One more time ... John and Bev jazz it up again six decades later
More than sixty years after their first appearance together, two local musicians will be joining forces again, for what may be the last time ...
BEV Pegg and I played our first gig together in 1957, at a concert in the Sunday School room of Kingswinford’s Primitive Methodist Chapel, on the corner of Mount Pleasant.
Pete got his tea-chest bass wedged on the stairs of the 257 bus
Our contribution to the evening’s entertainment ‘went down a storm’. That’s what Bev and I say, anyway!
Terry Walton, a fellow salesman with me at the Stourbridge branch of Burton’s tailors, and a pal of Terry’s, brought their guitars along. And the pair of them, dressed snazzily in 1950s style, might well have led the audience into believing that, although coming from Stambermill, they were members of the Jordanairs, Elvis Presley’s backing band.
Bev gave the Sunday School piano a string-bending airing on Bad Penny Blues, from which it probably never recovered. All the way from the other end of Cot Lane came Bob Cutler, with his alto saxophone. Including Bob, that made three ex-stourbridge Grammar School chaps on stage: John with cymbals and his dad’s old snare drum, and the late Pete Burkes booming away on tea-chest bass. The playing of such a handcrafted instrument had not been a feature on the King Edward’s teaching roster – maybe that is why dear Pete had got it wedged on the stairs of his transport – a number 257 Midland Red Bus. Well, on Friday 13th May – of all dates! – Bev and I are together again at Bilston’s renowned home of jazz, The Trumpet. Bev is debating retirement from the jazz scene, so this night has got to be a special. It is planned that the quintet will be swinging along, with the marvellous addition of Jim Sutton on bass, Bob ‘Stubby James’ Southall of tenor saxophone, and the famed David Wilkes on drums. My vibraphone needs the dust knocking out of it after two years propped up in the loo, but I reckon I can remember at least half of Sweet Georgia Brown.