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Brian Sharpe, Isle of Wight guitar hero

by Johnny Bull
May 14th, 2009

Brian Sharpe, the badly drawn boy in the picture, was a guitar hero in our local band in the Isle of Wight when I first saw them in the summer of 1966. They were called The Cherokees and every Saturday night they rocked hard and tight as two coats of paint at a club called The 69 in a place called Lake, near Sandown.

They played the current hits, like most local bands they stuck to covers; but The Cherokees by this time had been gigging every week for years (they were all about 22 in 1966) and by Saturday night you knew that they would have all the decent stuff down that had come out in the last few days. Plus their amazing selection of favourites – crowd pleasers, all – from Chuck Berry to Graham Bond, they could play rhythm and blues and country. They could do harmonies. The Beatles and The Beach Boys presented no threat, just more classy material.

The atmosphere was so good that down all my years of going to gigs – they gave an everlasting craving for the real, live, thing – those evenings of teenage mayhem still stand out as a kind of musical perfection. (Anthony Minghella must have seen them too; there’s no more accurate evocation of a sweaty night in Lake than that 50s Italian Jazz Club in The Talented Mr Ripley, where Dickie Greenleaf and Tom tear up the place with Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’Americano.)

This small club fun was not revisited until Nick Lowe and Brinsley Schwarz decided to add to the small number of pared-down-to-the-basics rock and roll bands starting to play London pubs in 1973.

Pub Rock was, like punk a few years later, an attempt to play live music at small venues because since the late 60s rock and roll had become a bloated, sequined, and barring Roxy Music, a distinctly humourless beast.

Perhaps most of the audiences at The Hope and Anchor or Dingwalls in 1973 had come from places like Ryde or Sandown; they’d had fun dancing to The Jades in Wrexham, or The Invaders in Southsea…

Surrendering to the rhythm of The Brinsleys, you’d think, this is great, this is just like The Cherokees in 1966.

The Brinsleys were that good.

I think it’s only just occurred to me that Nick Lowe, (who became a good-natured Godfather to punk), in looks and manner probably reminded me of Brian Sharpe. They both were never too cool to laugh or chat to the audience; they were on stage to play, to get you to dance and enjoy the night as if it were your last. You were always in good hands.

So, every Saturday, the very excellent (as John Peel liked to say) Cherokees: Brian, Graham Betchley, rhythm guitarist and lead singer who died a few years back but lives on brightly in my frequent, effortless reconstructions; Crann, whose hairstyle prefigured Clapton’s perm and played bass guitar, a huge Gretsch. Ken Young the solid, impeccable driver, played a Ludwig kit, like Ringo. Like Ginger.

As a fairly serious teenage music fan, one look at the stage tells you that you roughly what to expect; The Cherokees’ gear was all quality label: Gretsch, Ludwig, Vox amps. Like The Beatles. It was such a relief, none of those ersatz surf guitars with more knobs and sliders than The Tardis, and amps and speakers housed in plywood.
Someone’s dad mending a fuse. Smoking a pipe. Talking to the vicar.

This was going to be good, I thought, as the crowd welled towards the stage and four annoyingly handsome musicians took their places.

A tap on the snare, a buzz of (pleasurably loud) feedback, a joke, a last swig of beer for Crann, Brian up to the mike, and from just behind me, a hoarse but loud “Prickle!” (Brian’s knickname, apparently…)

Then after a count of four on the sticks – bang – the start of my life with live music.

What a great memory.

Comments (7)

Ah, takes me back to the good old days at the Oasis in Manchester packed to the (pretty low) rafters for the Hollies, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Graham Gouldman and the Mockingbirds – all local lads, but also out-of-towners like the Animals. It cost four shillings to get in, I think. Then there was the Cavern – not as iconic as its Liverpool cousin, but here were the Kinks, the Merseybeats, and Dave “the Rave” Lee Travis as resident dj – or the Top 20 at Belle Vue, hosted by, as it happens, J Savile himself. Here you got, ok, the Honeycombs, but also the Rolling Stones, back in 1964 when you could get near the stage without being assassinated by a Hell’s Angel. We shd have had PJ Proby, but he chickened out with laryngitis.

Posted by Disaster Historian • 15 May 2009, 12:39

The Honeycombs! Actually too much delving into the early 60s does unearth some weird stuff… Remember The Applejacks? Honey Langtree was it in the Honeycombs? Bit of a bouffant as I remember. Did they kick ass live? Were you in the mosh pit?

Lovely post, as usual DH!

The Hollies, by all accounts were incredible; Dave Crosby saw them in LA in 66 or 67 and was blown away, but not too blown away to forget Graham Nash’s phone number…

Posted by Johnny Bull • 15 May 2009, 13:47

Of course, much as I love these reminiscences, there is a danger in all of this. “When I were a lad, there were proper music in every pub on every street corner; before old king come t’throne and tha could buy Hovis on every cobbled street corner.”

Johnny’s right though, there’s nothing like the unexpected bonus of real, tight, gutsy rock played in a place where you least expect it, especially when you’re seventeen and every high is felt more keenly that it ever will again. For me – apart from a season of staggering Graham Bond gigs in the refectory at Ewell Tech in ’65 – it has to be the unalloyed delight of seeing the Paul Butterfield Blues band at the Ram Jam club in Brixton (I dunno, ’67?) in front of a paltry twenty or so spotty white boys, all of whom (me included) thought that Mike Bloomfield was God, never mind what they said about Clapton.

But, all that having been said, we probably look back with fondness to then, in part because we don’t get out enough now…

Posted by Paul Rodger • 15 May 2009, 22:05

Actually I wasn’t a live music virgin in 66, I had in an audience or two but mostly with bands that were definitely in the home-made guitar league (I never liked that horrible Brian May creation; Queen to me were a super-loud youth club group, really. Well, up to a point.) I definitely envy your grooving to Graham Bond. That was exactly where I wanted to be, Wardour Street, The Marquee, The Flamingo. Do you remember Bill Harrap saying how he loved Train Time with Jack Bruce’s veins standing out of his neck…?

The Cherokees always got a good sound, though. Nice, noisy and well-balanced. Way before monitors and a smug bloke at a mixing desk, right where you wanted to stand...

Brian Sharpe told me once that he saw Jack’s bass amp catch fire. The same evening Ginger was sick on his foot. Those were the days eh? (at least I think it was Brian. Might have been something I read)

Posted by Johnny Bull • 18 May 2009, 12:02

The only thing I remember about the Honeycombs gig was that I got the authographs of two of the band – though not alas of the delectable Honey Langtree. Ah, the Applejacks – “Tell Me When”. They had a girl bass player – don’t remember her name, but it’s probably readily available on Wikipedia, eliminating any minor kudos one might have extracted from retaining such info.
The Hollies and the Animals were terrific – though I could never quite get used to the idea of little Graham Nash from Stockport swanning around the fabled land of California, having Joni Mitchell fall in love with him etc.
btw JB – have you noticed how many of your posts seem to prompt thoughts of Jimmy Savile? – perhaps you shd nip this trend in the bud before it’s too late

Posted by Disaster Historian • 20 May 2009, 14:52

Don’t worry, DH, I’ll fix it…

Posted by Johnny Bull • 21 May 2009, 09:08

As an Isle of Wighter growing up in the 1960`s I first saw the Cherokees at the Ventnor Winter Gardens , I think it was Christmas 1964 , I had just received my Territorial Army annual Bounty (£12.00) and we decided to go to the dance. From that night on I was locked into the Islands music scene , Shanklin Pier ( a haunt of Rockers ) , The Manor House Lake home of the Midnight Creepers , The Hotel Ryde Castle, The Ryde Pavilion, The Oasis, The Seagull Ballroom on Ryde Pier, The Royal York Hotel everyone a great night out. Of course as a teenager we had to run the risk of being duffed up by bouncers justifying their job , although I knew many of them from the TA so I was relatively safe. My main memories revolve around getting through the week as an apprentice scraping enough money together to get to see the Cherokees , I am convinced that Graham Betchley was one of the greatest vocalist I have ever heard, a really modest decent professional who had time for everyone, I am pleased to say I knew him, Graham, Brian , Cran and Ken got me through those days and made my teens a great time to live in, Saturday night early tea, wash shave ( sort of) get into my only suit , borrow dads A35 , pick up my mates and get to the 69 Club, drink at the bar , pull a girl have a dance , if it didn`t work out back to the bar aond so onuntil we cracked it , maybe go out with a girl for a few weeks and on to another magic days.

Posted by Jim Groves • 15 September 2009, 20:19