Recently by Bev Bevan

NOW here's a football team to be reckoned with.

I can't remember the year, but I was proud to turn out for Gary Newbon's Central TV All Stars.

And what a line-up!

Among the soccer star legends here are Tony Want, Ron Atkinson, Ron Wylie and Jimmy Greaves!

You'll also spot Gary in his suit and trademark glasses. He's the manager, of course.

And, yes, that's your friendly neighbourhood rock and roll drummer taking centre stage in the bottom row.

Can you identify any of the others? Let me know!

There'll be another photo from my album in the Sunday Mercury next week.

OVER the years, I've been proud to have played a part in the Rock With Laughter shows that were started by my best mate, Jasper Carrott.

Here's a backstage shot from 2008, taken at Birmingham's NEC Arena.

That's me on the left, with songbird Bonnie Tyler, Jasper and Phil Tree, who's the bassist in the Bev Bevan Band.

Welsh wonder Bonnie is a great pal, and had huge hits with It's A Heartache, Holding Out For A Hero and Total Eclipse Of The Heart.

She's still touring at the age of 60, and plans to release a country-rock album recorded in Nashville later this year.

THERE'S been a lot of talk lately about the big Black Sabbath reunion.

But here's a band that'd still go down an absolute storm these days.

It was 1995 and the Tony Iommi Band was recording an album.

We were locked away in Monnow Valley Studios, deep in Wales.

From left to right in the photo, that's me (yes, the one with the dodgy facial hair), keyboardsman Don Airey, Black Sabbath axeman Tony Iommi, bassist Neil Murray and guitar genius Gordon Giltrap.

REMEMBER the photo a fortnight ago of me proudly sitting behind my first-ever sponsored drum kit?

It was quite a modest affair but, boy, was I proud of it.

Fast-forward now to 1991 and you'll see that things got bigger - and how!

This is a photo taken during rehearsals for ELO Part 2's gigs with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

The venue was Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre and the shows were fantastic.

It was such a thrill to hear those ELO songs played by one of the world's top orchestras.

And, of course, the band added the rock and roll riffs. It was a musical marriage made in heaven!

Watch out for another photo from my album next week in the Sunday Mercury.

Having a pretty good time of late as I haven't updated this blog in four months - So here's
a quick re-cap of what I've been up to, work wise these past 4 months.

September
9th. The Move (featuring Trevor Burton and Bev Bevan), played a charity gig in aid
of "Greyhound Rescue Trust" at Hall Green Stadium in Birmingham.
17th Bev Bevan Band and others played open air festival in Henley in Arden in
Warwickshire
23rd The start of this year's "It's only rock'n'roll" tour ( Bev Bevan Band plus Raymond
Froggatt, Geoff Turton, Trevor Burton and Danny King). Opening show at Leamington
Spa Centre, followed by two nights at Solihull Arts Complex on the 28th and 29th.

October
14th Bev Bevan Band, plus special guest Rick Wakeman on keyboards, recorded
a spot on BBC's "One Jasper Carrott TV Special ( to be aired on January 9th,
following "Eastenders" ).
16th I played drums at a concert at the beautiful Birmingham Symphony Hall along
with staff and pupils of Dorridge School of Music at their annual charity concert. I also
became the school's patron that day.
29th
Gig for The Move featuring TB and BB. At the Ivy Leaf Club in Sheldon, B'ham.

November
"It's only rock'n'roll" concerts at Aston Wood Golf Club in Sutton Coldfield, the "Robin
2" in Bilston, the Atrix in Bromsgrove, Ludlow Assembly Rooms and Frome Theatre in
Somerset.
Also an appearance at the Burlington Hotel in Birmingham for the Bev Bevan Band at
Blind Dave Heeley's charity fund raising dinner and gala ball.
On Sunday the 6th I was compere at "The World's Greatest Drummer" concert at
Warwick Arts Centre.
Also, on Friday 18th, prior to the Ludlow gig, The Move featuring TB and BB performed
in aid of BBC's "Children in Need" at The Mailbox in Birmingham. Recorded live on
BBC WM's Paul Franks show and televised for "Midlands Today". Great fun, but as we
were playing outside -- bloody freezing !

December
18th The final show of this year's "It's only rock'n'roll" tour at the Rover Club in
Solihull.
Also over this past four months there have been around twenty "Bev Bevan and Jimmy
Franks Shows" on BBC WM 95.6 fm. Listen every Tuesday evening between 10pm and
midnight or tune in anytime via BBC I-Player. Also check out my "Bevan's Heaven" CD
review column and "Bev Bevan's Photo Album" every week in the "Sunday Mercury".

May I wish you all a happy and healthy 2012.

TONIGHT was The Move's first single for the prog-rock Harvest label back in 1971.

The original plan had been to release a song titled Ella James off our Message From The Country album.

But label bosses had a change of heart, and decided that Tonight had a better chance in the charts.

The song, one of Roy Wood's, wasn't actually on the album and was only added to a 2005 re-issue!

Anyway, here we are on Top Of The Pops performing Tonight, with Jeff Lynne and Roy on guitar, and yours truly on drums.

Catch another picture from my photo album next week in the Mercury.

OVER the past year Midland pop legend Bev Bevan has been opening his rock'n'roll tour diaries in the Sunday Mercury.

Today the Move and ELO legend turns instead to his photo album. Each week we'll be featuring a pop snapshot from the past.

We kick off at the double - with two of the pictures from Bev's archives.

"The first shot, taken back in 1968, shows members of The Move, The Animals, The Nice, Colliseum and the Jimi Hendrix Experience about to board a flight to play a festival in Switzerland," says Bev.

"That's me just behind our singer Carl Wayne, resplendent in dark jacket, hat and shades, on the left. And you can spot Roy Wood to the right of the passengers.

"My second photo shows me with lovely Sally James on the classic TV show Tiswas, on which I appeared in 1978. You had to watch out for that phantom flan flinger!"

OUR gigs at the Whisky a Go Go had been a huge success.

But after a wonderful 1969 week in the 'City of Angels', we loaded up our U Haul trailer once again, hitched it to our rented Dodge sedan and hit the road again.

Our route was due North. Our destination: the the hippy capital of the world, San Francisco.

This was the city, of course, "where little cable cars reach halfway to the stars" and where you had to "be sure to wear some flowers in your hair!"

If you believed the Scott McKenzie hit, that is.

In spite of a week of mellowing out in Los Angeles you wouldn't find these five working class lads from England's industrial heartland Birmingham wearing any flowers in their hair!

We were in San Francisco to rock - and rock we did!

Greatest

Being put on the same bill as Joe Cocker's Grease Band and one of the greatest rock 'n' rollers of all time, the brilliant Little Richard, was all the incentive we needed.

Plus we were playing two sets a night at the legendary Fillmore West, where almost every great Sixties group had played, and where every great Seventies group would go on to play.

Our gigs at the venue were recorded for posterity and are about to be released as a double-CD set titled (surprise, surprise!) The Move Live At The Fillmore.

These were some very special performances.

We knew that they were the last dates of the long-awaited American tour.

We hoped to return to the East Coast to play the venues in New York and Chicago that we'd missed due to our visa problems, but Britain was calling.

It would soon be time for us to go back home to Brum.

Don't miss the concluding part of my US tour diary next week to see how the gigs went, and what we played.

SO there we were, trundling along Route 66 on The Move's 1969 tour of the USA, stopping often to take photos of the old Wild West.

It was all going fine until we pulled in to Hank's Truck Stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

As we were filling up with petrol, some real redneck cowboy types began taking the p**s out of Roy Wood.

Woody had his hair down past his shoulders and one of these cowboys, who resembled Mongo from Blazing Saddles, began tugging it.

"Hey are ya a boy or a girl?" he demanded.

"We want no trouble," we said. "We're English!"

We assumed that would end all conversation immediately.

But no.

We had just started to get back in the car when other rednecks began shouting "Cissies!"

Our road manager 'Upsy' Downing then made an appearance, after paying for the petrol.

Trouble

"What's the trouble?" he asked. "These guys are in a band and they're with me."

Now, Upsy fancied himself as a bit of a hardcase, but the smallest of the cowboys hit Upsy just once on the jaw and down he went like a sack of spuds!

We dragged him into the car as Carl hit the accelerator, dust flying everywhere and the rednecks chasing after us, yelling and screaming: "Come back here and fight, you English faggots!"

We didn't stop again until we finally checked into a Holiday Inn in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Since leaving Detroit we had travelled around 1,700 miles over two days and a night.

To put it mildly, we were all completely shattered, but after a coffee, Coke, hamburgers and eggs we set off to complete the last 500 miles of our epic trek through Kingman, Barstow and San Bernadino, finally arriving on the Pacific Coast and our destination of Los Angeles.

Upsy somehow got all five us into one room at the Continental Hyatt House Hotel on Sunset Strip, a place where he had stayed before when working with our pal Jimi Hendrix.

We were checked in for a full week and got into a nice routine, spending half the day by the luxurious, rooftop swimming pool.

BACK in 1967 the importance of having a high profile was summed up by The Troggs.

Not only did they get lots of press because of their wild stage shows but they had a huge hit with Wild Thing.

I picked up the music paper one week to discover that Reg Presley's band had been given gold awards at the Mar Del Plata festival in Argentina.

They were somewhat strangely dubbed "the new interpreters of youthful rhythm in international dancing music" - but at least they got to America on the strength of it.

The headlines now said that my group The Move were actually leaving for New York for the legendary US tour.

But they were only headlines.

There had once been some semblance of truth in the idea.Our manager Tony Secunda had once talked on the phone to someone in the US who agreed that it might be a good idea, but that was all there was to it.

Difference

If we had actually gone to the States in 1967, it would have made a huge difference to us.

We started out with Jimi Hendrix and Cream - at the same time, doing the same sort of shows, almost like the same family - but they carried on with underground music while we got swayed by the screaming girls and Top Of The Pops, Jackie magazine and all that sort of stuff.

They really stuck to their guns and went to America to get away from the pop scene back in Britain. They became album bands while The Move became a singles band.

If we'd have gone out there, and persevered with our music in the same way that Cream did, we could well have become really big as a 'serious' band.

As it was, we never really got the chance. A lot of it was our own fault. We were reluctant to leave home, for starters.

Looking back, we were very baby-ish. If we'd come back from the States as an album band then the entire course of our careers would have changed.

By the end of The Move both Roy Wood and I wanted to get serious, but we let the ideal drift away again.

It was the story of our lives.