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

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I had met Steve at a folk club at Hinckley Grammar School in 1965 and we worked up a few songs together. The only one I actually remember us doing was Jagger and Richard's 'Play With Fire'. We weren't exactly folk purists, you understand. 

Steve and I and a few friends from the Grammar School started up our own folk club at the Youth Centre in Bowling Green Road (now a college gym) which we called 'Sing-Sing'. Through 'Sing-Sing' I met John Stubbs and Jane Briggs and we formed 'The Amethyst Trio', basing our repertoire on Peter, Paul and Mary. John Stubbs (from Barwell) had a particularly good voice. He left the area and went down to London. The last time I saw him was in the early 70s when he was in a South London band called Sykes.

In May 1966 we moved the folk club to the Weavers Arms in Derby Road. We were the resident group, but we sometimes shared the honours with a guitar/ double bass jazz duo who were residents at a club called the Chameleon in Leicester.

The Chameleon was a late night coffee bar and in those days any late night place where you could hang around for the price of a tea or a coffee was likely to be invaded by a bunch of adolescents with guitar cases.

     The greasy spoon on the A5, which is Hanover now, was another favourite.  I think the jazz duo latched onto us more for the fact the bassist fancied Jane than for any musical reason. I remember we teamed up to do a version of 'Big Noise From Winnetka', which, with a following wind, could go on for weeks.

     The folk scene was brilliant in those days. There were so many clubs you could play at, every night of the week. Not just clubs, either - everyone wanted to book folk acts - women's institutes, churches, schools, colleges - usually for something they liked to call a 'hootenanny', whatever that was.