Around that time Johnny asked me to play for him on his instrumental theme for The Moonshot (Footsteps on The Moon), which was the theme music for ITV’s coverage of The Moon landings. Soon after, Johnny started his LP (Movements). I played lead guitar throughout this LP, mostly with a wha fuzz peddle, which I still have today. Johnny loved the sound of it and asked me to use it most of the time.

I have seen the re-release of Movements on CD. I was surprised to discover that Warner Brothers had made a big mistake and credited the Tom Jones previous guitarist with playing on this album. Harold Fisher the drummer on the album rang me and said ‘who the F*** is this guy who has been credited for your work on the Movements LP?’ I told him I was very upset that someone else had stolen my thunder, even though it wasn’t this guitarist’s own fault.

The guitarist credited is very good in his own right; country rock, etc, but he does not play in the same style as me.

 

After finishing with The Squires it was only a few days before I got a call from a fixer (A person who books session musicians) who represented Johnny Harris. That was my first break as a session musician and I was asked to go to a studio in the West End of London. When I got there I didn’t know any of the other musicians but they were all very friendly to me. Later I realised that the bass player was Herbie Flowers, (a top musician). It wasn’t long until I was doing several sessions a week and quite a lot of these were for the MD Johnny Harris who had given me the break. Johnny, like me, had also just finished working for Tom Jones. One of the first recordings I did was a single for Vic Damone (They Called the Wind Mariah). The next week I was in the studio with Petula Clark. Around that time I played on a Demis Roussos record called Rain and Tears. The Fortunes who were riding high at the time was another one I played on (The One drop of rain on your window pane), reached the top ten. Another top 10 was Julie Do You Love Me by White Plains. One of my next sessions was to play guitar with an orchestra backing Petula Clark at The Royal Albert Hall. It was the first colour TV show to be broadcast in this country and we rehearsed and played 27 numbers in 1 day! One time I was booked for 2 all night sessions with Sammy Davis Jr to record his new LP. Sammy came over to me and asked if I would go back to the States with him to back him in Las Vegas - he also asked a couple of the other musicians, Harold and Herbie. At that time we were all very busy so declined the offer. Maybe once again I made the wrong decision, but that’s show business - as they say!

 

 
 

 

When I contacted Warner’s about this they promised me it would be changed on the next pressing but it was never done. This was a hurtful episode personally for me as Movements was a ground breaking LP and my involvement in its creation was a proud moment in my career; believe it or not it also happened again with Shirley Bassey’s Something LP on which I played on every track except the title track. We recorded this in Milan, Italy, as a rhythm section. This time with Tony Campo on bass and Harold Fisher on drums, the strings etc were recorded back in England. Shirley was a tiger to work with but she was very pleased with the final result, one of her best sellers ever! It’s very upsetting to read reports on the internet that the guitarist on the Something album was Chris Spedding, this is totally incorrect.

I was asked to play on The Beatles last album Across The Universe. We recorded this at Abbey Rd studios and the producer was Phil Specter who did his multi-layering of tracks with the live orchestra. There were 2 guitarists, myself and Martin Kershaw. The 2 tracks we played on were The Long and Winding Road and Across The Universe, the title track. This was all played with a full orchestra with Ringo present.

 

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