John’s Story
I’d been playing in local groups throughout the sixties, I’d been working the national, and occasionally international cabaret circuit throughout the seventies and in the eighties I was still travelling around what was left of the cabaret circuit and the northern clubs when I was approached by a band to help them out. Their singer had just left to join a band in London and they needed someone who could play guitar, play bass and do all the lead vocals. That group later became “The Spivs” and we all had a fantastic time being (almost) pop stars for a while. A few years, a couple of records and no hits later it was back to the club circuit to make some money to keep the fridge full and pay for the occasional beer voucher.
One of my dearest friends from my days in the band was, and still is, a then “rival” group member called Pete Jackson – a great singer and frontman and one of the nicest blokes you could ever meet. We stayed in touch after our respective bands had split up and we got together for a few pints and a few songs whenever we could. One day he telephoned me to tell me he’d got a theatre gig coming up and he didn’t have a band – and it was in two weeks time! We got a scratch band together, went into rehearsal and, in the time-honoured showbiz tradition it was “all right on the night”. In fact, it was better than that – it was a brilliant night – it sold out twice and we had to arrange a matinee show - and Pete Jackson was, quite rightly, the undisputed star of both shows.
That night was at the Oldham Coliseum Theatre and the show was a “The WOW Show”, a live get-together for the fans and friends of the Radio Manchester hit show “WOW”, presented by and starring Jimmy Wagg and Eamonn O’Neal. I gratefully accepted their invitation to help out at future shows and I’m proud to say that I’ve appeared on every WOW show since then.
Anyway, Jimmy and Eamonn asked me if I could get Paul Rafferty to perform at one of our WOW shows. Everybody in Manchester knew about Paul from his days at Piccadilly Radio and I knew about him because when I was recording for a little company called “Splash Records” (you won’t have heard of them), Paul was recording for a bigger company called “EMI” (you will have heard of them). As well as that, we were both with the same agency at the time. Paul appeared on our show at New Mills Theatre and absolutely stole the show with his note-perfect vocals and, on that occasion, self-accompaniment on piano. Despite his commitments to his massive and varied work schedule, he’s been on every show since.
It was just a natural progression for me and Paul to roll up all our experience into a new experience and it was just as natural for the whole thing to become “The WOW Band”. Every time that we play, whether it’s at a theatre, club, corporate event, festival or private party, we always have a great time and we do our best to make sure that our audience have just as good a time.
