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In those days, the Mod crowd spent most Sunday mornings standing outside Boots then going to the flicks in the afternoon. We used to come out of the cinema and have a Wimpey burger before heading up to the Mallet for table tennis and pinball followed by a disco - great!
When Spangles left town, several local people filled the gap. Colin Davis and Tony Bell both ran a mobile disco called Right Track. Then there was Dick Impey with his Twine Time disco. Dick was resident at The Isaac Newton in Castle Hill, which was every bit as legendary as The Mallet at the time.
Dick spent a lot of money on records and this was the new era of the American records being played at the big mod clubs like The Twisted Wheel in Manchester. There was a guy called Fred Moore who really latched onto the American import thing and records like Back Street, Nothing Worse Than Being Alone, Don’t Be Sore At Me were becoming really popular.
This nice photo postcard came from Russ Smith when he was in California sometime in 1975 >
Right 1969 - Dick Impey
disappears for a spell at her majesty‘s pleasure, there’s a whole story there,
but I won’t get into that, or we’ll be here all night.
We weren’t DJ’s, just youngsters with a few records
I took over his place at The Isaac together with Steve Foulger. We weren’t DJ’s, just youngsters with a few records. The mod scene was decaying into seventies with satin jackets and bell-bottoms, and the soul thing waned a bit. We started going to the White Lion in Sawston on Thursdays and another great venue - the commemoration hall in Shelford on Sundays.
British music was shite in the seventies with Gary Glitter, Showaddywaddy and Slade etc. Fortunately, folks like Tony Dellar, Glenn Bellamy and Alan Day, all had the initiative to set up proper discos dedicated to soul crowds.
Tony was on a roll at the
Fox in Bar Hill on Sundays and he got talking to Dennis Maxted about
reactivating the Mallet. I started DJ’ing properly with Tony at Whittlesford
village hall - that was great, absolutely packed with dancing competitions and
the whole thing.
Right, back to The Howard Mallet. I remember a super good night was Johnny Johnson and The Bandwagon who had a hit with Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache in 1969. They appeared on a sort of central stage and us all around them. I don’t know how they did it with power cables and microphone leads etc. but it was great.
The Mallet was running more or less parallel with Wigan during 1973 - 1979. We had John Manship, Colin Curtis, Keith Minshull even Martin Coppel came down one night.
In this picture taken at Blackpool Mecca, left is my mate Kevin Mader, and right is Blues and Soul columnist Frank Elson, we were so hairy urgh>
You mentioned Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon, how about other favourite bands you saw back then?
The first ones were The
Tymes at The Dorothy and James and Bobby Purify in Peterborough. Jimmy James and
The Vagabonds at Skegness together with Inez and Charlie Fox - now, they took
some beating!
What about Motown acts?
Jnr Walker & The All Stars were superb, I must have seen them a dozen times or more, but for me Gladys Knight & The Pips at The London Palladium were the best Motown act ever. There was also The California Ballroom in Dunstable where Marv Johnson, Edwin Starr, Jimmy Ruffin and Ben E King amongst others appeared.
Above is me and Tony Rounce with LJ Reynolds at Southport in 1996
I remember going to see the Stax/Volt tour in Birmingham. On the bill were The Markeys, Joe Tex, Carla Thomas and Sam & Dave. After that we all went up to a club called Rebecca’s and saw the Showstoppers, what a night!
There were loads of acts at The Torch and Major Lance although not brilliant musically was an amazing event, It seemed like everyone was there, oh and Arthur Connely he was great too.
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