Category Archives: Sussex

Categories: England, Sussex

St John’s Wood

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L to R: Top, Colin Pierce, Dave Shaw (on the stool), Colin Fox, Ray Harper. Left sitting down, Paul Dunn and Rod Pittam

Dave Shaw (lead vocals) 

Colin Pierce (guitar) 

Colin Fox (vocals, guitar) 

Ray Harper (bass) 

Rod Pittam (keyboards) 

Paul Dunn (drums) 

As Colin Fox recalls, “The formation of St John’s Wood started when two local Eastbourne groups, Spooks and 4-Bidden got together.

“I was in Spooks, and in 1966, the drummer, John Atkins, decided to join the RAF; the bass player Chris Putland decided to move to London and eventually became an accountant; and the guitarist, John Brooker, emigrated to New Zealand. That left singer Dave Shaw and me.

“4-Bidden were a four piece band whose lead guitarist wanted to leave, so they asked me to join. I said I would if Dave could also join as singer and they agreed.”

Fox adds that the band brought in a keyboard player and decided to change their name because there were now six musicians in the group.

1967 gig. Sussex Express (Newhaven ed)
1967. Sussex Express (Newhaven ed)
1967. Sussex Express (Newhaven ed)

“About that time there was a band called The Scots of St James, a nightclub in London by the same name. So, we thought, ‘What other parts of London are there?’ We came up with St John’s Wood.”

The guitarist notes that 1969 marked the 50th anniversary of the first flight across the Atlantic by Alcock and Brown and the band was approached by a guy who asked if they would be interested in recording a song called “Alcock and Brown”, which was written by Blakely and Howard.

“As they had had many top ten hits, we of course said yes,” says Fox. “We went into the studio and recorded the song. The first Saturday in May 1969, Simon Dee had a special programme commemorating the 50th year anniversary of the first flight. Blakely and Howard were there and wanted us to change our name to Balloon Busters. I found the whole thing embarrassing, the song and the name, but we went ahead and appeared on the Simon Dee show.”

After leaving the studio, the band reverted to the name St John’s Wood and on the Monday left for a three-week tour of Denmark.

The band’s first gig was at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. During August, the band held down a month-residency at the Carousel Club in Copenhagen, supporting by local Danish bands.

“The agent who sent us there told us there would be plenty of bookings waiting for us when we got back but unfortunately they never materialised and I left the band a couple of months afterwards.”

Fox says that he was approached by lead singer Tony Kenward from another local Eastbourne band called Road.

Road. Photo: Colin Fox

“I knew that Ray Harper was also dissatisfied with St John’s Wood having no work so I agreed if he could join as well.

“Over the next few years we changed our name to Lyzander and finally Performance. We became quite popular on the circuit for our four/five-part harmonies. In the following years, I did go out in a duo, a trio and also a band with four members. I retired to Spain in 2004, and played some bars and clubs in a duo, but that’s another story.”

Thanks to Colin Fox for information and photos about the band

Categories: Fulham, London, Sussex

Jimmy Marsh & The Del Mar Trio (July 1964 – April 1965)

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Jimmy Marsh – lead vocals
Allen Bevan – lead guitar
Tony Rowland – bass
Malcolm Tomlinson – drums

The Motivation, 1967 photo
The Motivation, 1967 with Jimmy Marsh (second left) and Malcolm Tomlinson (far left)

Lead singer Jimmy Marsh (b. 9 April 1941, Salem, Carmarthenshire, Wales; d. 13 April 2020) had started out around 1961 with Fulham band, The Fairlanes, comprising lead guitarist Allen Grey, rhythm guitarist David Beach, bass player Terry Gore and drummer John Warwick. The band played US air bases and sometimes backed cabaret acts like Kathy Kirby and Vince Hill.

During 1962, Marsh formed the first Del Mar Trio with lead guitarist Allen Bevan, who worked at Sound City on Shaftesbury Avenue, rhythm guitarist Terry Toatal, plus a bass player and a drummer. On 1 June 1963, the musicians backed Jimmy Marsh on the “Rock Twist Jive Channel Crossing”, a rock extravaganza that took place on-board the Channel ferry, the M V Royal Daffodil, which sailed from Southend, Essex to Boulogne, and also featured Jeff Curtis & The Flames, whose drummer was Malcolm Tomlinson (b. 16 June 1946, Isleworth, Middlesex; d. 2 April 2016).

Photo: Worthing Gazette, December 1964

Bevan and Tomlinson ran into each other again while working at Sound City and around late June 1964 the drummer left The Flames to join Marsh’s band. Tony Rowland, who hailed from Doncaster, completed the second version of The Del Mar Trio, which was formed around the early summer.

After rehearsing between the occasional gig, the quartet headed to the south coast and found work with Bob Gaitley’s Beat, Ballad and Blues agency, working his clubs, the Top Hat in Littlehampton and the Mexican Hat in Worthing.

Cornish gig, January 1965

In January 1965, the group headed to Cornwall for a short tour, which included St Austell and Penzance.

Part of the same Cornish tour, 15 January 1965

The band also played along the southcoast, including in Brighton, appearing there after the Cornish gigs.

Advert for Brighton gig, 23 January 1965. Photo: Evening Argus

Gaitley was impressed enough with Marsh’s singing to arrange for an audition at Abbey Road, which led to the recording of four tracks – “You Know How”, “Pocket Full of Rainbows”, “Like A Baby” and “Haunting Me”, with producer, the late Bob Barrett in February 1965, and listed under the name James Deene & The Del Mar Trio.

Just before the German tour

The band continued to gig around the London area, including in Northwood with The Mark Four and a show at the Pilgrim, Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

When nothing happened to the tracks, the band signed up for a tour of West Germany and headed off in late April/early May 1965.

West Sussex gig. Photo: Brighton Evening Argus

Over the next year, the band, working as James Deene & The London Cats, underwent various personnel changes, including seeing another former Jeff Curtis & The Flames member, lead guitarist Louis McKelvey join briefly, and would ultimately see all of the members return home except Jimmy Marsh who found work on a US air force base outside Munich.

Around May/June 1966, Marsh was contacted (via the British Consulate) by bass player Bryan Stevens, a former member of Johnny Devlin & The Detours, which had shared the bill with The Del Mar Trio at one of Gaitley’s clubs on the south coast, to join a new version of Stevens’ latest band, The Noblemen. Marsh accepted and recommended Malcolm Tomlison as a drummer. The pair stuck with The Noblemen from June until November 1966 when the band changed name to The Motivation. Working under the new name, The Motivation headed to Rome in late March 1967 and worked at the famous Piper Club but Marsh became ill and returned home.

Tomlinson remained with The Motivation until August when the revised line up changed name again to The Penny Peep Show/Penny Peeps. The band recorded two singles for Liberty in 1968 – “Little Man With A Stick” c/w “Model Village” and “I See The Morning” c/w “Curly, The Knight of The Road”, before becoming blues band Gethsemane in August of that year. After splitting in December 1968, Tomlinson reunited with Louis McKelvey, who’d returned from Canada in July of that year and the pair relocated to Canada in January 1969 where they formed Milkwood.

In 1973, Tomlinson recorded an unreleased album with Rick James & The Stone City Band and two solo albums, issued on the A&M label in the late 1970s.

Many thanks to Jimmy Marsh and Malcolm Tomlinson for information.