Pete and the Pulsators/Pete and The Persuaders

Vocalist Pete Taylor continues from his My Story pages ... 

After a couple of months we changed our names to Pete and The Persuaders - a change of name a change of luck.

The line up was Peter Taylor (vocals), Sidney Overett (lead guitar), Brian Valentine (rhythm), Martin Sleater (bass) and Dennis Ashton (drums).

We worked very hard and with lots of practice, auditions, talent comps, and the like, we became very popular in the Manchester area.

We had a chance to audition for the Decca record company which we were all very excited about.

On Friday 23rd August 1963, we had a gig at a pub called The Queens Arms in a small village in Doveholes in Derbyshire.

That same night, The Beatles were appearing about three miles away in Buxton and naturally we expected to be playing to an empty house but this was not the case. 

We had a full house and lots of fun but this was not to last.

We left The Queens at about 12:15am on the 24th August, with a friend of the group at the wheel but we didn’t reach home.

Our van left the road and hit a cottage killing Sid Overett (19yrs old), and Brian Valentine (17yrs old). The rest of the group were seriously injured and hospitalised in the Stockport Infirmary.

The next few months were, at the least, traumatic.

We had, of course, lost our van and most of our stage equipment in the crash and due to help from The Beatles, Danny (Mr Moonriver) Williams, Karl Denver and many other Manchester artists, also many clubs in the area putting on charity shows for us, we were eventually able to reform the group, under the name of Pete Taylor and The New Persuaders with two new members whose surnames I cannot recall, the lead guitarist was Vic and the rhythm was called Peter.

Unfortunately, due to our past experience, I was unable to settle and I was not happy with the sound that we were getting, so I left the group in the middle of 1964 and for the next 18 months or so I didn’t do anything in the entertainment business.