The story
The idea of making a record had been one of my driving ambitions since fooling around with a neighbour’s grundig in the mid 60″s. We had a local band called “The Link” and we played covers by the Stones, Pretty Things and Nashville Teens, plus Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters, my roots were taking hold.
Many years later I was fortunate enough to meet Jo-Anne Kelly, whose help and encouragement inspired me to write to Nick Perls at Yazoo/Blue Goose, who had already recorded some British Slide giants of the period, Sam Mitchell, Roger Hubbard and Graham Hine. Nick needed some demos and on a borrowed Ferrograph in my student bedsit I made desperate attempts to record myself, trying to capture “where I was at musically.
Having witnessed the live performances of the above mentioned players, I soon realised that my material, my voice and the equipment had a long way to go. I abandoned the idea and continued my life as a newly qualified teacher, wandering the streets of Europe, busking my way around this new found freedom having finished my education.
The next 10 years saw me teaching by day and playing by night doing the rounds of the London Pub Rock scene, which launched so many careers within the R&B/Country scene. The candle was indeed burning at both ends and in an act of pure self-preservation I crawled out of London to the peace and tranquillity of Bath, where I was re-united with my oldest buddy and slowly began to recover from 10 years of “City Life”.
Breaking my ties with the city and relocating to Bath enabled me to focus on the task of getting that first record made. I managed to find various odd jobs to fund my first demos in a 4-track studio run by local ex BBC sound engineer David Lord. I was kindly assisted in these recordings by Mick Feat, Les Binks and Alan Lisk. They volunteered their services and were to reappear at various points throughout my career. These demos led me to Nigel Grainge at Ensign records, who signed me up and funded more demos, again in David Lords 16 track studio.
The following year the album was done for real at Ridge Farm, using a new batch of musicians chosen by my producer Geoff Haslam. Unfortunately these recordings were not to our liking as they had lost all the feel of the original demos recorded in Bath using local artists.
This two-year period left me drained and fairly downhearted, my dream was in pieces. But from these ashes grew a collection of recordings from the earlier demos that was to form the basis of my first release. I had played the demos constantly since the first 4 track recordings and realised I only needed another 4 tracks to do it. “Talk to me” and “Some People” were done in Andy Allen”s Cave Studios in Bristol in one day. “Put a smile on your face” and ‘Farther Along’ were recorded and engineered by Paul Rideout on his newly acquired Fostex 8 track. The record was mastered at the Town House by Tony Cousins who had been involved with me in the London Pub Rock Scene of the mid seventies.
With the recordings now mastered another good friend at the time Chris Wroe helped enormously on the sleeve design and artwork. The final piece of the jigsaw came with the launch of the new Government Enterprise Allowance Scheme to help people set up new businesses.
So that was it, all I needed was a name for the label. Chris and I were big Robert Crumb fans and his Crumb inspired logo design lasted for many years until the revamp in 1999. Doodah Records was finally born.
The Album entitled “Picking Good Tunes” came out on Doodah and I personally drove to the pressing plant in East London in a hired Ford Escort Van. I barely made it home; the rear of the van was under so much weight. The record was distributed by Making Waves, quite a force in its day.
So that was it, I was on my way, gigging and selling albums around the country in 1983. I was rather surprised then to get a call from Joe Boyd at Hannibal Records who finally got to hear a promo demo I sent him some 18 months earlier. After a few chats I signed “Picking Good Tunes” over to him, which he released as my first “proper” record under the title “Road Dreams”.
Meanwhile Doodah records was already preparing for its next release. In 1984 I returned from my first trek across the US, where I found my holy grail in the shape of Austin Texas. There I heard my first Texas Swing bands and became intoxicated with that sound, it was so uplifting and was the perfect vehicle for my thirst for slide guitar material. Returning to Bath, I gathered around me some of the finest acoustic musicians in the area and formed “5 Guys Named Mo” This band was to embody material from all the various slide/swing/Hawaiian/country vocal ensembles I was into at the time; Louis Jordan, Mills Brothers, Sol Hoopii, Jimmie Rogers, Cliff Carlisle, and steel player Howard White to name but a few.
We recorded two sides for a double A sided release to be sold at gigs and placed on local juke boxes (sadly missing today) Five Guys Named Mo and Kalakamo Kamoo were the featured cuts. The record helped increase demand for the band and we were soon the talk of the nation!
My repeated visits to Austin and the release of my second album for Hannibal, left little time for the swing outfit. However we still managed to expand and Five Guys became “The Four Frenchmen” which then became “The Three Caballieros” Offshoot bands also made their mark in the form of the The “Glee Club” and “Hot Strings”.
In recording “Rust”, my second release on Hannibal I used mainly local people who knew and understood where I was coming from. I believe this resulted in some outstanding recordings and I really thought things would start to happen for me after its release. However, nothing seemed to change much and I continued to gig around the country with my band at the time, featuring Dale Marshall on drums, Jerry Soffe on bass and Richard Dutton on Hammond.
Thanks to Richard Hutchinson, my manager at the time, I was soon to sign a major deal with Chrysalis Records. It was on the strength of my first two releases and the hard work of Richard that this deal came through. I had met Peter Van Hook and long admired his work with Van Morrisson, he agreed to produce the album and I was happy to trust him with the various rhythm sections he was outlining for the project. It was a privilege for me to work with Paul Carrack, Alvin Lee, Roger Cook and many others and the record “Time Marches On” was delivered on time and under budget. It was an absolute corker and I was very proud of it. Unfortunately unknown to me, EMI bought Chrysalis the week I delivered the album making many of us instantly redundant.