sees jazz continue to proliferate through the likes of Forrie Cairns and the Clansmen, Len Baldwin’s Dauphin Street Six, Cyril Preston’s Excelsior Jazz Band, but importantly, in October a “Rock and Twist Night” is hosted on a Wednesday, featuring beat / R&B bands for the first time: Mike Berry & The Outlaws, Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers, and Screaming Lord Sutch are on show. The writing was on the wall……

Sat. Jan 6 ^th  –  Alan Elsdon’s Jazz Band  (£40)

Sat. Jan 13 ^th  –  New Orleans Knights led by Eric Allandale  (£45)

Sat. Jan 20 ^th  –  Len Baldwin’s Dauphin Street Six  (£35)

Sat. Jan 27 ^th  –  Ken Sims’ Vintage Jazz Band  (£50)

Sat. Feb 3 ^rd  –  Terry Pitts’ Jazz Band  (£45)

Sat. Feb 10 ^th  –  New Orleans Knights led by Eric Allandale  (£45)

Sat. Feb 17 ^th  –  Forrie Cairns and the Clansmen  (£40)

Forrie Cairns also played in The Clyde Valley Stompers

Sat. Feb 24 ^th  –  Micky Ashman’s Ragtime Jazz Band  (£50)

Sat. Mar 3 ^rd  –  Ken Sims’ Vintage Jazz Band  (£50)

Sat. Mar 10 ^th  –  Terry Pitts’ Jazz Band  (£45)

Sat. Mar 17 ^th  –  Len Baldwin’s Dauphin Street Six  (£35)

Sat. Mar 31 ^st  –  Eric Allandale’s New Orleans Knights  (£45)

Sat. Apr 7 ^th  –  Eric Silk and his Southern Jazz Band  (£40)

Sat. Apr 14 ^th  –  Melbourne New Orleans Jazz Band  (£65)

Sat. Apr 21 ^st  –  Alan Elsdon’s Jazz Band  (£40)

Sat. Apr 28 ^th  –  Terry Pitts’ Jazz Band  (£45)

Sat. May 5 ^th  –  Len Baldwin’s Dauphin Street Six  (£35)

Sat. May 12 ^th  –  Ken Sims’ Vintage Jazz Band  (£50)

Sat. May 19 ^th  –  Micky Ashman’s Ragtime Jazz Band  (£50)

Sat. May 26 ^th  –  Alan Elsdon’s Jazz Band  (£40)

Sat. Jun 2 ^nd  –  Eric Allandale’s New Orleans Knights  (£45)

Sat. Jun 9 ^th  –  Cyril Preston’s Excelsior Jazz Band  (£35)

Sat. Jun 16 ^th  –  Charlie Galbraith’s Jazz Band  (£35)

Sat. Jun 23 ^rd  –  Mike Cotton’s Jazzmen  (£40)

Sat. Jun 30 ^th  –  Len Baldwin’s Dauphin Street Six  (£40)

At this time, the Dauphin Street Six featured Viv Prince on drums, who went on to influence Keith Moon with both his drumming style and wild on-stage behaviour, generally misbehaving all over the place, eventually getting sacked by The Pretty Things for his unreliability, that after being thrown off a plane in New Zealand that was to take the band home following a tour there

Sat. Jul 7 ^th  –  Eric Allandale’s New Orleans Knights  (£45)

From being pretty much a regular at Eel Pie, trombonist Eric Allandale seems to have disappeared after tonight (gaps in documentation notwithstanding, as described below) until an unlikely re-emergence with The Foundations in 1967, though he did also play with Terry Lightfoot and Alex Welsh

Sat. Jul 14 ^th  –  Mike Daniels’ Delta Jazzmen with Doreen Beatty  (£50)

Sat. Jul 21 ^st  –  The Clyde Valley Stompers  (£50)

The Clyde Valley Stompers were shortly to bother the hit parade with “Peter And The Wolf”, which hit the heady heights of #25, and were later to guest on The Morecambe and Wise Show, before disbanding in 1963. As with Charlie Gall, mentioned back in May 1960, most of the band then seems to have emigrated to Canada

Sat. Jul 28 ^th  –  Eric Silk and his Southern Jazz Band  (£40)

Sat. Aug 4 ^th  –  Dave Keir’s Jazz Band  (£35)

Sat. Aug 11 ^th  –  Eric Silk and his Southern Jazz Band  (£40)

Wed. Oct 17 ^th  –  Tony Holland and the Packabeats

It appears Beat Music has made an entry in the annals of Eel Pie Island, and though The Packabeats were primarily an instrumental outfit, they were always billed with their vocalist, Tony Holland. When The Packabeats appeared at the Pipeline Convention (dedicated to instrumental groups – Holland wasn’t allowed) in 2004, it was the first time they’d played onstage since 1964

Wed. Oct 17 ^th  – Mike Berry and the Outlaws

Mike Berry’s “Tribute to Buddy Holly” was banned by the BBC for being too morbid! He had a couple of other hits before The Beatles rather consigned him and his ilk to musical history, though he stormed back with a No 9 chart hit in 1980, “The Sunshine Of Your Smile”. Berry then pursued an acting career, where he became a familiar face on TV’s “Are You Being Served”, and can still be seen on the small screen these days . He has also appeared at One Kew Road recently, site of the original Crawdaddy Club in Richmond

Wed. Oct 17 ^th  –  Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers

Cliff Bennett’s crew would enjoy chart success in 1966 with their version of Paul McCartney’s “Got To Get You Into My Life”, but even at this early stage had a few singles under their belt. They featured Chas Hodges of later “Rockney” fame , but curiously tonight, he was still playing with Mike Berry’s Outlaws, but shared the stage, sort of, with future Chas’n’Dave drummer Mick Burt who was on duty with The Rebel Rousers tonight! Meanwhile, Bassist Frank Allen joined The Searchers in 1964, and has been with them ever since.

Wed. Oct 17 ^th  –  Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages   (all Oct 17 entries from contemporary poster)

Always the eccentric, David Sutch mucked about on the fringes of music, commercially unsuccessfully for years, despite what sounds like an entertaining stage show, leaning heavily on Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ ‘shock-rock’ style of presentation: his Savages later decamped to form Cyril Davies’ All Stars; he stood for Parliament as a representative of the National Teenage Party during the 60s, before famously forming The Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1983 to most electioneers’ amusement; he recorded “Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends”, which a BBC poll in 1998 described as the worst album of all time, despite boasting the talents of Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Jeff Beck, Noel Redding and Nicky Hopkins

While there are obvious gaps between some dates, generally the evidence is fairly comprehensive, but there are a wholesale bunch of missing contracts for the next year or so, meaning the remainder of 1962, the majority of 1963 and a large chunk of 1964 is undocumented. As this is a particularly interesting period in the club’s, and the nation’s, musical development, with R&B starting to feature alongside jazz, perhaps someone got to these contracts before me. What is clear, however, is that at some point between August 1962 and April 1963, the club policy became one whereby regular Wednesday and Sunday performances were introduced, featuring R&B groups, with Saturdays remaining the province of the jazz bands: perhaps that October 17 ^th  bill (above) represented the earliest use of a Wednesday for the ‘Rock and Twist Club’ as the poster proclaims, being a comparatively strong line-up. Unfortunately that lack of contracts means initially I could not directly reference The Tridents (who featured Jeff Beck within their ranks), The Muleskinners (with Ian McLagan in tow), The Birds (who included Ronnie Wood), The Others , David Bowie’s Manish Boys phase, and who knows how many others, including idiosyncratic Scotsman Ivor Cutler , of whom I’ve seen photographic evidence of an appearance. Fortunately, In 2015, Ronnie Wood published his diary from 1965, “How Can It Be?”, but while there are numerous entries concerning Eel Pie Island, none of them involve his lot The Birds playing, Ronnie only being there to watch brother Art – Ali McKenzie, however remembers their first Island date, then known as The Thunderbirds , being in late 1964, supporting Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers , while their second was supporting Chris Farlowe and the Thunderbirds , thus necessitating a shortening of their own name to just The Birds . Nick Warburton has come to the rescue, not least from the Bowie perspective, with his own listing of dates on the Island for garage bands during the 60s, which you can find on  www.garagehangover.com/eel-pie-island/ : entries from that source are the ones below which do not quote a performance fee. Paul Lucas of The Tridents has come forward with his own diary entries for their dates, so that’s rectified too. Also, the emergence of letters confirming payments made by Arthur Chisnall, as well as some of his accounts, have helped confirm / confuse the issue! Thanks are also due to Christopher Hjort (author of “Strange Brew: Eric Clapton and the British Blues Boom 1965-1970″) for verification / second opinion on the John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers entries, as well as John H Warburg for his input on the same, additionally providing me with the source sites for a number of Strawberry Hill Boys appearances, as support to The Stones in 1963

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