During my time with The Fourmost we did a nationwide tour with Gerry and The Pacemakers, Cilla Black with her No 1 hit “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and Ben.E.King, who became a very good friend of mine, Sounds Incorporated and others.

One funny incident that I shall always remember - and I am sure Jimmy Tarbuck won’t
mind me telling this story - happened after the show one night. We all went out for an Indian meal and I ended up being the last one to finish. Sounds Incorporated and Jimmy asked if I would pay the bill, so I did. The following day on the coach the members of Sounds Incorporated paid me up readily. When I asked Jimmy for his 7 and 6 he said, “You can sing for it mate!” So I said to him, “You can either pay me or I’ll take it out of your F****** head, it’s your shout”. Jimmy settled up with me no problem saying he was only kidding. He obviously didn’t realise that I was only on £40 a week and not the sort of money the others were getting.

When I finished with The Fourmost I went back to Lancaster and decided to team up again with The Leaders great singer Mel Dean.
 

The Fourmost were a top 10 Liverpool group in the Beatles, Brian Epstein stable. I heard that the group were looking for a lead guitarist due to their man being taken ill. Lucky for me they were due to play on the pier at Morecambe that very evening. I couldn’t miss such an opportunity, so I put my guitar and amp in the car and headed straight for the theatre to catch them in rehearsal.  I arrived and spoke to Jimmy the ‘roady’, who said they had already found someone. I said well I’ve come all this way, let me have a play.  Fortunately for me Jimmy had a word with the band. Brian O’Hara said, “Sorry mate, we already have a lad from Liverpool to fill the spot”. I thought I can’t let this chance slip by me so I pressed the point forward and shouted, “Go on mate give me a go. I’ve come all this way!”. I felt that if they heard me play I would stand a good chance of getting the gig. Brian said reluctantly, “Go on then get your Guitar and lets hear you’.


I got up and played the Chuck Berry number Johnny B Good. They looked at each other and asked me to play another song, then they asked if I could sing. I said yes and then sang to them. They had a little chat and asked me if I could meet their manager Brian Epstein in Liverpool the very next day. Well as incredible as it seems 2 nights later I was playing their top 10 hit “Hello Little Girl” on Top of The Pops. I stayed with the group for the next 9 months until Mike Milward was ready to return.

  

 
 

 

we came down to north London and rented some rooms, We soon formed a group with some musicians and called the group The Profiles, we did gigs around London and the home counties for a few months and became the backing group for Kathy Kirby and Julia Rogers, We managed to get an audition for a recording contract with Jack Batherstock at Pye, which seemed to go very well as he liked all of my songs, unfortunately our manager messed the negotiations and lost us the deal.

I then decided to go and see The Formost on tour, they were on tour with P.J.Proby who was flying high at the time with a number 1 hit in the charts “Somewhere”, Brian heard that P.J was forming The P.J.Proby Orchestra, and would need a guitarist, he said some good things about me to P.J who asked to meet me and arranged for me to attend a rehearsal the following week in Soho London, this was the start of my time P.J.Proby.

 

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