Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Johhny, Mike & The Shades : News at last!


In October last year, I posted on this blog about Johnny, Mike & The Shades, a group that I was connected with when Johnny Cannon and Mike Wayne (aka Johnny Symonds & Mike Long) sang with The Ray Stevens Combo in Bath during the early 1960's. As well as wandering down Memory Lane, I was appealing for any news about the group to fill in the missing years, and a few days ago I had an email from Derek Bray, who knew the group and whose old friend, Mike Price, played with the original Ray Stevens Combo. Derek contacted me to advise that he had a tape of the boys which he found when going through some old tapes belonging to his mother, and he is going to send me a copy burned to a CD. The recording was from the Saturday Club in 1965, and includes the song Poison Ivy.

I've posted a new picture that I received from Noel Lawrence, who was the bass guitarist with the group until he left in 1964 to get married. Following my original post, Noel contacted me and shared what information he had about his time with the group. The photo was published originally on June 12th 1964 in a music scene paper called Western Scene.

I'm looking forward to receiving the Cd and once I have listened to it I'll blog about it once more to let you know what I think! In the meantime, I'm still looking for any news about the group, especially about Johnny or Mike, so if you have any you can email with it by going via this link.

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