Deigh
July 26th, 2004, 01:37 PM
Here is my classic hard luck story..
We ran two bands with the same personel. One was for dance engagements and it subsidised the jazz playing evenings which we preferred. This was about fifty years ago in Englandwhere dancing was very serious and clubs rather pompous. We were booked to play at the Lee-on-Solent Tennis club in Hampshire for their annual do.
Pianos in those days were as bad as they are today, so out pianist looked in to the club during the morning to check it out. Just as well becauses he found that the middle G hammer had fallen out. He glued it back in with Yoo-Hoo,the best stuff on themarket then, unfortunately it took 24hours to really work so we were pushing our luck.
The evening went well till the end and with a roll of drums we started to play the "Queen". The pianist realised that we were in trouble, the tune is in "G" and the hammer had fallenout during a rock and roll tune. He leaned over to me, the guitarist, and called " Change to C". I leaned over to the vibes player and passed on the instruction. He didn't hear me and I didn't hear the pianist, realising that the note G is also needed for the C chord, urgently call out, "No, Make it F".
He played it in F, I played it in C and the vibes player played it in G.
The result was a disaster, it sounded the the Egyptian national anthem. We doubled up with laughter, and that was our undoing. The committee was furious, they didn't mind us stuffing it up, but to laugh about it was a crime suitable for the gallows. We thought we were going to get tarred and feathered. They did pay us, but it was the end of dance band work in that area as we were blacklisted. The nueclus of that band became "Manfred Mann".
Deigh Davies
We ran two bands with the same personel. One was for dance engagements and it subsidised the jazz playing evenings which we preferred. This was about fifty years ago in Englandwhere dancing was very serious and clubs rather pompous. We were booked to play at the Lee-on-Solent Tennis club in Hampshire for their annual do.
Pianos in those days were as bad as they are today, so out pianist looked in to the club during the morning to check it out. Just as well becauses he found that the middle G hammer had fallen out. He glued it back in with Yoo-Hoo,the best stuff on themarket then, unfortunately it took 24hours to really work so we were pushing our luck.
The evening went well till the end and with a roll of drums we started to play the "Queen". The pianist realised that we were in trouble, the tune is in "G" and the hammer had fallenout during a rock and roll tune. He leaned over to me, the guitarist, and called " Change to C". I leaned over to the vibes player and passed on the instruction. He didn't hear me and I didn't hear the pianist, realising that the note G is also needed for the C chord, urgently call out, "No, Make it F".
He played it in F, I played it in C and the vibes player played it in G.
The result was a disaster, it sounded the the Egyptian national anthem. We doubled up with laughter, and that was our undoing. The committee was furious, they didn't mind us stuffing it up, but to laugh about it was a crime suitable for the gallows. We thought we were going to get tarred and feathered. They did pay us, but it was the end of dance band work in that area as we were blacklisted. The nueclus of that band became "Manfred Mann".
Deigh Davies