Top,
left to right: Gordon McIntosh: Bass; Charlie Miller:
Keyboards; Willie McKellar: Lead Guitar & Backing Vocals.
Bottom, left to right: Jim Berney: Drums & Backing Vocals; Bill Hendry: Lead Vocals.
Pic- courtesy of Alex Scott.
Gordon McIntosh recounts the band's history and adventures:
When
I first joined the band in 1968 I was 16 and we were originally a 6
piece, myself on bass, Willie McKellar on lead guitar, Charlie Miller,
keyboards, Jim Berney, drums, Roger Glover on sax, and vocalist John
Ryan. John came from Warrington in England and knew quite a
few
agents down that way so we managed to get a some gigs around there
including the Cavern Club in Liverpool. John left the band in
early
1969 and was replaced by Bill Hendry. I first saw Bill
singing with a
band called Sunset Culture at the Maryland in Glasgow and he
sounded like Robert Plant, only better. We asked him to a
rehearsal and after trying out a few songs he agreed to join the band. Shortly
afterwards,
Roger left and we became a 5 piece till 1973.
Above pic and those from the photo shoot below courtesy of Willie McKellar
We
were playing a minimum 5 gigs a week from Inverness to Gretna - the
Beach Ballroom Aberdeen, the Kinema Dunfermline, the Raith Kirkaldy,
the Cavendish Edinburgh, the Trocadero Hamilton
the Albert, the Flamingo, and Locarno in Glasgow and the Bobby Jones in
Ayr. I think the only ballroom in Scotland we didn't play was
the Barrowlands as it was closed in the late sixties for
about 10 years because of all the gang trouble that was going on at
that time. We once did
5 gigs in one day starting with a charity thing in the West End of
Glasgow about midday then we went on to play Easter Road football ground in
Edinburgh along with the Tremeloes. That night we played a club
through there, I think it was called the Cave then back to Glasgow
for 45min spot at the Picasso before finishing off at about 4am in Sgt
Peppers. After all that we still went back to our flat in
Pollokshields for a party.
My favourite gigs were the Cragburn in
Gourock, the Watermill in Paisley, Hamilton, Airdrie and Cumnock
town
halls, , the Grand Hall, Kilmarnock, the Olympia, East Kilbride,
all the universitys, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Queen Margaret union, and
the rag
balls at the Locarno ( they were crazy). We used to have good
following in the north east in places like, Nairn, Elgin,
Buckie,
Ellon, inverurie and Kemnay. Arran was great too; we'd go
over
for a few weekends throughout the year to do Brodick, Lamlash and
Whiting Bay. The Electric Garden in Sauchiehall St was also a
good
venue as was the Terminal 1 Club in St Enochs Square and the
Maryland
in Scott St. We
were also the first band to play at a club called Clouds directly above
the Greens Playhouse which was later renamed the Apollo. Then there was the Lindella Club in Union St.
The
roadies hated the Lindella as it was about four flights up with no
lifts. I felt sorry watching them carry the 4x4 marshall cabs, Hammond
organ and Leslie unit and PA system up all those stairs but then again
that's what they were paid for - ok a half pint of beer and ten fags
wasn't much, especially amongst all of them. We had quite a few
roadies over the years. So, to Davie Fowler, Davy Gilchrist, Brian
Agnew, John McBrearty, Bobby, Benny, Jim Kelly, Seamus, Ian Hosie
(formerly with the House of Lords) Chris
Watson and the famous Stanley, Alan (Muttsey) Miller who was our longest serving roadie, and finally our flat
mate and part time Aussie DJ Ken Kane - Thanks guys.
A couple
of wee stories about roadies come to mind. I remember us doing a
Hogmanay ball in Newton Mearns along with Cliff Bennett and the Rebel
Rousers. I think it was 1969 and it was quite a formal do, all suits,
bow ties and long dresses. We finished our set about 11.30 and went up
to the dressing room to see in the bells
only to discover that we
had no mixers. Muttsey and I went
to get some but the bar was packed 10 deep and it was obvious we'd
never get served by midnight. Now, 'Muttsey' used to
frequent Tam Shepherd's joke
shop in Queen Street quite a lot and he brings out a couple of stink
bombs from his pocket and smashes them over his head. Within
about ten seconds everybody was just
about throwing up, including me. Out of the corner of my eye I
saw a
girl faint and fall over a table filled with champagne glasses and
another one slipped over on the spilled drink;
it was like a scene from a Carry On film. Suddenly, there was about
20 feet of empty bar space and Muttsey just walked up like Clint
Easterhouse and ordered a dozen cokes et voila! - Happy New Year.
Another
roadie story that I remember was when we were playing at the Dam
Park
hall in Ayr and we were supporting Slade. It must have
been in November
because we had bought a few boxes of
fireworks on the road down and we were going to let them off after the
gig. Slade had their
dressing room across the corridor from us, and one of them came
into our room and saw the fireworks and said, 'Do you
mind if I take a couple of bangers?' We said, 'Certainly, take
what
you
want.' Then we lit a few
and chucked them into Slade's dressing room. After
the screams of, 'You f****** b*******!' our
door burst open and bangers were lobbed back in at us. Next
thing, rockets,
and cartwheels
were exploding all over the place and a stray firework
started a small fire in some boxes of rubbish in the corridor.
As the
flames started to get bigger, our roadie Stanley tried to douse
them with the contents of a bottle of brandy that we'd been given by a
fan - whooosh - a
massive flame erupted and set a corridor door alight. The gig had to be put back about
an hour while the fire
brigade
sorted things out. We blamed it on Slade and I think their management paid
the
bill for the damages.
We
played with Status Quo in the Cavendish in Edinburgh one night, must
have been
about early 1970, and they were about to call it a day.
After the gig they asked us to meet up at their hotel, the Royal
Stuart in Glasgow. They said they were really impressed
with our set and told us they would like to manage us, though
as we found out later it was Alan Lancaster who was most keen on
going into management. After a couple of months we
hadn't heard
anything so I went down to London and met Alan at his mum's house in
Peckham and he told me he was still very much interested and was
trying to put a few ideas together with Max Clifford, a relatively
unknown PR man at that time but as it was a bit difficult
for them to arrange anything for us while we were based up in
Glasgow, we were to come down to
London and try the club experience down there.
Then
they told us that Barry Ryan was looking to go back on the road
again with a bit of a heavier sound and needed a new backing band for a 3 week tour of Italy in August
1970. So they arranged an audition for us in Ronnie
Scott's jazz club. Barry and his manager at that time, Clive Mclean who
also managed Cat Stevens, really liked us and asked if we would like the
job. We thought, 'Mmmm a 3
week tour of Italy in the month of August, a bit of sun, getting a few
quid, staying at all the top hotels with drinks thrown in, yes we'll
have a some of that.' After a couple of
weeks
of rehearsal we went on our first gigs outside the UK.
All Pics below from Gordon McIntosh
At the Flamingo
Bill,
Gordon Charlie
The
opening
night
was in Milan and it was a disaster. Nothing
went right. Maybe because there had been big expectations
and we
were not used to all the media,
photographers and TV attention that we got - and probably a
bit of
nerves as well. I remember Barry was thinking about cancelling
the
whole tour there and then. The
next night was in a football stadium in a place called Rappallo in
front of 13.000 and we were topping the bill along with Shocking Blue
and
the Equals. We were
not due on till about midnight were all a bit jumpy about how
it might go the nearer it came to time to go on. The sound check in the early evening was good
but the Equals had done quite a good
set and Shocking Blue were tremendous. We said to Barry, 'Yeah,
maybe you should have cancelled the tour.' But we had a couple of refreshments and were in a better frame of mind by the
time the car came to take us from the dressing room to the
stage. We opened up with 'Eloise' a number
1 hit for Barry all over Europe. The sound was great and we went down
really well. From then on in the rest of the tour was
unbelievable. We never realised how big Barry was on the
continent at that time. Germany was another fantastic place
where Barry was huge. In fact in Germany he was the
biggest selling artist for 3 years in a row.
Barry Ryan (centre) and the Verge
Charlie
Gordon
John Ryan
Jim Berney
Our first gig in London with Barry was to open a new
nightclub called 'Bumpers'. John Peel was the DJ that night and after we
finished he said he really enjoyed it. We were Barry's backing band for a couple
of years on and off doing tours with him around Europe and loads of gigs
all over England, mainly on the club circuit like the Fiesta in Sheffield or the Cavendish in
Blackburn with some of the top pop acts and comedians of the day - Dustin Gee and Ken Goodwin were two of the funniest
guys I ever met.
Rehearsals with Barry Ryan
Willie McKellar remembers the last phase of working with Barry Ryan: Our intention had been to get based in London while a record deal arranged by Alan Lancaster was set up with Decca. Touring with Barry was a way of earning a few bucks on
the way. However, Barry enjoyed the 'band' experience so much
that we ended up writing songs together and he wanted to change
his image and become part of the band but his record company
wouldn’t allow this.
We recorded a couple of songs then Decca decided
to put all new artists on hold and concentrate on their established acts. There are eight original songs on YouTube: just
type Barry Ryan and the following song titles: Storm is brewing; Slow down; I think you know my name;
Alimony honey blues; All thoughts of time; When I was a
child; Life’s so easy; Come home. We did a few more tours with him and then things just
petered out. We came back to Scotland but it just wasn't the same. Bill, our lead vocalist, moved back to Fife and
we eventually disbanded. Still, I wouldn’t have missed a moment of it.
Gordon McIntosh takes up the story again: The
songs written by Willie and Barry mentioned above were recorded in De
Lane Lea Studios London and were produced by Martin Birch who also
produced Deep Purple. A few other songs were recorded in IBC Studios,
but only 2 have been saved from there: 'Lonliest night of
the year' and 'Moonshine girl'. Just as things were quieting down with Barry, the Quo's career had
started taking off again so we weren't hearing anything from Alan
Lancaster. As no contract had been signed with Alan or Max,
we let Matt Nicholson, brother of Hugh and Davie of the
Poets,
Marmalade and Blue take over as
our manager. Matt said he would now try and
get us a deal with Decca but of course Barry found out about it, Alan
and Max
found out about it, and we all kinda fell out. Then, as Willie
said,
Matt's deal with Decca didn't materilise so we came back up to
Glasgow and
started playing the usual gigs for a while,
Willie
I
think after all the
tours we had done with Barry and having that wee taste of the pop star
life, like appearing on "Top of the Pops" and various TV shows in
Europe, and all the big clubs on the UK cabaret circuit, coming
back to do the Scottish scene again got a bit tedious even though we
still had a great following wherever we played. We got in another
singer called Johnny Burns for about 6 months. Johnny was a
good singer and frontman, but as Willie mentioned at the start,
things were just not
the same and we split up.
In France: l-r: Alan (Muttsey) Miller; Bill Hendry; Gordon McIntosh; & Jim Berney.
For
me our biggest compliment was when we were rehearsing the
Crosby Stills and Nash song 'Suite Judy Blue Eyes' in the Electric Gardens and David Bowie walked in with his backing band he was using for a Scottish tour. They sat about for a while listening
to us while the roadies brought in their gear. After we finished
rehearsing Bowie came up and said, 'Man that was *******
fantasmagorical" or something like that. I wonder what happened to him?
A
big disappointment for me is that we
don't have any videos of any of our gigs or our TV performances like
the edition of Top of the Pops with Barry
doing the song 'Cant let you go'. Unfortunately it was one of the
hundreds of reels
that were deleted between 1970 - 1975. If somehow anyone
recorded that show on 21st Jan 1972 I would be grateful if you
could get in touch through Rockingscots. As a wee reminder, Benny Hill
was no 1 with Ernie and also on the show were Congregation, John
Kongos, Petula Clark and Marmalade doing
'Cousin Norman'. I also remember on the Italian tour there
were a lot of brits on holiday that came to our gigs in Rimini
and Cattollica with their 8mm cine cameras, so if anybody has
still got any film from that time, please let me
know. Or any of the German TV shows we did.
I
met up with Alan Lancaster again in 1976 when the Quo were
playing Glasgow Apollo. He was ok about what had happened
before and said he felt we could have gone on to better things
together which is perhaps easy to say years later. And, maybe if we had stayed with Barry who was just coming into
his own as a songwriter we could all have progresssed but, in truth, we had always wanted to be our
own band. I'll end by agreeing with Willie - I wouldn't have missed a moment of it either!
Mr Alan 'Muttsey' Miller on a holiday cruise in 1995 - letting everyone knows he's a Scot - as we do!
Gordon, Charlie & Bill in February 2013