The Story - Part 2

     'Purple' Purple Haze:   Paul, Peter & Frank

When we got home Frank and I went out and bought new Marshall Amplifier Bass and Lead Stacks. I acquired a Marshall Fuzz Box and a Cry Baby Wah-Wah Pedal. Through Bobby Elliot, the Keyboard player for The Fortunes who lived in Preston, we heard that Billy Fury’s Backing Group were selling their Marshall PA System. We drove all the way up to Newcastle upon Tyne to collect it, along with their Microphones. We also bought 3 of the Orange Velvet Regency Style Jackets which had been part of their stagewear. Paul’s Drum Kit was growing by the minute, and he would have had more I’m sure if we could have fitted it into the Van. We were getting regular gigs locally and were building up a strong following of ardent fans in Blackpool and Morecambe especially in the Summer Season when the Holiday Makers hit town. We were also doing good business at the Colleges and Universities in the area and building up a good fan base. The music was still our own version of other peoples tunes, like My White Bicycle and Who and Move tunes like I can see for miles, Circles, Heatwave, and Flowers in the Rain but always in our own style, mainly I suppose because of myself having to sing and play guitar. Frank joined me on some vocals and sang lead on a few tunes as well.

We bought an ex-Police People Carrier Transit Van, as we were still all working locally. I think my Dad sign the HP agreement! He used to sign every thing. He’s gone now but not forgotten. We owed him, big time!!    I was still at Atkinson Vehicles, now a Chargehand Fitter and in line for promotion to Supervisor. Frank worked in his Father’s Furniture Factory and Paul worked for his Father in his Furniture Upholstery Business.

  Purple Haze:   Frank Newbold, Peter Illingworth & Paul Varley

We played at the Central Pier with Fleetwood Mac, and Mick Fleetwood beat hell out of Paul’s snare drum when he broke his own snare skin. It would have been nice if he’d asked if he could borrow it! A Roadie just ran over and grabbed it! I suppose it must have been 1968 and Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan were with Fleetwood Mac then. We also saw Cream playing there to a practically empty hall, but that didn't matter to me. They were magic. We also saw Jimi Hendrix in Manchester on the Walker Brothers, Englebert Humperdink Tour. What a blast! It was the full works. Setting the guitar on fire and all! He blew the rest of the artistes away!

We had great fun playing Saturday nights on the Royal Iris, a Merseybeat Cruise, which left from Birkenhead and sailed down to the sea at New Brighton and back again, Ferry across the Mersey.  The ship is still in existence now!

I do remember particularly one gig at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach Casino during Scottish Fortnight. The local people used to evacuate Blackpool as the whole of Glasgow descended on the town for their two-week annual holiday; well, It seemed like it was the whole of Glasgow. The fortnight became notorious for trouble and fighting. Only the previous year the Stones had to escape from the Winter Gardens Empress Ballroom, after Keith Richard had kicked someone who spat at him. The whole audience jumped on the stage and trashed everything, whilst the Stones ran for their lives.

We were aware that during that the year before all the Scottish rabble-rousers had been heavily into Soul Music, so we viewed this gig with a great amount of trepidation. No way were we a Soul Band! As we walked onto the stage and played our first number which was Sunshine of your Love (Cream), the whole audience stood in silence, and at the end of the song the silence continued whilst everyone looked over to one guy in the middle. Eventually he raised his thumb in acceptance, and the place erupted into applause. We had a fantastic night and we couldn’t do a thing wrong from that moment on. There was however the occasional barked order from the dance floor ‘Hey, Jimmy! Play some Cream!!!’.

We participated in a Radio Luxembourg Competition which was a sort of Battle of the Bands, on Jimmy Saville’s Bulmers Cider Show. Heats were held at Top Rank Ballrooms all over the country and each week the show was taped live with the winning band performing their song. Listeners had to write or phone in the vote for their favourite band at the end of the series. We won through our heat at the Preston Top Rank and duly appeared on the show, our rendition being pre-recorded in the afternoon by the Luxembourg Team. We performed the Cream song ‘Dance the night away’. The only other band I can remember in our heat was Ray Lewis and the Treckers from Leyland, Lancashire. Jimmy Saville presented us with the Silver Trophy, which I still have. We mimed to the tape as the actual show was being recorded, but it was difficult as Jimmy Saville was chatting as we were trying to mime. I do have a tape of the show recorded from the radio on an old 3" tape, but the reception for Radio Luxembourg was always notoriously bad in the Lancashire Area, with the signal wafting in and out, and the screams from the audience often drown out the performance. In the event of the finals, we didn't get enough listeners votes to feature with the winners. The Prize was a Record Test with a major Record Company I think!

Eddie Sandham, the guy who’d made our shirts was now working in London, and he used to appear at our gigs from time to time when he returned to Preston to visit his Family. He announced one evening that he was going to get us a record deal. To be honest we didn’t take him seriously for a moment, but what we didn’t know was that Eddie shared a flat with Barry Ainsworth, the guy who engineered the first Deep Purple Album ‘Hush’. Barry worked at Pye Studios. On his next visit back to Preston Eddie told us that he’d arranged some recording time with Barry one Sunday morning for us to go in and do some demos. We journeyed down to Eddie's flat in Muswell Hill for a few days and recorded Tales of Brave Ulysses (Cream) and Stone Free (Hendrix) at Pye. The demo has currently gone walkabout. I've got the cover but it's empty! We went back home and continued our day work and evening gigs, and Eddie began to hawk the demos around. We understood that although the demos created interest, the Record Companies were wanting to hear original songs, so we were focussed into getting down to doing some song writing.

A girlfriend of mine, Linda Taylor, had a book on the meaning of names. She told me that Paul meant ‘Little’, Frank meant ‘Free’ and Peter meant ‘Rock’, so that’s how the new name came about. It also symbolised the kind of Free Rock Music that we were creating. I suppose the 'Little' portion suggested humility. For all that, we were kind-of humble. It's difficult to keep your feet on the ground when everything is going fantastically. So we became Little Free Rock.

We had beginnings and ends to songs, be they our songs or other peoples, but what happened in the middle was a different nightly experience, so we were inventing and experimenting every time we played. It was fun. Obviously sometimes better than others, but only ourselves would really know that I guess.

Frank and I between us got together about five new songs and Eddie booked a cheap Demo Studio at Hendon for about £10 an hour, and we recorded the tracks. The tracks were Roman Summer Nights, Wait a While, Blud, Dream and Evil Woman. The engineer was an echo freak but in retrospect, I like these better than the versions on the actual Little Free Rock Album which was released in late 1969. These tracks now appear on the Little Free Rock ‘Time is of no Consequence’ CD on World Wide Records, a division of SPM (Berlin). CD Number SPM-WWR-CD-0020. The CD features demos and other unreleased tracks and were recorded at the transition point from Purple Haze to Little Free Rock, however they are credited to the latter. The original Little Free Rock Album has also been released on CD by LINE Records in Hamburg. CD Number TACD 9.00633.

We had a last momentous gig at the prestigious Preston Public Hall, now sadly closed forever, and we were surrounded by everyone who was anyone on the scene in Preston. It had been a fantastic night with the lights and explosions and a truly amazing atmosphere. I think it was at this gig that Eddie announced that Transatlantic were interested in us and wanted to come and see us playing live. It was a case of do or die! Now or Never!!! We'd gone about as far as we could in Lancashire anyway!

As we always enjoyed our Connah’s Quay Gigs we invited them to see us there, and Transatlantic's A&R Man, John Whitehead and Keith Bleasby the Distribution Manager duly came to see us perform, and offered us a Recording Contact!