
5. The Dominoes - One Foot In
The Door
Most of you
will know by now my handle is BASSMAN
this came about in a
strange way. The
Blackhawks had reached a crossroads in
1960 and looking back we had gone as far as we could,
time to move on. We were playing as a trio Bernie, Rod
and myself and none of us really liked it then out of the
blue an opportunity came. Across the street lived Bobby Thompson who went
on to fame and fortune with the Rocking Berries, and
at that time was playing bass with Kingsize Taylor and the
Dominoes. One night I met him coming home
and we got talking, Bobby said he had "Jacked Ted in"
(Kingsize) and was joining Rory Storm and the
Hurricanes in a weeks time. Well, Rory and
his band were Big Time so ,who is playing bass for KST and
the Doms I asked? No one, he can't find anyone good enough
was his reply.
Now I've
never been backward at coming forward as my Mother used to say
so, off I marched, banged on Ted's door and said 'Gissa Job'
and his reply was 'You have to filliping good to be in my band
, I am filliping good ,the best Bassman on the planet says I
( the expletives have been altered to be PC correct which
didn't exist in them days! make your own interpretation!
)
One Foot
in the Door
One foot in the door, I was given an audition
the following week. Now ,a couple of small problems - I was a
guitar player and had never played bass in my life and an even
smaller problem was I didn't have a bass but I had a whole week
to sort it. Thank god for my great friend Bernie not only did
he lend me his Dallas bass on long term loan but he gave me a
weeks crash course in bass playing. I stayed up virtually every
night into the wee hours practicing and practicing and
practising my poor mother threatened to take me to the Doctors
she thought I had a screw loose and guess what, she was right!
but ,I got the Job!!! now I was in with the big boys. The Band
consisted of the great Ted
Taylor who has a very powerful voice and he
played lead guitar. My very good friend and buddy
Sam Hardy
(his name has been changed to protect the innocent) who is one
of the best keyboard players and rock singers around,
Dave
Lovelady on Drums who went on to achieve great
fame with the
Fourmost and little old Bassman , boy, could we
ROCK!!!!!

The New Brighton Tower
Ballroom
We played at
all the local venues and topped the bill most of the time we
were even put ahead of the
Beatles on the Cavern. We would
travel to Manchester, Wales and places with strange sounding
names but the biggest gig we did at that time was in May 1962
at the New Brighton Tower
Ballroom. The show was
"Great Balls of
Fire" Starring Jerry Lee Lewis with
twelve supporting bands all well know Liverpool names
like The
Undertakers, Lee Curtis etc. What a
fantastic show it was electric. Packed to the rafters you
couldn't move. It was so tight that Jerry Lee had to
stand on the top off my bass amp cabinet and that was six
foot height.
Note: for the fashion
conscious the
Dominoes now
wore Lilac Jackets with a Gold Domino Embodied on the breast
pocket and KTS a green checked Jacket, boy, could we
colour coordinate!
Next:
The Hamburg
Adventure
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