...and drums, and clarinets, and cornets, trumpets and tubas -even pianners and organs. But no bodhrains. There's clearly a need for such a thread - then threads about cricket won't get hijacked and everybody will be blissfully happy. Brian C can wax lyrical about Brenda Lee; Terry M can describe at great length his favorite pre-war jazz tracks; we can all try to remember the name of the ex-KBGS band that played at the sixth form dance in 1965. And someone can finally own up to burning down the Mechanics. So come on- everybody's got a 'first instrument' story, a musical memory from the 'hit parade' of their day; and for those of us still trying to knock out a tune and grunt or growel a song or too, there'll be tales about what we're up to now.

First guitar, can't even remember. Sent 3 months in Rome in the Danny the Red days (though anyone who knew me would testify to my apolitical nature...or was I hiding some deep yearning for MI5 work?No.Anyway,on arrival in Rome,bought cheap guitar for next to nothing and before leaving took it to the market and sold it for even less, before thumbing home on the autostrada.Classical nylon thing followed.Then I believe a 12 string, which saw the pine trees of Aquitaine,evenually warped so bad it went back to nature.6 string acoustic followed - a Marina no less - now battered to high heaven with at least 2 holes, anger inflicted, and a big crevice along the top...but...it still plays....but also is the reason I'm looking for another. Lakewoods and Landolas expensive but desirable, Yamahas,Crafters,Epiphones,Washburns all up for consideration. However, my parting shot,before returning with a few anecdotes,is that put an expensive guitar in the hands of an average player and ..well,you know the rest.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

If anyone saaw Steve Earle on TV the other week at Cambridge Folk Festival,I'd be interested to know if anyone spotted what guitar he was playing. Probably a Gibson.Carry on folks...

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

Can't recall all of the crappy guitars I've had but my present Oz-made Maton - CW80D, 1980, which I've from new has matured beautifully and tuned down a whole tone to suit my voice sounds very mellow. I also have a hand-me-down semi-solid electric Maton which I had resprayed a bright orange (wrong!!) some years ago, also plays very nicely. I'd really like to own a Klein but I don't have a spare US$5K.
When I first held a guitar I thought one tuned the strings to the tune you wanted to play and I remember tuning an old Spanish thing so that I could play 'Raunchy' - a Bert Weedon tune??? I have advanced somewhat since those days.
I agree with AB's parting shot too - nothing irritates more than to see Slim Dusty (RIP) playing a beautiful CF Martin with that silly thumb-strum style of his - couldn't play to save his life. And no, I'm not a Slim Dusty fan but I do live in Oz after all.
I recall too that the band playing in '65 was The Beat Squad and had at least 2 KBGSers in it - Roger Manton and Rick Hardaker(?). THis has been mentioned previously before the big 'crash'.
Cheers
TP

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 56 - 63

Current location (optional) Geelong, Australia

Trevor - was one of the guys in the beat Squad a kind of heavy-set figure with brylcreemed hair combed straight back? (Might have been Richard Hardacre/Hardaker)?? My only recollection of the band (other than that they did a version of Hoochie Coochie Man) was of this thick set guy on guitar. I think they had Burns guitars, which looked really exotic, black and shiny at the time. Yes - Matons are fine guitars and, like you say, mature well. The only one I've ever had in my hands (very briefly) was Tommy Emmanuel's beat up one that he uses to bang and scratch on in his aboriginal tour de force at the end of his concert sets. Over the years I've had lots of old guitars, notably the 1929 National Triolian I found in a pawn shop in Detroit for $90 in 1970. Recently I've been collecting old Oscar Schmidt Stellas, one of which started out life in Australia (where, apparently, a lot of early Stellas were exported to in the 1920's).

"Drumming Man" - Gene Krupa - Parlophone 1937 - fantastic.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) terrymarston@hotmail.com

Current location (optional) Lincoln

Alan - I think the mighty Steve Earle was playing a Gibson J200 (distinctive 'moustache' bridge). My first guitar was better suited for slicing boiled eggs. The current stable of guitars in the house comprises a Gibson Les Paul, Fender Stratocaster, and a Jackson 7 string, all belonging to my son, a working musician who spends about half the year in Austin, Texas. He plays in dropped D tuning and, tiring of the old man retuning his instruments, kindly brought me a Gibson SG back last summer. These are played through a Mesa Boogie 150w head and a custom built (in Huddersfield!) Matamp black 4X12 cab. I also have a Mordaira (Japanese) dreadnought acoustic, picked up in the Oxfam shop in Ilkley. I doubled its value by fitting a new set of Martin strings.

IW..Thanks for the info re Steve Earle. I'll look at the tape of it again.I thought it was a smaller guitar than the J200 and can't remember the maoustachio bridge.I'll get back on that one. The "mighty" Steve is headlining the acoustic stage one of the Glastonbury nights I see. Other than that I can see he;s doing the Manchester SWAP(?)festival.Another of my Country rebels is on a rare visit over here in July,Lucinda Williams.You've a fair selection of geetaars and Allan seems very au fait with the blues guitars..I had to look them up on the internet.Big Bill Broonzy. More later.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

Sheridon Opera House 2004,photos from unofficial SE site. The guitar (dirty sunburst?)with diamond and half diamond inlays on fretboard..and on other photos.That's the guitar I refer to, and is the one he used on Cambridge show. Any ideas? Don't think it's moustache bridge.Anyway........I'd like one of those.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

I stand corrected. I had the Steve Earle gig on video, but its long gone. I'm sure it was a Gibson, and not a parlour guitar. Keighley now has its own blues club, at the Catholic Club.
www.bluesinkeighley.com
A bit nearer than the Farmers Arms, Pudsey, where we saw Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, Alexis Korner, Free et al on Sunday nights, long long ago.
Lucinda Williams is great, by the way. She tells it like it is. . .

AJ - yep, it was Rick Hardacre (where the heck did I get 'aker' from??). On the 1960 school photo. he is directly behind Kenny Prut.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 56 - 63

Current location (optional) Geelong, Australia

I've had a look, Trevor - yes, that's him all right, a good few years younger (five actually) than the night of the dance. Wonder what became of him and the other members of that fine band??

In response to Allan Jones' originating posting - my "first instrument" anecdote - mine goes back to the big band era when a number entitled "Skin Deep" was first released in the States with Louis Bellson on drums. Jack Parnell made his own UK recording on Parlophone with a drum duet with Phil Seaman (note the singular).
This version "had" me - and it was the first "78" I ever bought. I would play the record and, almost in sinc, knock hell out of my mother's biscuit tins with her knitting needles. This enthusiasm led me to buying my first drum kit, joining a "dance" band and for a couple of seasons dropping out of school rugby - which earned me much disapprobation from Messrs Fletcher, Croft, Wellock, Fenwick. The pianist in the band became my wife of 37 years and our 3 young'uns owe their genetic combination to that string of events. Co-incidentally, one of our number, Malcolm Laycock (Bradford GS), went into radio and now has a slot on BBC Radio 2 on Sunday evenings playing dance and big band music.He sent me a tape of an interview he did with Louis Bellson on the very topic of his Skin Deep solo.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) terrymarston@hotmail.com

Current location (optional) Lincoln

On the subject of BBC Radio - if not already so apprised - Old Keighlians, who have fled to the colonies, can listen live or retrospectively each week to BBC Radio programmes by logging on to www.bbc.co.uk/radio2 (or 3 or 4 etc) and click on the programme of their choice.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) terrymarston@hotmail.com

Current location (optional) Lincoln

I got my first guitar for Christmas, 1957. By the time I went to KBGS in September 1958, I'd already given up trying to learn. The guitar was a sunburst Framus f hole number, complete with pickguard and tailpiece. It came with lessons, at 3/6d a time, from an intimidating geezer called Winston who, I deduced from lipreading the silently mouthed words of female neighbours, had done time in Menston. Winston made me try to read music, and I just couldn't get the hang of it. Still can't! Also I was lazy. Still am! Then in about 1959 or'60, Alan Britten came round and started picking out bits of Shads' instrumentals on the treble strings. I found I could do that too, more or less, and that was just about the size of it for the next few years. What I didn't know, was the guitar was grievously out of tune. I bought my Bert Weedon book, and became reasonably good at memorising chord shapes and changing between them. I just couldn't figure out why it didn't sound right. Then one night in about '63, George Speller brought his nylon strung guitar to St Mark's youth club. He could really play. One of his numbers was Sweet Georgia Brown. I couldn't believe it - all these chord shapes up the neck. And the girls went wild. When he set the guitar down for five minutes to be drooled over, I picked it up and managed a wee shot. Revelation - all my Bert Weedon chords suddenly worked and sounded in tune... because they were, at last, thanks to George Speller's dad having bought him a set of pitch pipes. I memorised the intervals betwen the strings and put my own guitar in tune as soon as I got home that night. By the time regular camping trips to Langdale started, usually in the company of Dave Harding, Doc Hammond, Pete Messenger, John Brigg,Tony Thatcher, Brian Exley, Dave Haig and others, I used to be able to perform a bunch of songs in the Dungeon Ghyll pub on a Saturday night. That was probably about 1964. Dave Harding and Doc Hammond would get ratarsed, then set off with torches in their mouths to climb a rock face in the dark. At least one of them is,sadly, deceased...It was safer to stay in the pub and sing of the Universal Soldier, The Old Dope Peddler, and Peggy Sue. Again, thanks to Alan Britten, there wound up being quite a few Buddy Holly songs in the repertoire. From somewhere I obtained a sheet music book (still somewhere in the house)with all the chords and all the words. But the other book I came across ( in the Public Library) was a thing called "The Folk Blues" by Jerry Silverman - and that really set me on a path of, eventually, collecting scratchy old records and scratchy old guitars. To hear a Scratchy mp3 and some original growling (by appointment to Paul Greenwood), go here and follow the audio links:http://www.fraserspeirs.co.uk/

Even Dylan was doing "Not Fade Away" regularly in concert a couple of years back.Every Day, Peggy Sue.....it just goes on and on. And Sam Cooke...Does the guitarist/singer David Lindley mean anything to anyone? Great guitarist.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

No one,not having found the butcher's the best for size and sound,bought any bones, black or white? KBGS didn't really encourage learning of an instrument, to my recollection. Perhaps I could have been a top sax player, or a virtuoso violinist, or you even.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

I had some white ones. Never quite got the hang of playing them though. There was a brass band at school wasn't there? I seem to remember a guy called Vernon Rooke, a ruddy faced trumpet player - so there must have been a musical instrument budget somewhere?

Yes,probably.But opportunities to learn instruments in schools today are vastly greater than at kbgs.Or perhaps I was just ignorant of what was available.Anyway, where's all these instrumentalists for a houseband/full orchestra?!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

Yes I remember Vernon Rooke.
I think there were a good few school brass instruments, most of them cheap Czech produced trumpets (mainly well used an dented), and maybe even a trombone. I was fortunate to be given a brand new 'cello (I think in GCE year 1962), which I persisted with for a couple of years with a peripatetic teacher called Arthur Greensmith. When I left school I gave it back and have never tried again to this day.I think there were one or two violins also. I was never particularly liked by BV Paynes because I never studied music at school, and always went home at lunchtimes (both from the old school and the couple of terms I had at Oakbank), so I was never available for lunchtime practices, whether choir or orchestra (Yes there really was on ein the Oakbank days). Best violinist was a guy called Arnold Lambert, son of the chemists in Oakworth Rd.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-1964

Current location (optional) Wirral

Sorry Brian Arnold Lambert's father was not the chemist. His father, Richard? however keeps up the musical link. He was the organist at Knowle Park Congregational Church.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-64

Current location (optional) Keighley

Vernon Rooke. Head of Chemistry, Ermysteds GS, Skipton

I recollect one student on the stage in the hall doing a Chuck Berry riff on an electric guitar. Alan Dransfield perhaps.Mr Payne inspired me not one bit with his early one morning the birds were singing.aaaaaaaaaaaargh.Were we evr encouraged to listen to Mozart or Puccini or Beethoven? I know,someone is going to prove me wrong.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

Of course David, where on earth did I get that from? I knew Richard as well. I was organist at Fell Lane Methodist Church from age 13 to 15 (approx 1960 -62) then at Lund Park Methodist Church until Uni (1962-65), following the death of Will Sunderland.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-1964

Current location (optional) Wirral

David Lindley certainly rings a bell - well, plays a mean guitar actually! Jackson Browne's live version of Stay just wouldn't be the same without Lindley's lap steel and falsetto!
Lindley also plays on a superb track by June Tabor. It's on a CD (Beat the Retreat, songs of Richard Thompson) all performed by other artists. The title track begins with one of my favourite guitarists Martin Carthy, June comes in with the lyrics and then James Burton joins Carthy with some very delicate licks. Then Lindley joins in on electric slide and the 3 of them accompanying June Tabor is just breathtaking - especially the instrumental break. Here are 3 magnificent guitarists playing WITH each other not competing. As the track finishes, the guitarists drop out in reverse order until Carthy is again left with just his percussive style - MAGNIFICO!!!
CD: Capitol 7243 8 31482 2 6

TP

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 56 - 63

Current location (optional) Geelong, Australia

As most of you know I wasn't a guitar freak, however did any of you see that early 1940's Gibson guitar demo'ed and briefly played on TV last night on '20th Century Roadshow'. It was reckoned to be worth 'a few hundred'

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-1964

Current location (optional) Wirral

About £1500. A gibson 1940s. I wonder what they'd have valued my 1980s Marina. About £0.50.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

I was given by a "gaffa" roadie after a show a Blues Harp in C used(!!) by Van Morrison on songs like In the Garden, as in the 90s. I was after a set list but he said none about but you might like this.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

You'll find this heretical - but why doesn't Van the Man give all his instruments away? He's far better of sticking with the singing IMO. Somebody should do him a favour and nick that bloody saxophone! By the way, Trevor - thanks for reminding me about the June Tabor track - one of the twentieth century's best recordings without a doubt (in fact that whole album's a killer)!

Van Morrison is no slouch with any of the instruments he plays. How many times you seen him?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

...told you you'd find it heretical... but I tend to think that as a guitarist, harp player and saxophonist, he's a great singer! Oh, and I seen him lots - last time being a rip off concert at the Usher Hall where they charged you twenty-four quid and had taken all the seats out of the auditorium. No good for crumblies one bit!!

St George's Hall, Bradford, first time I saw Van. Depends what your yardsticks, criteria are I suppose...re his instrument playing. Da da da da daaaa da da da daaaaaa da da da daaaaaaa and then one day you came back home a creeder all in rapture.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

My yardsticks / criteria are that you play the right notes in the right order. Fortunately for Van he's got the spondoolicks to employ great session musicians who can. Love this controversy!

My claim to fame as regards Van the Man go back to the days when he was the front man for Them. I was acting roadie for the Rocking Spartans, Keighley's very own (well, it got me into the venues free anyway). It must have been about '64 when the Spartans were on the same billing as Them at Leeds (Town Hall I think). Van spat the dummy 'cause somebody pinched something from their equipment, can't remember what it was, or even whether one of our lads did it.
I sometimes think he's a bit of a 'legend in his own lunchtime' but he does wring the best from a good song, he has a magnificent voice, pity about the strong American twang though which he cultivated from his very early days.
tp

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 56 --63

Current location (optional) Torquay, Oz

Johnny Scott, Bobby Irving, David Hayes, Teena Lyle, Kate St John, Ronny Johnson, Robin Aspland, John Allair blah blah ( in Van's own words), are these the session musicians you refer to? Also Humph Lyttleton. Of course they're just session musicians who haven't been part of his band? Notes in the right order? Even after a quart of brandy and ten pints, I wouldn't accuse him of playing notes in the wrong order. You must be a purist Allan. What controversy?!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

You're right, Alan, I'm a grumpy old purist!! Fortunately there are still things to please the grumpiest of purists out here in Grumpyville. An example is this weekend's Stamford Guitar Festival which brings to these shores for the first time ever the world's authority on the guitar styles of Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Boy Fuller. Cheating somewhat because he's not blind himself, Ari Eisinger is a great guitar player and if you're in the Stamford area you should go and see him!

Allan,I've just looked up the website for that festival and it really does sound amazing. I'm in that area so I will investigate further. Believe it or not, I'm also very interested in the workshops they've got on....take one's own guitar along. Thanks for mentioning it. I'll get back to you if I go. Needless to say, and I hate to admit this, I've not heard of one single performer on at the festival !!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

See you in the nearest curry house an hour and a half before the first gig!

Maybe we should all try playing with our eyes closed, there does seem to be a trend there! Mind you, sometimes it sounds as though I'm playing with my eyes closed when they're not! - oh well!!
Have to admit, the names at the festival are all new to me, must look them up on the 'net for any sound files!

tp

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 56 --63

Current location (optional) Torquay, Oz

Just back from Stamford Guitar Festival - and what nice it was to get a (brief!)sighting of Alan Britten. We last saw each other in 1968 or thereabouts and I know you'll all be ready to believe that neither of us has changed a bit! Well, at least we're still, relative to one another, the same size... And we've both got black leather jackets. He reckons I've got a Scots accent, and I reckon he sounds like he's from the Midlands. Neither of us thinks we talk any differently than when we were at school and we're both wrong. Late Sunday morning I was gazing covetously at some old guitars when a voice from stage right said "Think you could play Peggy Sue on that..."? A fine moment in a totally memorable weekend. Worth coming over from Australia for without a doubt.

It was a fine moment indeed Allan. I still haven't come to terms with the fact that we've met again after 35 or so years! And quite correct, we haven't changed a bit. I can't remember our first words. You may well have said "Bloooooooody hell!" And I may well have used slightly stronger language. But,even though for a short time, it was excellent. Hope your recording went well. And for the rest of you out there, I think we agreed that one of the wierd things about this site is that we imagine us as we were way back then. And of course, we haven't changed! (Some great guitars there too).

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

I have it on very good authority that you gave a storming guitar performance last Sunday, Allan !!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

On behalf of all posters and lurkers I'd just like to say how amazing it must have been for you two to meet up after over thirty years. Perhaps a meeting like this defies words, and this is why no one has commented. Not that they should.Does seem bizarre however....strum, pluck, boing.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Current location (optional) uk

Got a guitar from the guy selling Welks (Welkers!).It's a Seagull Grand Artist Parlour. Great sound, but as the more I play it the more I'm realising these parlours are picking guitars, the blues. Despite it having , as they say, a great top end (!) I could do with something a bit fuller.....for my 3 chords. ( But as someone said, don't knock 3 chords ).

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Hey, Geldof's got three chords and he causes traffic jams in Edinburgh! Definitely - don't knock three chords!

Rose of Allandale,Lakes of Pontchatrain(sp), Barbara Allen...songs for today

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Not to be missed next week on BBC2...Scorsese's documentary on Dylan. Amazing that someone filmed that Manchester concert with " Judas" on.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

So what was made of the Dylan programmes? The letters page of the Glasgow Herald was inundated with fors and againsts. I thought the Scorsese films were brilliant - and they certainly brought back a lot of memories and a sense of the excitement about being a teenager when all that was happening. I'd forgotten how awful Peter Paul and Mary were. Not to mention Pete Seeger (fine geezer though he is - but never to be forgiven for murdering Goodnight Irene together with the Weavers in 1950)...My eighteen year old son sat through both episodes too, and although he'd have made different things of the films, I got the sense that he learned a lot, not only about the different strands that influenced Dylan's music, but also about the extent to which that music aroused passions in people that some of today's offerings couldn't begin to dream of. And what's any of this got to do with KBGS? It was part of the soundtrack.

I was disappointed with the usual format : interviews with the young protagonists having aged. Bobby Neuwirth I could hardly recognise.The footage was astounding, both concert and interview. What came across for me was the immense pressure Dylan was put under. No surprise he had a break after that tour. Only speed could have got him through. I was surprised how coherent and lucid Bob was now, having seen recent stage performances. But great stuff.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Django Reinhardt, Stefan Grapelli, Larry Adler, together. Recorded about late 30s. Magic.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-66

Found these two sites by chance - thought they could interest this coterie of posters:

www.chordie.com and www.guitaretab.com

Strum you win; strum you lose.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-60

Current location (optional) Lincoln

Saw Steve Tilston last night at the Otley Folk Club - still as good on the guitar as he was 30 years ago but no instrumentals now. Shame. He's doing stuff similar to Martin Simpson now. Good value though.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

Shaun - what about a separate thread on folk clubs? They were such important/alternative/political places to hang out in the sixties and they have mostly died out over the years, having failed to replenish their audiences. Whatever happened??? Nice to hear the Otley one is still happening. But what's the average age of the audience?

I went to Keighley Folk Club once, in 1969, upstairs in the Albert, to see bluesman Dave Kelly. He didn't turn up. Finally saw him in Haworth a couple of years ago.
There is an excellent blues club in Keighley, held monthly at the Catholic Club.
www.bluesinkeighley.com
Future attractions include Chris Farlowe who, I am sure you will remember, was no.1 when we won the World Cup.

MMMMMN...blues club, eh? Maybe they'd give me a gig? I got the blues living in Keighley, so it'd be good to take them back!

This year's Stamford line up here:
http://www.stamfordartscentre.com/phase1asp/default.asp?page=guitar%20festival.htm
You popping in again AB??? Hopefully this year for longer?

I've given myself a project of learning 2 instrumentals by Xmas this year. If I can learn them to my satisfacton I aim to treat myself to a new acoustic guitar. The 2 tunes are Blind Blake's Rag by Ralph MacTell and Sunwheel Dance by Bruce Cockburn. I'm well on the way. Yep, I'm a slow learner but I learn them well.

Trevor

Let us know if you make it, Trevor - maybe you can persuade Chris to set up a performance corner where you can post an mp3...

Great idea - more incentive to get stuck into it!