parkie used to post on ere

bobby ball

Beer, bl0w job, bed.

boxingthefox - 'Beer, bl0w job, bed.'

not a bad guess - not necessarily in that order though!

I'll give it another hour to see if anyone comes up with the correct answer.

Ok one last try. Rockin Ron Gaydon, Steve Stanley, Dave Pye ..........Brett Slade also played with them, am I getting warm, or are the lights going out in Massachusetts.

I'm feeling warm MG.

I worked for the WHO's manager, the one they dumped when he went on holiday, then made it, with a new one, they were our local group, one of them was not shy to ponce money of us working guys when he came to see the manager. I'm still owed!!!!

Well done boxingthefox - your smartie will be in the post! Better still, I think I'll digitise it and send it to you through the ether!

I'm a jazz drummer - freelancing mostly. But it was a long time ago now - in the 80's mainly, but some of the Acker Bilk gigs were more recent ( a few years ago).

Sadly only Chris remains and although now about 85 I think he is, he still runs a first class band but much fewer gigs these days which is understandable. Also, Chris lost his trumpet player Pat Halcox a few years ago now. Wonderful player and a lovely human being.

Yes, it was an honour to play with them. I could give many stories on here, but I don't wish to bore readers too much, but one story comes to mind which is worth telling I think.

In the early 80's, Acker guested with a band that I used to play with and of course Acker played his famous 'Stranger on the Shore' and the band leader (who reveered Acker like a god) did a duo on stage for that number, but halfway through, the whole sense of occasion got to him and he burst into tears on stage whilst Acker carried on and finished the number off. It was a very moving moment which luckily the audience appreciated. Ackers piano player was also on that gig and I just loved playing along with him.

Aah - good memories!

"but I don't wish to bore readers too much" Don't worry about that, there's plenty of boring phish on this forum inc some of mine . An interesting post is a rare beast on here.

wonderful stuff mokegibbon and thanks for sharing. would love to hear much more from you...but, I will have to pull you upon a technical point that, by chit=chat standards, this sounds more like a genuine claim to fame rather than a tenuous one so you might well be disqualified!

Thanks boxingthefox - I'm glad you appreciated some of the music that was played by these band leaders. They were exciting times even though it was all very much after the jazz boom of the 50's and 60's. The funny thing was that although jazz had mainly had it's day by the time the 70's were in full swing, jazz was (and still is to some extent) very popular in mainland Europe, particularly Holland and Germany. I remember doing a tour of Holland, again in the early 80's and even teenagers were asking for my autograph (Breda jazz festival circa 1980). That wouldn't have happened in the UK at that time.

Chris Barber's band spent a large part of their time working in Europe as their popularity seemed to be greater over there than in the UK.

Just remember this - Chris Barber has been a band leader for 60 years now.

I think it's worth contemplating that for a short while and consider what an achievement that is - and he's still going with his 12 piece band (although numbers do vary occasionally).

Can anyone else come up with a musician who has been playing for so long and continuously run a band for that length of time?

Oh yes, possibly - I'll check that out.

Soon even .

I was sitting on a bench in Golders Hill Park, reading a magazine and minding my own business when........

Rockin...

that's a slightly off-piste tenuous claim ... being the subject yourself of the fame.

Your earlier Monica Coghlan claim was re-instated (on the grounds that you posted about a different topic on another thread and agreed with me).  However, this one fails on two counts:

1. it's implicit in the rules that you can't be the famous one (if that were the case we'd have all sorts of sex workers posting on here saying they had liaised with any number of chit chatters);

2. many chit chatters will be seething at the thought of you driving through France in a new white Jaguar XJS (was it a convertible, perchance?) with a couple of lovelies and your claim could well upset their mental well being and  balance.

However, if you can assure us that the room for 3 was purely for economic reasons, then your claim may stand

HTH

Sitting in the same theatre as Chris Barber is, I suppose, a very tenuous claim to fame?