Hartlepool musician Jimmy McKenna has over 50 years in the business and in that time has released 14 albums. In the first part he looks into his musical memory box and digs out stories about auditioning for White Spirit, playing for Hell’s Angels, and does he still listen to Cliff Richard?  Read on….

The legend in our family is that my Dad went out to buy a washing machine and came back with a radiogram. As a small child I would play all the family records, A and B sides, digesting the labels as to who wrote the songs etc.

The radiogram did really well up until 1970 when it struggled trying to play my Deep Purple in Rock LP – it jumped all the time – by that time stereo was the big thing.

Jimmy was a child of the 50’s and his home was full of the top musicals of the day, Carousel, South Pacific, Carmen Jones, West Side Story, as well as current pop songs.

My all-time favourite was The Wanderer by Dion. My first love was Cliff Richard and I remember arguing in school with older kids who were trying to tell me that Elvis was better than Cliff – I just wouldn’t have it. Mam and Dad dutifully bought me all the early Cliff singles. Then of course came the Beatles, writing their own songs, the Merseybeat explosion and all that followed.

Jimmy’s big present for Christmas 1967 was a Magnus chord organ – a small keyboard with buttons to play chords.

I wanted to play the big hit of the time A Whiter Shade of Pale, but instead learned to play Silent Night and Londonderry Air. By now I was making up tunes in my head, including putting a couple to poems I found in a book about the 1745 Scottish rebellion!

By the time I was 14 my friends and I all received our first guitars, and suddenly we were a group. Within weeks we went from being The String Vest to Black Canyon to Iron Cross and later as pretentious 17 year olds we became Hansard. Also, within weeks I was relegated to bass as I was the last to master that pesky F chord.

As Iron Cross we played our one gig at a Boys and Girls Brigade party, performing My Generation and easy bits from ‘Live at Leeds’ when I was suddenly promoted to lead singer. My sister Margaret had been knitting a quilted bed spread, but converted it into a Roger Daltrey type coat for me!

After appreciating other people’s music, Jimmy started spending time writing his own songs.

We had a piano at home on which I spent hours doodling and making up quasi classical tunes, not even understanding what key I was playing – most of these have still to be completed/recorded, but they are on the list.

My friends and I were also diverging in our tastes, I discovered the ambitious music of Van der Graaf Generator and Peter Hammill. When I later heard the Sex Pistols I noted that a rock group had a singer with the same passion in his voice as Peter Hammill. I later learned that John Lydon was a Hammill fan also.

I then connected with Peter Scott of Hartlepool – not to be confused with Newcastle folk songwriter Pete Scott or that bloke who went to the Antarctic. Peter was an intuitive and aggressive guitar player. He was impressed that I was writing songs which encouraged him.  

Our first club group was Silver and our singer was Geoff Grange who would later sing, blow harmonica and record for Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings and Thomas Dolby.

After a gig one cold night the van’s windscreen was completely frozen over and our roadie Peter ‘Dock’ Oliver had the perfect solution and stood on top of the van to pee over the windscreen. It worked well.

By 1975 Jimmy had an electric piano…Still only able to play my little quasi classical tunes, but I answered an advert for keyboard player for local rockers White Spirit. I blew it as soon as I got into their van, when I exclaimed that they were a bit young. I was 19 and they were just 17. After extensive jamming on the main riff of Jethro Tull’s Locomotive Breath their manager Sandy gave me the ‘we’ll let me know’ speech.

So back to bass guitar, around 1975/76 Peter Scott began backing popular Country and Western singer Mick Layton. There was a nightclub gig in Scarborough, the manager was desperate. A group of Hells Angels had arrived for a weekend of fun but it had rained nonstop and their weekend had fallen flat.

The manager was worried they would take their disappointment out on his premises so he begged us to do what we could to entertain them. This was Peter’s cue to turn up his guitar and we spent two hours doing extended Status Quo, Jimi Hendrix and Chuck Berry songs. At the end the biker lads were on their knees giving us the ‘we are not worthy’ hails and everyone went home happy.

At this gig Peter did a little trick with his wah-wah pedal, placing his guitar against his amp to make it feedback, then balancing one foot on his wah-wah to change the notes of the feedback  – noisy but dead good. This was while we were playing Ghost Riders in the Sky.

The Mick Layton Trio would often get booked into cowboy clubs…

I remember the audience all dressed up with names like Diamond Lil and Big Jim Bowie. It would get hectic when in moments of excitement they would start firing their pretend guns.

We once had a polite gig in a posh Newcastle Hotel. The manager came up to us at half time, a little excited. Cliff Richard was performing one of his Gospel Shows that night, and was staying at the hotel. The manager said he would ask Cliff on his return if he would sing a couple of songs with us – we had already played Apache.

Unfortunately, Cliff was a little tired and just wanted a nice cup of tea, so declined the invitation. Then Summer ‘76 we heard The Ramones and everything changed.

Next up read part two of Jimmy’s story including his close brush with fame with punky pop group DisGuise opening for AC/DC, Glen Matlock and The Rick Kids, and on the bill at the Newcastle Bedrock Festival with White Heat.

Alikivi   June 2024