BEAZERS, THE

LVox, Gtr: Chris Farlowe aka John Henry Deighton

Gtr: Albert Lee or Joe Morretti

Keys: Dave Greenslade

Bs: Ricky Charman or Tex Makins

Drums: Johnny Wise or Jimmie Nicholl

 

We have included this band for exploratory reasons. Much of the research below comes from third-party sources and not from the Archive. We first found this Ipswich listed band in Vernon Joynson’s, Tapestry Of Delights with further mentions in Bruce Welsh’s, What About Us? and many other publications. All the authors have a different take on the band but do have one fact in common and that is their one-off release was the idea of musician, composer and producer Cyril Stapleton (1914-1974), who came up with launching a Blue Beat style band based on the growing trend for Jamaican Blues in 1964. However, a brief search through the IES and EADT did not produce any reference to this band being local or reveal any pattern of local gigs around the 1964 period. You could add to this that none of the well-known members appears to have Suffolk roots, including Beatles stand-in drummer Nichol. Bands have been known to decamp in the region after a spell abroad with Harwich being the main port and this may be the unconfirmed case here. Has anyone got any concrete details we can add to clear this up?

 

Discography:

7” Blue Beat b/w I Wanna Shout

Decca Records F11827 released 31/01/64

 

Bibliography: Tapestry Of Delights (EE) VJ / What About Us BW 

The History of British Rock 'n' Roll: The Beat Boom 1963-1966 RB

 

Trivia: Cyril Stapleton signed Norwich’s Precious Few to Pye Records, who then record the UK version of Young Girl for the label in 1967.