 |
HISTORY...
Current mood:  artistic
Category: Music
G P Hall YouTube Channel
History of G P Hall
My full name is Graham Peter Hall G P Hall but I am called Pete because my brother Barry couldn't say Graham as a small child he could only say Pete. I have also had several other nicknames namely Alphonse, Cream Soda and Gypsy Moses, Shiny & GP; I also have 2 sisters Sheila and Sandra. We grew up in the suburbs of London and I went to school in Hampton Hill (Rectory Farm) I seemed to be able to convert things at an early age and experiment, an early example of this was when I was about 12yrs old. My Father had brought a state of the art (it was then) gramophone (record player and radio for younger readers) it was all valve and had a stacking device and it only played old 78 rpm records.
I remember clearly to this day I attached a long piece of wire into where the needle went, and wrapped it around the strings of my plastic guitar. I figured that it would make it electric, but it just blew the radiogram. I did not admit this to my hopping mad father that it was my fault, even when asked, NO I said, it wasn't me. My dad did manage to get it working; it had only blown the fuses. I was working on most Saturdays as a dry cleaning van assistant in Hampton Hill so I went and brought a Joan Sutherland opera record which was popular at the time called "O My Beloved Father" to heal the wrath of my dad.. The 2nd record I brought was "Be Bop a Lula" by Gene Vincent & The Blue caps genevincent1
Soon I purchased "Wake Up Little Susie" by the Everly Brothers everlybrothers Yes I loved the vocals but I was more interested by those guitar chords that play before the singing, so the stage was set for me to be a guitar player. The first guitar I brought was from Alberts Music Shop in Twickenham
It was an F hole Hoffner and the first tune I ever learnt was a Guy Mitchell guymitchell song call "Singing the Blues" and a instrumental by Nero & The Gladiators In The Hall Of The Mountain King nero . My parents moved to Bracknell New Town and the first band I saw live was The Strollers. The band members were Vic Triggle lead guitar: Terry Peers rhythm guitar: Bass guitar Cess Tibbitts: drums Dave Cheney: all based in Bracknell (there is a newish band called that now, but it is not them). They had a lead guitarist Vic Triggle, he was awesome, a fantastic talent. This would be about 1961….(I can find no trace of The Strollers (the original) in a web search) if anyone out there knows let me know…Vic played like me a Hagstrum baby blue guitar ( I saw this guitar recently being played by the Franz Ferdinand guitarist ) maybe not Vic's but the same model.
hagstrom his had a bigsby tremolo arm fitted he would have blown most guitarists away even today. On the injustice front, Vic had an artificial leg he lost it in a car accident in 1958 but I can still remember he could play most pieces from "Sleepwalk" by Santo & Johnny to Shaking All Over by Johnny Kid & the Pirates. He was very inspirational In me wanting to pick up a guitar and play again, he had a great sound and made it all look so easy. I would rate him No1 in my influences and probably one of the world's top ten guitarists at that time
Please see photo sections
I came back a few times to Bracknell from Chorley to see Vic play and remembered saying I had heard a new band called the Beatles that would change the face of music. I remember saying this to Vic and The Strollers at one of there rehearsals in Ascot, they all looked at me and nodding in a backwater way. Yeah right I do not think so…Vic also remembers this moment… When I later moved up to Chorley in Lancashire still with my parents I saved up and purchased a Hagstrom Goya tone guitar in blue glitter (its amazing how they don't seem to date in fact they still look space age)
I heard Booker T & the MG's Green Onions with the guitar solo by Steve Cropper < href="http://www.playitsteve.com/bio.html2>http://steve cropper that really got me hooked.
2 months later in 1961 I was heading on a coach back to Bracknell and a few months later I joined Johnnie Walker and the Travellers
Les Hurdle made it big time in USA much later and has played bass for a lot of the big stars. The Travellers used to rehearse in Les Hurdles parents garage at Crowthorne. John Mills (Johnnie Walker) was on Vocals, with Carol Jennings also on Vocals. Brian Hooker was the original rhythm guitarist and was replaced later by Pete Foster, Geoff Sadler on drums, and Stan Sadler his father managed us, The Bob Potter agency provided us with loads of work. John Mills (Johnnie Walker) left and went on to win in a TV programme called Opportunity Knocks. He sadly developed Pleurisy; later on we had Mark Stevens on vocals. The Travellers played about 2 nights a week all over the south of England touring in a Bedford Dormobile. Our set besides good R&R also included "Hava Nagila" and Wipe Out as played by Dick Dale dickdale and "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom Wine" by Eddie Calvert Les Hurdle played the Flugelhorn . Eddie Calvert
The Travellers also did some recordings at a studio that Guy Fletcher ( Guy later wrote hits for Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, Frankie Vali and has an OBE) and his brother Ted ran With the fabulous Sue and Sunny backing singers..They were S*W*E*E*T..
..After a smack around the head from Fozzie (Pete Foster) (To this day I have no idea what it was about) I was replaced by Roy Whitworth and Guy Fletcher who joined the Travellers which later became the Cameos. The Strollers band with Vic Triggle later developed into Beau and The Odd Lot when Danny MaCree the vocalist left it became Beaux Odd Lott by then Vic had left and settled in Liverpool
I decided to leave the Travellers after the incident and join another up and coming band with the weird named Beaux Odd Lot , we often included in our set "Help Me" by Sonny Boy Williamson, as well as Howlin Wolf, Elmore James, as well as Booker T's Green Onions,
I started to improvise a lot often making up blues words as well as guitar solo's & chords as I went along, and could always rely on Terry, to support my guitar and voice, he was awesome.
Beaux Oddlot was a rhythm and Blues outfit and as wild and weird as there name. Stuart Lawrence the drummer (who replaced the drummer above) and I headed down to St Tropez for a while, it was at this time I gate crashed Brigitte Bardot party and met Manitas de Plata, Salvador Dali was also there and I brought a rare 2nd hand Contrares signed by Dali for a rock bottom price, and heard first hand improvised Flamenco guitar from Manitas I hung around for a while picking up some tips on Techniques later I got the LP Homage's a stunning piece of work by Manitas he never seemed to get the green light from other Flamenco guitarists this I suspect was because he never came from Spain but Southern France and he always took risks and improvised a lot (isn't that what its about) but to me he was and always will be the real deal, I still have my Contreras guitar today, you do not have to be black to play the blues, and you do not have to be Spanish to play flamenco music. On returning home The Odd Lot got a residency at The Hundred Club Oxford St in London and we supported many of the top bands of that time including the Art Woods TheArtwoods who's organist John Lord later formed Deep Purple the Artwoods also had Keef Hartley Keef Hartley on drums.
I played lead guitar Danny McCrea on vocals Carol Jennings the singer of the Travellers later became Danny's Beaux Terry Pearce a brilliant harp player and guitarist, John Brimblecombe on bass and before John Brimblecombe Tony Collins from the defunked Strollers played bass. Stuart Lawrence played drums.
We formed a blues club at The Queen Stag Hounds in Fernbank Road Ascot (its demolished now), every other weekend we had a well known guest band, some days the Odd Lot would headline, the club was in the rear room of the pub and it was always packed, Daisy the landlady was always getting a police raid or some fight would brake out. I think it ran for about 4 years, it was pure rhythm and blues. One of my favourite guitarists at that time was Hubert Sumlin Hubert Sumlin I liked the Delta Blues of Son House. Son House but mostly I would like improvising the blues making the riff and words as I went along. I would go to Eel Pie Island and hear the British blues players of the day namely Jeff beck, & Eric Clapton with John Mayalls Blues Breakers
The Oddlot in retrospect were so good we drew huge crowds, but as is often the case we were all very good player with wild egos we lasted about 4 years. I found myself drawn to London and meeting up with people at The Round House and Middle Earth In Covent Garden a band was formed with Diana Stewart (later to become Graham Bonds wife) and a bass player called Honk we had a gig set up at The Middle Earth we had rehearsed in Brick Lane ( along with Mick Farrens Social Deviants social deviants ) but I never made the gig (to this day I feel bad about leaving the band in the lurch), A French group poached me While I was rehursing at The Middle Earth in covent garden London for a big gig there, I never let the other band members know that I was on my way to Toulouse, but it was also a bad and selfish move on my part.
But round about this time I had a very very bad experience with someone putting a strong hallucinogenic drug (unknown to me at that time) in my drink in London at a party held for guitarist, who did it and why I don't know maybe jealousy, spite, resentment, and when stopped by the police ( I was driving when the effects of the drug started to happen ) it was early morning just before sunrise the police at that time decided to have fun with what they saw as a young hippy off his head and proceded to accuse me of horrible crimes they bullied me for hours and then drove off laughing leaving me by the side of the road in a bad mental state, it affected me for years, and it still does to a lesser degree, I was never really the same person after that experience I became what I call a Chemically Altered Person. But I was young and tried with not much success to bounce back, much later in my life the experience was to revisit me and had dire consequences.
The French band promised to pay big money and said they had an amazing name and following in France, it turned out to be true about there following, but the name stunk They were called after much questioning, and mixed translations; by the crap name of "The Evening Quartet" the English organist called William who came with me, fell about laughing, but they thought it was a great name, so picture the scene they the 2 members of this French band would be dressed in penguin suites and me and Bill would get wild and strip off to the waist both of us would wear war paint and wode generally to be antagonistic to this bunch of false hoper's who had led us into believing we were joining a wild French rock band so the French guys ( and I can't remember any of there names) would start up something horrible in waltz time and Bill and I would just freak out in stark contrast, a sort of Jimmy Hendrix meets tea and crumpets.
As the months wore on we finally got the sack because the band was booked for a radio interview and concert in a small French town, you know the type that has those old horn speakers tied to the lampposts, me and Bill, I am ashamed to say got blind drunk. And (the radio host) poked a microphone at us for all the street to hear live, me and Bill let them have it in full British drunken style complete with all the swear words we could think of ( and that is only the bit I can remember ) before falling of our chairs laughing like demented hyenas. Bill and I headed off to Marseille about 14 k away and stayed late missing the last bit of transport back to the village; I had just brought a new pair of Cuban heeled boots cheep at the market they were cheap because one boot was smaller than the other. I got round this by wearing a stocking on the smaller boot and 2 football socks on the large. After many hours and detours to where I do not know, we ended up days later arriving back at the hotel with blisters and the worse for wear. In the meantime the hotel had asked us to leave as we wouldn't let the maid in and we had collected all our drunken beer cans and covered the furniture in tin and bottles, the bidet also suffered, anyway we were escorted to the train station with 500 francs each with our musical equipment and marched on a train to Paris. William decided to head back to England I meanwhile lived for a short time in Avenue Emile Zola in Paris I met up with all sorts of artists and weird personalities I was there about 2 months and a call girl who lived above me and used to come down to my place for a chat and asked me what looked good for her to wear, one day I got a bit merry and when she was out I decided it would be fun to dress up in some of her clothes and I did and I looked good too, so I went down to the café below to see if I could pass as a woman it was only fun, but I forgot I had a Frank Zappa beard and promptly got a caution from the French police…for Christ sake this was Paris.
But I had rapidly run out of money and became a nuisance so someone took pity on me and took me to the French composer Pier Boulez Pierre Boulez house where I managed to play a bit of my guitar and behave strange, someone gave me some money just enough to leave. A few days later I was waving goodbye to who knows who!! On a train to England.
I lived with good old mum and dad for a time and then William the keyboard player rang me up one day out of the blue and told me about this band called The Governors Whose lead singer was Casey Jones? So there it was then, a Liverpool band called Casey Jones & The Governors which came out of the Liverpool beat boom of the band the Big3…next stop Germany.. We toured Hanover, Frankfurt, Köln, Cologne & Stuttgart slowly we got the band into some shape It was mostly brit 60's stuff and it was a bit shallow but at least we got paid, sometimes we had to do a runner from a hotel because at that time it seemed a band who played 4 nights a week would only get paid 3 out of 4 gigs, we often found a note from the promoter saying kindly sweep up and close the door, we often ran out of petrol, but Switzerland was great fun we were treated like gods there and played big stadthalle's. I saw the Matterhorn in Austria, we played the beer festivals. Basil beer festival was very weird; we played at about midnight for 1 hour in front of about 30.000 masked people most who had something to bang or blow, some nutter got on stage at midnight and blew a whistle and it became like a Day in the Life by The Beatles ending.. Only it went on all night and for some reason when we tried to carry our equipment out of the ONLY exit we were jostled and danced by the generally inebriated crowed. So we retired to the hotel minus our equipment and it was 3 days later when the crowed had all finally left and as we arrived at the Stadhalle the sight of the whole floor covered in everything imaginable and some of our amplifiers wrecked. Casey had a girlfriend called Renate who had a dog called Sadey there were often fights they treated each other badly, not in a physical way, at least we never saw it, but in a mental way.
We appeared on German television and often crossed paths with famous visiting brit bands one in particular was Boz Burrell Boz Burrell who later formed Bad Company he had often been playing The Odd Lot Club in Ascot only playing under the name The Boz People. It was fun but due to the fact that there were a lot of Brit bands touring Germany nothing seemed permanent or fixed for the 12 months that I was there.
We had some bad luck and had a car accident and some of the equipment got damaged the final curtain came in Hanover where we brought some new band equipment, we were playing at club 100, and life seemed on top again, in Frankfurt the Kaiserstraße had been dangerous and full of gangsters from the seedy side of life, Hannover in comparison was, or so we thought, a respite. We went down well and drew a large crowd the club was packed we had ordered our drinks and food all put on a tab to be paid for later, on the final day we were paid and asked to settle up our drinks bill, the bill it was more than we got paid to perform, after much protest and a disbelief at the massively high priced food and drinks bill, several heavies were called in and we had to give all the money back that had been paid to us. Plus we had to find another 1500 marks which we did not have, so we agreed to bring it tomorrow, when we arrived the next day we were told by the club boss (after we paid him the 1500 marks that someone had broken in over night and had stolen all the equipment (I luckily still had my guitar at the hotel) we got into a fight, we called the police and hired a solicitor who all took money and said they would deal with it within 24hours, well nothing happened, we retired to the hotel and proceeded to get madder and drunker, I noticed that there were still 2 heavy mic stands in the van, so the plan was to storm the club and beat hell out of them with the mic stands till they returned our equipment, I can still remember it today we pulled up on the pavement outside the club 100 and as we were about to storm the building some guy staggered down the stairs from the entrance, he had blood pouring from his chest looking like it had been slashed, he then came around to my side of the van I was driving and to our horror, he had a knife stuck in his cheek and as his bloodied fingers were sliding down the van window the knife was tapping on the window..I put my foot down hard on the accelerator I pulled away burning rubber, we heard the Politzi siren and in my rear mirror some 10 police with guns rushing up the stairs of the establishment…forget the gear I said…I sold my Hagstrum Goya guitar next day to get a rail ticket and headed back to England…
I decided on a bit of a quiet life for a while and lived in the country near Owlsmoor not far from Crowthorne in Berkshire, I started playing a bit of acoustic Spanish guitar, but I did not know what to do with my life I sat in a pub and counted the bricks on the wall it seemed scary, I had to do shopping and washing but I did not know how. And as for getting a job I went to the employment exchange and asked to there amazement does any band want a guitarist. So I got a job in a brewery bad move!
I had a few disasterous relationships, got married and had 2 children, became a not very good dad, took up an old trade as a French Polisher, moved around and made mega amount of mistakes. Then whilst rehearsing there one day with a Violinist called Jon Rose who later I made some recordings with. jon rose the director of South Hill Park arts centre in Bracknell Peter Stark got me 2 commissions to write some music about Bracknell "The New Town Suite"
And The Estates. the New Town Suite had Jeff Clyne who is a world class player on double bass Jeff Clyne on double bass, and Lyn Dobson who has played on Nick Drake, Soft Machine, & Third Ear Band recordings + many others. Years earlier before I knew Lyn had played for Nick Drake I was listening to fruit tree and thought I am sure I know that style he is one of the best flute player ever Soft machine
The Estates Was a whole different venture that involved several custom designed piano frames built by me Photos 1974/75 and a influence from Luigi Russolo Luigi Russolo This project went on for years, it had massive percussion by Rob Pusey, (who later played for Simply Red) Richard Hogan on electric Bass Hogan's fingers had plaster tapes on the end due to extensive rehearsals but he played magnificently on the day. Alison Fox on solo piano frame, and Steve Symes on percussion piano frame and glockenspiels with me on acoustic guitar and gong, plus the addition of Paul Dunderdale on clarinet.
The two concerts at the recital room were captured on video on one of the first Sony players; it had a reel to reel magnetic tape They are both on my CD "Mar-Del-Plata, looking back it was hard and I most certainly had to push to get things done with very little financial reward and much on a shoe string, it cost me more than money! Marriage broken and drifting,
Pete Stark who had commissioned (Via South Hill Park & The Arts Council), The Estates & The New Town Suite Peter got me in contact with a travelling theatre troop Engineers of the imagination "Welfare State International" Welfare State it was during the long hot summer of 1976 and we played most of France. Lol Coxhill Lol Coxhill.com joined us occasionally On soprano sax with a street band that was known as "The All leather Exit Band" I played a drum And the piano frames we performed in England, France Rennes Park Kennedy, & La Rochelle in 1976. I later recorded with Lol on my Figments Of Imagination CD
It was a nice time but I had the old problem resurfacing. I released the 2 commissioned works on vinyl on the Prototype label The Estates had a glowing review by Chris Welch in the Melody Maker. After many years a lot of nasty court cases trying to get to see my children I decided to stop drinking, as it just didn't work anymore, I had very little in the way of material thinks but I gained a lot in self esteem, I also got physically fit and decided to go work for myself as a french polisher. Renovating computer companies directors desks, it was hard, I made enough money to buy a boat a old Thornycroft river cruiser originally called "Eve" and re-named "Orgiana" when I brought her, it was a simple life I polished the wood, done up the old girl and dropped out of modern living, I wrote a lot of music at that time, no phone no TV, no transport, except an old bike, no papers, no radio, it was bliss, riverbank fires with starry nights, meeting new people and moving on…No worries except where was the next food and water's next stop, I adapted and made a compact shower from a Greenfly spray container I got from B&Q. So long as I put hot water mixed with cold and got the right temperature and then pumped the spray standing in an old galvanised tub it was fine. Oriana had old hand pump water taps and it was compact but very basic, it looked like an old Victorian railway carriage inside the boat, polished wood and brass..when I see things on TV now about the later end of the 70's, I never knew as I never had media knowledge about hostages, music, and life in general…some days in this complex world I miss that life, but I needed it at the time..
I went to Tunisia with The British Council with a company called Theatre Of Shadows a puppet show done in the old Victorian style of a canvass frame with real flame lighting, I supplied the music. Unfortunately the same day we all flew to Tunis the USA had set out from British Bases to bomb general Gaddaffi who just happened to have his headquarters in Tunisia, on the streets of Tunis were tanks and military and at that time I never really thought of the dangers, most of the time we were holed up in a luxury hotel, we only ended up doing about 6 dates, Theatre of shadows also had a Tunisian Lute player and a Darbuka drummer it was great playing with them. see photo section
Later I met päivi my Finnish wife and we lived in Park Town in Oxford we later moved to Bristol where I played in a old pub called The Brewhouse complete with sticky beer stained floorboards we have 3 children, Anttoni, Nikolas and Suvi. I tried real hard to be a good dad and husband and I could say that I defiantly improved a lot but there is always room for improvement as they say.
I started a small record label "Imaginary Music" and recorded lots of new compositions culminating in a variety of CD's I performed at Many Jazz festivals. (See website < href="http://www.gphall.com>gphall) with different record companies. I toured UK from Dorset to the Isle of Lewis mainly playing solo guitar and my unique industrial sound sculptures, appearing at a few festivals including London Guitar Festival 2005 and Queen Elizabeth Hall 1998, I was my own driver, roadie, and poster sticker upper and general dogs body, it was extremely hard and expensive, but it got my playing and my techniques up to scratch, finding myself treading the boards again, it put me well and truly in the red with the bank.
We lived in a number of places including Chalgrove, Bristol, Oxford, Ilmer in Bucks and believe it or not Wootton Bassett ( I would never go back there ) it was great fun, it is a very defined role being a father and I miss it very much, in the end my finnish wife got homesick and went back to live in Finland but I could not live there as I found the language to difficult. My 3 children Anttoni, Nikolas & Suvi all go to school there and now live with their mother in Jyväskylä. I looked after my 3 children for a couple of years before they went to Finland to be with there mother.
I managed to get in touch with a long established British label Bronze bronzerecords The owner Gerry Bron visit me several times at my house at Chalgrove, he had heard a disc I sent him and was suitably impressed to record an album with me, we decided to call it Gothic Flamenco, the ground work to this coming into fruition was hard whilst I was cooking and cleaning etc so I thought I would send them all to there mother in Finland thinking I would get the music recorded make some money and get them back, Anttoni especially was upset by this, and I have come to regret this decision, but I wanted to finish my CD Gothic Flamenco, but if I could turn back the clock as they say, Bronze as is usual with record companies can only make success out of something that is already gaining a profile, starting to promote from scratch is not something Bronze could do, or even tried to do, in other words promotion is everything, but they gave it no promotion what so ever, and of the 30 or so gigs I played in trying to promote it Bronze wasted there money and I knew I could never get my kids back as I was now hopelessly in debt. (Bronze paid me no advance) I had a lot of hopes at the time but they were all dashed time and time again, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me, all I felt was humiliation. Maybe Gerry Bron listened to the wrong people I will never know, certainly the recording engineer on Gothic Flamenco was a lot to be desired and made my work difficult, they say a engineer can make or break you. I mix as I go along on stage with 4 combos and 2 volume pedals. Most engineers mix stereo with bits left and right, where as I mix in layers as I go along I get the sound right at the recording studio on the mixing desk, I am always baffled when an engineer says right lets mix it now, when in fact it is as I would like it, but in the end it boils down to the fact that ignorance was shown and my suggestions were ignored, its layers that make up my music not left to right stereo. But hey let's move on..
All my children are good at music, it's not my doing, but maybe they just heard it always around them
Mike Finesilver & Stewart Wennen taught me the most about sound, stereo imaging and mixing.
I spent years perfecting my sound I do not work in mono, I just don't use 1 combo, I have 4 and the reason is because I need to hear the sound coming from behind me, usually in 2 sets of stereo, if I have someone on a mixing desk 9 times out of 10 they have no idea. They think in terms of rock, pop, blues, jazz, etc you know old stuff like that, nostalgia etc. I have also been very fortunate in having National Newspaper reviewers loving my work, without them I would have given up. I managed to get 3 reviews in 1 year in The Times thank you Chris Parker…Dann Chinn.
We were born originals…. "Don't what ever you do become a copy". there is an old Finnish saying "Some people would smell the daisies that the cow ate the day before if they thought it was fashionable"..having been broke and in debt most of my life because of a belief in my art. I have also been very fortunate in that I have been helped by many people both financial and practically thank you Sbno1, BD, SW, SB for that I am very grateful. But I expect to die broke and penniless. My greatest achievement is being sober for 29 years
some video tracks of my work are on youtube www.youtube.com thanks for sharing my bit of life with me, see you in the garden. Love and light Pete.
Thank you for taking time to read about my space in the world…Pete (www.gphall.com)
href="http://technorati.com/claim/npm32t6hvk" rel="me">Technorati Profile
..
5:50 PM
-
0 Comments - 0 Kudos
- Add Comment
|
adventurous