Is This The Real Life? by Mark Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

taping the guitars on one machine, then playing the tape back in the room and playing along. Dilloway now had a homemade bass to add to the mix. ‘Brian or I would usually play the bass, then I’d hit anything I could find – hat boxes, strips of Meccano – to make a drum sound,’ remembers Dave. ‘Not sophisticated.’ Between them, the duo cut rough-and-ready versions of Bo Diddley’s self-titled hit, The Shadows’ ‘Apache’ and FBI and Chet Atkins’ ‘Windy and Warm’, among others.
    Before long, the pair were scouring the school lunchtime music sessions (May: ‘We used to play in the cycle sheds as we weren’t allowed to play in the school’) looking for like-minded players. An ad hoc group soon formed around Brian on guitar, Dave on bass guitar, classmate John Sanger on piano and an older Hampton pupil, Bill Richards, on vocals and guitar.
    Their repertoire included Manfred Mann, The Beatles and The Moody Blues. Richards’ tenure in the group was short-lived, after May politely told him that his guitar wasn’t up to scratch and that he would have to buy a new one or leave. ‘To be honest, I think Brian was being even more tactful by underplaying the problem with my vocals, which weren’t right at the time,’ said Richards. His replacement, Malcolm Childs, proved unreliable and lasted a few days. Before long, John ‘Jag’ Garnham – and his Hofner Coloroma – had arrived.
    ‘We got talking to “Jag”, who was already in a band and who was a year older than us,’ recalls Dave Dilloway. ‘But he also had transport, and microphones and cabinets, which was very important.’
    ‘I’d been playing in a group with Pete Hammerton, whose nickname was Wooly – I have no idea why – but Wooly could be a bit awkward,’ remembers John Garnham. ‘He went off, so I started playing with Dave and Brian May. I was a year above Brian at school but with him being such a smart-arse, he jumped a year.’
    While Garnham could sing, and both May and Dilloway had recorded their vocals during the bedroom taping sessions, the group needed a dedicated lead singer. A Saturday night trip to a local dance would prove fruitful. ‘We turned up to watch this band playing at Murray Park Hall in Whitton,’ says Dave. ‘They were called Chris and The Whirlwinds. We were impressed because the lead guitarist had this very nice-looking guitar. But while we were watching we saw this chap that we recognised from school, watching in the audience. He was sitting down, minding his own business, but every so often he would start playing along to the band on a harmonica. The group couldn’t hear him, but we could, and he was good. We had no idea whether he could sing but we invited him along to rehearsals to see what he could do.’
    Their latest recruit was Tim Staffell from Teddington, another Hampton pupil, and, at sixteen, a few months younger than Dave and Brian. Like John Garnham, though, Tim already had experience of playing, and had been singing in a local group called The Railroaders. Unlike his more studious bandmates, Tim struggled to stay focused on school. Three years earlier, a serious road accident had kept him away from lessons and he had ‘lost a lot of ground’. Tim was a keen artist, though, and already had his sights on a place at art school (a decision that would have lasting consequences on Brian May’s career). He quit The Railroaders and threw his lot in with Brian and friends.
    However, the group were still missing one vital ingredient: a drummer. ‘So we put up a postcard saying that we were looking for one in the window of Albert’s Music Shop in Twickenham,’ says Garnham. They had one applicant, Richard Thompson, a pupil at Isleworth’s Spring Grove Grammar School, who was alreadyplaying local youth club gigs in a group called The Fifth Column.
    ‘Richard Thompson turned up on my parents’ doorstep in his motorcycle gear,’ recalls Dilloway. ‘He had a mate with him who had transport, so