Collecting Rock and Roll Memorabilia

On Saturday the 16^th of April 1960 at about 11.50 pm a Ford Consul crashed into a lamp post whilst

travelling through Chippenham in Wiltshire.  There was only one fatality, an American singer named Eddie Cochran who died in Bath hospital the following day. Whilst the name Eddie Cochran might not mean a great deal to the younger generation, his tragic death sent shockwaves through the music industry on both sides of the Atlantic.  It could have been worse as both Gene Vincent and Sharon Sheeley were also in the taxi with him as well as his tour manager, Pat Tomkins.

Eddie was only twenty-one and had started his career playing lead guitar and singing in a hillbilly duo a few years earlier.  By the age of seventeen, he had moved towards Rock & Roll and during the four years until his death, had recorded some of the most memorable songs of the era such as Summertime Blues and Three Steps to Heaven.

 

The Rock and Roll family had already lost Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper in a plane crash in Iowa the previous year and the death of Eddie Cochran so soon after this tragedy, was a massive blow to the genre. But Rock and Roll survived and is still going strong.  One does not have to look far to find bands playing Rock & Roll in 2015.  A few short weeks ago, I watched a Rock & Roll band when travelling in Kent and was instantly transported back to the era of Buddy Holly, Elvis and Eddie Cochran.

There was an innocence of a kind in the late 1950s and on researching Eddie’s last tour, I was struck how ordinary the whole tour was.  Eddie was not playing at huge venues and the tour was not tagged with a catchy title dreamt up by a publicist.  Indeed, the very reason that Eddie took the fateful taxi ride from Bristol to Heathrow Airport was he that he wanted to get the earliest flight home as he was worn out, jaded and homesick after a long time in the UK. Today we would just use the M4 but in 1960, there was no motorway of that name linking Bristol and London.  Hence the reason that the taxi driver was driving a little too fast through the sleepy Wilshire town when the accident happened.

 

We all know that the first Rock & Roll star was Elvis Presley, but that statement is not strictly true.  Rock & Roll had been around for many years before Elvis began his recording career with the Memphis based Sun Records label in 1954.  It dated back to the black blues artists of the 1930s and the original term Rock & Roll was as slang term for sexual intercourse, I am told. This said, my researches also note that the term Rock & Roll was coined by a certain Alan Freed.  Whichever way, Rock & Roll was an incendiary musical form which blended the earlier blues with a new type of music to create a kind of country boogie which was an early version of the genre.

In a world still reeling from war this musical form to many was a breath of fresh air. Jimmy Dean had come and gone and Brando was still smouldering on the screen. A sense of rebellion was in the air and soon Rock & Roll was being taken forward and developed by recording artists such as Carl Perkins, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent and obviously Elvis.  In the UK we had Harry Webb and Billy Fury to name but two.

Harry Webb, who is Harry Webb you might ask?  Well, you will probably know him as Cliff Richard. I’m told that he played a concert in Reading where Primark now stands and it was packed out. Whether you attended the Cliff Richard or the Eddie Cochran gig it is unlikely that you would have paid more than a pound to gain entry.  No souvenirs would have been for sale and certainly no tee shirts. I am too young to remember these gigs, but a friend of mine who attended these events likened them in a way to the early Punk gigs of the mid 1970s.  Although the music was totally different there was freshness to them.  Maybe a creative rawness. I attended a few of the early Punk gigs and I think, I understand his line of thought.

Today, when a group or a recording artist plans a UK tour, there is an enormous amount of hype and publicity.  Even the Divine Kate (Kate Bush) fell into this trap during her recent tour, with the tickets being grossly overpriced and the merchandise following suit.  And please, do not get me started on Take That or One Direction.

It seems to my generation that music has lost its soul and this why I attend less hyped gatherings such as the one in Kent recently.  I cannot say that I have attended many concerts and can count the ones (outside of the punk concerts) I have attended quite easily.  I would say that it is less than two dozen between Kiki Dee in 1973 and Damien Rice in 2011.

But here comes the eternal question. What has this all to do with the antiques trade?  Well in my view, quite a bit.  It is likely that when you visit an antiques shop or Arcade, you will find a collectable linked to the music industry. You might not find Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 Stratocaster guitar hanging from the wall, but it is very likely that you will find memorabilia linked to The Beatles.  But this is not Rock & Roll you might argue, and I agree.

The Beatles were not just influenced by Eddie but by the likes of Elvis, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry.  But they were a pop group.  Indeed, I do not think that The Beatles recorded any of Eddie’s songs although, I believe that they covered two or more of his works in their live shows between 1957 and 1962.

Again, I am not an expert and really remember The Beatles breaking through in the early 1960s with their memorable songs.  But if you are into The Beatles, then it is likely that you will find memorabilia if you look around.  That said, I have found that prices vary considerably.  A short while ago, when In Bristol, I found a bundle of Beatles magazines (in good condition) tied together by a rather fetching navy blue ribbon for three pounds.  Soon afterwards I found a single Beatles magazine for sale at ten pounds.  The small Beatles plastic guitars also vary in price and I have seen them going for little as a pound or for many pounds more.  These are just two minor items connected with the most famous group in the world but indicate that it pays to shop around.

Indeed, I am sometimes approached in Henley on Thames (where I work), by fans of The Beatles who visit the small Oxfordshire town as the late George Harrison once lived there. About three years ago, a coach full of these fans turned up in Henley and I chatted with a couple who were avid collectors of Beatles memorabilia.  A chap called Simon told me that one his most treasured items of Beatles memorabilia was a couple of tickets connected with their 1965 American tour.  I always find these people very interesting to talk to and imagine them (if they are not using the internet), trawling through antique and boot fairs and jumble sales for that one find that will make all their efforts worthwhile.

As a tribute to her, I always direct these people to Dusty Springfield’s grave who is also connected with the town.  An invite they always gladly accept.

The beauty of collecting Rock & Roll memorabilia is you do not know what you are likely to find.  You might come across a ticket or an original handbill or flyer connected with let’s say, Eddie’s last tour (that would be a find).  It is likely that you might find an original poster promoting a concert by more than one rock star of the day.

As I write this, I am looking at an American poster which noted that stars such as Bo Diddley, Ruth Brown and Smiley Lewis would be at the Bluefield Auditorium on Sunday June the 30^th 1957, with a number of other bands and that entry would be two dollars fifty.  The item is dripping with nostalgia.

Other posters showed the presence of Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard as well as a host of lesser known musicians.  As you may guess, this type of memorabilia is highly sought after and with the internet inflating prices even more can be very expensive.  But as someone once said, “you do not know what there is to find”.  An American rock poster might just be sitting there in a drawer or folded in a book that you happen to come across.

On the subject of posters and furniture, I can remember finding a poster for a Billy Fury concert pasted to the back of a wardrobe a number of years ago.  Quite why this was done, was a complete mystery to me.  Perhaps the perpetrator wanted to keep the spiders entertained, who knows.  It has troubled me for years.  But collecting original posters can be fun if a little expensive.

However there is a great deal more out there to collect from the era.  The small stuff, the bits n pieces, the forgotten ephemera.  The flyers or the like with misspellings of the artists name such as Bob Dillon, The Beetles or Otis Reeding.  Or, the before they were famous items, noting that The Rolling Stones were playing as support to Gerry and The Pacemakers at the Odeon Romford.

On the subject of posters again, what would you give for a 1960 country music poster which had Patsy Cline as seventh billing? Just below Jimmy Newman and above Rex Rhinehart.

What you might find are vintage photographs of the early Rock & Roll artists which were popular at the time and as far as I can see, are not that rare.  Often they carry non-original autographs and if you are not that choosy as to whom you collect, then this can be rewarding.  Tickets are also very collectable.  Whilst you are unlikely to find an original Elvis ticket, you may just find a ticket for a not so well known artist. A smaller name in a big pond. Again, my tip is to look in books.

Although I do not collect Rock memorabilia, I do collect literary memorabilia and have had a number of good finds over the years.  A book is an ideal place to keep a used ticket.  Sadly, you just forget about it and then the book is passed on.  There it is.

When I attended the Kiki Dee concert in Watford in 1973, there was no ticket to retain, no front of house posters or flyers and I only knew that she was playing because a friend told me.  I wonder how many of the early Rock & Roll concerts were like this?   How well was Eddie’s final tour advertised?  To this day, I have not  found anything to do with this tour.

As I researched this article, the one thing that I noted was that there were a large number of souvenirs to collect.  I thought this was a modern industry, especially with all the expensive tack you see today connected with any group or artist.  But this dates back well into the 1960s and one can collect Beatles dolls or badges without many problems.  There were plastic Ringo bubble bath bottles to be purchased as well as Beatles diaries and address books to name but a few items.  Although I do not think I would risk the fifty year old Ringo bubble bath, as the Badedas moment might not be quite the moment you wanted.

Whilst I expected to find Elvis and Beatles memorabilia dating from the sixties, I was surprised to find that some of the lesser lights also got in on the act.  On the internet at present, you can purchase an original Paul Revere and the Raiders button pin for twenty US Dollars.  Whether that is a good price or not, I do not know.

As I prepared to put this short article together, I decided to record the amount of time it would take me to find a piece of musical memorabilia at an affordable price. It took me a day, as I found the original score for Cinderella Rockefella dating from the mid-sixties in Henley.  It was on sale for a pound.  On the back of this, I checked out  Esther and Abi Ofarim and found that both are still performing today, most notably Esther.  I liked the song when it came out but really had thought little about the duo for the last forty years.  Until that moment in the bookshop when I found the score.

You might share the same experience when you are in an antiques shop or maybe an Arcade.  You are fingering through a pile of musical memorabilia when you come across an item that brings back memories for you.   A group from your younger years.  A gig that you attended with your beloved that has a special place in your memory.  A song that attaches itself to a special event in your life.  The list is endless and personal.  It is your own journey.  We are all different.

You may have noticed that I have deliberately missed something out when discussing Rock & Roll memorabilia.  These are the recordings.  In my view, there are people much more experienced than me who are experts on the subject.  And because of this, I will not presume a knowledge.  If you want to collect the albums and singles of various artists then there is plenty of information on the internet as well as experts on two legs.  There are also many books on the subject.

I started this article with a small piece about Eddie Cochran, and if you are ever in Chippenham, just take a moment to think about him.  How a young talent had his life cut short in this modest Wiltshire town and how, with a number of other places, Chippenham is forever connected with the legends of Rock & Roll.