My Exeter Gigs - Mike Mutter

From Mike's unfinished autobiography

"The early sixties were a great time to be social secretary. Live music was still the vogue, headline bands were still prepared to do one night stands at prices ordinary students could afford. At a recent visit to the University not one poster advertised a live band just disc jockeys hosting discos. This was the age of the Beatles, the Stones, the Mersey Sound and a whole host of bands eager to make their fortunes and thus play at student dances. It was when the austere fifties were replaced by a new liberalisation especially among the young, the start of the hippy movement, and open air festivals.

The lists of artists and acts we booked reflects in a small way the pop groups and entertainment acts of the time. The following, whilst not comprehensive, gives a good idea of the diversity and quality of the acts that I booked: George Melly, David Frost, Lance Percival, Paddy Roberts, Johnny Dankworth,Ted Heath, Victor Sylvester, Don Usher, Alex Welch Big Band, Acker Bilk, Bruce Turner, Ray Ellington, Alexis Korner, Cyril Davis, Long John Baldry, Sister Rosetta Tharpe,The Barron Knights, The Undertakers, Unit 4 + 2, The Nashville Teens, The Magill 5, Marty Wilde, The Tornados, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, The Graham Bond Organisation, The Who, Ray Ellington, David Kossoff.

There is a story to go with virtually all of these but I will highlight just a few. One name missing from the above list is that of The Beatles and I must admit that I am the other idiot who turned them down. I had a formula for each type of event which involved booking bands in certain price bands. When offered the Beatles they were quoted at £150, and for a virtually unknown band this did not fit into the formula, so I turned them down. I did however redeem myself the following week by putting on The Who for two 1 hour sets for £80. They were at their wildest - smashing kit on stage and a decibel level which must have meant they could be heard the other side of Exeter. Another coup was the Alex Welch big band which to all intent and purposes did not exist. At the Richmond Jazz Festival they were the headline band and were tremendous. I asked Bob Masters to examine their availability and price. The reply was they do not exist. They were formed just for the festival. However he suggested that if we wanted to take the matter further, we could go and see Lynn Dutton and discuss the matter. Coral (my wife) and I went to see him in his office in London. He came up with the suggestion that if the first set was the Welch band, the second set would be Welch plus anybody who fancied a jam session and we would pay whoever turned up £12.50 and all the beer they could drink. The contract that was drawn up must have been one of the strangest ever. Just about anybody who was anybody was mentioned but there was no commitment that they would appear. The word clearly went around the jazz community and over 20 people turned up and gave a great one and a half hour show. They would have gone on longer but we ran out of time!

David Kossoff was a one off. His one man show was on tour with special terms for universities. I had heard that it had gone down well elsewhere so I took a gamble and booked it. The only instructions I received were that a grand piano was required and that it should be tuned on the day of the show and not moved thereafter. We had just finished setting the hall out when Kossoff arrived. We had set the chairs out in a semi-circle with the stage in the centre. When he saw this he obviously was not happy with this configuration and asked if the whole set up could be turned round. There was considerable surprise, not to say scepticism, when I booked David Frost to do the cabaret at a ball. Bob Masters had seen him at another university and assured me that he was brilliant. In 1965 Frost was regularly on television fronting That Was The Week that was, TW3 and he was flying every week to the States to do a program over there. I booked him, with some trepidation but I needn't have worried. Within one minute of taking to the stage he had 1,200 people eating out of his hands. His timing was so good that people laughed before the punch line and then again when he delivered it. When he finished he got a standing ovation and the whole audience shouting for more.

Without doubt the most professional band was Victor Sylvester. Some groups were not easy to handle and this was particularly the case with up and coming supporting acts. I had booked Sylvester for a charity ball which I had organised for the mayor of Exeter. This was the first dance of any kind to be held in the new Great Hall. It had taken some negotiation to get agreement with authorities to hold the dance, as they feared that the floor would be ruined by stiletto heels, which were all the fashion at the time. The final outcome was that we had to provide plastic caps to give to every lady to put on the heels. As requested, I met the band bus mid afternoon and showed Sylvester the hall and arranged when he would be playing. He was the perfect gentleman but politely made it clear that once I had introduced the band he would take over until the end of the set. I duly introduced him and within seconds the Victor Sylvester sound came straight off his records into the Great Hall - incredible.

I booked Ray Ellington to play at an arts ball. At the time he was appearing on the early evening show on the then Light Program. The week that he was due to play the weather was appalling, snow, ice and freezing temperatures. It transpired the band was having a week off from the radio. Completely off his own bat, he phoned into the program to give a report on his journey to Exeter. The best free publicity one could ever ask for. On the same bill I had booked the Barron Knights who had had a major hit the previous Christmas. About three weeks before the show I received a request for them to pull out as they had been offered a tour supporting Lulu and the night of the ball they would be appearing in Slough. Had this been a routine dance I most probably would have agreed but this was the arts ball and tickets had been sold and a special stage was being built. Eventually it was agreed that they would not appear before midnight, their kit would be brought down by a roadie during the afternoon and they would fly down in a chartered plane to Exeter airport which we would arrange to be met with a car. The night of the ball it was snowing heavily and not the sort of weather that one would choose to land in a small plane. After a couple of attempts to land they made it and arrived at Devonshire House with time to spare although a little shaken up. After a couple of drinks they went on stage and gave a superb show. I can't see a top group being so helpful these days and certainly not for £175.

The early sixties saw the emergence of the blues popularity in the UK with one of centres being the Marquee club in London. Alexis Corner was one of the leading artists behind this - a great musician - whose love of the blues is legend. We were very fortunate that he agreed to appear with his blues band but he intimated that he would like to meet before the gig to discuss the show. Coral and I went to his flat and spent nearly two hours with him and left with a copy of one of his records. His flat became famous as groups arriving back in London in the early hours of the morning would climb into the flat and doss down. As he told us, when he got up in the morning he had no idea who he would find sleeping on the floor. Another major figure during the growth of the blues at this time was Cyril Davies who often performed at the Marquee with Alexis Corner backed by many different jazz and blues artists. I booked him and his blues band with a guest appearance of Long John Baldry - before his number one hit Let the Heartbreaks Begin. Baldry did not travel with the band but came down by train. On his arrival at St David's station he asked where the University was and was told straight up there at the top of the hill. He clearly took this literally as he arrived covered in twigs, leaves and not a little mud. He had walked in a straight line from the station through the fields and woods. I introduced him to Coral and he then spent the evening showing her pictures of himself as a baby!

The West Country has always been the hotbed of folk music. Folk clubs are everywhere, especially in the backrooms of pubs. As far as I knew, folk had never been promoted at Exeter but I was sure that it would be very popular. One of the leading folk artists in the South West was Cyril Tawney and I discovered that he ran a club in Plymouth. Coral and I arranged to meet him at the club to discuss the possibility of organising some kind of event. He was a real enthusiast and he suggested that we should have an all day “festival” which he would organise and MC. Dates were agreed and the event was tagged on to the arts festival. Headlining was another well known artist, Martin Carthy. The event was open to non-students, was a sell out and lasted from 1pm till 10pm. It went down really well but I don't think it was ever repeated.

There is little doubt that the most popular group was the Graham Bond Organisation, who were regular performers. Their blues music just hit an accord with students and their popularity was not restricted to Exeter but to universities all over the country. Perhaps this was not surprising when the quartet included Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker and one of the best jazz/blues saxophonist - Dick Hexall Smith. The only surprise was that they never had a hit record. If they had it is possible that they would not have split up. Apart from the Summer Ball, for the last dance that I organised in the summer of 1965, I arranged a vote to see which groups most people would like to see. The results were a local group called the Tornadoes, Graham Bond and The Nashville Teens. Fortunately they were all available and so a great dance was guarenteed. The headline group at the Summer Ball was the Magill Five and at 5 o'clock in the morning, realising it was my last event, they dedicated the last number - Mocking Bird Hill - to Coral and I and it has become our tune ever since."

- Mike Mutter (Economics and Politics, 1965), Social Secretary January 1964 - June 1965

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