James Henry

I can’t put a precise date on it, but before I left 6th form, I got an electric Les Paul copy from Frank Hessy’s on Stanley Street, opposite Beaver Radio, the favoured haunt of most guitarists in Liverpool. Even at this rarefied level, I was somewhat “green” about guitars and their maintenance – I had continued applying heavy gauge ACOUSTIC strings to the Les Paul and was wondering why I couldn’t bend and wobble them like BB King. I was enlightened by a mate of mine from De La Salle Grammar School called Colin Simpson, who introduced me to light gauge electric strings and the resultant possibilities for wallowing in vibrato. I was yet to be exposed to tremolo arms.

Colin, myself and Peter Walsh (whose Eamonn Andrews impersonation was the work of an unusual talent) formed several bands during our late teens, most notably as The Head Injuries, The Lepers (or The Leopards as we were once introduced) and Len Fangio & The Luxury Coaches. None of them had a drummer. Judging by the names, you’d think we might have been punks, but no – we liked Beatle-ish tunes and guitar solos and spent many Saturdays rehearsing gamely at the Knights of St. Columbus parish hut in Croxteth. I still remember Colin’s face when he once achieved a swirling guitar noise from his Bontempi-level speaker not unlike The Edge being hit over the head with a digitally delayed, chrome spade – pure joy like that doesn’t come along in life too often.

We never sorted out our lack of percussion and I ended up playing drums now and then, once for a recording session at a studio in Davies Street (I think) when we squeezed in 9 songs in 8 hours – my marrow was leaking out at the end of that. I drummed on the same, borrowed kit at the 1982 Bootle Festival which was hugely enjoyable, despite the fact I had to wedge the loose snare drum between my knees, in the middle of negotiating the nifty rhythms of the Simpson/Walsh song “Big Little Girls”. The snare actually fell off and rolled along the stage during another song until it was retrieved by one of “The Tempest”, a band also on the bill led by one Mike Sheerin. Mike was a friend of ours from 6th form, a gifted, Ray Davies-like songwriter signed to Magnet Records in the mid-80′s, with a single given airplay on Radio 1 called “Didn’t We Have A Nice Time?”, produced by Squeeze’s Difford & Tilbrook. I think the label dropped them after a relatively brief period, a terribly short-sighted move. I hope Mike is still making music somewhere.

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