Way back in the late 60s I was playing saxaphone and flute  in a soul band called "Spaghetti House" in the Liverpool St Helens area.

The band split up but the bass player, Les Williams (ex The Incas), the drummer, Barry Davenport (ex John Rotherham Trio, a modern jazz outfit), the guitarist Dave "Dig" Rigby and myself, decided to try a smaller band playing covers and arrangements of current rock bands eg Cream and Jethro Tull.

The guitarist soon split, being more into Country than rock, and eventually we found Norman Barret, ex The Hunters.

We soon started writing our own stuff based around Barry's jazz ideas and Norm's melodic feel and great singing voice. Much of the material explored unusual time signatures,  involved some harmony playing and improvisation sometimes for twenty minutes at a time!

We became involved in a multi-arts project, in Manchester, called "The Construction Company", which was an eclectic mix of musicians and poets. One of the bands we gigged with a lot was Sleep, who had a kind of Barclay James Harvest feel to them.

Our manager also managed them and arranged for a London record producer to come to a gig at the Free Trade Hall to meet them.

The record producer, Jonothan Peel heard us on the same bill and offered us the contract and not Sleep!

We did some work for the Robert Stigwood organisation and the Noel Gay Agency. This involved backing Emile Ford at a "Rock'n' Roll" festival at Wembley Stadium. Playing on a huge concert at the Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen in front of Danish royalty and weirdest of all, being the resident band at a disco in the Italian Adriatic resort of Rimini!

We changed record labels from Vertigo to Dawn (owned by Pye).

Altogether we released four albums, which have since been re-released on CD., and are still available (I've just bought copies).

We later added a second guitarist, George Lynan (ex Magic Lanterns), to further progress the harmony riffing idea, he sadly died without warning in his sleep last year.

The drummer, Barry left to be replaced by Wigan lad Russ Caldwell.

The albums were entitled "Gravytrain",   "A Ballad of a Peaceful Man",  "Second Birth" and "Staircase To The Day" .

The Pearls during a recent gig in France

We were unlucky to have the van plus gear stolen which forced us off the road for a few months, during which time we each got gigs with a cabaret band.

When we eventually re-equipped, the work wasn't there and we were all working with other outfits and just drifted apart, getting together for the occasional Gravytrain gig and writing material for the final album.

I left the band in 1973 in order to work in Germany with a cover band.

Since then, l qualified as a music
teacher, working in the North
West, retiring in 2003 but still
playing in bands including "The
Pearls" doing French gigs with
ex-Grit Band members Chris
Smith and John Hunt [not
featured on this photo].

All reissued on CD by Repertoire (REP 4063-WP, 4122-WZ, 4164-WZ and 4133-WP) 1991.