Lost Negatives and Unreliable Memories

An as yet unpublished Project

I first met John White at school in the early sixties and we rapidly became best friends. One of the passions we shared was photography. This led to John and I starting a small photography business called “Clutton Photo’s” ~ named after the small Somerset village where we both grew up.

One day at the tail end of 1970, we were chatting together and noticed that two bands, who had both had recent Number 1’s were appearing locally in Frome, Somerset. We decided to both take our camera’s and head there that night and see if we could talk our way into the gig for free, after all, there would be a bar, girls we could meet and fun to be had.~ nothing ventured, nothing gained!

We told the door staff we were press photographers from New Musical Express and we were instantly admitted.

Goodness that was easy.

This led to us selling our first shots to the promoter. This in turn led on to us providing photos for New Musical Express, who happily issued us with a Press Card.

John and I lost touch over the years and I took photos under my own name and a business I started called "Promo-Pix."

I then drifted away from photography and had several other careers and the negatives over the fifty plus year interval were lost during variousn house moves, de-cluttering attempts and just getting on with life. I recentl found a few negatives amongst family possessions in a storage container, had them digitised and have put a lot of them into book form along with some of my memories.

Here is just a small sample...

Band Led Zeppelin
Venue The Pavilion, Bath, Somerset
Date March 13th, 1971
Led Zeppelin Robert Plant, vocals, Jimmy Page, lead guitar, John Bonham, drummer and John Paul Jones, bassist

Other info

We covered this gig about a month after the band had completed their fourth “Untitled” album, which was released in the November of 1971. This proved to be their biggest selling album, shifting tens of millions of copies worldwide, a remarkable 23,000,000 units just in the US. The classic track “Stairway to Heaven” was from this album and this performance was one of the first times the song was performed on stage. Probably the sixth public hearing of the song.

Led Zeppelin were huge at this time and had completed multiple tours of the US. They had appeared at Woodstock two years previously. Their world touring rate was phenomenal.

I remember the buzz of excitement in the auditorium prior to their appearance and having to push my way through the standing audience to get into positions to get my shots.

Peter Grant, their legendary manager seemed to be everywhere at once, attending to every detail, and yes, I did see him carrying his legendary baseball bat. The band were all full of good spirits and very generous with their time posing for pictures for us after the gig. They all seemed pretty tired, but were plainly on a natural high.

When John Bonham died in 1980 the remaining members of Led Zeppelin decided to disband. They have subsequently played re-union gigs with John’s son Jason on drums.

Jimmy Page bought the Loch Ness home of Occultist Aleister Crowley in 1971

One of their tracks, “Whole Lotta Love” was used for seven years as the theme music for “Top of the Pops” in a version recorded by CCS featuring Alexis Korner. The band were the first to have their own airplane. It was called “The Starship.” It was the first Boeing 720-022 ever built and they used it for touring, as well as hiring it out to other bands.

My Favourite Tracks Immigrant Song, Whole Lotta Love, Stairway to Heaven.

What was happening Two big films of the year were “Clockwork Orange” and “Shaft.” ~ BBC “Open University” broadcasts begin. Walt Disney World opens. ~ Inflation in the UK was 8.6%.

Photographer Clutton Photo’s

Band: The Who

Venue: “Goodbye Summer”, The Oval, London.

Date: September 18th, 197

Other info: The picture of The Who shows, L to R~ Roger Daltrey, harmonica, guitar and lead vocals. Keith Moon, drums and vocals. Pete Townshend, lead guitar, vocals and John Entwistle bass and vocals. In the picture you can just make out P.T.

This day long gig had been marred by sound problems, The Who had insisted on using their own system which was a great improvement, unfortunately some of the mic’s had been moved and their over zealous security refused stage access to the sound team to re-position some of the mic’s.

The Who performed a blistering set. So many jaw dropping moments. They really were at their peak.

The band had two mammoth search lights behind them which at various times were aimed into the crowd producing a dazzling effect. We were lucky enough to have witnessed them from a stage perspective.

After The Who’s appearances at Monterey and Woodstock their position as the world’s greatest live band was secured.

Yes, Pete Townshend did smash his guitar on stage and yes, Moonie did destroy his drumkit. As an aside, I was in the dressing room before The Faces set that day and I saw Townshend struggling to tune his guitar and in a rage of fury he smashed it to bits against the dressing room wall. So, not just part of the act then!

Drummer for The Who since 1996 is Zak Starkey, Ringo’s son, who incidentally was given his first set of drums at the age of eight by Keith Moon. That kit was later sold at Sotheby’s for £12k.

Keith Moon died in a flat he was renting from singer Harry Nilsson, where incidentally, Cass Elliot had died three years earlier. He dined that evening with Paul and Linda McCartney and died later that night from an overdose of tablets designed to alleviate his craving for alcohol.

The band has sold more than 100000000 records

Favourite Tracks Pinball Wizard, Substitute, Won’t Get Fooled Again, Baba O’Reilly, My Generation, Summertime Blues.

What was happening John Lennon permanently moved to New York City.

Photographer Clutton Photo’s

Band: T. Rex

Venue: The Winter Gardens Pavillion, Weston Super Mare, Somerset.

Date: March 20th, 1971

Other info: This line up consisted of Marc Bolan, lead, rhythm guitar and Vocals, Mickey Finn percussion and vocals, Steve Currie, bass and this gig marked one of the first appearances of Bill Legend on drums.

In the dressing room after the gig I got the four lads to pose for a photo, lined up along a wall. At that point Marc Bolan said to me, “Hey man, we’re T Rex, not them.” Indicating SC and BL and as a result they were side-lined and were not included in the photo.

I found him to be quite arrogant but hugely charismatic and full of self-confidence.

This was at the very the beginning of T. Rextasy.

If memory serves me, the stage at the winter gardens at this time was quite low and Mark and Mickey Finn played an acoustic set for the first half of the performance. Marc was sat cross legged on the floor and most people could not see him until the second half when he played electric guitar standing up and was joined onstage by BL and SC.

Their first eight singles were all hits, either number one or two in the UK charts.

Marc died in a car crash two weeks before his 30th birthday.

Mark Bolan’s Top of the Pops appearance in March ’71, promoting “Hot Love,” wearing satin and glitter is often cited as the starting point for the Glam Rock movement.

For any conspiracy theorists out there, it is interesting to note that within hours of Marc’s death, his flat was broken into and papers letters and receipts were stolen.

One of Bolan’s best friends was David Bowie, rumours of professional rivalry between the two men persist, but It was Bowie who paid for Mark’s son, Rolan’s private schooling after his death.

Favourite Tracks Ride a White Swan, Get It On, Hot Love, Debora.

What was happening Arsenal won the league and cup double. ~ “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkle is released. ~ The term “Male Chauvinist Pig,” was first used by Kate Millet to describe Norman Mailer. ~ The painkiller “Ibuprofen” was first used.

Photographer Clutton Photo’s

The Lost Negatives
Front and Back Covers

This is the proposed front and rear cover of the as yet, unpublished book.

The format will be 12" by 12" in size and full gloss paper will be used.

The image on the front of the book is of a guitarist fetured in the book. I decided not to use a recognisable musician as this might lead people to believe it was a specialist book about one particular band or person.

It does in fact cover my photos of many bands and groups.

The actual image used is that of Marc Bolan from T Rex.,

The original concept was to include a vinyl record containing tracks from some of the bands featured.

This was to bring to mind those days in the seventies when you would pop the newly acquired record onto the turntable and stare at the details of track listings, lyrics and photos of the band on the 12" album sleeve as the tracks were playing.

Sadly this proved to be financially impractical.