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I played here every Thursday night in 1962/63 with the Pete Marsh Trio. Every other night of the week they were the Pete Marsh Duo, I was added on Thursdays because that was 'Dancing Night'. The other two guys were Pete Marsh on organ (the same Pete Marsh that Dave Bowker played with in Beirut?) and Mal Riddell on Drums.
Mal was the youngest and was a great drummer in spite of only having one leg! He was a good mate of mine who got me the gig in the first place. I heard that he died quite young, I think in South Africa where he'd been playing at Sun City.
The Palace was a converted cinema and owned by Sid Elgar who also owned the Southern Sporting Club and the Sale Theatre Club. When I first played there the compere was Johnny More a very versatile singer/comedian/impressionist who later appeared on TV on 'Who Do You Do?'. I recently heard that he was now working the cruise ships. He was a really nice guy with a Sinatra style voice.
Johnny left when the club in Sale burnt down and Kevin Kent the compere from Sale was moved over to Offerton. Kevin had been a member of the 'Keynotes' a vocal group that had been very successful in the 40's and 50's. He was a top class act and technically brilliant. He went on to be vocal MD at ABC television where he had a girl called Elkie Brooks in his singing group. He became Elkie's manager. I last heard of Kevin singing with the Syd Lawrence orchestra, a gig that would suit him right down to the ground.
Kevin, the ultimate professional, understandably had a very poor opinion of my guitar playing and he made no bones about it. By the time that I finished at Offerton, my skin had considerably increased in thickness. Luckily for me, the Manager of the Palace was a former professional wrestler, Mike Sullivan, who had a broken nose and cauliflower ears which had obviously rendered him tone deaf.
One of the great things about the gig was the cabaret. While I was there we had acts like Gene Vincent (one of my all time heroes), the Springfields with Dusty herself, Nat Gonella (one of my jazz heroes and a personal friend of Satchmo's) and the amazing Wee Willie Harris. Wee Willie was a total loonie (and probably still is) who brought his own band which always included a top jazz drummer.
I was there when the Beatles and the Mersey thing took off. Amazingly, Brian Epstein honoured a pre Beatles success contract that he had with Sid Elgar and put the Beatles in, and later Gerry and the Pacemakers, for peanuts. I don't know how well the Beatles played that night, you couldn't hear them for the screaming. They came and had a pee in the one and only backstage wash basin which was in the bandroom; I should have bottled it, I could have been rich now. Paul McCartney was very complimentary about my brand new Guild guitar, I expect that he still remembers the incident.
We also had our share of the 'Where Are They Nows?' (who gives a ****?), such as the 'Batchelors', who borrowed Mal's drums for a week and gave him 2/6d (12.5p) at the end of the week by way of rental, and Craig Douglas.
Craig brought his own pianist with him and on the first evening, Craig, piano player, Pete and Mal were all on stage. Pete was chewing gum. Craig whispers to piano player and piano player indicates to Pete that Craig wants him to take out the gum whereupon Pete slams down organ lid and walks off stage.
Craig had to do without the organ all week, the moral being you upset the musicians only at your own peril. Pete Crooks
23/3/09
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