The follow-up, “Private Practice”, truly brought Gypie into his own as a writer and a supremely inventive guitar-player, channelling the pure blues of Peter Green, the smart, economical soul-funk of Steve Cropper, a nod here to Freddie King and BB, a wink there, to his early hero, Hank B Marvin (not for nothing was that Strat red!)īy the time the band got to the “Let It Roll” album, Gypie’s playing had reached a point of inventiveness and power which put him right up there with his hero Peter Green. His first album with the band, “Be Seeing You” is a fun listen, not least for the energy Gypie brings to the party, along with a scratchy, more American funkiness that was never in Wilko’s repertoire. It took him a while – the gig recorded at the Paddocks, Canvey Island, in June 1977, finds him still feeling his way into some of those familiar tunes, still finding ways best to complement Figure and Sparko’s years-old rhythm section partnership.īlackout – Gypie playing the Strat before he had it refinished in Fiesta Red Photo: Christoffer Frances Well, that was definitely all Gypie’s fault!įrom the outset, it was clear the new guy could more than adequately cover the Wilko material – not exactly copying Wilko’s parts, but finding a way to adapt them to his own style. I’ve already spoken elsewhere in this blog about the red early 80s JV Squier Strat I desperately wanted, but couldn’t afford ( /). The sounds he coaxed from it were quite incredible, but so then, was his sheer virtuosity. But it was Gypie’s powerful, incendiary and endlessly-inventive guitar-playing that really made me want a guitar – more specifically, a Fiesta Red Rosewood-fingerboard Stratocaster. Lee Brilleaux was the reason I started playing harmonica and the reason I first put a slide on my finger. That whole “anyone can play in a band” DIY-punk ethic was the thing that got me playing music, but there’s no doubt it was Dr Feelgood who got me interested in blues music.
#WILKO JOHNSON EQUIPMENT TV#
It would be a few months before I saw him in action – first on a BBC “In Concert” TV broadcast, sporting a red Gibson ES335, then later, live at Essex University, Colchester, with THAT Strat. Like many Feelgoods fans, I’d been confused and upset by news of Wilko’s departure, but thrilled to hear Gypie Mayo’s ferocious guitar work screaming out on his debut single, “She’s a Windup”. However, the five years his successor, Gypie Mayo, spent with the Feelgoods are still my favourite period of the band’s history. Firey – Gypie on stage with Lee Brilleaux and the band. Wilko Johnson was a brilliant songwriter and a quite unique guitar stylist. It took me weeks to figure out why sucking and blowing on the thing didn’t produce anything even remotely like Mr Brilleaux’s efforts on the record! From that point on, though, for years to come, Dr Feelgood were absolutely my favourite band and Lee Brilleaux my hero. A harmonica followed a few days later – entirely the wrong kind of harmonica, it turned out. The very next day, I went out and I bought the freshly-minted “Malpractice” album. The tour schedule tells me it was October 23. The show I saw was the Feelgoods headlining over opener GT Moore and the Reggae Guitars. The Feelgoods visited Cambridge Corn Exchange in February 1975, as part of the Naughty Rhythms package tour. My 45-year-old recollection puts me at that gig, though looking through the band’s 1975 tour schedule online, I clearly wasn’t there. It was all my friends at college were talking about the next day – that and the fact this band was coming to our local touring venue a few days later. Dr Feelgood’s TV debut that afternoon really made its mark – on me and a hell of a lot of other impressionable young men. It was usually a good watch, but that week’s featured act was simply the most amazing, exciting and different rock’n’roll band I’d ever seen.
Home from college, I sat down to my tea and a music programme called “The Geordie Scene” on the telly. My Damascene conversion came just after 5.15pm on a Thursday afternoon. I was 16 and a half and halfway through my first year of A-levels. Was there a teenage boy in the land around that time who didn’t see Hawkwind play at least once? It’s no exaggeration to say that great old Essex rhythm and blues band Dr Feelgood changed my life.Īll through the mid-70s I had pretty much your bog-standard teenage rock fan tastes – Deep Purple, Led Zep, Bad Co, Quo…oh and Hawkwind. And never more was it so than my obsession with this particular Fiesta Red Fender Strat.
It’s happened a few times – no bad thing, I suppose, as it’s all grist to the mill of this blog. SOMETIMES I seem to end up obsessing about a particular instrument. Gypie Mayo’s Fiesta Red 1961/2 Stratocaster Red line – the Strat after the respray Photo: Christoffer Frances
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