JOHN DECAMPS

Band timeline:

The Cannonballs

The Black Shadows

The Jaygee's or The Dewo

The John Dory Four

"My interest in music was sparked by watching Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies in the late '40s. I bought my first acoustic guitar in '57 and played my first gig in July '59, calling ourselves The Cannonballs after a Duane Eddie track. My schoolmate Les Judd had a copy of Bert Weedon's book 'Play in a Day' so, we shared that and learned together in his mums front room. He and I put the band together, with his sister Lorraine on piano and Johnny Grimwood on drums. We only played the one gig, after which Les got the call from Nigel Portass to join The Offbeats, who were all in the same form as him at Spalding Grammar School. Johnny and I then teamed up with Trevor Twaite, a singer/guitarist from Holbeach, and he roped in Keith Green, Bernard Rudd and Raymond Boz Burrell, who he knew from the George Farmer School in Holbeach. Bernard and Boz didn't stay long as they wanted to play different stuff. When they started at Kings Lynn Tech College in September '60, they put together The Tea Time Four. I pulled in another guitar player I knew from Spalding, and the band became The Black Shadows. We rehearsed throughout 1960, and after a few personnel changes, we played our first gig in January '61 and continued until we split in mid '64, when I got married. I then played with an assortment of local bands before I teamed up with a singer who had taken up drums and worked as The Jaygees or The Dewo. We played the pub circuit for a few years before taking a break. In '74, with the addition of the bass player from The Black Shadows and the lead guitarist from the singer's old band The Castaways, and called ourselves The John Dory Four, we disbanded in late '79." JD