Memorabillia

Ska is the music from 1960’s Jamaica that preceded Reggae. In this piece, I want to talk about Ska. S-K-A … Ska. At 17 years of age, a friend told me that a friend of hers wanted me to join his band. Apparently they played Country music and Ska. She enthused, “Dave’s really excited about…

A memorable and thoroughly enjoyable gig for the The Forest Hill Billies was Gaz and Duke Vin’s Rockin’ Luxury Cruise to Amsterdam in 1986. The cruise was a mini floating festival of reggae, rock steady and ska music with a great mix of people and featuring some true legends of the Jamaican music scene. The…

It was always a big debate in the band as to whether we should go out of our way to entertain the upper classes. After all, it was the 1980s and our thing was usually to support workers through benefit gigs – the miners, the ambulance workers, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, CND, Anti Apartheid, the Artificial…

Forest Hill Billies A-Z A for Amanda on washboard and vocals, Alan on drums, Albany Empire, Acoustic stage Glastonbury B for Bill on the bass, Britanny, ‘Bad to the Bone’, ‘Big Black Cat’, Brighton Busking Festival, Belgium tour, brass section, Bo on posters, Brest En Couleurs, busking, backdrop lost in France, and ‘Billies of course…

Back in 1983 Matt had a cassette recording of a Californian radio station, Radio F.A.T. , based in Gilroy, which was playing country-swing, country and bluegrass. We listened to it incessantly and during a cold winter on his first trip to Canada, Matt transcribed the lyrics of several of the songs on the tape, including…

2014 marked the 30th anniversary of The Forest Billies formation as a six-piece busking band at the 1984 Glastonbury Festival.

The early 80s saw the dawn of the photocopying revolution. High street copy shops like Prontaprint were springing up everywhere and we would often spend an afternoon on their premises cutting and glueing master sheets together

Transmusicales is an annual music festival held in Rennes, Britanny, with the final evening showcasing up-and-coming British talent. In December 1985 it was The Forest Hill Billies’ first gig in France. That year the line-up included Doctor And The Medics and The Fine Young Cannibals.

Transmusicales in Rennes was a big breakthrough for The Forest Hill Billies in France, which led to many more tours in the 80s. A Year later we played Printemps de Bourges, replacing James Brown who couldn’t make it, so we were lucky enough to play between The Pogues and Johnny Clegg.

After a hectic schedule in March 1986 and a few gigs in early April, on Thurs 17th April we played Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues and finishing at 3am, we immediately packed up the VW Van and headed for the Channel en route to Brussels for the ‘Billies Belgium tour. We had a couple of contacts there,…

‘It’s The Wooluf’ In the wild days of The Forest Hillbillies we had a kinda punk instrumental called ‘It’s The Wooluf’ – it got faster and cycled thru a few keys at the end which was fun (this clip from a gig in Paris a million years ago). But the Andrews brothers and fellow saxist…

The Forest Hill Billies were familiar faces at Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues, London’s longest running one-nighter club. The club was founded on the 3rd of July 1980 by Gaz Mayall, the eldest son of Blues legend John Mayall and, until a recent change of venue, it took place at Gossip’s on Dean Street in Soho in…

A friend of Amanda’s was working as a freelance photographer and got us a two-page feature in Jackie Magazine called ‘City Limits – In London’ along with some copy about things to do and see in London. It came out on July 5th 1986 (Issue 1174) but by the look of the backgrounds the photos…