Since Ready Steady Gone was launched it’s had well over a quarter of a million hits. I’m guessing that most visitors to the site will be in their sixties and…
Author: Roger
How Motown changed my life
There is a long list of singers, songwriters and musicians who say they were influenced by Motown. And it’s not just artists that grew up during Motown’s golden era of…
Saxcetera
Whatever happened to the sexy sax? Unlike guitarists, not many saxophone players outside of the jazz world have become household names. I suppose most people will have heard of Kenny…
Alnwick Revisited
In November 2010 I was given the opportunity to play at charity gig in Alnwick with a couple of my old band mates. Driving up the Great North Road through…
Under the influence
A while ago I received an email from Arthur Renwick, a north east guitarist who played in local bands in the late fifties and early sixties. Arthur reminded me that…
One For The Road(ies)
I finally got around to reading ‘Rock Roadie’ by Tappy Wright (mentioned in my earlier blog – Who Killed Jimi Hendrix?). There’s some interesting ‘insider’ stuff in there about the…
Old friends and sunny days
It’s always good to hear from north east musicians who were active during the sixties and seventies, in particular those I played with in bands or shared the stage with…
All Mod Cons
From 2005 to 2010 I played saxophone and keys in a mod themed tribute band called Carnaby Street. Unlike the two people who formed the band, I wasn’t in Carnaby…
For the record
Back in the early to mid sixties, the opportunities for a north east band to become known on a national level were quite limited. The usual route for a band…
Positive negatives
I recently came across a strip of negatives that hadn’t seen the light of day for over forty years. The images on the negatives were of one of my old…