After two or three months of record nights only, the New Market Discotheque. Bridgwater, is once more securing big group attractions for it’s Saturday night dances – beginning this week with the return of Hot Chocolate. When the outfit first came to the New Market last September, their “Love Is Life” disc was heading towards the Top Ten. Now, the return visit could well herald smash number two for them as it comes right on the heels of the release of their follow-up, another catchy song called “You Could Have Been A Lady”. Of course, since we last saw them, Hot Chocolate have won further fame through their two songwriting members. Mary Hopkin scored a hit when she recorded one of their distinctive shuffle beat ditties, “Think About Your Children” and the same happened with Julie Felix, who cut “Heaven Is Here”. Hot Chocolate insist that their musical boundaries extend beyond the realms of simple reggae, so their gig on Saturday should have wide audience appeal. Certainly they are one of the most happy-go-lucky bands at the moment and no doubt, their special brand of music will again prove intoxicating for patrons.
HOT CHOCOLATE
20th February 1971
Hot Chocolate were a bit disappointed that they did not get a larger crowd at The New Market Discotheque, Bridgwater, after the tremendous support and reception accorded them last time. This was somewhat reflected in their act, but the inclusion of their two singles and soul repertoire was enjoyed.
Bridgwater’s hard-working carnival clubs continue to offer pop fans an attractive deal with “live” dances featuring well-known groups. And on Friday, the Commercial Club do it again by presenting The Troggs at the Blake Hall. This follows hot on the heels of the club’s successful dance at the same ballroom starring “Tobacco Road” boys The Nashville Teens and is certain to meet with equally good public response. A spokesman for the club tells me that The Troggs will be on stage for at least an hour doing an uninterrupted slot. The Troggs are an Andover group who sprung to fame in the mid-1960’s with the insinuating “Wild Thing”, which went to number one in this country and abroad. About the time the record broke, the unit – who are led by vocalist Reg Presley – came to Bridgwater Town Hall for a Top 20 Club gig. A number of other smashes followed, including “With A Girl Like You” , “I Can’t Control Myself” and “Love Is All Around” and their most recent single was “The Raver”, a disc often requested by local discotheque-goers. Despite successive music trends, The Troggs have managed to adapt themselves to the times, with few changes in their line-up. In addition to regularly cutting discs, the group play at niteries all over the country and also make frequent Radio 1 broadcasts (they are on the J.Y. show this week)
After the big introduction, sadly The Troggs turned out to be a no-show. It would appear that going “down under” was more important than playing a gig in a town situated somewhere in Somerset.
Pity The Troggs were in Australia following up the success of two hit records and so couldn’t fulfil their Commercial Carnival Club engagement at Blake Hall….
IT’S AN ALL-HAPPENING WEEK
Van Der Graaf Generator – that much respected British contemporary rock outfit, reggae hit-makers Bob and Marcia, of “Young, Gifted And Black” fame, and London-based pop recording group Heatwave: these are the acts all scheduled for gigs in Bridgwater this week. Most ambitious of the bookings is that involving Van Der Graaf Generator, who have been secured by the Students Guild of Bridgwater Technical College for their dance at Blake Hall on Friday. Described as one of John Peel’s all-time favourite groups , the unit consist of Peter Hammill (lead vocals and guitar), David Jackson (brass, woodwind and vocals), Keith Ellis (bass), Hugh Banton (organ, piano and vocals) and Guy Evans (drums). They record for the forward-looking Charisma label and their newest album, “H to He, Who Am The Only One”, was highly praised when it came out a few months ago. The dance – a must for all true heavies – runs from 8 p.m. to one o’clock in the morning. The same night, fans of more commercial pop will be well catered for at The Psyco Discotheque, Sydenham Community Centre, when Heatwave appear. These boys have a single released on Penny Farthing called “Sister Simon (Funny Man)”. Bob and Marcia come to The New Market Discotheque on Saturday night. They need no introduction to lovers of reggae as their easy-going vocal harmony style has endeared them to thousands of fans across the country, although in their native West Indies they are best known as solo stars – Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths. So….this is what might be called well-balanced fare – and if only the dances had been more spaced out it would have been even better.
30th March 1971
Formation of a folk club in Bridgwater moves one step nearer with the news that a Ceilidh is to be held at The Blake Arms, Penel Orlieu, on Saturday. Taking part will be John Kirkpatrick, Alan Wagstaffe and Taffy Thomas, the Youth Camp group who specialise in Ceilidh for the under 30’s, although all ages seem to enjoy them. Liz Noyes, on of the organisers, says this is probably the first time such a do has been held in Bridgwater and everyone is hoping that as many people as possible will go along. There will be folk music and dance for four hours from 8 o’clock and also taking part will be The West Somerset Morris Men.
26th March 1971
HEATWAVE
It’s typical, you wait several months for some decent live action and then 3 gigs all happen at the same time though of the three, this band certainly enjoyed the least acclaim. Not to be confused with the Rod Temperton version of Heatwave – the band that gave us “Boogie Nights” – this London-based 5-piece version were from London, and were formed in 1969 out of the ashes of a group called The Moving Targets. They were a “progressive pop harmony group, playing cover versions of the popular artists of the day“. An entertainment agency signed them up and they began supporting various professional bands and with their live act occasionally including a pyrotechnic display of fire eating by one of the band members, unsurprisingly they gained a reputation of sorts. But it wasn’t until the acquisition of a new lead vocalist (who just happened to be the former stage manager of a West End strip club) that they were able to obtain more lucrative opportunities. The goal of course was to secure a recording contract though prior to doing so they did succeed in appearing on a selection of BBC radio performances, appearing on shows hosted by Terry Wogan, Kenny Everett, Dave Lee Travis and Jimmy Young amongst others. Finally signed to Penny Farthing Records, a label owned by Larry Page, the man who gave us that no-show band The Troggs, to my knowledge they released just the one single (on 13th November 1970) entitled “Sister Simon (Funny Man)” with “Rastus Ravel (Is A Mean Old Man)” on it’s flip side. The single failed to chart though the “B”-side, which boasts the talents of both Rick Wakeman on piano and Doris Troy on backing vocals, seems to have gained more notoriety than it’s A-side.
26th March 1971
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
Methinks that the appearance of this band at the Blake Hall was something of a coup for Bridgwater. They were a perfect example of the “progressive rock” of the period though in many ways were too much on the margins to ever become anything more than a popular band with a cult following. Formed in Manchester University by Chris Judge-Smith around the songwriting skills of fellow student Peter Hammill, they were the first ever group to be signed to the ultra-progressive Charisma Records label. According to Smith, the band initially played as a duo, with Smith occasionally using a typewriter as a percussion instrument. However, with the addition of Nick Pearne on organ their first gig as a three-piece was in the student union, which lasted five minutes before the group’s amplifiers blew up. The trio recorded a demo tape that was heavily influenced by jazz and blues, but after Mercury Records offered them a contract, Pearne left to concentrate on his studies, and was subsequently replaced by the classically trained keyboard player Hugh Banton before expanding still further to a 5-piece. Whilst a trio, their first single, 1969’s “People You Were Going To”, came out on the Polydor label but despite receiving favourable reviews it was hastily withdrawn by Mercury as the band were still signed to that label. At this point, Van Dr Graaf’s future looked a little bleak as founder member Smith left, the band had their equipment stolen, and Mercury refused to extricate them from their contract. Having obtained Tony Stratton-Smith as their manager, he stubbornly would not allow the group to record for the label and in the resulting stalemate, the group broke up, but not before they had recorded a session for John Peel and had also appeared at The Royal Albert Hall as support to The Jimi Hendrix Experience. In 1969, Hammill began playing solo and eventually went into Trident Studios during the summer to record an album that featured the other band members as session musicians. It was due to this occurrence that an opportunity to wrestle themselves away from Mercury appeared as the album, “The Aerosol Grey Machine”, released under the band name, came out on Mercury under the proviso that it would be their one and only release for that company. Issued in the USA only, it was badly promoted, and consequently sank without trace, but with the band now having re-formed, and with Mercury now out of the way, it allowed them to sign to Stratton-Smith’s newly formed Charisma label. A new line-up appeared, with saxophonist David Jackson an important acquisition and in 1970 “The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other”, their second album was issued. It was successful enough to reach the Top 50 in the UK with the music paper Melody Maker proclaiming “If all our groups were as together as this, the British music scene would improve ten-fold.”. At the point of appearing at the Blake Hall, a third album “H to He Who Am The Only One” had been issued in December 1970, but due to it’s lack of commerciality, failed to sell as well as it’s predecessor. Bridgwater witnessed what fans would probably regard as the “classic” Van Der Graaf line up of Hammill, Jackson, keyboard player Hugh Banton and Guy Evans on drums and after the release of “Pawn Hearts” in 1972, an album that featured, on one side, the 23-minute opus “A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers”, a part of which featured the band overdubbed no less than 16 times, Van Der Graaf’s reputation as a dense, hugely conceptual, and unpredictable, band with an instrumentation (vocals, sax, organ and drums) unlike any other, was sealed.
27th March 1971
BOB & MARCIA
Bob & Marcia were probably better known individually as they were as a duo as their collaboration only lasted from 1970 to 1974, a total of just 5 years. Bob Andy (born Keith Anderson in Kingston, Jamaica) was one of the founder members of The Paragons, the vocal group that gave us the original version of “The Tide Is High”, a hit for Blondie in 1980. He obtained his first solo hit in 1967 and also went on to become a songwriter for other people, including Ken Boothe and, perhaps not too surprisingly, Marcia Griffiths. Her career began in 1964, performing on stage with Byron Lee & His Dragonaires. From her very early career, she was earmarked as part of a vocal duo, recording songs with Tony Gregory, Jeff Dixon and even Bob Marley (on “Oh My Darling”). It was during this period that she first recorded with Bob Andy and the two were in a relationship for several years, though prior to forming a permanent musical partnership with him, he wrote a couple of hits (“Truly” and “Melody Life”) that helped to cement Marcia’s solo reputation. As a duo, Bob & Marcia enjoyed two major hits in the UK, though the most well-known, and consequently most successful, was Nina Simone’s “Young, Gifted & Black” which reached No 5 in 1970 though “Pied Piper” got to number 11 the following year and between those two singles, the duo spent 25 weeks in the singles charts. Griffiths went on to achieve notoriety as a member of The I-Threes, Bob Marley’s female backing trio and also succeeded in recording the best selling single of all time by a female reggae singer. 1979’s “Electric Boogie”, written for her by Bunny Wailer was released in December 1982, held the Jamaican Christmas Number One spot and is strongly associated with the “Electric Slide”, a line dance that has since become a celebratory staple. Andy meanwhile, became an actor during the 80’s, and after moving to London, recorded a dub album with The Mad Professor. Andy sadly died at the age of 75 in 2020 but both he and Marcia have been awarded the Jamaican Order of Distinction for their contribution to music.
30th March 1971
Come All Ye
Formation of a folk club in Bridgwater moves one step nearer with the news that a Ceilidh is to be held at The Blake Arms, Penel Orlieu, on Saturday. Taking part will be John Kirkpatrick, Alan Wagstaffe and Taffy Thomas, the Youth Camp group who specialise in Ceilidh for the under 30’s, although all seem to enjoy them.
Another big Saturday night dance is being presented at Bridgwater’s New Market Discotheque this week, featuring close harmony soul group The Showstoppers of “Ain’t Nothing But A HouseParty” fame. Their visit coincides with the release on Beacon of a new single, “Reach In The Goody Bag”, which they introduced on an edition of the Radio 1 Club last week and which captures perfectly their exciting vocal style. The Showstoppers hail from Philadelphia and consist of two sets of brothers, Timmy and Earl Smith, and Laddie and Elec Burke. No strangers to this country, the coloured group have set up temporary residency in Britain for six months to tour clubs and ballrooms. Patrons are advised to arrive at the New Market early becuase people from a wide area of the county are expected to attend. The Showstoppers will almost certainly be including their latest record as well as performing many other disco favourites and, of course, “Houseparty” – which stops the show every time!
1st May 1971
THE SHOWSTOPPERS
HOT LINES. After a long run of record only nights only, Bridgwater Y.M.C.A.’s New Scene Discotheque has a “live” group evening on Thursday. Coming are Madrigal, a five-piece who record for Decca and have a new 45-er on sale entitled “Blue Eyes In Paradise”.
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