Pre-1974 - Key Dates/Events

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Pre-1974 - Key Dates/Events

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1952 A 14 year old Jet Black plays drums for "The Omega Dance Orchestra". They release an EP limited to 50 copies. Tracks are "In The Mood" and "Apple Honey"

1964 - Hugh is at school with Richard Thompson. Hugh learns to play bass and forms "Emil & The Detectives" with Richard.

9th May 64 both Hugh and Richard see Chuck Berry support with The Animals, The Nashville Teens, Swinging Blue Jeans @ Finsbury Park

"In 1964 Hugh Cornwell joined his school band. It wasn’t just any band. It was the band formed by Richard Thompson who would go on to form Fairport Convention. The then 15-year-old, Hugh Cornwell posed with his Beatles style Hofner violin bass for the photo with the band called Emil and The Detectives."
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"We used to do rhythm and blues, SmokeStack Lightning, the odd Chuck Berry song. We did Tobacco Road which we loved playing......we weren't writing songs so it was just play the songs that you love. It was a great learning process. I played bass then

We used top play regularly at Hornsea Art College because Richard's sister was the social secretary so she used to get us support slots and gigs within our own right to student parties etc. We played a gig once on a boat at Eel Pie Island once which was something she'd arranged". - Hugh 2024

’I remember getting the violin bass guitar I’m holding here, I was about 15 and had saved up £50 for it. Before then I’d been playing a homemade version with a neck the thickness of a plank of wood. Richard Thompson (on the far right) suggested I learn to play bass because he was forming Emil and the Detectives (the band in the picture) and he needed a bass player, so he taught me. We were good friends from school and we played each other music that we had discovered, like the Rolling Stones and the Who. Richard’s older sister, Perri, who was the social secretary at the Hornsey College of Art in north London, would book us to play parties and pay us £30 per gig. Our biggest claim to fame was supporting Helen Shapiro at the Ionic cinema in Golders Green. But after we took our O-level [exams] we lost touch. The next I heard he was the lead guitarist in Fairport Convention and I didn’t see him again until we both played a festival in Madrid in 2008’

JJ moves to Godalming in 1964 when he was about 12. His father Roger E C Burnel ran the "The Little Thatch" restaurant in Meadrow, Farncombe from 1967-70. https://www.guildford-dragon.com/2013/0 ... his-no-51/
JJ worked in the restaurant every weekend from the age of 14. He went to school at Royal Grammar, Guildford until 1969.


1966 Hugh in 2024.... "A little bit later I discovered the Marquee. It was small so you were real close to your idols. I saw The Who just before they broke. I saw the Yardbirds regularly......The Mark Leeman 5.....Graham Bond Organisation....Spencer Davis round the time of Keep on Running. One time when the Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck" https://londonrockwalks.com/jeff-beck-e ... yardbirds/

Hugh attends Bristol University. Hugh occasionally busks in Bristol and sometimes busks at a friends restaurant owned by his friend Keith Floyd.

Late 60s - Hugh goes to Lund University, Sweden to Study (degree in Biochemistry)
Forms the band Johnny Sox. Swedish nurse Hans Warmling, Gryth Godwin and Chicago Mike (both draft dodgers). Jan Knutsson on bass
"Johnny Soc were very, very fast rockability, very fast. Two and a half minute songs with lyrics about riding on freight trains and sweet little sisters. High energy rock n roll"

1968/69 JJ attends Gin Mill Blues Club Godalming regularly (Sunday evenings) where he sees Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac.
9th March 1969 - Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac play Gin Mill Blues Club Godalming. JJ is in attendance.
15th April 1969 JJ sees Duster Bennett at Angel Inn, Godalming, England

1972
Hugh attends Frank Zappa concert in Copenhagen
Hugh attends Bowie concert on the Ziggy Stardust tour at Finsbury Park Astoria (either August or 23rd/24th December)


Feb 1973 - 24 year old Dave Greenfield joins the band Rusty Butler
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22nd April 73 - Rusty Butler's first gig Elm Grove Church Hall, Brighton
Dave goes on to play many gigs with Rusty Butler until April 1974 when he joins the Stranglers.

Late 1973 - Hugh convinces bandmates that if they are to succeed they need to move to London. They go to London and squatted in Camden Town, Maitland Park Road.

1974 - Hugh returns to the UK (see 1974 page)
"Chicago Mike decided he wanted out of Johnny Sox so suddenly we had no drummer. We advertised and Jet Black turned up at the squat with a Beatles hair cut, suit and beard. He said, 'Come on boys, come live in my off licence in Guildford. We can rehearse there"
1974 Hugh writes his first song Rosemary Alley " which is a street in Guildford, this little alleyway down by the river near where the Stranglers were holed up writing and preparing to go out and play. So I wrote this song called ‘Rosemary Alley’ all about this street. It was a pretty good song, but it never got recorded. Never got played really."

"Then there was me, Jet and JJ and we rehearsed for months and months and months, We were a power trio for a while and we did some gigs like that."

"First gig in the Stranglers? A youth club in Guildford that probably isn't there anymore" - Hugh 2024.


To add to this page please discuss here https://www.themeninblack.co.uk/forums/ ... 19&t=23673
"I bathed in sun and walked in rain
It taught me how to laugh again"
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