Formed as The Richard Henry Sensation around April 1966 with the following line-up:
Richard Henry (aka Richard Henry Dejohnette) – lead vocals
David O’List – lead guitar (ex-Little Boy Blues)
Colin ? – Farifisa organ
Alan Wherry – tenor saxophone
Don Stuart – tenor saxophone
Dave Aldhouse – bass
Mick Mitchell – drums
July – Café des Artistes, Earls Court, London (Tuesday nights)
30 July 1966 – Taggs Island, Hampton Court, Middlesex (Melody Maker)
Around this time, the band brought in a new keyboard player from Rickmansworth
25 September 1966 – New Crawdaddy, Casino Ballroom, Taggs Island, Hampton Court, Middlesex (Melody Maker)
15 October 1966 – Tiles, Oxford Street, central London with The Blue Aces and Nite People (Melody Maker)
16 October 1966 – Taggs Island, Hampton Court, Middlesex (Melody Maker)
26 November 1966 – Harpenden Public Hall, Harpenden, Herts (Luton News)
Soon after, David O’List joins The Soul System and renames them The Attack. Wherry joins The Harlem Shuffle (which had been formed in May 1966 by Alan Shacklock) and then Simon K & The Meantimers.
Richard Henry joins Timebox around early January 1967. He later joins The Cat Soul Packet before recording as a solo artist
Alan Wherry got in touch and provided this information on the band:
I had been working in the Midlands, bought a tenor sax in a pawn shop in IIkeston, Derbyshire, which turned out to be close to unplayable. I moved back to London, applied for several jobs via the Melody Maker, and each time, within ten minutes of opening my sax case, I was back out on the street.
Unfettered, I put my own ad in Melody Maker and auditioned people in a rehearsal room in the Shepherd’s Bush area. There was Dave O’List on his brand new 1966 white Telecaster.
The singer was Richard Henry Dejohnette, his family came from New Orleans but they’d settled in LA. He was a drummer originally. He later played with TimeBox, was arrested by the US military police and the last I heard from him was from a prison in New Jersey where he was forced to wear tropical kit in an unheated cell in winter – to pass the time, he counted the tiles on the walls. I kid you not, he was one of the best live singers I ever heard.
There was a drummer in the band, Mick from Shepherd’s Bush and his pal, a bass player who’s name I can’t remember. There was another sax player, Don Stewart (Stuart), who is a jazz teacher now. Nice guy, but he bottled out as soon as we started getting live gigs.
A guy called Colin who lived in Hanwell was on Farfisa organ. We rehearsed in his front room for about three months until we could play about 20 numbers. The standard staple of a soul band of the time.
I got us our first gig at the Cafe des Artistes in Earl’s Court at the traffic lights where Tara Browne “blew his mind out in a car”. We started in the Café des Artistes in the Earl’s Court Road on Tuesday nights. There were seven of us and we got 15 quid between us from 10pm to 2 am. It had always been a dead night and the owner/manager said that if we attracted an audience he’d increase our money. Within a month, the place was packed with queues outside in the street. I asked the manger for more money and he told me to F*** off, so we did.
I remember once we played The London Cavern on Baywater Road, for a share of the gate. Each of us got 1s 6d.
You can see why we didn’t like playing Central London.
We started playing at Taggs Island on the Thames near Hampton Court. It was a fabulous place, it had been built by Fred Karno a famous west end impressario. It looked like a Mississippi riverboat and it bankrupted Mr Karno. The guy who booked us there paid us poorly, his bouncers, a team of seriously hard men, got double what we got and it was his idea to call us the Zig Zag band. He wanted us to wear white suits with a big black zig zag on them, which he would supply. He wanted us to swing our saxes and do fancy dance steps a la Hank Marvin and the Shadow. I don’t think we ever played under that name [sic], and we weren’t really into his ideas – he really picked the wrong crew for that.
Colin wanted us to wear shiny mohair suits with bright red silk linings – a la Shadows, see above – so he got the elbow and we had a terrific keyboard player from up around Rickmansworth, can’t recall his name.
I think I moved on to The Harlem Shuffle and then Simon K.
I was the drummer with Zig Zag band Mick Mitchell. We had a great time playing at Taggs Island and Cafe des Artists. No longer have contact with the guys, sadly. I am now a photographer supplying images into the market at the wonderfull age of 80 . The line up was as follows.
Terry on keyboards, Alan Wherry, Dave Aldhouse on base . I remember most of this story but don’t recognise others pieces. The promoter was Leo and it was not him who decided on the name Zig Zag band,this was a joint decision with the band before Leo was involved.
The band’s drummer Mick Mitchell has got in touch with some clarifications and corrections plus some further information.
He says that The Zig Zag band never performed at the London Cavern in Holland Park. This was a group that he was in before The Zig Zag band called The Cross Keys. The line-up of this group was Les Auger (Brian Auger’s brother) on rhythm guitar; a guy called Jerry on lead, Pete Edwin on bass and Mick on drums. The London Cavern, he recalls, was owned by Roy Beaman, a former boxer and great guy.
He adds that it was the group’s members who came up with the name The Zig Zag band, which was chosen at the first practice session. Mick also queries that the owner of the Tagg Island club suggested wearing white suits with zigzags.
Mick remembers one show at the Cafe des Artistes when a musician approached the band and asked if he could play a couple of numbers. He was a brilliant guitarist and fitted in extremely well. Later the band found out he was the late, great Peter Green.
He adds that they were always looking to improve their sound so thought they could augment the tenor saxes with a trumpet player. The musicians advertised but only received one response, a trumpet player that he thinks was an American or Canadian.
The most interesting thing he can recall was that the musician was a victim of thalidomide, which affected the length of his arms, so when he played trumpet, his arms were at full length. He was a brilliant player and he can’t recall why he didn’t join. However, he remembers that it was mentioned that if the band brought in a trumpet player, they would sound too much like Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers, which may have been the reason why the musician wasn’t employed.
Finally, Mick recalls that Richard Henry didn’t spend time in prison as far as he can recall. The singer was in the USAF and was based in Ruislip. He remembers the singer later being sent back to the US for being AWOL.