Des Down Under 4
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A Musical Life
Pic 1.
Pic 2.
Pic 4.
A Musical Life
Des Down Under Chapter
Four
In regard to the above Pics:-
Pic 1. Taken on Biarritz beach the day we
got sunburnt! From Left to Right Des O’Reilly and yes there does appear to be
a dickie bird perched on my ‘dickie’ but I don’t know why!! Kathy Allen,
Dave Millen, Miffy and Reg Child, (for once without his top hat)!!
Pic 2. Early ‘Bobcats’ taken at the
“Catacombes’ 1961. Left to
Right, Dave Millen, Fran Coupe, Keith Dalton and Des O’Reilly.
Pic 3. ‘Bobcats’ in France Dave Millen,
Des O’Reilly, Fran Coupe and Anne Marie.
Pic 4. My first ‘Band’ business card!!
As previously
stated, we were all aware of Joe Meeks status in the business so we thought we
were very fortunate indeed to be in his Stable. In some of our early recording
sessions with Joe we put down such tracks as Roll Over Beethoven, Money, Zip a
Dee Do Dah, Little Bitty Pretty One, the sort of numbers that the ‘Beatles’
and other top groups up North were playing. I remember the expression on Joe’s
face as he smiled at us and said “It won’t sell!”
Six months later, after the Beatles broke, just about everybody
was doing those sorts of numbers!! Our first release was ‘Everybody’s
Talking’, and, at the same session we recorded what we thought would be our
second single, ‘Poison Ivy’, a Leiber and Stoller number. When Joe sent the
Masters off to Pye Records, somehow there was a mix up and the physical records
arrived with ‘Everybody’s Talking’ on the ‘A’ side and ‘Poison
Ivy’ on the ‘B’ side.
We debuted on ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’, a British TV show,
and, in fact, on that particular show the American star was Del Shannon singing ‘Runaway’, The Karl Denver Trio were
there too, with their big hit, ‘Wimoweh’. and
a few of us were making our first or second appearance on T.V.
Cilla Black with ‘Love of The Loved’ and both Dave Clark
Five and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes singing their versions of ‘Do You Love
Me’. We had an excellent day! At
the end of that show we all wished each other well, and as I recall, we were the
only act that didn’t have a hit with the number we did on the show!! (Boo!!
Hoo!!)
Joe Meek as our Manager, placed us with The George Cooper
Organisation in London, just about the largest agency looking after most of the
Pop and Rock Acts in the country. With the exception of Cliff Richard, whom
I’ve never met, the Agency looked after people like Joe Brown, Cuddly Duddly,
Dickie Pride, Vince Eager, Billy Fury, Lance Fortune, Marty Wilde, Danny Rivers,
Jess Conrad, Michael Cox, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, and lots and lots of
others.
We became one of the ‘house’ bands, we would do concerts
where we would open the ‘bill’ ourselves, do two or three numbers then stay
on stage and back one, two or even three solo singers. We would then open the
second half, once again staying on stage at the end of our spot to back another
couple of solos, then usually the top of the bill was self sufficient.
It was a fabulous experience backing and being on stage with so
many different artists. During our time with the George Cooper Organisation we
backed American stars, Little Miss Dynamite, Brenda Lee, Ronnie Nedra and
Estelle, The Fabulous Ronettes, Big Dee Irwin and Dee Dee Sharp, (The lady who
did ‘Mashed Potatoe’.)
I remember Dee Dee’s mum said to me once ‘You play the drums
with real Soul brother!’ You know that comment meant so much to me at the
time.
We did lots of shows, about 180/200 with Gene Vincent, (the ‘Be Bop A
Lula’ man), It was just a few short years earlier when I had listened avidly
to ‘Be Bop A Lula’ at Ian Thompson’s house with the gang I used to knock
around with, little realising that I would actually take to the stage with this
great Rock’n’Roller as his drummer and back up vocalist!!!
I don’t know just how many UK artists we backed during our
time, but it was considerable. Let me see now… Vince Eager, Marty Wilde, Danny
Rivers, Jess Conrad, Michael Cox, Julie Rogers, Millie, Wes Sands, Peter Sarsted,
Craig Douglas, Fran & Alan, Bert Weedon, Duffy Power, Daryl Quist, The
Marionettes, and I’m sure there are many I haven’t mentioned.
We also did lengthy and happy stints with both Crispian St.
Peters and Billy Fury, a friend and a fabulous artist. We had the good fortune
to work on the same shows as a lot of the top acts of the day…The Walker
Brothers, Del Shannon, Gene Pitney, PJ Proby, Swingin Blue Jeans, Manfred Mann,
Tom Jones, Moody Blues, Gerry & the Pacemakers, The Beatles, The Rolling
Stones, Spencer Davies Group, Brian Poole & the Tremeloes, Dave Clark Five,
Cilla Black, Julie Rogers, Frank Ifield, Roy Orbison, Lulu, The Applejacks, The
Honeycombes, Millie, The Seekers, and lots and lots of others.
I remember terrific touring times in the ‘60s – You would
jump onto a 52 seater coach and travel the length and breadth of the country
doing shows, this was pre-motorway, pre-freeway, so the travelling was hard. The
impromptu concerts that used to take place on the coaches were excellent!! Lulu,
particularly, absolutely ‘starred’ at this. She was just the best!! It was
like she knew every song going… Amazing!!!
When we did the Blackpool summer season in 1965, we came off
stage one time and Lulu was waiting for us in our dressing room!! She had been
working in Manchester and she came all the way over to Blackpool just to see
us!!
During our time with Joe we were featured in a Top Rank ‘Look
At Life’ documentary, which was filming the making of a record at Joe’s
studio, RGM Sound. We also did a ‘Beatlesque’ TV commercial, backing Duffy
Power, for ‘Bandit’ chocolate biscuits. Go with a bandit, yeah yeah!!
And we were lucky enough to do a couple of tours abroad. One in
Cyprus, North Africa and Malta and another in Aden and Bahrain and the Persian
Gulf… and ALL in 1965.
A significant year was 1965 as we also took
on a new member, Don Parfitt. We had played at a pub, I think it was called The
Ilkley Moor pub, yes that’s right the famous one from ‘On Ilkley Moor Bar
Tat!!’ (No I’ve never known what it means either!) Don was playing the organ
in the support band, ‘The Keys’, and he was excellent… just what we
wanted, so we offered him a job with the Puppets.
A few days later we were in our ‘office’ in the Deepdale
Hotel, in our home town, Preston, (which incidently was owned and run by a
couple called Kath and Tommy Jackman. Now these were special people and we’ll
get to them in a minute…), when Don came into the pub and said in his thick
Lancashire/Yorkshire accent, (He came from Todmorden!!!), “See-thee, I’ve
thowt ‘baht wot you said and yers, I want in’t Puppets…”, or something
like that. He might have just said “Yes, I’m in, thank you!”
Don has a wonderful sense of humour.
I always felt that Don gave us another dimension, he could sing
as well as play but it must be said that his organ was incredibly heavy!!!
I’ve just remembered something, I was carrying the big Leslie organ speaker
with Don on the South Pier at Blackpool when all of a sudden he lost his footing
and the speaker caught him on the side of his head and knocked him clean out!!
At that time of course the old band in a box hadn’t been invented yet, and
walking on piers is always fraught with danger.
A couple of words about Tommy and Kath Jackman, Landlord and
Landlady extra-ordinaire! Not only did they look after us an absolute treat, and
even loaned us money for petrol when we were too broke to get to the gigs, but
quite unbelievably, Jean Shenton, Ray’s wife, who’s site this is, is not
only the Jackman’s neice, but was actually working in the pub when all this
was happening and can remember us all very well!!
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To Be Continued…