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Posted by Paul Griggs on November 14, 2008, 9:15 am, in reply to "Lonnie on Oh Boy 1959"
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I was a member of the audience at one of Lonnie's Oh Boy appearances at the Hackney Empire. My diaries don't go back that far but as he sang "Chewing Gum", released in January 1959, I've always assumed it was the January 24th performance.
As the audience was let in I remember passing Lonnie in the corridor and as we took our seats in the balcony Lonnie's band Les Bennetts, Nick Nicholls, and Peter Huggett were playing to entertain the crowd before the show started. Nick Nicholls didn't play a full drum kit for the actual "Chewing Gum" performance he just had a stand or maybe it was a chair with wood blocks and a cymbal.
The show lasted 30 minutes and went out completely live so I never got to see it on TV and most of the recordings of Oh Boy, including this one, have been lost. Afterwards I managed to get the autographs of Tony Hall the compere, and Maggie Stredder, the Vernons Girl with glasses.
As Lonnie's next release was "Fort Worth Jail" in May 1959, it is possible he sang this on April Oh Boy appearance.
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