Born in Mombasa, Kenya Henry showed a keen interest in music at an early age.He was given a mouth organ on his 4th birthday and that was the beginning.His musical influences were obtained via an old radiogram belonging to his Grandparents, together with a collection of Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, and after school visits to the music store where his mother worked, to listen to the latest pop releases of the day. 3 birthdays, 3 mouth organs and a melodica later, he found an old guitar of his uncle’s and loved the sound.‘It was a pig to play’, Henry recalls,
The strings were old and about 2 inches off the fingerboard. Nobody knew about setting up a guitar in those days. You just got used to it.’With no one to teach him but with a wealth of music coming over the radio in the late 50’s, he copied guitar solos and chords.Local bands starting up further fuelled his interest, all looking the same with Brylcremed hair and matching shoes and jackets. In 1960 the family moved to England and settled in Palmers Green, North London where he finished his education at 16 and got a job in an electrical shop.However the family moved to Selhurst in Surrey a few months later and it was there that he bought his first electric guitar and practice amp.‘Thinking back’, says Henry, ‘
The guitar wasn’t all that and neither was the amp, but compared to that old acoustic I felt I was flying’.After a short period of working, he bought a Vox Phantom and joined up with some local lads.He then found a second hand Burns to which the Phantom took second place.Somewhere along the line, every guitar player has to have a Fender.He bought a Strat in ’72; then a Tele and an old ’61 Strat, followed by a ’63 Burns Bison.‘The Bison had a great sound’, Henry recalls, ’but it was heavy and unbalanced.I really wanted a Marvin but could not afford it at that time.’The Fender became his workhorse; the Burns, more of a recording guitar.Over the years, Henry now has nine guitars, 3 of which are Burns since the re-issue of the Marvins.‘My only “sin”’, says Henry, ‘was to have a paint job done on the ’61 Strat and change the pick-ups and tremolo. I’ve probably wiped a couple of grand off it’s value but I’ve got the sound that I want and I’ll never sell it.The Burns on the other hand is a Burns with a unique sound and that is what I’ve used on the album.It was great fun and a great experience making this album.Tributes? Well what can you say? We all had fun. Neville on Bass and baritone; Dave on Drums, Rhythm, Keyboards and a great job on production.And definitely one to Burns UK for producing a superb guitar.
Henry
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Picked older brothers guitar up many times as a kid, but a drum kit or bass guitar looked more interesting, neither arrived but I saw Cliff and Shadows doing "Do you wanna dance" on Thank your lucky stars so decided to ask parents for a guitar. A steel strung Spanish duly arrived, and after many hours of hard practising found I couldn't play a note! But still kept on hearing Shadows, Spotnicks, Cougars tracks and the like from my brother, so I sent away for a guitar course which although didn't teach you to play Rock and roll it did make me practise, and eventually I got the hang of it. My first electric was a Watkins Rapier 22 (still got it) which was my brothers, so I got it when he wanted a Burns. This was much easier to play, even better with banjo strings on the top three, to get all those Jeff Beck type bends, I had no amp so had to use anything I could borrow. I played in a few school bands, and we did do a lot of gigs around Croydon, but this all came to an end when I left school and went to work at Pye recording studios in Marble Arch as a trainee recording engineer. There really was not any time for gigs, as I ended up as second engineer on the now legendary Pye Mobile Recording Unit. But I did do plenty of recording resulting in a couple of single releases for our band at the time"Slowload" on MAM and COLUMBIA records, by this time I had switched to bass, firstly a Hofner Violin, then a Fender Precision (both now gone!) A few more bands came and went over the next few years, until I found myself as guitarist in THE FRUIT EATING BEARS (see www.fruiteatingbears.co.uk if you want to know what that was all about!) resulting in single releases on DJM and LIGHTNING and ALBION (backing Hazel O'Connor) with covers of my songs by THE PIRATES, and LEW LEWIS on STIFF and CUBE that are still being re-released to this day. I always used a 68 Fender Tele for this period, including the next two bands "Flamingo Express" and "The Mice" both these bands had releases on MONARCH and CHARLIE After that I just concentrated on writing, mainly children's television music, although Mike Berry released one we wrote together. Now I play guitar again in the three piece alternate country band "The Midnight Howlers" www.midnighthowlers.co.uk (which although not a instro band ,the title track of our last c.d "Howlin" was in fact one of my instrumentals) as well as writing and playing bass for De Souza, for which Dave Purkis does the recording, and the two of us the production. De Souza is therefore primarily a recording band, although Henry may get a separate gigging band together at some point. There will however be no more recordings, there are just the 15 tracks.
Neville
Dave
Having learnt to play the guitar wanting to be the new Hank Marvin, it wasn’t till I saw Brian Bennett playing live with his silver sparkle Ludwig kit that I then wanted to be a drummer!
After a few lessons at Roger Kerrs drum studio I played with a few different bands around the Croydon area learning the craft myself, and then started to experiment with tape recorders (The faithful Grundigs and Akais) recording myself and the band.
After several attempts at trying to get signed to a record deal, I started to focus more on home recording, as better machines became available at a more affordable cost, till I was able to get a nicely near to home studio. I’m still playing drums with various bands including THE BIG G’S see (www.big-gs.co.uk ) for the latest info, and working on new recording projects
