As written by Sandy Davis... It all began in the early sixties with a band called “Satan's Disciples” which I co-founded with Alan Cowderoy at school. We thought that this name was an amusing and ironic one considering it was a catholic school and we were typical rebellious schoolboys. In 1964, we were the school band, held in high esteem by the first former's and respected by the older pupils. The sixth form review was held once a year and attended by pupils, parents and teachers.
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As written by Sandy Davis... It all began in the early sixties with a band called “Satan's Disciples” which I co-founded with Alan Cowderoy at school. We thought that this name was an amusing and ironic one considering it was a catholic school and we were typical rebellious schoolboys. In 1964, we were the school band, held in high esteem by the first former's and respected by the older pupils. The sixth form review was held once a year and attended by pupils, parents and teachers. We were asked if we would close the evening and we played songs from the Beatles and Stones and went down a storm, giving several encores to a full house. The following year we were approached to close the evening again. Bands like The Who and The Kinks had become popular and so we had decided to incorporate some offbeat sounds into our songs to liven things up a bit. We played the set and as the last number ended, I held the microphone in front of the electric guitar loudspeaker, which was set to "Tremolo" (like "Wah Wah") achieving a sort of "Whooi Whooi" ear splitting high pitched whine, all at full volume of course !! We had arranged with the "stage manager" to close the curtains on the final cymbal crash, and anticipating the same success as the previous year, he reopened them again to a deafening, embarrassing silence...! And if that wasn't enough, we played another "number" as a encore....! to equal silence, The show must go on I guess !! Around the middle of 1965, I was living in a small Surrey village called Esher, south west of London .Two of the Beatles had bought houses in neighbouring Weybridge, the town where I'd been born 17 years earlier. When John Lennon left for New York in 1971 his house went up for sale and since I knew the estate agent from the pub, I got invited to go and see it.He took me up to an attic room where Lennon had previously recorded demo tapes with Yoko Ono and together with Pete Shotton and Paul McCartney, "Eleanor Rigby" was Completed. Quite a trip !!!! Talking of Pete Shotton, I met him one day in our road where the Beatles company Apple Corp had bought a small house for him. He invited me in and he told me about a new singer-songwriter they'd just signed called James Taylor. I used to see John Lennons' painted Rolls Royce often driving through the village...Heady times for a seventeen year old Beatles fan.!! It must have been around 1966 when I first heard of Jimi Hendrix. He was playing at a small club in south west London and so I went to see him. It was a very smokey place and there were only about 30 people in the audience ! At the end of the set he smashed his guitar into the amplifier speaker and the drummer demolished his kit. We'd heard about The Who and their stage antics but never witnessed it first hand...amazing. Also around this time me and some pals regularly visited a live venue on Eel Pie Island (literally an island in the middle of the river Thames) accessed by a foot bridge. Every sunday evening for a modest admission fee we watched bands like Steppenwolf and The Moody Blues perform to 50 or 60 people.....Those were the days !! In 1968 I started my professional career when Alan Cowderoy and I formed the band Gracious together with drummer Robert Lipson and Mark Laird, who was later replaced by Tim Wheatley and Keyboarder Martin Kitkat.Martin and I began writing material for the band which resulted in two Lps, the first titled “Gracious!“ (1970) and the second “This is Gracious” (1972)…produced by Hugh Murphy, who went on to produce Gerry Rafferty's’ “Baker Street”.….. After “Gracious” split up, I concentrated on song writing and was offered a Solo contract with EMI which lead to 2 Lps/Cds. "Inside Every Fat Man” (1973) featured among others Chris Squire from “Yes” on bass and Alan Cowderoy & Martin Briley on gtrs. Then followed “Back On My Feet Again” (1975) featuring “The Average White Band” with Robbie Macintosh (RIP) as backing musicians, who eventually went on to cut “Pick Up The Pieces”. In mid 1976 I teamed up with fellow singer and guitarist Paul Travis and worked extensively as a session singer on the london recording studio circuit. We wrote numerous songs together, many of which were released as singles under various names. In 1980 I went to Germany to perform live returning to the UK in 2012.
