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The Beatles meet their fans (including Guy Mackenzie),
Roxburgh Hall, Stowe 1963. More on this in the Archive |
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The Blue Stars
Southampton 1965 |
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The Blue Stars
Southampton 1966 |
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Fat Man's Toy
1973 |
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Fat Man's Toy
1975 |
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Clynol Christmas Party with Tony (Anthony) Lunch
1975 |
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Earthborn
Sept 1975 - early days |
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Earthborn
1975-78 |
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Earthborn
1976 |
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With Wayne & Crystal
1978 |
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Talent Contest Final
High Wycombe 1978 |
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Trooper
1978 |
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Miss Midweek
competition winner 1978 |
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Tony & Guy
1979 |
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Equal Status
1982 |
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Tony & Guy
1987 |
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Ron Barrett & Friends
2012. See the Archive for more on this gig |
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The guitar collection of Guy Mackenzie
www.theguitarcollection.org.uk
So how did a drummer get to be a collector of electric guitars? Guess it went
something like this . . . .
It all began when my school friend Martin "Thumbs" Bellamy and I,
inspired by listening to Joe Meek recording artistes (like John Leyton, Mike
Berry, Heinz and The Tornados), one bright summer's day in 1964 went to look
round the Soho music shops (near the 2 I's coffee bar) to kit ourselves out
so we could hit the road as musicians. After much searching we finally
decided on a Czech-built Futurama with a 10 watt Bird combo amp for him (at
£25) and a Broadway drum kit for me (at £18) - mainly because they
were the cheapest we could find!
Our first attempts at music were split between his home in Quenington,
Gloucestershire and mine at Calgary House (now known as Calgary Castle) on
the Isle of Mull, my idyllic childhood home with my parents - Eric, a very
distinguished veteran of both World Wars, and Elizabeth Mackenzie who
created the woodland garden that Calgary Castle has since become famous
for. Calgary Castle is now a prestigious holiday home but thankfully,
despite this, much loved by its current owners. Unfortunately,
Gloucestershire and the Isle of Mull weren't quite ready for our renditions
of classics such as 'Johnny B Goode' and 'Whole Lotta Shakin' etc. Actually
nobody recognised them, which was a problem and fatal for a time!
After two years of musical wilderness I found myself in Southampton
ensconced in the digs of the building firm that I worked for in Cranbury
Avenue (yes, it is the street just off Derby Road). I learnt a lot there,
but not about building, as it was then in the middle of Southampton's red
light district. An eye opener, and more, for a shy lad from a sheltered
background! But I digress. I still had a hankering for being a pop idol so I
placed an ad in a newspaper for other musicians to form a band. I then met
Bill and Bob, two guitarists who were looking for a drummer and I joined
their band The Blue Stars - yep, yep, they really did name themselves after
that well-known chain of garages and manufacturers of car batteries! Bob
played a home made solid and Bill played his Watkins Rapier 33 and dreamt of
emulating Hank Marvin. He was also a naturally gifted musician and
certainly, the best drummer in the "Blue Stars"! Incidentally,
Bill Geddes was still playing regularly, and had released several CDs, until
his untimely death two years ago. We achieved a modest success and also
appeared at Southampton's Guild Hall for the princely sum of £5 - on a
package show featuring: The Footprints, The Nite People and headlined by
Les Fleur de Lys, occasionally you can hear each of them on Sounds of the
Sixties.
I then moved to London and it was back to the wilderness again until I moved
to High Wycombe. I still couldn't get music out of my system so in 1973, and
yes - you've guessed it - I advertised again! This time I met Francis Rossi
and Alan Lancaster look-alikes, Jack and Dennis and their Fender copy
Antorias and was transported into the wonderful world of Status Quo - a
world I've never entirely left - we called ourselves Fat Man's Toy. Yes we
did 'Paper Plane' and 'Caroline' fuelled by home-made beer in Jack's house
until the volume caused his kitchen shelf to collapse and, yes, it was the
one that housed his crystal glass collection! But we also played numbers
like 'Please Don't Touch' and 'Shakin' All Over', both written and first
performed by the late, great Johnny Kidd - I recently saw The Pirates live
at the Tivoli Theatre in Wimborne - absolutely fantastic! Anyway, to cut a
long story short, we lined ourselves up for our first gig in a pub in Reading.
Sadly, despite the fact that we were a trio, we, for the whole night,
outnumbered the punters! Was that the end? No, not us, we hired a hall,
argued a lot and practised non-stop for three months (doubling the intake of
home-brew in the process!) and hit the road again but this time we were a
success and for two years we were out gigging 1-3 nights every week, and
over the Christmas and New Year period, it was often six nights out of
seven. By this time Jack had graduated to a Hayman 3030 guitar and Dennis bought
a huge bass amp. For me it was first a Pearl Dynamic drum kit which I bought direct from Dallas Arbiter at a trade price of £90.20 on 23rd November 1973. Then to Jack's fury, as he'd bought his Hayman 3030 guitar at the full retail price of £160, I bought a Hayman Showman drum kit in Solid Silver again at "trade" direct from Dallas Arbiter for £183.60 on 15th May 1975. One of our most popular numbers was 'Baby Jump' by Mungo Jerry, but my lasting souvenir of this time is a tape of me lead singing 'Twenty Flight Rock' by Eddie Cochran (recorded on £10 cassette recorder), live at The Bell in Maidenhead - a well known venue.
But, as with many bands, personalities clashed and Dennis and I left Jack to
his own musical wilderness and joined Eric, and Earthborn was formed. We even had Roger Newell, but sadly without his triple necked custom Wal bass, (Yes, Rick Wakeman, Marty Wilde's Wildcats etc) join us for a few gigs and changed our style, ending up as a
four-piece doing clubs and pubs within an area which included London,
Hampshire, the South Midlands and Hertfordshire. In this band I was the one
who drew the short straw and had to lead sing favourites like 'Viva Espana'
and 'Una Paloma Blanca' - well, no-one else would! Thankfully, we always
managed to avoid 'The Birdie Song'!! By now I had graduated to a Premier Kit
(in black and orange hoops!), Slingerland chrome snare (I sometimes used an
unusual 10-inch 1930s Premier Ace chrome snare drum with double snares - the
second under the batter head), coupled with Super Zyn and Zildjan cymbals
(which I still have today). Eric was using a Fender Stratocaster and a
Fender Twin Reverb, Dennis had a Fender Musicmaster Bass and H & H amp
and, Mike the new lead guitarist, a Fender Telecaster and another Twin
Reverb.
All went well till about 1978 when another split occurred. Briefly I joined
Wayne as a duo, backed a weekly talent contest at the King's Head in High
Wycombe, then Trooper (at that time a young and upcoming band from
Oxford) until I met the person who I enjoyed playing music with the most,
Tony Price, who used an Epiphone E-270 and I have a similar model in my
collection today. We sometimes gigged as Tony and Guy or as Earthborn 2
(or 3 or 4) or whatever our agent, Bob Kember from Watford, wanted us to be
for the booking he'd made for us. Tony Price is an amazing entertainer and
with the right luck and promotion would have been the star he always
deserved to be. However for some reason, which I have never had difficulty
understanding, Tony was never, in all our time together, appreciative of my
singing ability! How do I know this - well, why else did he keep turning my
mike down and his Watkins Copicat up, just as I was about to harmonise with
him?
But we finally went our separate musical ways - he and his wife to
Lincolnshire and me to Cornwall. Tony has since had a long and successful
career in music and released several CDs, only retiring himself and his
Fender Stratocasters in 2005. (Tony Price sadly passed away in December 2011.) Since moving to Cornwall I've only come out of retirement on a few occasions to gig in Penzance and Hayle, or to annoy the neighbours!
Through all this time I found a love of guitars and a love that I could
never quite understand - because I can barely even play one! But for me
that's a bonus because I can appreciate them without being hampered by
liking them only because of their sound or action or whatever all you
budding Jimmy Page's look for. So with that, how could I resist becoming a
collector - and that's why my collection has yer Fenders (of course), yer
Gibson (a Victory) but also a Fenton Weill and a Tremo Twenty (a what?) -
the quirkiest guitar of all, excepting of course, my Burns Weill bass and my weird, wonderful Teisco SS-4L.
And not forgetting my selection of Supersounds - some of the earliest solid body electrics made in the UK (more information on Supersound Guitars and the company itself can be found in the Story of Supersound website).
Which do I love best - fair reader, I'll let you be the judge, as you
check out my collection. It may not be the best and it hopefully isn't the
worst - but it is all mine!
Finally, my own guitar heroes? Naturally - Mick Green (The Pirates, Paul
McCartney, Van Morrison, Bryan Ferry) and, of course, the legendary Welsh
rocker himself, Dave Edmunds - who can ever forget 'Deborah', or 'I Knew
the Bride' and 'Girls Talk'.
However a special mention must go to guitar collector and the UK's No 1 Rockin' Blues guitarist Larry Miller and, of course, the greatest Rockin' Blues guitarist of them all...the incomparable Johnny Winter.
Venues I have played include:
750 Club · High Wycombe
Bell · High Wycombe
Bell · Maidenhead
Brick Layers Arms · Wheelers End
Brimpton Grange · Milton Common, Oxfordshire
British Legion Club · Flackwell Heath
British Legion Club · Marlow
British Legion Club · Princes Risborough
Brittania · Aylesbury
Buck Inn · Burley, New Forest, Hampshire
Burnham Working Mens Club
Carriers · Watlington
Castle · High Wycombe
Cheltenham Hospital
Civil Engineer · Greenford, Middlesex
Corn Dolly · Oxford
Cressex Community Centre · High Wycombe
Crown · Aylesbury
Crown Tavern · High Wycombe
Dairymead · Aylesbury
Downley Donkey · Downley, High Wycombe
Downley Heights PTA · West Wycombe
Duck · Aylesbury
Duke of Clarence · London W11
Falcon · Woodley
Golden Goblet · Southend
Guild Hall · Southampton
Havelock Arms · Harrow
Hazells Club · Aylesbury
Hedsor Club · Buckinghamshire
John F Kennedy · Aylesbury
Kings Head · High Wycombe
Kings Head · Penzance
Kings Langley Services Club
London Village · London W4
Moreton in the Marsh Football Club
Nags Head · London N7
Nettlebed Working Mens Club · Oxfordshire
New Holland Social Club · Aylesbury
Overton Football Club · Hampshire
Plough · Brackley
Railway Inn · Eastleigh
Scotts Social Club · Bletchley
SKF Sports and Social Club · Luton
Stable Bar of the White Hart · Hayle
Tamarac Lodge · Volumntown, Ct., USA
Target · Northolt
Thames Valley Caravan Club · Windsor
Trades Union Club · Reading
Turnpike · High Wycombe
White Hart · Didcot
William IV · Langley, Slough
Windmill · Slough
Windsor Racecourse
Woking Working Mens Club
Wooburn Green Working Mens Club
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