# Al Kirtley - and another thing... > The ramblings of Al Kirtley ## Pages - [Gallery 2020s](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-2020s/): Continue to… Gallery The Future? - [A shameless bit of name dropping](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/a-bit-of-name-dropping/): Having reached the age where there’s a lot more to look back on than look forward to, I thought I’d jot down a list of some of the people I’ve been lucky enough to work with over the years. This doesn’t include ‘being on the same bill as’, as that would be too long a list and would include people such as Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy Fury, Roy Castle, Bob Monkhouse, Henry Mancini, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and All etc, etc. This is just a (probably incomplete) list of well-known musicians and vocalists with whom I’ve actually performed, either […] - [Transcript of Wing Commander Stanley Kirtley talking of his RAF days (recorded 21 March 2006)](https://alkirtley.co.uk/odds-and-ends/my-family/transcript-of-wing-commander-stanley-kirtley-talking-of-his-raf-days-recorded-21-march-2006/): Stanley’s recollections of wartime service with the RAF. Recorded by his brother, Allan Kirtley 21 March 2006. Allan Kirtley – So, now we move on to you in the Air Force. And you were working in the County Court at Southampton, weren’t you. Stanley Kirtley – Yes. I got my matriculation at Bournemouth School. And somebody suggested I went into a finance company in Bournemouth. Allan – Bowmaker? Stan – That’s right. I had an interview – didn’t like it. Then somebody else said “Oh, you can have a job in a bank” – they offered me two jobs in […] - [Review of British Legends of Rhythm and Blues UK Tour: Guildford Civic Centre 2003](https://alkirtley.co.uk/review-of-british-legends-of-rhythm-and-blues-uk-tour-guildford-civic-centre-2003/): (Copy of review published Nov 2003) Review by Al Kirtley Clockwise: Long John Baldry, Ray Dorset, Zoot Money, Paul Williams . . . . After six weeks touring the length and breadth of Britain, the tour finally reached leafy Surrey on October 13. To a student of social anthropology, the audience, gathering in the bar of Guildford Civic Centre before the show, would have provided fascinating research material. Could these respectable, and largely grey-haired (if they were lucky) folk be the mods of forty years ago who used to roar up the A3 to London on their Vespas, and loon […] - [The Full Story of the Blue Plaque at the Downstairs Club, Bournemouth (aka Blue Plaques for Dummies)](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/unveiling-of-blue-plaque-outside-the-downstairs-club-later-le-disque-a-go-go-bournemouth-14-september-2014/the-full-story-of-the-blue-plaque-outside-the-downstairs-club-bournemouth/): Somewhere, some other brave soul may be thinking of trying to get a blue plaque erected to commemorate a person, place or event of note. I thought it might be helpful if I put down my experience of doing just that. There’s a lot more work involved than you might imagine, but don’t be put off – if you stick with it to the end, all the hard work and pressure become worthwhile when the unveiling speeches are over and your chosen “celeb” pulls the cord to reveal the plaque, preferably without it falling down on his or her head. […] - [Unveiling of blue plaque outside the Downstairs Club (later Le Disque a Go! Go!), Bournemouth 14 September 2014](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/unveiling-of-blue-plaque-outside-the-downstairs-club-later-le-disque-a-go-go-bournemouth-14-september-2014/): A lot of photos have been posted on the FaceBook page for Hampshire and Dorset Musicians Past and Present covering the unveiling of a blue plaque outside the old Downstairs Club (see Wikipedia page), but I thought I’d set up this page covering a bit of background to the plaque plus some more pics and a YouTube video of the unveiling (please scroll down). Some of the pics are about as interesting as watching a band setting up its gear but maybe I can crave indulgence as it was a super day, following some stressful times during the preceding 9 […] - [On the perils of giving up drinking...](https://alkirtley.co.uk/whats-new/on-the-perils-of-giving-up-drinking/): At the beginning of 2009 I decided to give up drinking for 6 weeks, having been forced to do so three years earlier by a cruel but well-meaning consultant. Here’s the daily blog I wrote at the time. (NB. After the 6 weeks was over I resumed my heroic drinking with a vengeance but it finally caught up with me in July 2009, since when I’ve been tee-total.) The first entry is the pre-announcement email sent to the legions of interested people (all six of them): 27 Dec 2008 Four days to go Hi Folks, As you know, I’m going […] - [My Books](https://alkirtley.co.uk/my-books/): On 31 January 2012 I published my first book, Act of God, on Amazon. It was great fun writing it and I hope you’ll pluck up courage to download it to your Kindle, iPad, etc. It’s not a bad yarn (well I would say that, wouldn’t I?) and ridiculously cheap! You can find details of that, plus my history book, A History of the Blacketts, published in hardback in April 2013, and my 3rd book, Speed Dial, which came out in 2018, at my Amazon Author’s Page. - [What's New? (and occasional blog)](https://alkirtley.co.uk/whats-new/): Dec 2025 No musical activities to report as I’m currently a full time carer for the missus while she recovers from both cancer and a rare variant of Lyme disease. (We don’t do things by halves in our house.) However, some of the Kirtley tribe are busy. My son Pete did the music for a Go Compare ad that’s been broadcast on tv through most of the year and his son, Josh, my eldest grandson, is working as a DJ in Thailand, having done so in Greece earlier in the year. And my youngest granddaughter, Yasmina has asked me to […] - [Gallery: the future?](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-the-future/) - [Gallery 2010s](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-2010s/): (For pictures of the 2014 unveiling of the blue plaque outside the Downstairs Club, Bournemouth please - [Gallery 2000s](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-2000s/): Contine to… Gallery 2010s - [Gallery 1990s](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-1990s/): Continue to… Gallery 2000s - [Gallery 1980s](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-1980s/): Continue to… Gallery 1990s - [Gallery 1970s](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-1970s/): The 1970s was a decade thin on music for me – I gave up playing from 1970-1977) Continue to… Gallery 1980s - [Gallery 1960s](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-1960s/): Continue to … Gallery 1970s - [Gallery 1950s](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/gallery-1950s/): Continue to… Gallery 1960s - [(Musical) sweepings from the factory floor](https://alkirtley.co.uk/odds-and-ends/musical-sweepings-from-the-factory-floor/): My favourite definition (largely because I thought it up) of ‘esoteric’ is ‘of huge interest to virtually nobody’. This page qualifies superbly for that description and is where I’ll dump whatever odd musical memories occur to me. (See Note below for probable origin of the phrase in the title.) There’ll be no particular order and nothing but esoteric trivia will be included. How I nearly became a drummer Long before I became a washboard player I wanted to be a drummer, probably from seeing a Gene Krupa drum solo in some film or other. It all seemed so alive and […] - [Links](https://alkirtley.co.uk/welcome/links/): Download album tracks via ReverbNation or Soundcloud My author’s page on Amazon Andy Summers Bournemouth Beat Boom Giles, Giles and Fripp Hants and Dorset Musicians Past and Present Mike Bowman (my old mate and now an eminent artist) Moordown History My part of Bournemouth, the Royal Borough of Moordown, which includes a couple of pics of me and of my mum, and even a piece on my dad’s contribution to TV Comes to Moordown Pete Kirtley Wikipedia page Review of British Legends of Rhythm and Blues UK Tour (written by yours truly) Rugby for Heroes. With Pride – video shoot […] - [Galleries](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery/): Here are some of the images that didn’t make it into the other pages (NB. Apple Macs and some browsers, e.g. Firefox, may position these images differently).   The 1950s The 1960s The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s The 2000s The 2010s The 2020s Unveiling of blue plaque outside the Downstairs Club 2014 The future? - [Jerry Stooks, The Downstairs Club and the naming of Zoot Money's Big Roll Band](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/jerry-stookes-the-downstairs-club-and-the-naming-of-zoot-moneys-big-roll-band/) - [Blow-by-blow biography](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/): Those who can…play, Those who can’t (at least any more)…write about it. (Ancient Al Kirtley proverb). I’ve tried to divide up this on a logical basis into bite-size chunks, with “The Bournemouth Years” split between washboard, guitar and piano. “Bite-size” is of course a relative term and each section may seem more like a club sandwich, but I hope they’ll give the occasional visitor a chuckle or two at my expense. Most visitors who’ve waded through the earlier sections have lost the strength to operate their iPad by the time they’ve arrived at “The London and the South East Years” but I hope some brave souls will […] - [Gallery Images](https://alkirtley.co.uk/gallery-images/) - [Albums (plus a few other tracks)](https://alkirtley.co.uk/discography/my-albums/): Whoops! Missed Discography? Go back to Click here ALBUMS (External links now open in new window.) When I’ve mastered the technicalities of adding downloadable versions of the albums you’ll be able to help yourself to some MP3s here, but meanwhile you can listen to them from Reverbnation or from Soundcloud, (which is the faster site) though I managed to load them on Soundcloud in reverse order. (The Reverbnation tracks also include – at the end – three tracks from 1964 by Trendsetters Ltd.) You should also find both albums on Spotify. If you don’t want to go off piste, however, […] - [The London and the South East Years](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/the-surrey-years/): If you’ve plodded gamely through The Bournemouth Years and haven’t yet lost the will to live, you’ll be relieved to know that this section contains a bit less detail, (or at least it started out that way). That’s partly because I’ve reached the age when I can recall what happened fifty years ago but can’t remember where I left my reading glasses, and partly because most, though not the worst, of the embarrassing moments took place in those early years. Anyway, here we go… By 1977, living in Surrey and working in the City, I realised I wanted to get back […] - [The Bournemouth Years (Piano)](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/the-bournemouth-years-piano/): The Sands Combo (L-R Al Kirtley, Graham Douglas, Roger Bone, Pat “Peewee” Shehan) In 1962 I left the Big Roll Band when it moved to London for its first abortive attempt at going pro and immediately joined the Sands Combo. Though not as bluesy in its material as the Big Roll Band, the Sands had a wider repertoire of pop music, including the new craze of The Twist, and we soon secured a residency at the weekly “Big Beat” session at The Pavilion, a vast building in the centre of Bournemouth, and probably one of the most prestigious venues on […] - [The Bournemouth Years (Lead Guitar)](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/the-bournemouth-years-lead-guitar/): Nothing is for ever in the world of show business, and Eddie Evans and I left the Tennessee Tramps to put together a rock group. By then the British rock’n’roll scene was getting under way, locally as well as nationally, and the moment I heard Cliff Richard’s first record, “Move It” – still the best record he’s ever made, and which incidentally the Drifters/Shadows didn’t play on – I knew rock’n’roll was what I wanted to play. I sold the bongo drums that had by then become a supplement to my washboard, and bought my first guitar, learning the chords, as […] - [Contact Al](https://alkirtley.co.uk/contact-al/): Don’t bother about the phone number, but don’t forget your email address so I can reply. And if you’ve sent a message and haven’t had a reply, that means I didn’t get it as my POP3 account only seems to work some of the time. If you don’t get a reply, try al.kirtley@btinternet.com [quick_contact] - [The Bournemouth Years (Washboard)](https://alkirtley.co.uk/blow-by-blow-biography/the-bournemouth-years-washboard/): It was late 1957. The Queen wasn’t long out of her twenties, and Harold Macmillan had yet to tell us that we’d never had it so good. After the Suez fiasco of the previous year, the country was at peace. That was more than could be said for me. I might have grown used to the effects of puberty as my fifteenth birthday approached, but I still couldn’t see what function it was supposed to serve, other than to endow me with a complexion reminiscent of a lunar landscape. One side effect of puberty, however, seemed to be that the […] - [Band List](https://alkirtley.co.uk/band-list/): 1957-58 Tennessee Tramps (washboard player) 1958-59 The Senators (rhythm guitar) 1959 The Presidents (lead guitar) 1959-60 The Vincents 1960 The Hi Fi’s (sic – greengrocers’ apostrophes are not as new as you’d think) The Stormers The Furies Tony and the Ramrods 1960-61 Dave Anthony and the Ravers 1961 Dave Anthony and the Rebels 1961-62 Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band (piano) 1962-63 The Sands Combo 1963 Crispin Street Quintet/Lennie Lee Quintet 1963-4 Trendsetters Limited 1964-70 The Rockefellers The Al Kirtley Three 1970-77 Sabbatical (other than a few gigs in Bournemouth with the Alec James Quartet) 1977-80 Savanna Show Band 1980-83 Tequila Sunrise […] - [Genealogy](https://alkirtley.co.uk/odds-and-ends/genealogy/): I was first lured into the highly addictive hobby of genealogy by Shaun Montgomery, younger brother of the late Michael “Monty” Montgomery, my fellow musician and good mate. (Monty was my best man when I got married for the first time, to Susan in 1966.) Shaun, whose daughter Janet is a well-known film and TV actress (see Wikipedia article), was at the time a semi-professional genealogist, and he gave me invaluable advice to get started on tracing my ancestors, who mostly hail from County Durham. Since then I’ve traced my father’s line back to 1630, and some branches of my […] - [My Family](https://alkirtley.co.uk/odds-and-ends/my-family/): . . . . . . . . . . . My Wife I met my lovely wife, Rigmor, (known to one and all, at least since she’s known me, as “Rig”) at the Nice Jazz Festival in July 1990. I’d been going to the festival for several years, tagging along with a bunch of about a dozen blokes, mostly from the Bristol area. I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that “a Norwegian bird who lives in Bristol” was coming along this time, but three days after we’d arrived, we found ourselves sharing a lunchtime drinks table outside […] - [The Pub](https://alkirtley.co.uk/odds-and-ends/the-pub/): For many happy years I was a regular at The Brickies until problems with my balance, brought on by a lifetime of heroic boozing, made it difficult to stand for long, and I don’t like sitting down in pubs. The smoking ban didn’t help either, and the last straw was me becoming tee-total in July 2009. (That followed a six weeks attempt six months earlier, recorded in:On the perils of giving up drinking…) Nowadays our visits to the pub are infrequent, but I hope the following, most of which I wrote in 2003, will give you some idea of the […] - [Odds and Ends](https://alkirtley.co.uk/odds-and-ends/) - [Music](https://alkirtley.co.uk/odds-and-ends/music/): Musical Things I’ve Never Done 1) Learned to sight-read dots 2) Turned pro 3) Stretched a left-handed tenth comfortably (same goes for a right-handed one) 4) Soloed fluently in B natural (has anyone?) 5) Got a note out of any saxophone   ………And some I have 1) Been on official strike for the Musicians’ Union, (sadly without strike pay) 2) Played guitar backing Screaming Lord Sutch 3) Played and sung in New York, looking at the floodlit UN building in the distance   4) Done a session in Studio 2, Abbey Road (with Mike and Pete Giles and Mike Blakesley in 1967). It was […] - [Welcome](https://alkirtley.co.uk/): Thanks for dropping in to my music site. Here you’ll find a potted history of my musical memories from the pioneering days of skiffle, through early rock’n’roll and its evolution into pop music, and finally into the intricacies of jazz. It’s been a wonderful, fun-filled and fulfilling journey, and it’s not over yet, as you’ll see if you take a peek at my ‘What’s New’ page (see panel above) from time to time. I hope you like the site and if so please get in touch; many nice people have already done so and it’s been great to hear from […] - [Discography](https://alkirtley.co.uk/discography/): (or what passes for it) * Singles Track/Album Artist Year Break Up* (Play track) Zoot Money and the Blackhawks 1961 In a Big Way* (Play track) (YouTube, with images) Trendsetters Limited 1964 Move on Over* (See Amazon.co.uk) Trendsetters Limited 1964 (re-released 2007 as album track on Try Me Out: Ballroom Beat Vol. 2.) Bare Necessities Megamix* (which reached no. 14 in the UK singles charts) (Link to video) (Link to Top of the Pops) The UK Mixmasters 1991 The Best of Me Ophelie Winter 1998 Arecibo Blueshouse Arecibo Blueshouse (Tracks 1-6 & 11) 1999 Hypocrite Giles, Giles and Fripp -Metaphormosis (Track 1) […] - [Sample Page](https://alkirtley.co.uk/sample-page/): This is an example page. It’s different from a blog post because it will stay in one place and will show up in your site navigation (in most themes). Most people start with an About page that introduces them to potential site visitors. It might say something like this: Hi there! I’m a bike messenger by day, aspiring actor by night, and this is my blog. I live in Los Angeles, have a great dog named Jack, and I like piña coladas. (And gettin’ caught in the rain.) …or something like this: The XYZ Doohickey Company was founded in 1971, […] [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)