Bands, Groups Country and Western and Folk

From my earliest memories the playing of musical instruments was never a problem. Not that I am a good musician but I always worked on the premise of “just flipping do it”. The problem came because I never stuck at any particular instrument long enough to become that proficient, still I managed to fool everyone into letting me join their groups and bands.

One of the first groups that I played with was Cynamon Folk, this included a girl singer with the best female voice I have ever heard, a banjo player and little old me. This was my first true experience of playing in a semi-professional status. I remember that we played at an audition in London and I must have been absolute rubbish because the organiser came up afterwards and said that I should relax more. It was alright for him but I was the one wearing the cycle clips.

After what can only be described as a shaky start we did quite well and worked with many famous acts and bands of the time. One that immediately springs to mind are the Hawaiian Islanders, they were brilliant and not least because they were fronted by two beautiful girls with swaying hips and just about everything else.

The girl singer of Cynamon Folk was a girlfriend at the time until she pranged my beloved Morris 1000, everyman has his limits.

It was time to move on to bigger things, and after a conversation with a manager of another local band, this time the “Country Cousins” I was brought in to add variety to the style of country music they played. I still remember Eric the lead singer, all he wanted to do was sing Buck Owens songs, and very well he did too.

Many will remember him owning a shop on the Broadway in Maidstone and trading by repairing amplifiers and selling musical accessories. He was destined for much greater things moving on to ES Electronics and Mathew’s music shop. I am told that Eric was the largest stockist of pedal steel guitars in the northern hemisphere at one stage, he probably was, and I also remember he made amplification for such people as “The Who”. Another little story that springs to mind was testing “The Who’s” amplification on one of our own gigs (with another band not the Country Cousins) and the damn thing blew up and engulfed the entire hall with smoke. Does that ring any bells?

Moving swiftly on, the next band was “The Virginians”. The main singer had a wonderful voice and surprising range, I wonder where he is now, he should have been famous. We had some great gigs with this band and to my mind it was one of the best in the area. Still all good things come to an end and so we moved on.

We started another band called “Red Wing”; this was formed in the very early days of my married life but as they say temperamental musicians, I moved on and they moved up to Opportunity Knocks. Nothing came of it but they were good.

John G

Maidstone I remember it well: The one major group were Chicory Tip with the No one hit Son of My Father. We followed them to most Kent venues. I remember one of the band lived in College Road.

quin

Country: Australia Maidstone I remember it well: we went to the g ranch 1967 amen corner or andy fairweather lowe had a hit everlasting love it hit no 1 in the charts that nite and because of all the session muses on the recoerd they could hardly play it ...the wesley was a great place to go for a band. ken beckham used to play bass . we also ran dances at maidstone tech coll we had savoy brown and pinkertons assorted colors(sic) we vamped up the heating so everyone drank more....and they did!!!! we had adam faith at the granada and who was gino washington...

we had a closed circuit radio at the tech with lunch time djs and also a radio station at oakwood hospital.

phillip Wood

Maidstone I remember it well: the group chicory tips are still going but i don`t know if they are still the original ones i know the singer colin gilham left a long time ago the group were playing at a birthday do a few weeks ago they have a singer called brian who is very good they play alot of 60`s music.