Article by Michael 'Chips' Raftery. MT 38 June 2000

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I was learning to play the guitar through the 'folk boom' of the mid-Sixties. My heroes were Dylan, Donovan, Paul Simon, Bert Jansch, Jake Thackray, Peter Paul & Mary (she was a heroine of course) and the Incredible String Band. I learned finger-style before I could do barre chords.

I was playing things like Needle of Death, Anji, Don't Think Twice It's Alright and 59th Street Bridge Song, before I could do a simple rock n roll 12 bar riff, although I'd been listening to rock n roll riffs since I bought my first record. (Bill Haley's 'See You Later Alligator' on 78 rpm). It's ironic, considering the sort of stuff I do now, that at that time I had no desire to play electric guitar. In fact I used to think that solid electric guitars looked ugly.

The best investment I ever made was in a record and tutor book by John Pearse which predated his Hold Down A Chord series on TV. I learned acoustic blues and clawhammer from that and never looked back.

     My first ever public appearance was in December 1965 at the 1500 Club in Barwell (Queens Head). I stood behind Chris Bee (who was very tall and played twelve string guitar) and timidly added some finger picking to Mr. Tambourine Man.

The 1500 (later the Bar-W) was one of our favourite haunts in those days. I have so many fond memories of the place, but the fondest, I suppose, was the night Steve Cartwright and I did a sort of Incredible String Band tribute. This was in 1967 or 1968 when the club was being run by Terry Sharrott (later Terry St. Clair). Between us we played guitars, mandolin, banjo, harmonica, kazoo, recorder and various percussion devices, including a tea chest bass drum painted up in psychedelic patterns. The place was so packed that night we had people's elbows in our faces as we played.