12. Changes in the line-up...at last we were getting somewhere

 The US cavalry a metaphor for Tony Hulley who came to our rescue 

The near disastrous Catholic Hall session had been a wake up call. There was no way we could expect Tony Hulley to come riding to our rescue like some musical equivalent of the US cavalry. If we didn’t want to find ourselves in the proverbial do-dah again we needed to expand our repertoire considerably.

                              Courteney Selous School badge

Duncan Harvey had gone to the same schools as us, Courtney Selous Junior School and later Churchill High School.

                                                    Churchill School badge

So we had been aware of him for sometime. 

But there was something we never knew about Duncan. He had a hidden talent. He played lead guitar well. By which I mean he could pick out a tune that actually sounded like the tune he was picking out without the stuttering stops and bum notes which accompanied our attempts.

As well as being way better than me, Lea or Mac,  Duncan owned an electric guitar - well a Valencia acoustic guitar...

                                                            Valencia Acoustic Guitar

...with an electrical pick-up attachment...

                     The pickup that transformed acoustic guitars into electric


...and an amplifier with a built in speaker which meant he could not only play well but he could play well LOUD.

                                                             guitar amplifier


And if that wasn't enough, to crown it all, Duncan boasted a large repertoire...and when it came to repertoires as we learnt to our cost with the Catholic Hall fiasco, size mattered.

Unsurprisingly Duncan was invited to join our band and Duncan, who wanted to expose his talent to an audience beyond his bedroom, accepted... which was great news but it left us in a quandary. All three of us, Mac, Lea and I, played what is called 'rhythm guitar'. Rhythm guitar performs two functions to provide a rhythmic pulse and chords...which sounds pretty grand but basically means we strummed along to the tune. As Duncan pointed out only one ‘rhythm guitarist’ was needed...something we knew but chose to ignore... but now a decision had to be made. Up until that time Nicky Goniface had been our drummer but Nicky had recently flown off  to England to train as a British Army musician at Kneller Hall. 

      
         Nicky sporting army haircut prior to leaving for England

                                             L. to R. Lea, Nicky, John Milner & me

So Lea, who always fancied himself as a bit of a drummer, announced that for the good of the band he would be prepared to fall on his guitar...and pick up the drum sticks. That left me and Mac. Who was going to be the rhythm guitarist? The decision was a foregone conclusion, being Lea’s brother and Lea being the leader of the band meant nepotism ruled the day and I got the thumbs up...

...which unfortunately meant Mac got the thumbs down... 

...but Mac wouldn't be out the picture for long. 

Before rehearsals could begin in earnest, Lea needed a drum kit, which on an extremely limited budget was easier said than done. Eventually, out of desperation he settled on a Salvation Army bass drum - the type carried by a marching drummer...

...which was so ridiculously large you could barely see his head over the top of it... a set of foot cymbals... a military snare drum and a large ‘crash’ cymbal. I don’t remember if it came in one lot or were bought individually. 

To disguise the Salvation Army Logo and to give them a uniformed look Lea bought some sticky back plastic sheeting with a red marble effect on it - the type used to cover kitchen table tops in the early 60’s - cut them to size and stuck them to the body of the snare and bass drums... drum kit sorted. 

With Duncan in the line up we started  actually sounding like a band and the improvement was rapid. A girl who lived at the end of our road, Marie De Speville, heard us practising and booked us to play at her birthday party. We set up in the lounge of her parent’s house and started. Soon all the party-goers were jiving along to "Apache", "Walk Don't Run", "Guitar Boogie-Shuffle", "Rebel Rouser", "Skokiaan - Happy Africa", "Never on a Sunday", "Raggle-Taggle Gypsey", "Drifting", "Red River Rock", "In The Mood", "When The Saints Come Marching In"....among others. We had a blast and when we finished our final set we were really pleased with ourselves. We had gone down well. Way better than expected. I seemed to remember we even got a couple of bookings out of it which says it all. The night had ended on a high but we were about to come down to earth with a bump. Least my amp was...

On the way out to the car I dropped it, smashing all the glass valves...it ended up costing more to repair than what we were paid for the party...but it only slightly dampened our excitement...after the Catholic Hall fiasco this had been nothing short of a triumph ... at last it felt like we where getting somewhere.

Most afternoons were spent rehearsing the band and learning new numbers. Schools in Rhodesia started at 8:00 in the morning and finished at 1:00 and Churchill High School was no different. What money we earned playing the odd party was spent on upgrading our gear. So, what with the new equipment and all the rehearsing in the few months since Duncan had joined the band had come on leaps and bounds. But we lacked something...and that something was a bass. The year was around 1961 and a new face was to enter the frame.

One afternoon we were at a school mate’s house demonstrating a brand new amp we had acquired. The amp which I seem to remember was a Carlton came with a tremolo foot switch that gave the notes a sort of wavering quality – an innovation which to our 1961 sensibilities was nothing short of musical alchemy... totally ‘mind blowing’ or “mushi sterek” to use the vernacular of the day.

During the afternoon we must've mentioned to our mate that we needed a bass player because the following week he had bought himself a Hofner bass guitar and amp, started bass lessons and was in the band.

                                                                                    Hofner Bass 

The guy was Alan Barton someone we had known since Courteney Selous junior school days...and still in contact with to this day.