Remembering rock ‘n’ roll legend
This week we pay tribute to Dave Kingsman, whose funeral took place at St Philip’s Church in Maidstone last Thursday.
Dave, who was just 77, was an affable, modest man, who as Bill Kent in the late 1950s blazed a path across the new teenage pop scene and helped introduce Britain to rock ‘n’ roll.
He first began playing the guitar during his lunch breaks at the Sharps Toffee factory in St Peter’s Street where he worked as a clerk for £1 10s a week. Soon he formed his own skiffle band with some friends at the Howard De Walden youth club, which was then off Maidstone High Street.
In 1956, his elder brother, who was living in Alberta, Canada, sent the young Dave a record by a new emerging American artist by the name of Elvis Presley.
In his memoirs, Dave recalled: “Blimey that was it! I flipped. I wanted to sing like this Elvis!”
Soon he was playing the new style of music to kids on the streets of the Foster Clark estate. Then he would perform outside the town’s pubs - he was too young to go in.
He said: “Wherever I went, my guitar went with me, slung over my back because I had no carry-case. I was determined to make this new rock ‘n’ roll music heard.”
His first professional performance, he was still only 15, was at the Papermakers Arms, Upper Stone Street. A little later, Ronnie Hughes who ran the resident band at the Royal Star Hotel - then the top music spot in Maidstone - allowed him to sing a few numbers along with the band. An invitation from the Roy Jones Dance Band to sing during their breaks followed with Dave’s first appearance at The Jubilee Hall in Aylesford. He later wrote: “I had no stage name at the time, Roy just introduced me as David Kingsman.
“There was no stage at the hall and everyone was on the same level just a few feet away from each other. I clearly remember being very scared at the time as there were many Teddy Boys standing only a few feet away.
“Soon after the start of my performance loads of girls, young but many older than me, swarmed to the front, screaming and shouting.
“It was without doubt my biggest impact to date.” Female adoration was something the young Dave had to quickly grow used to, but there was a downside jealous boyfriends. He was forced off stage on several occasions by Teddy Boys throwing pennies and one time he was followed home and attacked in the garden of his home in Campbell Road, Maidstone, with Dave only managing to stop his attacker by crashing his beloved guitar over the villain’s head.
His next show was at the Maidstone Variety
Time Review. Most of the performers were ballad singers in the style of Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin, and there were opera singers, magicians and dancers on the same bill.
But as soon as the show’s promoter, Eddie Dodge, saw the audience’s reaction to Dave’s new style of music, he offered to become his first manager. The first gig Mr Dodge secured was at Maidstone Prison. This was in 1956 - still 12 years before Johnny Cash was to do his famous live show at Folsom Prison in America. Dave was still only 15. Other prison gigs followed including one at Holloway, where the authorities had to erect a net around the stage to protect Dave from the female inmates. He was glad they did.
He said: “Everyone was going wild and I was in the thick of it.”
Local bookings also followed: at The Hazlitt, the Royal Star Hotel - where the manager
Bob Harvey gave him his own show under the billing “Dave Carrol”, and The Granada cinema in Lower Stone Street, Maidstone.
Bob Harvey became Dave’s second manager and soon had him booked at venues all over Kent - and Harvey changed Dave’s name once again - this time to “Bobby Kent.”
Dave, who at the ripe old age of 16, had long since quit his day job, wrote: “Ballrooms, cinemas, clubs - the dates never stopped. Booking after booking came in, but I was still waiting for that big break.” It came in 1957.
By this time, Dave was no longer the only British rock
‘n’ roller. One big name was Terry Dene, who had several top 40 hits, but suddenly fell from grace when he was arrested for criminal damage after an unharmonious split with his wife, singer Edna Savage. To cap it all Dene was then called up for National Service, leaving a hole in the promoters’ calendars.
Bob Harvey made a tape of Dave playing at The Granada and sent it to Hymie Zhal, one of the biggest impresarios in London.
An interview and audition followed and pretty soon Dave found that he was being billed as “the new Terry Dene.” He also secured a recording contract with Decca record producer Dick Rowe, who had the good sense to sign him up, even though he would later refuse The Beatles.
But Dick Rowe told Dave: “You need a new name for your records. There are too many Tommys, Bobbys and Terrys. We will call you Bill for your first name and Kent as that is where you are from.” And that was it. Bill Kent had arrived.
Appearances on TV’s
Cool For Cats and radio’s In Town Tonight followed and “Bill” found himself tailed everywhere by photographers from Keystone Press - the paparazzi of the day.
After a hectic UK tour, Dave left in 1959 to play in Canada and America, where he had a short-lived marriage to an American woman and did not return until 1961.
His long stay across the pond proved a mistake. On his return to England he found his star had already been eclipsed by the new kids on the block such as Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and Billy Fury. He continued to perform until 1965, but by then it was clear his style of music had become outdated. Mop tops were in and quiffs were out. Bill returned to a quieter life in Maidstone where he took on a variety of jobs, including working at Rouses fruit and veg wholesale at the top of Stone Street, and then as a postman.
He continued to play local gigs with his new band The Kentishmen for some years. After his second divorce in 1982, Bill, at the age of 41, took up his guitar again and experienced a brief comeback with three more years of professional appearances. He once said that his one regret about his music career was that he will always be remembered for his hit record The Prettiest Girl In School. It was a pop ballad that he was forced to do by his manager and a far cry from his rock ‘n’ roll roots that he loved till the end.