Thursday

Contents

19.Lord Sutch & Heavy Friends: 1969 - 1970

23.Screaming Lord Sutch & The First Northern Savages: Late 1970's
24.Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages Featuring Wild Bob Burgos: 1979-1988

25.Screaming Lord Sutch & The (Ex-House) Shakers: 1981 - 1982
26.Screaming Lord Sutch & The Little Big Band: 1986
27.Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savage Sunsets: Late 1980's
28.The Ravers featuring Screaming Lord Sutch: Late 1980's/Early 1990's
29.Screaming Lord Sutch & The TT's: Finland, May 1990
30.Screaming Lord Sutch & The New Northern Savages: 1990's
31.The Shakers Are Back: Early 1990's
32.The Last Savages Backing Screaming Lord Sutch:  Late 1990's
33.Tony Dangerfield & The Savages: 2000 - July 2007


From Elvis Look-alike To The Wild Hairy Man of Borneo... : 1956 - 1959

In the mid 50s, Dave Sutch lived with his mother in South Harrow, Northwest London.
After leaving school in 1956, at the age of 16, he had various jobs such as sheet metal worker in a factory in Hanger Lane, Willesden, plumber's apprentice then assistant mechanic for a Cycle Company. He then became a self employed and part-time window cleaner after meeting a 'Big Ginger Bill' who persuaded him to buy his equipment for £15 (1).
At this time, he was bitten by the Rock'n'Roll bug and use to idolize American icons such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis or Bill Haley. Not only he went to see the latter in Brixton, in early 1957, but also Jerry Lee Lewis twice in May 1958, at Kilburn State Theatre and at the Dominion Theatre, London (2).
Originally Sutch had an Elvis Presley look-alike apparel and, hopped onto his newly acquired second-hand BSA Bantum 125cc motorbike (3), he used to head to Coffee Bars such as the Ace Cafe on North Circular Road, the Cannibal Pot Coffee Bar on Harrow Road and the Two I's Coffee Bar in Old Compton Street, Soho, London, which was The hottest place to be - as it was here that Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard were discovered (4).
In early 1959, resolved to be a rock'n'roll singer, Dave Sutch first attended auditions in the cellar of the mecca to budding pop stars which were interrupted because the auditioners got fed up with all the Elvis Presley look-alikes who came.
The 2 I's manager Tom Littlewood advised the newcomer to get an original gimmick (5). So Sutch decided to swap his former apparel for the 'wild man of Borneo' look after he saw a pair of old buffalo horns for sale at 15 shillings in a place called "Jack's Second Hand Shop". When he returned to the 2 I's, disguised with buffalo horns glued to his crash helmet and his aunt's leopard skin jacket, which he tored the sleeves off, he looked like "a rag-and-bone man" as Littlewood remembers. Flaunting his wild man image, he impressed at his audition, singing an old song called “Bullshit Boogie”.
Obviously Rock star Vince Taylor, who was one of the main act at the venue, would recommended Dave Sutch to Tom Littlewood.

Sutch therefore landed a spot singing at the 2 I's, and began to pick up bookings for gigs, backed by the house band which comprised Tony Harvey on lead guitar and Bobby Woodman drums who both later worked with Vince Taylor. However he spent the proceeds of his first two gigs reimbursing his aunt the cost of the coat.

On March 30 1959, he took part in a walking between Aldermaston and London to campaign for the nuclear disarmament.

(1)  Dave Sutch:
“The work gave me the freedom to be myself, let my hair grow long and wear whatever I liked as well as practise songs as I went on my rounds. All the money I earned I kept. I was on my way...”
“I was the first of the longhairs... I had grown my locks to 18 inches long and turned myself into a freak years before the hippies came along”.


(2)  Colin Dale:
"When Jerry Lee Lewis came to the UK, David and I spent our last few bob going to see him at the State Cinema Kilburn on the Saturday.  On the Sunday we went to the Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road,  we walked in, bought two ice creams and saw him again for nothing - he was brilliant."


(3)  According to guitarist Vic Clark, it seems that David Sutch never had a motorbike but just a Vesper scooter that had to be push started: "It was quite an experience trying to jump on the back of a moving scooter while holding my guitar with one hand. Those were the days!"


(4)  Colin Dale:
"We had an old Zundapp Bella scooter, and used to spend our time at the Ace Cafe, North Circular Road, Stonebridge, also the Blue Cafe, and Cricklewood Skating Rink, also 2Is Old Compton Street, Soho..."
"At the ages of 16 and 17 we started to go to the Two Is Coffee Bar in Soho and the place was packed in those days. Don’t forget those where the days of Tommy Steele, Terry Dene, Marty Wilde, Wee Willie Harris, just to name a few. And there was the night that David and myself took to the stage in the cellar at the Two Is, our wages, a plate of fish and chips each if we where lucky. Littlewood, the boss did not pay much in those days; he never paid much at any time."


(5)  Tom Littlewood:
“One afternoon a strange individual came in, presenting himself as Mr. Sutch and asked if he could do an audition. I was very much amazed when he arrived, looking like a rag-and-bone man. He had with him a large bundle of miscellaneous equipment - sheepskin, pair of Buffalo horns, a man-trap, snow shoes and so forth. He sang an obscure old number called “Bullshit Boogie”.




Who were The Original Savages???: February - November 1960

Building a rock horror act, inspired by black bluesman Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and now wearing 18 inch long hair, David Sutch renamed himself with the stage name "Screaming Lord Sutch" 3rd Earl of Harrow, though he had no connection with the peerage.
There are variations on the derivation of Screaming Lord Sutch’s title and about the roots of the band name "Savages". According to Carlo Little, founder member of the Savages "Sutch got his name because he used to run up and down the Underground trains screaming. When he and his mates used to go out on Saturday night in the late Fifties, he used to be the life and soul of the party, and he always had on his top hat, which made him look a bit like a lord, by a stretch of the imagination."
But sax player Pete Newman, who was there at the genesis of what became The Savages, recalled his sister Pat telling him, “All You can do is scream, Dave: how about calling yourself Screaming Sutch?” Later he turned up at rehearsal with a top hat our baritone sax player Jeff Wickens said, “Hey, Dave, you look like a lord” (1).

However Dave Sutch would apparently use the top hat just to hide his long hair as guitarist Vic Clark recalls:
" In 1959/60 it was really extreme to have long hair. He would pull it up over his head and wore a hat during the day. No-one would be seen in public with hair like that in those days. When he went on stage David Sutch kept his hair under his Top hat and during a song the hat would be thrown off, his hair would fall down and this created quite an impact. Girls would scream from sheer fright."


The Future Cyril Davis & His R&B All Stars
On February 6 1960, Dave Sutch met drummer Carlo Little, who was fresh out of the army, at The Cannibal Pot Coffee Bar in Sudbury, Harrow. They got a Rock & Roll group together, recruiting pianist Nicky Hopkins, then guitarists Rick “Fenson” Brown and Bernie Watson. All very young musicians between 15 and 16 year old.
Originally planed to be an instrumental band whom Sutch would be the manager and just copying American records, they started rehearsing in the back room of The Swan Pub in Sudbury, Middlesex, then at a school in Wembley. Shortly thereafter, Carlo Little suggested Sutch to be the singer of the band after he saw him leaping around and screaming while  Bernie Watson played a 12 bar rock and roll jam with Dougie Dee & the Strangers at the Oldfield Hotel, Greenford, and got a screeching sound out of his guitar. He looked unusual enough to do a stage act... As a result, the new frontman adopted the name Screaming Lord Sutch and the rest became the Savages after The Shadows’ hit “Apache” (2).

Three months later the new group had perfected enough songs - essentially Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Elvis Presley numbers - for an act.

By June 1960, Screaming Lord Sutch made his first public appearances with The Savages on the stage of the Park Royal Hotel on Hangar Lane and the Clay Pigeon Pub at Eastcost, and at the British Legion in South Harrow. They created their own small posters to stick up over existing advertising billboards: putting the cost of entry at 2 bob but “A couple of dozen only turned up…”  There, dressed as King Neptune, covered in “Seaweed”, Sutch started his shows by jumping on a table amongst screaming girls, leaping off and landing in a heap on the floor...

They then got their first gig gigs outside London for promoter Bob Potter - owner of the Lakeside Country Club, Surrey - who included them on one of his innovative package show alongside Baby Bubbly, Lance Fortune, Karl Danger and Mel Turner - a black ventriloquist and whose use of blood in his act may well have given Sutch ideas. 

They played Agincourt Ballroom and Camberley Aldershot’s Palais de Dance but it was disastrous. As rhythm guitarist Rick Brown admits, they were so terrible that Potter spent the first show jumping up and down waring his fists at them... A guy called "Alfie" from the Oldfield (a tree surgeon by day) took them there in his van and became their first road manager. As this 'roadie work' was free, they used to let him get on stage and sing a couple of songs.

Though Bob Potter sacked them after the second gig, he still has good memories of Sutch who used to sleep in the bath, his fur coat around him to keep warm, and asked an elderly chemist for pills to thicken his hair. According to Potter, "A great live act doesn’t always make for hit records".

In spite of this, another promoter Lionel Dibby booked Screaming Lord Sutch & his Savages to play on a tour of West country. He even remembers going to an antiques shop with Sutch, helping him look for a coffin for his act.

However they parted company soon after and Carlo Little joined local Harrow based semipro group Dougie Dee & The Strangers while the rest became the "Saxons" backing a girl called Sylvie and managed by a small-time film extra and con-man called Frank Maher.


The Very Dark Midnighters
Meanwhile Sutch teamed up with a North London-based outfit called the Midnighters for more than 6 months, that he spotted at The Black Bull, Whetstone, and which included 3 musicians who had previously worked with Johnny Kidd: tenor saxophone player Pete Newman, baritone saxophonist Jeff Wickens, and guitarist Vic Clark.

In fact, Pete Newman knew Dave Sutch since late 1957, thanks to his sister Pat who had met him at Cricklewood Rollin Skating Rink, in North london, and brought him back to their house in Cobbold road, Willesden, because at that time he had just started playing in a local band called Freddie Heath & his Rock & Roll Combo, whose lead vocalist was later to become "Johnny Kidd" (3). Pete and Pat remember their father wanted Dave to be thrown out because of his unusual apparel on that day. Therefore Dave became Pat's boyfriend, and Pete occassionally backed him at the Two Eyes between jobs with Johnny Kidd (4). When Johnny Kidd decided to work with a power trio, Pete Newman and Jeff Wickens teamed up with Vic Clark - who stood-in several times for Pirates' guitarist Alan Caddy - to form the Midnighters, backing singer Johnny Dark, whose father owned The Black Bull and allowed them to have free rehearsals and then a residency there.

According to Vic Clark, Pete Newman invited his friend Dave Sutch to see them during one of their residency at The Black Bull (5). He told them about his act (6) which was inspired from Screaming Jay Hawkins, and they then invited him to their next rehearsal there.
Their very first gig with Screaming Lord Sutch as his Savages was at a local youth club Church Hall in Willesden, and was announced by a huge banner with words - "Tonight Screamin' Lord Sutch & the Savages!" - which they tied between two trees...
At the beginning they used to play venues such as The Athenium, Muswell Hill, North London, The Clay Pidgeon Pub, Harrow, and The Top 20 Club, Swindon, without bass player or borrowing one from another band (7), until a young engineering student called Chris Dors definitely played with them. 

They did some gigs for promoter Bob Potter in an army drill hall, in Camberley, Surrey.
Pete Newman remembers a gig in Peterborough when the band finished playing only to find their van had been stolen. So Dave Sutch called the police, who drove him around until they found the van - in fact, he had forgotten where he had parked it. But the policeman noticed that the vehicle lacked windscreen wipers and wing mirrors (8)...
 
At the Soho's annual street parade, on July 14 1960, Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages were on their own float. Sutch virtually 'stole the show' as he was jumping off the float and going crazy amongst the crowd lining the streets. This event received media publicity. Dave Sutch changed disguise depending on songs whire were essentially american cover stuff such as Tim Bradshaw’s "The Train Kept-A-Rolling" - Wearing Top Hat; Bobby Darin’s "Bullmoose" - Wearing huge horns or "King Kong" - Wearing a massive crown (6)...  Vic Clark describes their sound as the same genre as George Thorogood, but 20 years ahead of him (9). So The record companies considered them un-commercial though they were considered and often billed as Britain's Top Rock Group in music papers.
They also played the 2I's Coffee Bar very frequently where Vince Taylor & the Playboys was the main act at that time. Incidentally the Playboys would taken over from The Savages at the end of the year after a last gig with Sutch at The Bongo Club, Canning Town.
As Vic Clark explains, Tom Littlewood, who was now managing singers too, signed-up Dave Sutch after a successful audition at the 2i's but refused to pay his musicians 20 Pounds each per week to tour with him.  

Pete Newman went on to join semi-professional group Douggie Dee & The Strangers, alongside Carlo Little, and then worked with Joe Meek as session musician. He subsequently toured with the Tornados for a while before they backed Billy Fury who decided to replace the brass section with an organ (10).
He was the only one member of the Midnighters who still worked with Sutch, playing saxophone on his debut single "Till The Following Night" b/w "Good Golly Miss Molly ", released the following year.
He kept working with Screaming Lord Sutch in the late 1980's, backing him with the band he formed with his son Paul and that became known as "Some Like It Hot" (11).

Vic Clark teamed up with Chris Dors in The Del Fi's, who were first signed to Phillips records, also recording
with Joe Meek, then released a couple of singles on the Fontana Label. He then joined up with Newman again in a band called The Beat Society which evolved into The Felders Orioles.



Notes:
(1)  From "The Man Who Was Screaming Lord Sutch" by Graham Sharpe (Aurum Press, 2005) p.29
Here is Pete Newman's own recollection about that:

"As far as I remember Dave Sutch turned up at a very early rehearsal in late 58, with a top hat he had bought from a junk shop and put it on when our baritone sax player Jeff Wickens said "Dave, you look like a lord with that hat on" and somehow it stuck. Later after a meeting in a cafe with my sister Pat and the band Dave wanted a stage name and my sister jokingly said "Dave you can't sing. All you can do is scream" and as it happened Dave was buying an american blues magazine which fearured a blues artiste called Screaming Jay Hawkins, so Dave like the idea of "Screaming Sutch" and somehow the name "Screaming Lord Sutch" evolved...
We went out as "Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages" sometime in 1959...
The very first gig with Dave Sutch as his savages was at a youth club church hall in Willesden, North London, and Dave made a huge banner with words - "Tonight Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages" - which we tied between two trees..."
(2) Though The Shadows had released “Apache” on Columbia records in July 1960.
 They had also released a number intitled “The Savages” in late 1961.

(3) Incidentally, Pete Newman was an old crony of Shadows bass player Jet Harris’ from his Dudden Hill School where they formed their very first band with John Welsh on clarinet, Ray Edmunds (aka "Ray Taylor") on drums, and Jeff Wickens on guitar, in the early 50s.  Pete Newman and Jeff Wickens both joined up The Fabulous Fred Heath Band in September 1957, before moving to the Mike West Group. 
Pete naturally introduced Dave Sutch to Freddie Heath (later known as Johnny Kidd), unaware of his debuts as "Bats Heath & The Vampires".


(4) Pete Newman and Jeff Wickens wrote an instrumental called "The Werewolf" which inspired Freddie Heath to write the B side of the his debut release, "Feelin".  Mike West and Pete Newman did the backing vocals on both sides of that record - "Please Dont Touch" as well as "Feelin" - which was made at abbey road studios and became the first Johnny Kidd's hit single.

(5) Vic Clark: "One night Dave Sutch approached us, while we had a residency at The Black Bull. He introduced himself and said he had this fantastic Act inspired from the American performer Screaming Jay Hawkins but he needed a band. So we invited him to our next rehearsal at The Black Bull. Dave Sutch did his first live gig ever with us the following Saturday at 'The Athenium' at Muswell Hill, North London, the place where Emil Ford had been discovered. He did just one song called 'The Train Kept On Rolling' It absolutely 'brought the house down'... Once we became The Savages, Johnny Dark went, then Pete and I took over the vocals With Dave finishing off the shows."
(6) Pete Newman:
"Dave Sutch was very funny and retained his humour until he died, most of the things he wore on stage for years later were from junk shops like old fur coats he created a thing which he called the minge pole which was my mum's old bird cage stand and tied on the end was part of a Davy Crocket hat which he use to jump off stage and chase girls in the audience with it...
He aquired a pair of buffalo horns from somewhere which he glued at first on to a bowler hat and at one of the first gigs as the Savages at the Athenium Hall in North London, he ran on stage looking like a mad man and the heat from the then stage lights melted the glue and the horns slowly sagged down and stayed like that so if you look at some late photos of Dave with the horns on his head you will see that they look down and not up as were originaly intended."


(7) Pete Newman: 
"We have a bass player at one time called "Whip"... He was in fact Whip Taylor who played with a band called the Johnny Rebs at the same place we did gigs in, The Clay Pigeon Pub, near Harrow. The drummer of that band was none other than the now world famous Jim Marshall inventor of the Marshall amplifiers."

(8) Pete Newman (
From "The Man Who Was Screaming Lord Sutch" by Graham Sharpe, Aurum Press, 2005)
"Dave never had a tax or insurance in those days, he said he "didn't believe in it" and his vehicles frequently lacked essentials like wing mirrors, windscreen wipers and brakes. This van was no exception, so when we arrived in front of it the copper was looking at it suspiciously as Dave went to get in and drive away. He thought quickly, and said, "Oh, no - not only did they nick the van, they've taken my windscreen wipers and wing mirrors..."

(9) Vic Clark: "We had a sound unlike anything in England at that time. We were probably ahead of our time. The record companies considered us un-commercial. I guess the best way to describe our sound was the same genre as George Thorogood, but remember we were more than 20 years ahead of him! So the Midnighters sound became the Screaming Lord Sutch sound."

(10)  Pete Newman was, in fact, part of The Charles Blackwell Orchestra which used to back John Leyton, Mike Berry, Billy Davis and The Avons, and later backed Billy Fury as the Tornados and then recorded best seller hit "Telstar".

(11) Pete Newman:
"I could tell you a million stories of being on the road with Dave Sutch... it was a bit of a nightmare doing gigs with him. I still have very fond memories of him. I still did many gigs with Dave over the year mainly with the band I had at the time called Some Like It hot a very high standard soul band through the 80s to the late 90s."
Read more about the formation of The Savages according to drummer Carlo Little in his confessions; Johnny Dark & The Midnighters
and The Forgotten Savages in the second part of 1960

Screaming Lord Sutch & The Playboys: September 1960 - March 1961

In the Autumn of 1960, Tom Littlewood decided to put Screaming Lord Sutch on the road - on his “2i's package show”- along with Vince Taylor, Keith Kelly, Lance Fortune and Paul Raven (later known as "Gary Glitter" in the 1970's), backed by the Playboys instead of The Savages because he wanted to save on cost. Dave Sutch described the group’ style at that time as “Rock’n’Roll, Wild and Frantic”. During this tour of Devon and Cornwall, Playboys' pianist Alan Le Claire used to drive the old van of his lordship as the latter had no driving licence. At the time Sutch slept in the back of the van to save on expences. Le Claire remembers Sutch's stage show as a visual performance of organised insanity without musical value...

The Playboys kept backing Screaming Lord Sutch until early 1961 when Vince Taylor eventually returned to Britain and then The Flee-rekkers, whose drummer was Micky Waller, would taken over from them on The "1961 All Stars" package tour headlined by American Rock star Gene Vincent.

During The "1961 All Stars" that started in Bedford on February 15 1961, Screaming Lord Sutch was billed as “the new non-recording star” but arrived late, in a horsebox he was living in - sleeping on straw in the back. "When he went on stage, he threw everything into his first song. Unbeknown to him the orchestra pit was covered up with tarpaulin and he jumped straight on it. He carried on singing but all you could see was his big buffalo horns sticking up" as Jess Conrad remembers.

Read more about The Playboys

The full-time professional Savages, Touring & Recording: May - September 1961

Dave Sutch eventually came to Douggie Dee & The Strangers, a local Harrow based semi-professional group - in which Carlo Little was drumming for nearly a year, and Pete Newman was on Tenor Saxophone for 5 months - and proposed them to be his new backing band. The Strangers did do only a few gigs where they played the main show and Sutch came on as the star turn, but it was only Little and bass player Ken Payne who accepted to give up their jobs and tour with him. So Sutch and the 2 remaining Strangers put up an ad in the Melody Maker in order to recruit other musicians.

They auditionned 8 guitarists, among them Rodger Mingay and a very young Ritchie Blackmore, only 17, who both had previously been part of a Chiswick-based skiffle group called The Vampires at various times.

Mingay, who had not only been lead guitarist with semi-professional groups The Skyways, alongside future bassist of The Searchers Frank Allen and sax player Rupert Claher (later with Mel Turner's Red Devils), and The Satellites for several months, but also stood in for Cliff Bennet & The Rebel Rousers, was deemed more experienced and got the job. He remembers very well his first gig with Sutch & his Savages - at Wisbech Corn Exchange, on Whit-Monday in May 1961 - because his very old car caught on fire after the show and had to be towed back to London. That night, they shared the bill with Keith Kelly, and Nicky Hopkins was briefly back on piano, billed as "Freddie Fingers Lee, The wizard Rock'n'Roll Vocalist-Pianist".  In fact on the posters advertising the gig, all the members of the band had a nickname: Carlo Little was billed as "Slasher", Ken Payne as "Hopping Ken Rupert Payne", and Rodger Mingay as "Scratch & Scrape Bailey, the Top Pop Guitarist" because their manager Tom Littlewood couldn't remember their real names. A more oriented blues piano player Andy Wren eventually replaced Hopkins the following day, in Wealdstone, where they supported Cliff Bennet & The Rebel Rousers.
Dave Sutch started coming on stage in a coffin as Screamin' Jay Hawkins did, sword fencing, and using a toilet seat around his neck with this set of Savages. They first used to wear orange shirts, white cowboy boots and black pants as the band uniform and then the animal skins, reminiscent of Wee Willy Harris when he was performing Neil Sedaka's "I Go Ape" at The 2 I's and television dressed as a caveman. Sutch would stab the hapless pianist before flinging heart and liver (bought from the butchers) into the audience.
They became full-time professional and played all over the country, then toured Scotland from June 5th to 16th, 1961. As Rodger Mingay remembers "that was when Dave got arrested for firing a starting pistol - then Carlo accidently fired it again in the police station the next morning." Screaming Lord Sutch also made the front pages there for eloping with a 16-year-old  inspiring the original "Would You Let This Boy Marry Your Daughter?" This was a "story" set up by the agent: the girl that he "eloped" with was actually Ken Payne's sister.

This line-up also cut the Joe meek-produced first single "Till The Following Night" b/w "Good Golly Miss Molly" (HMV POP 953) with the remaining Midnighter Pete Newman on Tenor Saxophone (1), and which was released only in late 1961, several months after the band had split up!

In fact, Joe Meek spotted Screaming Lord Sutch, enjoying his "wild stage show", whilst the latter went in a 2I’s package tour with Adam Faith and Joe Brown, across the Country. Consequently Sutch had signed a 5-year contract with Joe Meek’s RGM Sound recording Organisation and then they started to put together and record this "original" number first untitled “My Big Black Coffin”.
Initially lined up for Halloween 1961, the record introduces us to the frightening world of Screaming Lord Sutch with creaking coffins and doors, with howls and screams echoing into infinity. Joe Meek actually borrowed this atmospheric Sound effects from “Night Of The Vampire” a track he had recorded earlier with the Moontrekkers.

During its recording, Ken Payne used his brand new bass rig - a valve amp with a tuned cabinet, with a 15" speaker.
Rodger Mingay didn't use any sound effect on the guitar - it was a gibson Les Paul Junior plugged straight into Joe Meek's mixer (2)
Carlo Little was wondering what would the band get out of it but Dave Sutch was pretty non-committal about it and trusted in Meek's skill. This sound magician knew exactly in which style he would evolve with Sutch.

According to Pete Newman, "Good Golly Miss Molly" was recorded later by another line-up hence the delay for its release (1).
Unfortunately the single failed to chart but its ban on the BBC got the publicity that Sutch was looking for.


Notes:

(1) Pete Newman:
"I met Joe Meek through an advert I saw in the Melody Maker asking for bands to record at his studios in Holloway, North London in early 1961. I only did the one session with Dave Sutch to do "Till the following night" and "Good golly miss Molly"....
If you listen to "Good golly miss Molly", you will note that in the short time that records were made then there were a sax solo by me, a guitar solo by Bernie Watson, a piano solo by Nicki Hopkins and a drum solo by Carlo Little. Many years after that record was made because it was played at a high speed many other musicians would not believe the record was made and said it must have been a trick recording but in fact the count in was to fast and we all had to go along with the speed we started with Joe Meek loved it and that take was the one you hear now..."


(2) Rodger Mingay remembers: "Dave standing in the middle of the room with a whole bunch of old chains and a biscuit tin and screaming while Joe recorded it - to get that effect at the beginning of the track"



Read more about the full-time professional Savages in the Confessions of the Sixties Drummer Carlo Little

The Original Lineup is Back: September 1961 - May 1962

In September 1961, there was a bit of disagreement within the band about the scale of their pay and Ken Payne was the first to leave followed shortly by Rodger Mingay, joining up with The Outlaws, the Joe Meek's house band, who just had a number one hit backing the movie actor John Leyton on "Johnny Remember Me". Both would eventually emigrated to Australia. As a result, the original members re-united with Screaming Lord Sutch 13 months after he had left them. Rick Brown was in fact the first first to re-join, taking over from Payne at Reading Top Rank ballroom, on 9 September 1961, as Watson and Hopkins had voted him out of the Saxons. He was now playing bass in the band.

In spite of this reunion, Dave Sutch was backed by various well established bands such as The Echoes (later Dusty Springfield's back up) on another 2-I's Road Show, and The Ravers (Dave Anthony's backing band) on a mini-tour of the South of England promoted by Dorothy Calvert. As Al Kirtley then-lead guitarist of The Ravers explains, by this time most of the promoters wouldn't pay for The Savages to tour, instead letting other bands on the same bill do the backing. Kirtley remembers Lord Sutch doing his best to disrupt Dave Anthony's singing at the Small Sydney Hall in Weymouth, Dorset.

However the reconstituted Savages starred an extravaganza called 'Twist Around The Tower' at the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton on Friday 12 January 1962, but didn’t show up and an unknown liverpuldian quartet called the Beatles played instead. Reg Calvert (Dorothy's husband) became his new manager and put him on the road in a tour of Southwest England. Screaming Lord Sutch recorded with them his most well known song "Jack the Ripper" as single which was released the following year.
According to Saxophonist Pete Newman, the B side of the previous Sutch's single "Good Golly Miss Molly" was recorded by this line-up (see previous chapter).

In late 1962, the whole band would become the core of Cyril Davis & His R&B All Stars. Nicky Hopkins was later to become a prolific session man, recording with the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Beatles and many more.


Read more about the full-time professional Savages in the Confessions of the Sixties Drummer Carlo Little

Ritchie Blackmore's First stint in The Savages: May - October 1962

By April 1962, Bernie Watson and Nicky Hopkins left the Savages to take up a residency with Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers in a newly opened club in Hamburg, Germany, called The Star Club.

Ritchie Blackmore accepted the invitation to replace Watson but had to fulfill his commitments as guitarist with Mike Dee & The Jaywalkers and recommended Dave Wendells from The Crescents depped for a couple of weeks.
Incidentally Wendells would replaced Watson in The Rebel Rousers, 7 months later.

Ritchie Blackmore became the new guitarist of the band for 7 months. It was a very formative stint according to him: he learnt to act like an imbecile. At that time, The Savages they just were dressed in animal skin on stage so Blackmore out because he used to hide behind his amps and in the wings...

During May 1962, the Savages became just a three piece when Nicky Hopkins’ replacement Andy Wren was asked by future Rolling Stones Brian Jones to join the band he built up, standing in for Ian Stewart, stuck in Scotland, and rehearsing in a pub called The White Bear, London. He then took up the role of vocalist and reludanctly returned to the fold a few weeks later. A Mick Jagger from Dartford, Kent, took over from him.


On June 25, 1962 at Wembley Town Hall Sutch and his band were supported by Paul Dean & the Dreamers, a local outfit fronted by future acting star and Savage Paul Nicholas. That night, it was so crowded that many of the girls stood on the bench seats around the hall perimeters to see the band properly and promptly punctured the leather with their stiletto heels, causing a mile furore that made the local papers...
After the gig a young Keith Moon, who was drummer in a local band called Lee Stuart & the Escorts, approached Carlo Little to ask him for drum lessons. Moon would take lessons from Little for a few months before practicing on his own and joining a surf band called The Beachcombers. He would even stood in for Little in the Savages - just for odd gigs - the following Summer, and later became the mad drummer of the Who from 1964 to 1978.

In late 1962, Carlo Little and Rick Brown deputised for the Rolling Stones on several occasions - e.g. at London Piccadilly and Flamingo Jazz Clubs, or at Richmond Sandover Hall - and it was Little who recommended them drummer Charlie Watts. They eventually re-united with Watson and Hopkins again to become the core of Cyril Davis & His R&B All Stars in November 1962. Nicky Hopkins was to become a prolific session man, recording with the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Beatles and many more.

Like the previous year, Joe Meek heard about the rows within the band and offered the guitar player a job with the Outlaws who were at this time more well known than the Savages. And Ritchie Blackmore stepped into the shoes of his old mate Rodger Mingay once again.


Read more about this Lineup of The Savages in the Confessions of the Sixties Drummer Carlo Little