First Time I Met The Blues - The Shakedown Sound:

Jess was now sixteen.

Up the road from where I lived there was another young lad who I'd spotted playing guitar in his front room and I'd also seen him about the town.

He wore sharp suits, Cuban-heel boots and there was a touch of back-combing about his hair.

Kevyn Gammond and I introduced ourselves.

He had a group called 'Shakedown Sounds' (I thought, cool name!) and he told me that they played Blues Music.

The birth of The Shakedown Sound can be traced back to another two local outfits – The Sunsetters and The Zodiacs.

Kevyn Gammond and Sean Jenkins were both members of the former and were asked by Colin Youngjohns (of the latter) to join The Zodiacs.

One gig later (at Brinton’s Club) and Gammond and Jenkins decided that The Zodiacs were too mainstream and not a musical path which they wanted to tread. Leaving their previous singer (Alfie Knott) to his own devices and, together with Bill Davies, they took the name The Shakedown Sound. And began playing a mix of blues tinged rock ‘n’ roll, however, they were still short of a suitable singer.

One show in London’s Soho (at the notorious 2 I’s Coffee Bar) and Davies left to be replaced by John Pasternak.

Notorious indeed it was; the 2 I's was situated in the basement of 59 Old Compton Street and owned by a onetime Australian wrestler, Paul Lincoln and numbered amongst its doormen a certain Peter Grant - later to find fame and a not inconsiderable fortune with Led Zeppelin wherein his managerial 'do not mess with my boys' attitude was a direct throwback to his days as the club's bouncer.

The 2 I's reputation was considerable - a number of 'stars' were 'discovered' there, among which Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard while the likes of Ritchie Blackmore, Joe Brown and Screaming Lord Sutch played there regularly until the 2 I's closed its doors in 1967.

Kevyn gave me a copy of an album called 'Festival of the Blues' or somesuch – I do remember it was on the Pye International label and featured several artists. In fact, thinking about it, I can remember most of the tracks like it was yesterday.

There was Smokestack Lightnin’ by Howlin’ Wolf… Muddy Waters’ Got My Mojo Working… Reconsider Baby by Lowell Fulson… Bo Diddley’s Road Runner and…First Time I Met The Blues by Buddy Guy.

Kevyn said that he thought Buddy was a fantastic singer and if I wanted to learn the song and could sing like him, I could be in the Shakedown Sound.

I learned the song and… I was hooked!

In fact, Jess learned the entire album and, as with all good samplers, began to investigate the recorded works of every artist on the album and, from them, to other artists playing similar music.

I went down to see a show they were doing at The Ritz in Kings Heath near Birmingham, sang that song and… joined up. Simple as that really.

And thus the line-up behind Jess became: Kevyn Gammond (lead guitar); John Pasternak (guitar); Sean Jenkins (drums); Pete Waldron (Bass).

I replaced Billy Davies and Pete Waldron left the band when we turned 'professional' (surely a misnomer – high school girls used to fund our espresso and sarnies in the local coffee bars).

Johnny P switched to bass and Sean's dad signed as security for all the new equipment we bought (a huge-great bank of 4 x 12s).

The Shakedown Sound, almost overnight, started to become a pretty busy group – playing halls in the local area as well as clubs and dance halls in and around Birmingham including The Elbow Room, a club frequented by Messrs Winwood, Wood and Capaldi – later on to form the nucleus of Traffic.

They often also played The Whisky-aGo-Go, backing or supporting a wide variety of Blues legends such as Little Walter, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, T-Bone Walker and Buddy Guy himself.

As the strong following for R&B developed, so did the first All-Nighters come to be.

On some Saturday nights, we would start off in Worcester at the Co-op Halls, then drive over to Handsworth on the outskirts of Birmingham for a set at The Plaza and finally, tip up at The Whisky (it was on three floors over a clothes shop) in Birmingham City Centre for the all-nighter.

And so… On and on we carried, delivering our brand of blues, R&B and outright, ear-splitting noise to Mods and Movers as moderately North as Hull and as partially South as London.

The Shakedown Sound rapidly found themselves allied to a London Agency (Malcolm Rose) and began to play the in-vogue-at-the-time round of package tours; one memorable show being bottom of the bill in Great Yarmouth to The Rolling Stones, The Walker Brothers, Lulu and the Luvvers and Jagger’s main-squeeze herself, Marianne Faithfull - July 25th, an auspicious date in that it was three days after the band were up in front of the beak for the notorious 'peeing in public' incident - about which Keith Richard said, at the time: "The thing with Bill is - and this is one of the best kept secrets in the Rolling Stones - that he has probably got one of the biggest bladders in human existence. When that guy gets out of a car to take a pee you know you aren't going to move for 15 minutes. I mean it's not the first time it happened to him. To my knowledge, Bill has never done one in under 5 minutes". A day later and The Stones would meet Allen Klein for the very first time... but, we digress...

By now, The Shakes' set was starting to include early soul as much as it was R&B and a Mod following grew apace; besides their club shows – such as The Gaff in Banbury and the Ricky Tick Club in Windsor – they were also out supporting The Who and The Small Faces.

We had a Bedford van. It was dark green and covered in lipstick scrawl. I don't recall ever staying in a Hotel. We would either ask to kip down at the venue or drive to a lay-by and once, a beach in Wales. Heck, you could drive and park a vehicle almost anywhere in those days.

As 1965 turned into the year of World Cup Willie (1966) – and not long after another support show in Birmingham at The Silver Blades, the winds of change blew once again for Jess.

One ‘phone call and a return-ticket rail journey to Slough later, he quit the band to move to London and work with Alan Bown.

With The Shakedown Sound in melt-down, Kevyn moved on to join Cliff Ward’s Cruisers before hooking up with yet another local outfit who specialized in this localized form of personnel-merry-go-round; Lee Starr and The Astrals.

In December 1966, they travelled to London to audition as Jimmy Cliff’s backing band for projected European and British dates. The line-up (at this point) was Sean Jenkins (drums), Jon Best – aka Lee Starr (bass), Kevyn Gammond (guitar) and Verden Allen (organ).

And, this was the next line-up that claimed the name The Shakedown Sound.

Later still, Mick Ralphs would fill the guitarist’s slot as Kevyn moved on to join Robert Plant in The Band Of Joy.

Ultimately, Dale Griffin took over the drum stool as Sean Jenkins joined Welsh band Eyes Of Blue but, The Shakedown Sound’s days were finally over when Ralphs, Allen and Griffin relocated back to Hereford to re-unite with Pete Watts (originally in a band called the Doc Thomas Group alongside Mick Ralphs) and, together with Stan Tippins, became the basis of Mott The Hoople.

Mick Ralphs, ultimately quit Mott The Hoople and co-founded Bad Company with former members of Free, Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke together with the late Boz Burrell, formerly of King Crimson.

And Kevyn and John Pasternak... their respective musical paths and Jess’ would cross again in the not too distant future.