Folk For Christabel

21st March  1970  Leyton Senior High School for Boys

Keith Brincorn remembers..

With A Levels fast approaching, the management of Folk for Christabel decided to take a back seat and give the next generation a bit of experience in running this concert.

Those young whippersnappers in the Lower Sixth blasphemously dubbed themselves Christabel's Rubber Chicken. While promotion of the gig was not quite up to that of the parent organisation, and the pretty amateurishly produced printed programme included the Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra who pulled out before the night, the concert itself was fine, largely thanks to headline act Dave Kelly.

The blond bluesmeister was already something of a legend on the British blues scene, as brother of the blessed Joann, and veteran of the John Dummer Blues Band, an outfit which spawned acts as diverse as the Groundhogs, Darts and Nick Pickett. By the end of the seventies, Kelly would be an integral part of the Blues Band with Paul Jones.

His brand of acoustic and bottleneck blues went down a storm this evening with the children of the Lea Delta. He rather eclipsed regular guest Al Jones on this occasion, especially when he was joined by fellow Dummer man Adrian 'Putty' Pietryga on electric guitar on such showstoppers as 'Bullfrog Blues', 'Roll over Beethoven' and 'Dust my Blues', which brought the evening to a wild climax with rapturous applause.

Earlier the resident Cliff Jones collective, with Kev, John and Jean showcased some beautiful group compositions such as 'Easter'. Cliff is still active on the pub music circuit, with bookings all year round and making a reasonable living out of it.

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