"I
can remember some of the rehearsals that we did at Roger
Mingay's
house and some that we did at Carlo's mum's house, Sutch used to
wind Carlo up about rehearsals and Carlo used to have this
saying that Sutch would only be around for a while but Carlo (as
a drummer) would always have work. It
was a bit of a love-hate relationship between Carlo and Sutch. I
also met Tom Littlewood at the 2I's coffee bar and even have a
letter from him telling us about a gig that he had arranged for
The Savages. I have a copy of the poster for one of the big gigs
with Sutch, which was a concert with Jackie Lynton, Vince
Taylor, Johnny Kidd and some other big names of the time.
My only memories of
recording the Savages' first single 'Til The Following Night':
I was pretty proud because it was the first time that I used
my new bass rig. Basically it was just a valve amp with a
tuned cabinet, with a 15" speaker but at the time it was
pretty grunty. I remember some of the discussions between
Sutch and Carlo, where Carlo was saying to Sutch, what would
we (the band) get out of it (the recording) but Sutch was
pretty non-committal about it. I remember that the guy who
managed the recording (I guess this must have been Joe Meek)
was quite a small bloke and I think that he might have also
been bald, but that is all I remember about it all.
Rick
Brown (aka Fenson) took over from me in the Savages but Carlo
had some sort of relationship with Rick and Bernie Watson even
whilst they weren't in the Savages then. I remember the
Savages later turning up at my house one time after I had left
the band. It seems that Rick was sick or something so I did the
gig for them, but Sutch stiffed me for 10 pound so I never
worked for him again and soon after went to Australia.
Dougie
Dee and The Strangers, c.1960-61.
Back: Geoff
(sax), Ron (manager), Carlo (drums)
Front: Brian (lead guitar), Ken (bass) Norman (rhythm guitar)
I
used to have an album by a bandleader called Peter Shickell
called 'Good Time Ticket' and this was very meaningful for me
because he was saying the the music business was a "good
time ticket" for him. Well, I reckon that the music
business has been a very good time ticket for me as well,
starting with The Strangers, then working with Carlo in the
Savages, then on to country show bands, doing ships cruises (out
of Australia), working with some other drummers in Australia
including Keith Harrison (who then came to the UK with Rolf
Harris), Colin Rae (who was working in the London scene in the
late 80's and early 90's) and some good drummers in NZ. All
in all, starting with light rock, going to flat-out rock with
Sutch, going to country show bands, then into dance hall
and restaurant music has been a hell of a journey and I am the
richer for having met people like Carlo. He
was always a generous person and I enjoyed all of my dealings
with him. I was proud to call him a mate."
Ray
King - A Savage,
1963
Ray, a guitarist, worked
with Carlo in The Savages and on a demo single for Casey Jones,
who is best known for his band The Engineers. The single was
called 'One Way Ticket' and was recorded as 'Casey Jones And The
Savages'. According to Ray, bass player Danny McCullough and
pianist Nicky Hopkins were also on the recording. Ray
is now a jazz musician in Germany.
"It
was a shock to see that both Carlo and Nicky have left us, and I
felt that I had to say a little bit in their memory. Nice guys
are few and far between these days. Generally speaking, one has
to excercise caution with all of these things-people forget, and
some sadly won't give credit where it's due. I'm full of sour
grapes in that respect, as I was without doubt one of the most
important players of the day, and nobody, but nobody has given
me a word of credit anywhere. I was determined not to let that
happen to Carlo, whom I regarded with the greatest respect for
his work with Johnny Kidd and others, and simply for being a
damned nice guy.
When I played with Carlo and
Lord Sutch, the line-up was Freddie 'Fingers' Lee on piano,
Danny on bass, myself on guitar. There was a young
sax-player too, on a couple of gigs, I only remember him as
being called "Toots". Freddie sounded more like Jerry
Lee Lewis than Jerry himself - he was terrific! In Hastings, the
Pier Ballroom, Dave set the stage curtains alight! Happy days. I think the
threads all came together in Lord Sutch's band, though how Casey
got involved there I've no idea, but then he was getting into
everything. He stole Dave's stage show down to the last beat of
the bass drum, and copied 'Jack the Ripper' after he had his hit
in Germany with 'Don't Ha Ha'. There were two versions of that,
both released, and the B side of one version had a stupendous
blues guitar instrumental on there. Never found out who it was.
Picture
of me being 'beheaded' by Dave Sutch Nov 1965, the last-but-one
time we met, taken in the Kassel Town
Hall, Germany, by drummer Brian 'Scotty' Wilson.
Casey performed with me in the
Bob Xavier-Jackie Lynton Band for a while, and can be heard
shaking one maraca on Lynton's awful version of 'I Believe'.
That abomination was ruined by the production team, and I read
recently that I wasn't on the thing, which although I was,
doesn't really upset me too much! We were all in the 2I's when
we were handed that release, and I think we all had a little
weep of disappointment and rage at the result. Tom Littlewood
nearly choked on his chewing gum. As far as Johnny Kidd is
concerned, clearly the Pirates don't seem to want to recognise
that perhaps someone else played in there, and in fact, it may
have only been a couple of gigs that Carlo did, but unless I
really am senile, it was. I saw him with Johnny in Malvern. Clem
Catinni had the massive hit with 'Telstar', so the drummer's
stool would indeed have been empty in the Pirates, and I imagine
that Carlo helped out, and forgot about it. Strange things used
to happen in those days. I remember going to a gig somewhere out
in the wilds, when our management told us-"you lot are
Johnny Kidd and the Pirates tonight", and we said "WHAAAT"!
They said somebody messed up the bookings, and not to worry,
nobody would notice. Nobody did. But an example of how people
forget, I was very friendly with Chris Farlow in those days, and
gigged with him and the Thunderbirds when Albert Lee took off
once more to the Everly Brothers. I didn't stay with Chris,
because I had the gig with Lynton, or so I thought. But when I
saw Chris here a couple of years back, he'd forgotten me
completely.
THE meeting-place for us lot in
those days was an Italian-run cafe in a small alley off Wardour
St. We used to call it 'The Court', and it was always full of
musicians having a meal before leaving for a gig. So, one way of
identifying if someone really knew the "scene" at that
time would be to ask where everybody met. Of course, there's
loads more I could rant on about from those great, but hard
years. 'The Court' is now a very seedy strip-joint, as is most
of that area. It wasn't like that in our day, although I suppose
it was all there, just far more concealed, and therefore more
pleasant. I remember seeing the Stones' van parked in Old
Compton St. It was a red Commer van, with no windows. Lord Sutch
had a blue one, with gigantic buffalo horns mounted on top.
The
lad watching Dave is the keyboard player of my band, Joe McGhee.
After the first gig with Lord
Sutch and the Savages, they were all knocked out with the sound
of my little Gibson amp-but it was not loud enough. So Dave,
Carlo and I met early before the next gig and went to see Jim
Marshall in his shop in Harrow, to see if he had a louder amp.
At that time, he hadn't started to make amplifiers as I
remember, but he had produced a bass-loudspeaker cabinet, and
Danny McCullough had that. It was, unless I'm mistaken, the
first product that came out of the Marshall company. Well, Jim
didn't have an amp any bigger than mine, he had a Fender, which
was no louder, so we hooked both amps together. I think it
should be mentioned that Dave was one of the people that helped
to get Marshall up and running. Also, that without Lord Sutch
and Carlo, the "heavy metal" scene would never have
started, of that I'm certain.
At the end of my stint with
him, Dave advertised in the Melody Maker for a replacement for
me, and asked me to choose a guitarist for him. So we duly went
to Putney Ballroom one Saturday morning - and we were amazed at
the response. There were literally hundreds of guitar players,
queuing two-deep around the block! Eventually, I picked out a
young lad who had a blue Fender Stratocaster and a big Fender
Showman amp. (Dave wanted him to be LOUD!) Dave took him on, but
a few months later I met the lad. Stuart Taylor was his name, on
a gig with Clem and the Tornados, so Stuart wasn't with Sutch
for long. (During his time with the Savages, Sutch gave Stuart
the nickname 'Daffodil'. Stuart was with the Savages from
October to December 1963. According to a newspaper report, he in
turn was replaced by a Malcolm Johnson from Liverpool - Ed.)
A note about Dave Wendells. He was with Jackie Lynton just
before I joined, and we got along famously. Dave left Lynton to
join Lulu, and I never saw him again. We (the Lynton band) used
to play often in Walton-on-Thames, and the promoter-Dennis
Cordell always asked about Dave Wendells, saying "that boy
looked like a Greek God". I think Dennis rather liked young
men, as so many in the business did!
There is often confusion about
who played what and when, and I've been the victim of that a few
times. That's why you won't find anything about me on the net. I
was often confused with Albert Lee, in fact on one of his albums
he is credited with playing with an instrumental band called the
'Cruisers' (no, not those of Dave Berry) when in fact t'was I.
In those days, we all knew each other, and used to swap bands
according to who was available. Thus, I stepped in many times
for Albert. Casey knew me by working with Bob Xavier and Jackie
Lynton, and I knew Carlo by working with Dave Sutch ,and we
often met when he was touring with Johnny Kidd. Nicky Hopkins, I
believe, was with Neil Christian at that time, or had just
joined the Stones. My old friend, and bass player for the Lynton
band, Mick Brunning came out to Germany with me, and stayed on
too. He was one of the best bass-players in the London scene,
but he had a stroke a while back, and won't be persuaded to
start playing again. Before I joined them, Jackie and the band
were the first rock unit to get their own show on BBC radio. So
Mick was another important member of the 'clan' who lost
all contact when he came here. Jack did come over to be best man
at Mick's wedding. I haven't seen Jack now either for a long
time. He was enormously talented, but didn't take much care of
the friends who thought a great deal of him. The production team
at Piccadilly Records kept back our version of 'Unchained
Melody', and the vocal on the Righhteous Brothers version was an
EXACT copy of Jackie's. The producer was the same man, Ivor
Raymonde I believe.
I
remember last seeing bassist Danny McCullough at a club in
Bückeburg, Germany, the owner of which was supposed to
be managing the band I was in. That's a very long story. But, on
one Saturday, not long after I had arrived there, The Savages
turned up to play. I really don't know any more if Carlo was
with them, but Danny certainly was. This, I'm sure, was after
his stint with the Animals. The Savages did tour around Germany
for a while, we often saw the posters in the clubs we played in.
I couldn't understand why they were doing it without Lord Sutch.
However, the trail ends there, I never saw Danny again, or heard
of him. The Savages did not play on that Saturday, and there was
much acrimony between them and our gangster manager (I sued him
later, and won the case, but never cashed in the damages as the
manager died.) This would have been early in 1965. As I say,
there was turmoil and a lot of bad feeling that day, and I can
only really remember Danny being there. I'm not sure whether
they were perhaps gigging with Casey, but he wasn't there on
that day. He was also renowned for not paying his
musicians.
Ray
King today
I was very friendly with Dave
Sutch, and last time I saw him was here Kassel, Germany, when he
performed to a half empty gig, because he was regarded as
"second fiddle" to Casey, who had already achieved
fame by copying the Savages show in every aspect. Dave gave me a
big hug, and asked me if I still used the little three-cornered
Gibson guitar amp - he even remembered that. In fact I still use
it, and the amp is more famous than me! Dave never forgave
Casey, and neither will I. By getting myself stuck in Germany,
of course I've missed out on keeping in touch with all the lads,
so I'm a bit sad about that.
"I
first met Carlo when he was a stand in drummer for Dougie Dee and
The Strangers (June 1960 to April 1961) and I was the bass player
in the band.