Just like Eddie by Bob Spence (2/5)

(1/5), (2/5), (3/5), (4/5), (5/5).

My lead playing was quite precise but like so many youth club bands it was a pale imitation of the rather soulless and thin sounding instrumentals that existed. Like all the bands of our type we covered American material, probably quite poorly if the truth were known. Our amplification didn't really help, but mostly it was very difficult to create a sound that could compete with the excellent American productions and session musicians that were used. When you are in a group, disputes exist especially over repertoire. You had your different camps. The view was that generally only the Americans could deliver real rock 'n' roll.

Most of the homegrown stuff was a pale imitation of Cliff and the Shadows. I enjoyed Vince Taylor and the Tony Sheridan outfit but you couldn't beat Gene, Buddy and Elvis and of course there was Eddie. To me he was the best.

He was good looking for sure but he could play. I mean really play, and he wrote awesome songs, absolutely timeless material. To top it all the reviews of his live appearances and the clips you saw on the television proved that as a live performer he could cut the mustard. Eddie was coming here, playing at the Hippodrome and I was looking forward to seeing him first hand. I was aware that although we could cover material it was becoming increasingly difficult to compete with the slick sounds of the charts. One solution aside from only covering material compatible to our line up, which meant 'Shads' and 'Ventures' style backing, was original material.

Very difficult at that time, mainly because it was thought that only the Americans could write songs. You did have the odd song that slipped through and the already mentioned Billy Fury had an LP full of material.

I had written some stuff and a little opus called 'Baby, baby, baby' which I had written with Eddie in mind. It had a driving bass line, tambourine banging and a rocking acoustic rhythm. Do you think Martin liked it? Nooooo. It was dated, no one could dance to it, and the lyrics were not romantic and so on and so on. In other words he couldn't try and pull women with it. Boring. We had clashed for about a week over it and I had put my view over that we had to consider this as if the group was to progress. I thought I had some good ideas for songs and I could picture the ideas being played by The Falcons.

Our sound was rather weak and it was not just equipment that was doing it. I tried with George to arrange our material but George would not play with the rhythm, just touching the notes, and Harry although he could keep a beat had a boxy sound.

So many of our numbers had tremolo on the guitars and the harmonies were rather predictable mainly because Martin wouldn't blend vocally, only dominate. The previous week during a heated exchange I put forward the idea that maybe I should drop the very heavy reverb effects that hung on so many numbers and maybe try and develop a slightly different sound. I proposed that Martin and myself set our guitars to a fuller setting that had an acoustic style to it maybe like the Everlys and that Harry who had a fair voice harmonized on a very slow version of The Young Ones.

We had been down this route before when I suggested that we could try and do something different with 'Willie and the Hand Jive'. Martin disliked anything that took the group away from its basic premise which was to be his skirt puller and as for Harry singing, no way. He preferred it when I set my guitar up with a very trebly sound with reverb dripping. How original.

Continued... Next Page (3/5)

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