CELEBRITY GHOST STORIES –
JOE COCKER, SPOOKS
& THE HAUNTED NIGHTCLUB
Joe Cocker made his name in the rough, tough, grimy streets and equally grimy nightclubs of Sheffield in northern England, UK, during the early 1960s.
Managed by Terry Thornton a wealthy local businessman and owner of Club 60 & later the Esquire, Terry provided an ideal platform for local up and coming acts such as Joe Cocker – alias Vance Arnold & the Avengers – to enjoy regular public sessions.
Terry was alter persuaded to take on the management of the young cocky-Cocker, a real wild card, and at times a very difficult to handle package of talent and mischief.
Getting Joe to a gig on time (or even on the same night) and sober, often proved to be a massive task for Terry Thornton and numerous times he battled to save the young pretender from constantly pressing a self-destruct button.
Read how Joe Cocker and the club management team had to cope with spooks, mysterious happenings and hauntings at these damp, smelly nightclubs – and learn how a stunned and disillusioned Joe Cocker first had contact with the spirits to find out about his first hit record…..
THE BIRTH OF ROCK N ROLL, POP, ROCK, JAZZ, BLUES
Behind the scenes with the stars at two of the top northern clubs, Club 60 & the Esquire, both formerly owned by Terry Thornton. This is a unique account of life behind the scenes during the 1960s in the industrial city of Sheffield, when a musty old beer cellar helped stage a remarkable revival of popular music, and provided a unique live showcase for a host of top international and local performers.
Featuring: - Joe Cocker, Dave Berry & The Cruisers, Zoot Money, Frank White, Jimmy Crawford & The Coasters, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Alan Price & The Animals, George Fame, Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages, Long John Baldry, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Frankenstein & The Monsters, Johnny Dark & The Midnighters, The Walker Brothers, The Kinks…and many more.
Written and produced by Don Hale & the late Terry Thornton.
Copyright Don Hale. January 2012.
CELEBRITY GHOST STORIES –
JOE COCKER, SPOOKS
& THE HAUNTED NIGHTCLUB
DEDICATIONS
This book is dedicated to all our fellow music enthusiasts from those halcyon days, who can still remember with fondness, most of not all of the performers mentioned – and who can still sadly recall (like me) many of their popular hits from decades ago!
With grateful thanks to Kath Hale, Trish Thornton and many others for their long suffering support, help and guidance in final putting a revised version of this book together again.
Thanks also to: - Dave Berry, Frank White, Jimmy Crawford, Zoot Money, Joe Cocker and his support team, the late Screaming Lord Sutch & JP Bean.
In addition, acknowledgement is made to the Sheffield telegraph, Sheffield Star, Top Stars, RN B Scene, and any other organisations, who have made a contribution in any way. It is all much appreciated. Thanks too to many photographers, who were commissioned by owner Terry Thornton at the time to record the antics of some memorable acts – most are no longer with us - but their work from this exciting era is most certainly appreciated.
CONTENTS
1: CLUB 60 – A MUSTY OLD BEER CELLAR
2: GAVE UP PERFORMING TO OPEN NEW CLUB
3: HAUNTED THEME
4: HOLE IN THE WALL
5: A LUCKY ESCAPE AT THE ESQUIRE
6: CHUBY CHECKER’S NEW TWIST
7: A UNIQUE SHOWCASE
8: THE RAW JOE COCKER
9: CHICAGO STYLE RAID
10: THE BBC FILM DAVE BERRY AT THE ESQUIRE
11: TOP DJ STARS AT THE CLUB
12: STARS SHINE AT THE ESQUIRE
13: END OF AN ERA
INTRODUCTION
Prior to 1960, Sheffield was always considered to be a strictly bed and work environment; night life ended abruptly at 10pm – and if you ever saw anyone else around after that hour, they were generally thought to be either on their way to, or from work!
Sheffield was not unlike many other Northern cities of its day, and retained an almost wartime mentality and hostility to progress. At this time, there was little or no alternative, especially with regards to rival attractions.
There were no coffee bars or non-alcoholic establishments open beyond 10pm, and consequently, there was nowhere else to go after a show or dance, with the last tram home departing promptly from the City Hall at 10.30pm.
Brave entrepreneur Terry Thornton decided to change all that with the opening of a bizarre new live music venue called ‘Club 60,’ in the basement of the old Acorn pub at Shalesmoor.
Terry had listened to the growing demand for live entertainment from a growing band of bored youngsters. His early ideas were simple and were based on a new type of city centre youth club, encouraging a wide mix of tastes, whilst promoting a vast array of interesting and varied live acts.
Now considered to be the 60s equivalent of current X-Factor pop guru Simon Cowell, Terry was an equally controversial character, who had also been a talented part-time musician. He had unusually given up a safe, secure job as an architect, to plan the launch of an exciting new venture.
His decision to quit the white-collar world challenged the bureaucracy of this unwilling city and his club soon became a vital cog in the forever spinning wheel of opportunity, creating a unique showcase for bright young talent - whilst also attracting top internationally established showbiz names to this near forgotten northern outpost.
He introduced and developed a unique continental style, promoting American Blues numbers - and primarily Jazz artists. This later included stimulating the popular ‘new wave’ of Beat, R & B, & Rock N’Roll music.
Following two highly successful years, Terry and his enthusiastic team of supporters moved the club to nearby Leadmill Road, where he re-named it, ‘The Esquire Club.’ There he helped establish, promote and develop, a whole host of future young stars such as Joe Cocker, Dave Berry, Frank White, Jimmy Crawford, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Georgie Fame and many more, who all played there sometime between 1962-67.
This book tells the fascinating story of those early pioneering days. This magical era provided a valuable exchange of musical ideas and a regular showcase for a mass of new young stars that slowly emerged via Terry’s clubs’ during his seven-year spell in charge. Many later went on to become household names, yet still remain generous in their praise for this early opportunity to parade their talent.
1: CLUB 60 – A MUSTY OLD BEER CELLAR
CLUB 60 started off life as a musty beer cellar under the old Acorn Inn at Shalesmoor, Sheffield. Over the next few years, this most unlikely venue became ‘home’ to a multitude of local, national and international stars, who developed their careers thanks to generous support from Terry Thornton’s club members.
Club 60 almost single-handedly boosted a huge revival of popular music and live entertainment within the city limits. This unorthodox, compact site, with its jagged stone walls, low curved roof, old wooden beams, and bricks and mortar cracked with aged, created a fantastic intimate atmosphere that son proved a magnet for enthusiasts keen to hear all the latest up-and-coming stars, and new-trend performers. The club soon became a haven in particular for Jazz, R & B, and Rock N’Roll.
Owner Terry Thornton eventually found this hidden gem of a location following an exhaustive nine-month trawl through Sheffield with colleague Danny Harman, a popular beat and blues singer. Later, it took the pair several more months of back-breaking toil to finally convert and renovate the old cellar into a near perfect musical haven.
Club 60 became an established and envied Northern showcase venue for raw talent. It was the place where local stars Dave Berry and Jimmy Crawford in particular really began to blossom. It was also the venue that first attracted a young untried Sheffield lad, Joe Cocker. The Club also played host to a wealth of fast rising international stars such as Georgie Fame, Alan Price, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Graham Bond, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, Andy Sommers, Long John Baldry, Zoot Money, Screaming Lord Sutch and many others who began hitting the radar at that time.
Terry Thornton was keen to enhance the city’s nightlife and entertainment circuit. With dull memories of 1950s Sheffield, the lack of choice and opportunity, he said the place was ‘dour,’ and seemed a ‘rough, tough, working class city, that remained slow to recover from the devastations of the Blitz and World War Two.
Terry explained: “In those days, everything closed at 10pm. It was purely a bed and work city. There were very few venues of note, and even fewer responsible officials prepared to promote ‘new-wave’ music and performers.
“We were brought up on the waltz and quick-step, with most entertainment based around standard ballrooms. I wanted a placed of my own that could be different. A club where young people could do their own form of modern dancing. A place where they could relax and enjoy live music – and see the top stars of the day.
His own musical interest dated back to just before the War, when his mother Freda, herself a talented pianist, sent an eager six-year-old for piano lessons. At the tender age of ten, Terry sat the Royal College of Music primary and intermediate exams, gaining a 100% pass.
By then, his mother had formed a 16-piece ceilidth band and performed weekly in church halls and Irish clubs around South Yorkshire. Terry’s father Wilfred was also an enthusiastic musician and player percussion whenever he could. During WW2 Wilfred worked in a reserved occupation as a machinist at Davy United steelworks, where he was eventually awarded the British Empire Medal for Services to Industry. Later, Wilfred remained in constant demand at work as the industrial recovery continued, and despite a love of music, he often had to ask his son Terry to step in for him at gigs due to work commitments. Terry’s expertise of many instruments developed and he was taught to play alto-sax by the well-known local jazzman Harry Jubb. Terry came from a respectable working class background and inherited the values of hard work and thrift from Victorian parents. He had a rare artistic takent and a highly creative mind, yet remained a down to earth practical man.
Although music continued to play a large part in the Thornton family life, his father had told him to learn a trade, and he was enrolled at Sheffield Technical College, whilst being groomed to work as an apprentice at the steelworks.
At sixteen, Terry became indentured as an apprentice pattern maker; and at the age of twenty-three, he became the youngest ever training school instructor and he was offered a post teaching first-year students. He was later to become one of the highest paid draughtsmen in the office.
A time moved on, Terry met and married his sweetheart Audrey, believing perhaps for the first time in his life that he secured safe and regular employment. He worked in the same department as Tony Cooper and Ronald James Crawford Lindsey – a promising raw talent who went on to star nationally as Jimmy Crawford.
Jimmy desperately wanted to form a backing group called ‘The Coasters,’ and asked Terry to join and help him. Today, Terry recalls that he really had to be pressured into joining the band and agreed that he had been constantly pestered by Jimmy to play keyboard. Nearly forty year on, Terry admits: “I owe a lot to Jimmy Crawford. We were both draughtsmen in the same office – and if it hadn’t been for him, there would never have been a ‘Club 60’ or ‘The Esquire.’
“Jimmy pleaded with me to help him form this group. He really did pester me. I had a good job and I didn’t really want to play Rock N’Roll, or any other kind of music. Jimmy showed me another side of the Sixties and I’m very grateful. He wanted me to play rock N’Roll piano. Audrey. My wife said she enjoyed watching Jimmy play and eventually, I decided to give it a go.
“I made my stage debut at the Sheffield Gaumont, even appearing on the very same bill as a young Dave Berry, with his original Cruisers, on a local talent show.” Terry added laughing: “I never took it seriously though. I thought there was a niche for a rotten band, and we applied for the job. I was just the pianist and could hide behind the group. It always took a lot of courage on my part as I didn’t really want to be a performer.”
Terry Thornton turned out twice, and sometimes three times a week for Jimmy Crawford & the Coasters but still retained his day job as a draughtsman. At other times, he also stood in as a keyboard player for another fast-rising star, Danny rivers & the Vulcans.
2: GAVE UP PERFORMING TO OPEN HIS CLUB
After decades of lugging heavy equipment up and down stairs to gigs, and travelling all over the place, Terry began fed up with performing and decided to concentrate on starting his own club. He was intent on trying out new ideas to promote a range of musical tastes. He also realised a wealth of home-grown local talent and wanted to create a unique platform to allow them to display their skills.
After a painstaking search of city back streets for the ideal spot, Terry and his colleague Danny Harman finally settled on the old Acorn Inn beer cellar. They had to clear away some 1,566 square feet of debris before renovating the dilapidated building. The pair collected odd pieces of décor and with than assistance of many local antique dealers, and students from Sheffield Art & Design College, started to paint the grey walls and ceiling.
Several large eighteen-gallon beer barrels were converted into tables and a bar, which only served sift drinks, tea and coffee. Many other seats had been converted from former corporation buses. Hugh oak beams were cleaned and varnished, together with a massive half cartwheel placed on the bar. Other items precariously dangling from the ceiling and from any other nook and cranny were a ship’s fender, fisherman’s netting, a grandfather clock, and several old paraffin and hurricane lamps.