Steel and Country Music in London in 50's & 60's Al Sands

[Al Sands]

Having had some conversations with other Steelies on the Forum, it became fairly apparent that there seemed to be a lot of gaps about the progress of the steel guitar (in parallel with country music) between the 1950’s and the 1960’s in, particularly with regard to the groups and players in London in those years. One or two players suggested that I add to the story by recording my own experiences during this time as they were both early and extensive. Hopefully readers will find some of this early history interesting, although I hasten to add, these are my personal experiences, on a journey, which some can relate to. It is not intended as a history of the steel guitar, which I am sure others can relate in much greater detail than myself !

For most young men in the early fifties the music available went from 40’s pop/ballads straight into skiffle music and then into rock and roll. An era that was exciting and transformative but largely excluded country music and of course country music was important for the development of Steel guitar in the UK. The only steel guitar available live was mainly where hawaiian performers had become popular in some night clubs in the West end of London and for country the occasional dedicated, and usually older solo musicians, who were actively trying to promote country in the odd pubs and venues that existed, sometimes more suited to folk music.

Along with others my age I went out and bought a cheap guitar and formed a skiffle group with friends. We would play anywhere and we did, including pubs, Brighton Beach, the (famous) 2 I’s coffee bar, the skiffle cellar among others. We also entered a UK skiffle contest, playing at a couple of theatres (I remember the Metropolitan Edgware rd) and even got to the final at the Mecca Ballroom Edmonton where we came second to Chris Farlowe and his John Henry skiffle group!

The point really was that we learnt to play a musical instrument and gradually got better at it and we looked to do more. For me personally I was interested in swing and Django Reinhardt in particular; when the music moved mainly to rock and roll I wasn’t as interested, although I did play with one or two bands. One of these, in Islington had a ten piece ‘sit-in’ band called SonyJons and the Western Drifters. They did play rock but also some early country and one of the singers gave me a record to listen to. It was Hank Williams's ‘My Bucket’s got a hole in it’ and I was hooked.

After that I searched for any sign of other groups. In London in 1956/7 there were few. One in Dagenham had a full line up of Steel, fiddle, lead etc. Known as Ed King and the Ranchboys: they had a very good sound a bit like Faron Young, playing quite a bit of Western swing. The steel was homemade and I can’t remember the player ( I think his first name was Dennis) but they dressed the style and played good country music in those early days.

I also found in Ealing a small club run by (Asian) Indian brothers who simply loved country music and set up their own club for their community and others. I used to go on the tube, clutching my guitar and a 10w amp, from one side of London to the other just to sit in. The guy who ran the band also played stand up steel, homemade, and sang. What they lacked in style they made up for in enthusiasm and the Indian snacks were amazing.

They managed to get a gig at Greenham Common USAF (not sure how that came about) and we didn’t do too badly. I think the audience were glad that someone played a semblance of their music. However, who should appear in the interval but Gordon Huntley who gave the steel a going over and played it and I had a chat with him about cost of making one (he was looking into that, with a partner, I believe) but at that time it would have been too expensive an option for me. I was in touch with Gordon from time to time and I remember he used to play with the American air force version of the Alabama Hayriders at that air base and around others.

Meanwhile I set about finding a steel. Without much hope I asked my local music shop (Paytons at the Angel Islington) where I could possibly buy one second hand. Imagine how surprised I was that Mr Payton went into his back store and came out with a long, coffin like, rexine covered box. Opening it up there was a lap steel resting on two padded bearers over a built in amp and speaker!! It was a Gibson Kalamazoo with a single bar magnet pickup, octagonal control knobs and a very uninspiring salmon coloured (plastic/Bakelite?) fretboard. It was very heavy for its size so I assume it was wood with a veneer wood effect covering for the body, although I don’t recall exactly. The most important thing was it was fully functional and very powerful. I couldn’t carry it around in its case as it was heavy, awkward and didn’t go on a bus too well! So I adapted a material guitar case and carried it around like a backpack with a small amplifier.

Armed with most of the necessary requirements for a country music group and already playing swing with two friends, we formed a group mainly playing swing (for the coffee bar set), broken up with some country and two Hawaiiian tunes I knew for extra interest I think that these were ‘Tiger Shark’ and ‘Aloha Ohe’. I had studied the only tutor I had been able to find by Alvino Rey and from memory now I think I tuned it to A6 and, with practice in not dropping the steel while playing, and learning basics, I just gave it a go. We managed to find a coffee bar off Great Portland Street that allowed us to play in the basement a couple of nights a week, so it couldn’t have been too bad. The main problem we had was transporting ourselves (Double Bass, guitar, lead guitar, two small amps and a steel) by bus a couple of times a week. The double bass was particularly problematic having to remain on the platform at the back!!

We played there for a few weeks, during which we managed to attract a number of semi famous people who were on a rest break from the BBC, which was just around the corner. I remember Emile Ford and Jimmy Justice, but more interestingly Kris Kristofferson who was in the usaf in the uk. In a subsequent radio interview he apparently said that he first heard ‘Big River’ (a Johnny Cash number) at the time being sung by a UK trio in London. We did indeed do that and a lot of Johnny Cash, Hank Locklin, Hank Williams, Hank Snow and Hank Thompson (all the Hanks apparently), who were the recording stars at the time. I got most of our material from regular purchases at HMV music store in Oxford street, who stocked a very good selection.

The beauty of playing the steel then for those country tunes, was that they were mainly basic chords, not a large amount of solo work and the A6 tuning seemed to sound more or less similar to the backing I heard on the country songs, which was good enough for me at the time! Audiences, such as they were, were intrigued by the instrument and also, apparently the variety of music we played; although not all of them appreciated the country music!

Everything would change substantially over the next decade after those first basic pedal sounds coming out of the states in the fifties (Bud Isaacs, I believe, on ‘Slowly’ for Webb Pierce) and although it developed swiftly in the States it seemed a long time before it developed really seriously in the UK.

The trio continued to play at odd gigs in North London, which was the only opportunity I had to play the lap steel, whilst I did odd gigs if required. I had a phone call from old contacts with the Sonny Johns band to do a gig at Lakenheath Air base, they had added new members: Jerry West (then known as Arthur Jerome) on steel and his wife as female singer. It was still a big band but without the finesse a big band requires; sometimes it felt like everyman for themselves with the musical variety offered by three singers and virtually no rehearsals.

Jerry and I got chatting. His homemade steel was a picture to behold. I believe it had some twenty strings, in line, on a single deck with his own tuning loosely based on A6 with changes, to allow for his own technique. It also had a set of fairy lights around the edges, which flashed sometimes while he was playing! Apparently he built it after coming out of the Navy where he had listened to a lot of country music. He also played early standards and Hawaiian music in various pubs at weekends. He was always known as Arthur to me until later he added the West surname to his preferred Jerry first name (from Speedy West), when we formed the original Tumbleweeds country band together early in the sixties.

I did try to run a small country music club in the West End’s Tottenham Court Rd, the only one around at that time, but it wasn’t very successful, attracting a diverse group who had usually had to travel a distance and so didn’t become regulars. One visitor of interest though was Don Reynolds from Canada, one time world yodelling champion who was touring with his wife in the UK and who I used to meet occasionally. He gave me my first genuine western shirts just before he went home.

Soon after that I decided to form a full band with Jerry West and it took some time finding people. I found a drummer, in Johnny Boniface who helped with the set up and he was to remain, with Jerry and myself as a founder member and both of them were to remain with the Tumbleweeds throughout the sixties. Jerry had also found a band he gigged with in a South London pub occasionally; I think known as the Skee Laird country band, featuring a singer from Scotland. There had apparently been a bust up, she left while supposed to be doing a show and at that time Johny Reagan (aka John Batt), stepped in to help the band out that night.

Johnny was a very good frontman and singer, looking a bit like Hank Williams and having worked in Germany from time to time on American air bases. He had an excellent American accent plus a very large song list, ideal for a working band. Jerry got together our musicians and with Johnny began to perform in various venues, mainly in South London. And that was the very beginning of Johnny and the Tumbleweeds who eventually became a main attraction in UK air bases, the UK clubs generally, at the beginning of the London country scene, Irish ballrooms, touring Ireland and touring with American country singers throughout Europe and various BBC and commercial promotions.

Gradually, particularly throughout the early sixties, there were many people responsible for the growth and promotion of the country scene in London in particular, who rarely get mentioned in most of the write ups I’ve seen. In the very early sixties it wasn’t the bands. Most still hadn’t been formed. They became more popular slightly later and developed more in the middle and at the end of that decade, although there were certainly highly popular bands in Liverpool like the Hillsiders, Phil Brady and the ranchers among others.

The people who I remember most at that time (whose names I realise may mean nothing to some) were Irish singer Johnny O Boyle who sang country around pubs and Irish venues and promoted a little, Tex Withers who toured many pubs with renditions of Big John and Old Shep, Chris Forde who owned two Irish Ballrooms and who promoted the Tumbleweeds, putting on shows at the Albert hall and Leeds and Birmingham and a little later on in the early 60’s Wally Whyton on Country meets folk, producer Ian Grant responsible for the show and promoting, later on would come Keith Prowse music who plugged their country catalogue and who used Gordon Smith to promote and record country bands, Bob Powell who edited Country Music people and latterly Fullers Brewery introducing the London pub country music circuit, which I believe most 60’s bands will remember.

Of course, there would be many more memories and people involved through the sixties, particularly once the pedal steel took off among country players. I remember a very young BJ Cole (with his father carrying his steel) doing a show at the Regents Park Folk Centre; the first pedal steel sound that woke me up (Buddy Emmons playing ‘Rose City Chimes’) on a recording of Ernest Tubbs Record shop; an American steel player in Germany who played a stand up, three-deck with long staggered pedals from the side; turning professional with the Tumbleweeds; Jon Derek and Gerry Hogan and their band and many, many others, who made that period really exciting and there are far too many stories to relate here. I hope to do more about that period in the future, at least for my own benefit.

Once I joined the Tumbleweeds however my lap steel playing days were over, not to be resumed until around 1980 when I bought a sho-bud; but that is an entirely different chapter, in an era when there are many steelies who can relate to that period and before, in the seventies.

What finally happened to my lap steel is a tale of disaster, as I attempted to convert it to stand-up unsuccessfully and, in pieces, it ended up in the loft. My divorce ended any hope of saving that or my extensive 78rpm country record collection and it may well still reside there! I haven’t bothered to find out.

Al Sands

[Ken Byng]

Great story Al. I remember Johnny Reagan and the Tumbleweeds playing close to where I was living in the late 60's at the Ponderosa in North Boarhunt in Hampshire. Jerry West was playing a Fender 400 pedal steel - 8 stringer 4 pedals and a home made knee lever and I thought that he was fantastic. In fact the whole band was very good. I got to know Jerry very well in the coming years.

[nevada150]

That’s a great story Al. Thanks for giving me something to read.
Keith.

[Danny Mitchell]

Al, thanks for taking the time to put down this enjoyable insight into that early, London scene. Very interesting.

[Zumbilly(Murdoch)]

Thanks Al for posting such an interesting story, I hope You will continue relating Your experiences and observations soon.
Best regards
Billy

[Uncle Roy]

Great stuff Al, very interesting, being a Chiwick boy remember most of what you have posted.
It's been a long time since we met at the Pucklechurch church meetings in the 70s.

[bradsteel]

Great story, Al! Very interesting read indeed.

I’m a young northern man, but The Angel has a special place in my heart for it is where my entire maternal family were ‘born and bred’. My uncle still lives there and I visit quite often. For information, the family names were ‘Warden’ and ‘Crookes’ - just in case you may have crossed paths back in the day!

Brad

[Al Sands]

Hi All,
Thanks for the comments I really wanted to get this lot down as there were so many guesses about that period in various mags and steelies on these pages suggested I put them down so that there is a record of sorts.

Hi Ken, I remember the Ponderosa although it was at the end of my time with the Band, buty yes Jerry did change his homemade for a fender and then much later for a twin neck Sho Bud. Of course Jerry was a great Slim Whitman fan and knew most of his stuff off by heart. So it was no surprise to me when I heard he was on tour with Slim worldwide some time much later.

Hi Brad, Yes I was raised in Islington and used to haunt Paytons music store in Camden Passage. Perhaps your uncle knows that area, although I think it's full of Antique shops!

Regards
Al Sands

[bradsteel]

Hi Al,

I know Camden Passage at the Angel. You’re right, these days it’s mainly populated with little antiques shops and nice little bars/ cafes. It’s still very picturesque though!

[Ken Byng]

........Hi Ken, I remember the Ponderosa although it was at the end of my time with the Band, but yes Jerry did change his homemade for a fender and then much later for a twin neck Sho Bud. Of course Jerry was a great Slim Whitman fan and knew most of his stuff off by heart. So it was no surprise to me when I heard he was on tour with Slim worldwide some time much later...........
Regards
Al Sands

Well Al, I actually played at the Ponderosa with my band - Redwood - in the early to mid 70's supporting The Tumbleweeds. I had a twin neck Sho~Bud that I hadn't long procured after playing a couple of ZB Customs for 5 years, and Jerry was absolutely fascinated when he saw it. He was always of the opinion that knee levers were the answer to getting the 'American Sound' that he loved, especially that of his idol Lloyd Green. I had 5 levers on my guitar, and he sat behind it with a grin like a Cheshire cat. He called his wife over, and told her that he HAD to get a Sho~Bud himself. She didn't argue with him . His old Fender 400 with its D9 tuning had seen better days, so I wasn't surprised to learn that some time after seeing mine he had joined the Sho~Bud club.