Lou Manzi was a great fan of ours, being a regular at The Elms when we played. His dad Frank owned a big chunk of Southend’s Golden Mile and Lou boasted that he wanted to build the town’s biggest and best night club over the top of his father’s slot machine arcade, asking us to leave The Elms and be his resident band. In no time at all building was under way at the sea front, we were called in to advise on stage position and acoustics, etc.
Things weren’t too good within the band around this period, Mick Harding and Hughie had fallen out in a big way. We’d had the odd issues between us over the time, after all, it had been over eight years together, but this was serious, it was one or the other. The general consensus was that without Mick we would have to audition a bass player and bring in a new member, which would mean taking time off that we couldn’t afford to do at a residency like this. However, if Hughie went we could carry on with Mick doubling as singer.
We first played the venue to a private opening party before commencing as house band, the deal was for 6 nights a week. There were to be numerous iconic stars to play this club over the next few years, the first was to be Frankie Howerd and our next week was with The New Seekers. Unfortunately, the decision to try and do this without Hugh was the beginning of the end for the band. We were soon sacked from TOTS as it was Hughie’s voice that Lou wanted, not necessarily with us.
A new venue had just been built at Southend Airport, “The Zero 6”. As a four piece,
we were given one night a week there as their first band. Our set list was now mainly
Santana, Crosby Stills & Nash, that kind of thing, it was motivating stuff and we
were really good at it. The problem now was that we had seen a devastating drop in
income. I myself went from driving a Bentley to an old grey ex Gas Works Mini Van
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Hughie went back to the Talk of the South with another band and I joined him soon after. I had a few years there on and off, playing with many stars of the time, but that’s another story...
Failure or Success?
This could be a story of a group of musicians in their quest for stardom in the rock
‘n roll industry, who strived for years to make it, in pursuit of that hit record
that never came. Maybe, in hindsight, this was self-
Or is this about five boys who started from scratch, but within a very short time were earning a living doing something they loved. About a genuine friendship that has clearly stood the test of time. OK, there were ups and downs, but I think I speak for all of us that this was probably the best time of our lives, and if we have that to treasure in our old age then this journey was an indisputable success.