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Hi,
I am Rick Westwood, I am the guitarist with The Tremeloes and I was born in 1943 in Dagenham, Essex, UK.
I began my musical life when I was around 9 or 10 years old. My Dad made me a guitar from a piece of wood, a piece of string and a biscuit tin. Many years later, skiffle groups used that idea for an instrument called a 'tea-chest bass' only they substituted the biscuit tin for a tea chest. My Dad then bought me a Spanish guitar when I was 12 years old (1955). A friend who lived a few houses away showed me how to play four chords on the guitar and I spent four hours that night just playing those four chords. When I finished, my fingers, wrist and arm muscles were really hurting.
My friend who taught me how to play the guitar was Laurie Ward and in 2003, I had the pleasure of meeting him and his wife after about 45 years. Laurie went into the Navy after he left school and did not continue with the music business.
In the early 50's I saw a guitarist named Bert Weedon on TV and he had an electric guitar. I saw a lead coming out of Bert's guitar and I was too young to know anything about amplifiers so I thought the lead was plugged into the mains electricity. I decided that I would make my acoustic guitar electric. I put a plug on a piece of wire then wrapped it around the steel strings of my guitar. I then plugged the wire into the electric, BANG!!! A big flash and loud noise and the strings of my guitar broke and the fuse in the house broke. If I had been holding on to the guitar when I plugged it in I would have been killed for sure.
I was lucky enough to meet Bert Weedon a few years ago and I told him about the incident. Bert said I could have been killed.
My first amplifier was the input of a radio. My Dad had a throat-mike that came from an army tank and he fitted it inside my guitar and plugged it into the radio. The volume was not very loud but it was 'electric'.
I played along with 'The Saturday Skiffle Club' on the radio. Lonnie Donegan, Chas McDevit & Shirley Douglas and Johnny Duncan and 'The Blue Grass Boys' were my favourites. I became a member of Lonnie Donegan's fan club and had his picture on my bedroom wall. I met Lonnie Donegan 35 years later but I was too embarrassed to tell him that I was a member of his fan club when I was 12 years old. I am really sad that I did not tell Lonnie that because now I have no chance again.
I had a friend who had a washboard and another friend wanted to be in the band so my Dad and I made a 'tea-chest bass' and we started a skiffle group. We played for some friends and a few teachers at the school I went to.
A guitarist named Barry Webber joined us and he was a good singer. We played in small clubs, pubs and social halls. Barry and I were the guitarists and we strummed our acoustic guitars with our thumbs. By the end of the evening we both had black thumbs and blisters. I have never seen Barry since I left school so if anybody knows of him please ask him to contact the fan club.
I would like to hear from any of the boys who were in the different bands with me in those early years. They are: Colin Smith (washboard), Laurie Ward (bass guitar and singer), Laurie Green (tea-chest bass), Mervyn Greenaway (guitar), Mervyn had the 1st Fender guitar in the band, a Fender Musicmaster. John Haylock (drums), Joe Dormer (drums). They will all be around 60 years old now.
As I mentioned earlier, I met Laurie Ward in 2003.
I met John Haylock in 1985 but I could not stay long to talk with him.
I have been in e-mail contact with Joe Dormer for a couple of years but we have not met yet.
Another meeting I had was with my school sweetheart. Only she did not know I fancied her. Her Name was Rosemary Maskell and I contacted her through Friends Reunited and we met in Sheffield in 2003.
We did not have a bass guitar in the next skiffle group so Laurie Ward and I made an electric one. It was a solid piece of wood with 4 strings on it and 1 guitar pickup. Not a lot different than today's bass guitars. We did not have an amplifier so we could not plug it in. You could not hear our bass player but it looked good.
My Dad bought me my first electric guitar in 1956, it was a Hofner Senator. It would now be worth a lot of money if I still had it, but I have not. Dad then bought me a Hofner Club-40 which was a more modern guitar.
I then formed another group and the bass player was Mick Clarke who is now with The Rubettes. Mick was in The Tremeloes for a couple of years before Chip Hawkes joined.
In 1958 my Dad bought me a Fender Stratocaster, a Vox-15 amplifier and a Binson echo chamber. There were not many Fender guitars in the country and I think only The Shadows had them.
Our most successful band was called 'Joe and The Teens'. You can find a picture of our band in the picture gallery.
After a few years with 'Joe and The Teens' I was then asked to join a band named 'Tony Rivers and The Castaways'. I was with that band for just a few months when I was asked by The Tremeloes to join them. This was in 1962. The Tremeloes were the most famous band in our area and it was great to be asked to join them. I went on my motorbike to the first rehearsal at Alan Blakley's house. On the way back home I was stopped because I was speeding but I did not care because I was so excited about joining a famous band.
I began with The Tremeloes with all new equipment. A Fender Jazzmaster, a Fender Dual Showman amplifier and a Klempt Ecolette echo unit.
I was very worried about doing my first show with the band. It was in a club in Catford, Kent, UK. We started the show with an instrumental that I had to play. I was so nervous that my fingers did not want to move.
Dave Munden's story describes the history of the band so I will not write it all over again.
I married Lynn shortly after joining The Tremeloes and we were the first in the band to become parents. We had Helen in 1963 then Heidi in 1967.
Helen is a veterinary nurse and also works at a local school as a "special needs" teacher. Helen has two children of her own, Kerry (1994) and Marley (1998).
Heidi is a retired credit controller and now full time mum with Dylan 2004.
I do not listen to pop music very much; my interests are in country music.
Many years ago I learnt to play 5-string banjo, Dobro and pedal steel guitar as well as the guitar and bass. I did many recording sessions for other artistes using my 5-string banjo and pedal steel guitar as there were not many musicians who could play those instruments. The men I listened to were Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins, Lloyd Green (steel guitar), Les Paul, Doug Jerrnigan (steel guitar), Albert Lee. We played with Albert Lee in 1965 when he was with a band called 'Chris Farlowe and The Thunderbirds'. They were not very well known and they were supporting us as we were in the charts at the time. They were a brilliant band, much better than us. I never met Albert again until 1997. He was playing at a demonstration show near my home town so Dave Munden and I went to see him.
Albert was great. He lives in USA as he plays with all the country bands over there. It was what I always wanted to do but it was not to be.
My favourite musician of all time is Jerry Douglas, who plays Dobro with Alison Krauss and Union Station at the moment.
I was lucky enough to see Alison Krauss and Union Station with Jerry Douglas in Birmingham in September 2005. I was not lucky enough to meet them as they were all rushing back to London after the show.
My collection of guitars is quite small compared with most guitarists. Although I have had many guitars over the years my present collection consists of: Roland G-707 synth guitar, Ibanez Artiste, Kingfisher bass guitar, Casio synth guitar, 2 x Fender Stratocasters, Fender Telecaster, Gibson Les Paul, Gibson Knighthawk.
I had a very nice Fender 12-string guitar many years ago but Junior Campbell for The Marmalade borrowed it and forgot to give it back to me.
The four main guitars that I use for stage are the Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster, Gibson Les Paul and Gibson Knighthawk. These are used through a Roland ME-6 effects unit. I use a Roland Cube 100 amplifier on UK shows and anything else that the equipment company supplies when we play overseas.
I use Ernie Ball Super Slinky stainless steel strings on all guitars. From size .10 to .46.
I use a thumb-pick throughout most of our show. I do not know of any other UK 60's guitarist that uses a thumb-pick, it is obviously my love for country music that inspired me to use it. I find that my right hand fingering is much faster with a thumb-pick than with a flat-pick.
I have lots of keyboards and sound modules and a small 8-Track studio at home.
In the early days of The Tremeloes we had manufactures wanting us to use their equipment for advertising. One of those companies was Jim Marshall who made amplifiers. We took our Fender amplifiers to Jim Marshall and he tried to get the same sound from his Marshall amplifiers.
I suggested to Jim that he should make a speaker cabinet with the top two speakers sloping backwards. Jim made that cabinet on my advice and copied my design and it became the biggest selling speaker cabinet in the world. I never got the credit for that design, I think Jim conveniently forgot that it was my idea.
Another invention of mine was the 'Fuzz' guitar sound. I found that by overloading the input of my old Klempt echo chamber and I could get a controllable 'Fuzzy' sound from the guitar. I used this for many years and then a company brought out a special electrical unit to make the same sound.
I was using the 'Fuzz' sound at The Royal Albert Hall in London and Hank Marvin from The Shadows and Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones could not understand how I got this sound. They tried for ages with their guitars and amplifiers but they did not know my secret.
I was the first British guitarist in a pop group to use multi-track guitar on records. Brian May from Queen used it a lot on their records many years later. I must say that Brian May is a much better guitarist than I am.
I am known as 'The Gadget Man' by the other bands as I always get the latest gadgets. Anything modern and electrical and I must have it.
Another hobby is photography and video. I have had nine video cameras since 1986 and I have four left now. They are all Sony machines.
I have six Nikon 35mm cameras but in 2000 I went over to digital still cameras. After starting with a few low-resolution cameras, I bought a Nikon D100 in 2003, this camera has 6.1 mega pixels and interchangeable lenses.
I also like computers. My first one was a Sinclair ZX-81 and over 25 years I had over 20 computers. Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head.
The one I use mainly was built for me by my friend. The computer does not have a name because it is made up of different parts from different computers.
I also have a computer specifically for making DVDs. I have hours and hours of home VDO and holidays and I am gradually making them into DVDs.
Another hobby I've had from a very early age is shooting. I have many types of air rifle and pistol and held a Firearms certificate until 2000. I had five firearm pistols for many years but since the terrible atrocities in Hungerford, UK and Dunblane, Scotland all pistols have been banned. The government wanted to keep guns off the streets but unfortunately, because pistols are banned, there are now MORE pistols on the streets than there were before the ban. The British government had to do something but banning pistols was not the answer as it has made it much worse.
My best score for air rifle is 100/100 and my best score for practical rifle is 300/300. I have also won trophies for shooting at Bisley Army Camp in Brookwood, Surrey, UK.
My other sporting hobby is badminton. I started when I was 30 years old, very late in life. I have won many cups and trophies in my badminton life but I'm afraid it is a young person's sport and I have not entered a competition for many years now, I can not compete with the younger players.
I wanted to get a Private Pilots Licence and I started flying lessons in 1994. I had quite a few lessons and I could take off, fly and land the aeroplane OK. The problem is that I suffer from an ear condition know as Labyrinthitis. It is a middle ear condition that makes me seriously giddy and disorientated during excessive body movement. I am OK flying an aeroplane in calm weather but as soon as there is bad turbulence then I can not see properly and can not control the aeroplane. To my disappointment, I had to stop my flying lessons.
Dave Munden is a car fanatic and has had some great cars. I have had some good ones but not as impressive as Dave's cars.
My very first car in 1962 was a Ford Consul Mk.2. Then a Jaguar 420G, Ford Cortina Estate, Ford Cortina Saloon, Austin Mini Cooper-S, Jaguar X-J6, Audi 100, Audi 80, Granada Stretch Estate, Scorpio Ghia X Estate, Vauxhall Cavalier, Scorpio Ghia Estate.
There were only four Jaguar XJ-6's in England when they were first released and Alan Blakley, Chip Hawkes and I had three of them. Everywhere I went I had crowds of people around the car looking at it. The modern XJ-6's still look good today.
I have never owned a sports car and I probably never will.
For many years I would not buy a Vauxhall because I always remember my Dad telling me that they were no good. In 1987 I was involved in a high speed head-on crash on the M6 motorway in the UK. I was in a Vauxhall Cavalier with our agent and my wife. A young boy who was three times over the drink drive limit lost control of his Austin Metro and managed to find a gap in the centre crash barrier and came across our side of the road. The three of us survived the crash but the young boy was killed. From that day I have admired the strength of the Vauxhall Cavalier and I have now bought one for my wife.
Another bad experience for me was in Berlin in 1991. We were playing at The Waldbühne. There were over 25,000 German people there that night but a soldier from the British Army came into the dressing room area, came up behind me and attacked me. He smashed my nose to pieces and knocked out a front tooth. Alan Williams from the Rubettes took my place on stage that night while I was rushed to hospital by our good friend Ricky Gee. I needed an x-ray on my head to see if more serious damage had been done. I then had my nose repaired without proper anaesthetic. The pain was so bad that I was screaming for the surgeon to stop. I played about six shows with a big, white plastic cover over my nose. I looked really stupid. The soldier who attacked me was never caught.
These were a couple of bad times for me but I had many more good times than bad.
In the days when The Tremeloes were in the charts we used to play about six or seven times every week. We also used to go away for many weeks at a time. This was OK for me because I was seeing the world but it was not good for Lynn. Now we do not play as much so we have more time together.
I don't know how many more years The Tremeloes will be playing but I'm sure it's going to be quite a few years yet.
All the best to you all.
Cheers,
Rick
Created by: jimmy@oldiemusic.de, last changed on 2000-01-30