Mods to Rockers by Colin Stoddart

Author:Colin Stoddart
Language: spa
Format: epub
Publisher: Colin Stoddart
Published: 2016-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

SUPPORTING THE BLUES LEGEND JIMMY REED - 1964

A call from an unknown promoter brought us on a Tuesday evening to a large first-floor ballroom, situated above a pub called the Red Lion in Leytonstone, East London.

I knew nothing about this ballroom. It was new venue for us and the promoter asked me if the group played any blues numbers. This was becoming quite a fairly common question and, not wishing to loose a booking and the money it gave us, I always answered yes. However, I always covered myself by also saying that we weren’t a full blues band and that we also played quite a few rock ‘n’ roll numbers. I purposely didn’t mention the pop songs we also played.

We were able to conveniently park our van in a small dead-end side road, right outside the side entrance to the ballroom. Carrying our gear up the stairs and through some double swing doors, this led us into a typically large oblong ballroom with a wooden parquet floor and a stage at one end. No effort had been made by the promoter to titivate the interior, apart from having a single bare light bulb dangling above the stage. No doubt, in its heyday, this had been an elegant ballroom with expensive drape curtains at the windows. Now the windows were simply painted black.

As we assembled our gear on the stage, the promoter came and introduced himself. It was then that he dropped a small bombshell by telling us ‘We have the American blues artist Jimmy Reed performing here tonight, so if you start at eight o’clock and finish at nine, he’ll play for an hour with his band and then you go back on again at ten and finish at 11pm prompt. OK?’ We just nodded in agreement. After he’d left the stage, I looked at the others and said ‘I don’t believe it, Jimmy Reed! We’d better get ‘Shame, Shame, Shame’ out of the way early. He might not like our version!’ John looked at me and said ‘I didn’t know this was a blues club - how are we going to play R&B for two hours?’ ‘We’ll get by’ I said. ‘We can do a few repeat requests and Dave and I can double up on our solos. I’m sure we’ll manage OK.’ I think I sounded more confident that I felt!

For the first hour we played our repertoire of assorted R&B songs in this depressing venue under the eerie light of the single bare bulb. I doubled up on guitar solos, John repeated a few extra verses and Dave added a sax solo here and there. By nine o’clock, we’d managed to play only blues songs to a half-full hall. I turned to the others and said ‘I wonder if this guy’s spent any money on advertising the fact that Jimmy Reed is appearing here tonight?’ ‘I didn’t see any posters outside the entrance’ said Martin. Nobody had seen him arrive and he was due on stage now.

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