MOSTLY MUSIC AND ME

The Surrey towns of Guildford and Godalming in the 1960’s were great places to grow up in if you were like me, a fan of live music. This is a collection of my teenage memories, and three events encouraged me to write it:

• In 2008, I was contacted by Nigel Enever to see if I had any memories and photographs of the Guildford music scene in the 1960’s for a book he was writing called ‘Guildford: The Rock’n’Roll Years’. As an inveterate hoarder of such memorablia, I was able to help.

• In 2009,  The Guildford Museum requested items and memories for a ‘Guildford in the Sixties’ exhibition,  and I presented them with quite a lot. It was all good fun, meeting up with old friends to share memories.

• In 2018,  a Norwegian writer, Christopher Hjort, tracked me down to where I now live in Beaminster, Dorset. He is writing a book about the guitarist Peter Green and was very interested in Peter’s performances at the Gin Mill Club, Godalming. It encouraged me to write what I could remember before my memory conks out.

This book includes my memories of seeing The Rolling Stones at different venues in Guildford. I also saw Jeff Beck with Rod Stewart, playing at the Wooden Bridge Hotel, and Pink Floyd playing at the Stoke Hotel.

Many people, including me, fondly remember the Ricky Tick Club in Guildford where a lot of star musicians honed their skills in the mid-sixties, and where American Blues legends could be seen at a small venue.  Also many local people remember the Gin Mill Club in Godalming in the late sixties, where a lot of future super-groups of the seventies started their meteoric climbs to success.

This book includes my own experiences growing up. I didn’t do anything remarkable, but I was there when some interesting events took place.

JIM COOK (jamescookgraphics@btinternet.com)

A Lockdown Project!