxophone and 2 albums, – “The Sound of 65” and “There’s A Bond Between Us” – both released in the same year, are still revered amongst British blues rock enthusiasts as seminal records of the genre with one of these albums (depending on your source) featuring the first example of a Mellotron being used on a rock record. The band however were beset by problems. Bond himself was an early drug abuser and quite possibly becuase of this, he decided to hand over the running of the group to Ginger Baker, who, after constant rows with bassist Bruce, sacked him only to leave himself to eventually form Cream with Bruce and Eric Clapton. Jon Hiseman took over on drums and the Organisation continued as a trio but the loss of his star pupils diminished Bond’s music. Unable to find a successful commercial synthesis that pleased the general public (all Blues bands in the 60’s were judged by hit singles and Bond didn’t have any) and with Bond’s deteriorating health, the band dissolved completely in 1967 with Hiseman & Heckstall-Smith forming the rock band Colosseum. It’s hard to determine exactly what kind of state Bond was in when he played this gig. One observer remarked that it was “just Bond on Hammond plus a drummer playing Jazz/Blues all bathed in a liquid light show”. Such was the erratic nature of Bond’s mental state it could be that the light show was more impressive than the actual performance as he not only continued to exhibit mental disorders, with manic episodes and periods of intense depression, but was still a heavy drug user. His career continued sporadically – he played as a session musician in America for a year, fronted a band called the Graham Bond Initiation with his wife, and was a temporary member of both Ginger Baker’s Air Force and Jack Bruce’s band. Seemingly unable to prevent his decline, he started to show an unhealthy interest in the occult (he believed he was Aleister Crowley’s son) and spent January 1973 in hospital after a nervous breakdown. It has even been posthumously speculated (in the biography “Mighty Shadow”) that he sexually abused his stepdaughter. On 8 May 1974, at just 36 years of age, Bond was killed when he threw himself in front of a tube train at Finsbury Park Station. A troubled soul most certainly but an important, and largely overlooked, artist.
5th February 1968
LUCAS with the MIKE COTTON SOUND
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