When I tell my story to anyone, including friends and the younger family members, I can read the usual reaction from their faces, although not said, it is usually, "The old boy has flipped, that story is just so unbelievable!"
It all started in 1963 when I decided to help part-time my brother"s new beat group "The Premiers," by buying a minibus and acting as the roadie.
The group's five members, except for one Edinburgh lad, all hailed from mining villages in West Lothian and Lanarkshire, including myself.
At the time, the groups work was mostly in and around the beautiful city of Edinburgh, the "Athens of the North" where I started my working life.
The group found work in "beat" clubs, to name but a few, we regularly played "The Place" just off the Royal Mile, and around the corner from the Grassmarket, at that time a place where dropouts slept in doorways, or at best in the Salvation Army residence. - Nothing like the "Chic" Grassmarket of today. "The Place" club was not unlike Liverpool's famous "Cavern Club", which spawned "The Beatles," and we, at the time, hoped to emulate. Little did we know just how close to "The Beatles" we would eventually be, but more about that later in my story.
Then there was "The Top Story" at the top of Leith Walk, and "The International" on Princess Street, which back then was still a classy street. Another venue was the Edinburgh University scene where we played in their social club.
On the outskirts of Edinburgh, we played the seaside town of Musselburgh and Bonnyrigg and we also supported, I believe in Loanhead, or thereabouts, "The Batchelors" who were huge at that time.
The money was not great, we seldom broke even, but the big adventure and absolute fun of touring with a group in the 60's far outweighed any financial considerations!
Shortly after my brother, the drummer, joined the group, we began to tour across Scotland from the borders in the scenic towns of Peebles, Hawick, Galashiels, and Dumfries, to central Scotland in Glasgow clubs like "The Maryland," "Kirkintilloch Graveyard", where every time we played there was fights, or should I say absolute war! Then there was "The Locarno Ballroom," who acknowledged the coming of the beat groups by allowing them to play for an hour or so during the big bands break.
Still in central Scotland we played in Airdrie Town Hall as one of the support groups to the Spencer Davies Group, featuring the great Steve Winwood, on the night they hit number one on Top of the Pops with their big hit "Keep on Running." In Bellshill we supported the Irish hell raisers "Them" with Van Morrison, that was one hell of an experience, but for lots of reasons I cannot reveal what happened, but there was guns involved!
There was the gigs in the Kingdom of Fife, including "The Kinema" in Kirkcaldy.
We often spent weekends in the wild and beautiful north of Scotland, and I remember a booking at a famous whiskey distiller. It was a "do" in a huge Marquee for the workers and "The Premiers" were supporting "Dean Ford and The Gaylords," who we knew around the Scottish circuit, and they eventually became "Marmalade." Later, with a breakaway group from "The Premiers", named "1-2-3," we met up again with Dean Ford during one of our residences at the world famous "Marquee Club" and he became a true fan, more about "1-2-3" and those adventures later in my story.
We often played in the far north of Scotland from Thurso, to Elgin, to Aberdeen, and Peterhead, often travelling in the middle of winter through snow storms. I remember one trip to a gig in Thurso we found the A9 was closed due to snow drifts. We needed the money for the gig, so, we set out and went up through the beautiful, but that day treacherous, Trossachs! Going round all the lochs going through Glencoe, digging and pushing ourselves out of ditches finally got there an hour before we were due to start after 300+ miles, only to be told by the promoter he had cancelled the gig because he thought we could never make it!
There are so many hilarious, and sad, stories of our adventures on the road I could fill a book.
Eventually "The Premiers" were no more and the three remaining group members, the manager and me decided on our next great adventure and headed to "swinging" London in 1966. We probably had about thirty quid between the lot of us! Anyway, the group "1-2-3" was born.
After two weeks of sleeping in the van, and going to the public baths most mornings, we were suddenly "discovered" by none other that the famous John Gee, the manager of the world famous "Marquee Club" in London's Soho. John is on record stating, '“1-2-3" were the finest group I introduced.' - Considering the huge stars that John introduced, this was indeed the supreme compliment.
At that time a young man sat in awe at the front of "The Marquee" stage. He turned out be David Bowie. "1-2-3" played on David's first demo's and the group have a chapter devoted to them in all of David's autobiographies.
"1-2-3" were then signed by Brian Epstein's NEMS Enterprises, the world famous manager of The Beatles, Gerry and The Pacemakers, Cream, The Bee Gees, and Cilla Black. – Guess who did not make the big time?
Our great adventures went on when "1-2-3" supported Jimi Hendrix at his debut in London's Saville theatre. A few weeks later in London's Speakeasy Club, the group had a jamming session with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Burden of The Animals fame.
The groups adventures when they formed "Clouds" and went on with world-wide tours and famous venues like, The Royal Albert Hall, Filmore East, The Hollywood Bowl, Reading Festivals etc.
Ah, memories are made of this!