TL-DR Dept. - Glittering Nights Down Southend High Street

Sir Bendigo Wonglepong pops his IoF© cherry with this, the longest message in a bottle ever to wash up at Foam Bay. I ain't read it, on account which I'm too busy descaling my bellybutton, but dollars to donuts it's swell!

If you were a kid in the 1960s [writes Sir Bendigo - Ed.] and lived in the provinces, package tours were the only way you would get to see famous pop stars. Sure, you could see people in pubs and clubs who were slightly famous or going to be famous one day (or not). I saw the Animals and the Downliners Sect at the Night Scene club in Westcliff-on-Sea. Every Saturday night you could see local heroes the Whirlwinds and the Monotones at the Elms in Leigh, and as long as you stayed out of the way of the Canvey Island teds who flocked there from their bleak island you were fine. (The Whirlwinds mutated into Force Five and finally, in a last desperate grab for psych greatness, Crocheted Doughnut Ring.) But if you wanted to see the sort of people even your mum had heard of, you had to head to the Odeon. At the time no big American stars could play the UK unless a British artiste of similar standing went over to the States in exchange – a rule imposed, I presume, by the Musicians’ Union. Since such UK artistes were thin on the ground, you rarely got to see an American until the British Invasion made a nonsense of the rule. It was pretty much all Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, Adam Faith and so on.

So, package tours. (Nothing to do with the Chippendales.) Promoters like Larry Parnes and Tito Burns would bundle their often-teenage boys and girls into a bus and send them off round the country to play the cinema network for weeks on end. Depending on the size of the bill the acts would get anything up to 20 minutes twice a night to do their stuff, and then it would be on to the next town. The punishing schedule would doubtless be made up for by lots of larking about.

The curious thing about these tours was that for every big name you actually wanted to see you had to suffer three or four small or no-names you’d never heard of or had no interest in. What follows then is a list of acts I’ve seen play live at the Southend Odeon that you’ve either never heard of or forgotten about. I’m indebted for the gruesome details I had forgotten to the extraordinary Bradford Timeline site (bradfordtimeline.co.uk/music.htm), a huge list of package tours between 1955 and 1967, complete with dates, venues and bills plus loads of scanned programmes, put together so we didn’t have to by someone with too much time on his hands.

Rock ‘n’ Trad Spectacular: The New Noise of 1960 (October 12, 1960)

This was the Larry Parnes crowd. The main attractions were Billy Fury and Joe Brown, but you also got Johnny Goode (‘Great new singing discovery’), Johnny Gentle (‘Philips young singer-composer’), Peter Wynne (‘The Golden voice of the 1960s’) – and none other than the 17-year-old Georgie Fame (‘Singing pianist sensation’). They were all backed by Jimmie Nicol and the 15 New Orleans Rockers with Red Price – the same Jimmy Nicol who was to be a temporary Beatle a few years later. I don’t suppose any of the Rockers had been any closer to New Orleans than the corner of Archer Street, but no matter, it was all loud and live and the 13-year-old me loved it.  My main memory is of Billy Fury singing Wondrous Place in front of the curtain with a fag on and wearing a Burberry mac.  Very moody, very never alone with a Strand.

https://youtu.be/Q-sOU89nVBc

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157629228736933/with/6840532273/

The Shadows (December 16, 1960)

Having just learned to pick out Apache on my cheesecutter Lucky 7, this would have been a big deal. They would have played Man of Mystery as well. No gorgeous Fiesta Red Strats to be seen in the programme, strangely. Less of a big deal were Freight Train hitmakers Chas McDevitt and Shirley Douglas, the not-yet-famous Frank Ifield, Dave Sampson and the Hunters and the Landis Brothers, an act so obscure they aren’t even on Discogs. Google thinks you mean The Blues Brothers.

https://youtu.be/e4BJif5Q7Tc

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157627608064008/

Cliff Richard & the Shadows (February 17, 1961)

Cliiiiff!! And more Shads, as practically nobody called them except Brian Matthew. I remember hearing screaming – presumably for the first time – and nothing else. Also, more Chas ‘n’ Shirley, more Dave Sampson, England’s Everly Brothers the Brook Brothers, and mildly groovy Hammond organiste Cherry Wainer (she played the organ in Lord Rockingham’s Eleven on Oh Boy!). The whole lot was compered by Norman ‘Swinging!' Vaughan.

https://youtu.be/rnyhfqaqm2I

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157626215216410/

The Allisons, Ronnie Carroll (April 9, 1961)

Very odd one, this. The Allisons were briefly famous for coming second in the Eurovision Song Contest with Are You Sure? But 1962 it was all over – turns out they weren’t even brothers. Kuh. Can’t imagine wanting to see them, or Ronnie ‘Ring-a-Ding Girl’ Carroll either. Mike Preston went to Australia and turned up in Mad Max 18 years later. As far as the internet is concerned Michael Hill, with what the programme insists is his ‘new sound’, never existed, although for some reason I have a dim memory of a harpsichord.

Perhaps it was twangy guitars I was after. The Hunters, Rhet Stoller and the Strangers and the Krew Kats were all trailing in the wake of the Shadows. The Krew Kats’ lead guitarist was none other than the legendary Big Jim Sullivan, while bass and drums, both called Brian, later made it into the actual Shadows.

https://youtu.be/hDohphdDsG4

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157626097133157/

Johnny Burnette, Gary US Bonds, Gene McDaniels, Walthamstow Granada, May 13, 1962)

Some rare Americans, and a rare bus trip out of town. If we’re honest, both Burnette and Bonds were on the way down (though Bonds was rediscovered by the Boss in the 80s), and McDaniels had never had a hit in Britain – both his US hits were blown out of the water by Frankie Vaughan, of all people. Still, they were American, and had made some great records, and were famous – unlike Danny Rivers, Roly Daniels and the Four Kestrels. But: turns out that the Kestrels contained Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, later to foist You’ve Got Your Troubles, I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman, Melting Pot and I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing on a grateful nation. 

https://youtu.be/LgWHDH0Ypps

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157632107170208/with/8220162575/

Joe Brown, Eden Kane, The Tornadoes (February 15, 1963)

Bit puzzled by this one, too – another Larry Parnes extravaganza. Feels like I’d already moved on from this mob, though I always liked Joe Brown – still do. Was it the appeal of Shane Fenton & the Fentones, or the Sun Arise hitmaker Rolf Harris, or bubbly songstress Susan Maughan, who as the only woman on the bill probably spent a lot of time keeping out of Rolf’s way? Or the quartet of new Larry Parnes finds: Daryl Quist, Peter Lodge, Mike and Tony Nevitt and the Diggeroos, of all of whom it has been said, Who? Who knows?

https://youtu.be/9IDz_swnUIA

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157626161261375/

The Beatles, Roy Orbison, Gerry & the Pacemakers (May 31, 1963)

Now we’re talking!  The Fabs sang Some Other Guy, Do You Want to Know a Secret, Love Me Do, From Me to You, Please Please Me, I Saw Her Standing There and Twist and Shout. The Big O was supposed to be top of the bill, on after the Beatles, but that turned out to be impossible, such was the hysteria. Tonight’s also-rans were David Macbeth, skankin’ Erkey Grant and the Earwigs, Ian Crawford and the I’m Just a Baby hitmaker Louise Cordet, who is the Duke of Edinburgh’s goddaughter, fact fans. 

https://youtu.be/AvSb03jU6-Y

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157626160966281/

The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, the Rolling Stones (October 3, 1963)

Package tour heaven. The Everly Brothers (backed by the Crickets, no less), Bo Diddley (plus the Duchess and Jerome) and the Rolling Stones, still in their leather waistcoats with only Come On to their name. Two days later, on October 5, the tour was joined by Little Richard, dammit! Mickie Most did his best, poor lamb, but he couldn’t hack it in this company. Unaccountably I remember him lying on his back waving his legs in the air singing Sea Cruise. 

https://youtu.be/mf2hZIH_cPQ

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157631420595794/with/7936989944/

The Beatles, December 9, 1963

A bunch of us queued in shifts for this from Friday after school until Sunday morning, when the box office opened. Our reward was front-row seats, which wasn’t a comfortable place to be as it turned out – the moment they came on the stage the girls rushed the stage en masse, down the aisles and clambering over the seats too. Fortunately, the management had thought of this and hired the Southend Judo Club to lower them into the orchestra pit, where what seemed like half the audience sat the performance out looking up Beatle noses. Still couldn’t actually hear the Fabs for the noise. There were stories about rows of seats being ruined by hysterical girls letting go.

The irrelevances that had to be sat through were the Brook Brothers (again), the Kestrels (again), the Rhythm and Blues Quartet and your compere Frank Berry (‘Canada’s “Mad Man of Magic”’).  There were always comperes, and they were always a pain in the arse because they persisted in trying to entertain us, the poor deluded fools.

https://youtu.be/UAH1z9ebn6A

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157631776244742/with/8090515237/

Roy Orbison, Brian Poole & the Tremolos (May 1, 1964)

This was down to my new girlfriend, who was a raving fan of Roy Orbison, so much so that we had to loiter outside the stage door for ages so she could get his autograph. So that was all right – Only the Lonely, Running Scared, Blue Bayou, In Dreams – which hadn’t yet acquired the sinister implications David Lynch conferred on it.  I had no time for Chris Sandford and the Coronets, Tony Sheridan with the Bobby Patrick Big Six (though there was the German Beatle connection, so that was something), the Federals, the Three Quarters – and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, eek! Or indeed Brian Poole & the Tremeloes.

https://youtu.be/hakF-hUT7PU

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/albums/72157666184781161/with/25395014233/

Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, The Animals (May 29, 1964)

I got Carl Perkins’s autograph on my programme – had it for years until I sold it on eBay. I really wanted Chuck Berry’s too, but he was nowhere to be seen after the show. Pretty good night out though, not that I remember anything of course. But Animals, Nashville Teens…The Swinging Blue Jeans were supposed to be on the bill, but they were booted off halfway through the tour ‘due to adverse audience reaction’ it says here – to be replaced by Bern Elliott and the Fenmen. The shame! Talking of shame, a mere three years later I was in a band that played a summer ball at Hertford College in Oxford. The SBJ were also on the bill – they were paid £40; we were paid £60 (a mate of mine was the Ents Sec.). Also on the bill back in ’64 were The Other Two, two fierce-looking women who were ‘discovered while singing over the washing up by Charles Blackwell’, according to the programme. A likely story. One of them, Jemima Smith, was later married to Duane Eddy according to a bloke on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/OQHCW2drLxs

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157626098023455/with/5509466212/

Among the acts I didn’t see during these years were Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent (who seemed to have been on at the Odeon every other week), Duane Eddy, Inez and Charlie Foxx, Little Richard, The Shirelles, The Ronettes, Robert Horton (‘star of TV’s Wagon Train’) …one glorious night in 1962 I missed Nina & Fredrick, Malcolm Mitchell & His Trio, Daisy May & Saveen, The Harmonichords (who became The Bachelors), Joe Church and The Two Tones. Hey ho!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/sets/72157626302930513/with/5588842169/

 

Sir Bendigo [Real Name Reviewer] is currently The United Kingdom Of England's Cultural Attaché to Fernando Po. A keen frotteur, his Bovine Husbandry In The Low Countries 1830-1837 (7 vols.) remains the standard textbook on the subject.