An 'Old Fart's' Question For Ken

[ken garner]

good point. In the absence of all but a handful of session sheeets 
for the early years, lineups for pre 76 sessions for IST came almost 
entirely from the carbon copies of the original contracts issued to 
artists, which I was allowed to read at BBC Written Archives in the 
artist's own files (which are supposed to be confidential but I was 
given a papal dispensation having signed something in blood that I 
would never ever disclose that Rod Stewart was only paid £7 for a 
session or some such).

I have no recollection of reading The Nice's files specifically, but 
I almost certainly did because I asked for everyone on the Top Gear 
session list I produced (I spent 3 weeks doing nothing but this, 
during which time I was frequently and comically invisible to the 
full time staff behind a 3 foot high mound of brown folder files 
piled-up in a skip in front of my desk and laptop).

However, I learned from persuasive authoritative corrections I 
received in 92-93 for some other early prog-meister artist sessions 
that the names on the contract were only ever as given to the BBC at 
the time of the booking, which could sometimes be as much as 6 weeks 
before the recording, during which time lineups could sometimes 
change. If a Nice expert can prove that it was Davison and not Hague 
on the first session, this seems to me the most likely explanation, 
But I am only guessing...

Tell you what, I'll ask Bernie Andrews next time we're chatting. He 
liked them a lot and he produced it himself. He might remember 
something like this, you never know: it was recorded over 2 days 
which suggests something unusual,

k

--- In peel@yahoogroups.com, "mickcapewell" <mick@...> wrote:
>
> Hi
>  
> I haven't got hold of Ken's new book yet but I just wondered if he 
> could clear up something that has bugged me for years :-)
> Much as I admired Peel's attitude I must confess that my primary 
> musical interests reside back in the 60s and early 70s, which is 
why I 
> run a site mainly devoted to 60s psychedelia (http://www.marmalade-
> skies.co.uk/).
> Anyway, my question is this: Who was the drummer on the first 
session 
> by The Nice? My well-thumbed copy of In Session Tonight says that 
it 
> was Ian Hague, but seeing as one the tracks recorded on that 
session 
> was 'The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack' then surely Brian Davison 
must 
> have occupied the stool? After all, wouldn't they have called the 
> song 'The Thoughts Of Emerlist Hagjack' if Hague was still there? 
> Not one of the most essential queries I grant you, 
but...y'know... ;-)
>  
> Cheers
> Mick Capewell
>