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| Tim James on sax with later band Ra Ho Tep |
band, the Boll Weevils at Willenhall Youth Club. A week later we played Trinity Hall, Pool Meadow, Coventry City Centre, the big time at last. We then did the rounds and learned the ropes for a few months but our most successful regular gig was the Coventry Gauge & Tool Social Club – you may laugh but they were a hip audience and about the only crowd who didn’t want us to play chart material. But we dreamed of playing the big local gigs such as the Locarno, Matrix and so on. Our opportunity came via school colleagues, Colin Towe and Dave Taylor, who took over our management, and Fred Liggins who joined the band on alto sax. Before long we were playing all of the above places plus the Leofric Jazz Club and The Birmingham Marquee, making us the only local band to get anywhere near these gigs, the rest having never got past Merseybeat. Our sound was unique, featuring alto sax and harp riffs, more jazzy than most but still funky, too good to last … and it didn’t.”
From “Coventry Sound is Coming into its own”
The Club Scene
..Birmingham has a very atmospheric all-nighter. The Crazy E (in Navigation Street) which
attracts quite a few Coventry Mod Set. (The club also had the likes of The Spencer Davis Group and Zoot Money). One of the groups that frequently play there are The Boll Weevils. They came a surprising 5th in the Coventry Express poll. The are also regulars at the Leofric Jazz Club, probably the nearest we have to the London scene. And the Boll Weevils illustrate more aptly than anyone else in the poll, the shift in pop music business. They are Jazz based, short haired, and very Mod.
Sound
An alto-saxophonist 18 year old Fred Liggins is the often frighteningly proficient lead instrumental voice. Vocalist, harmonica player Tim James frequently throws pop music convention to the wind and starts skat singing.
From The Coventry Standard June 16th 1966
The full Kevin Dempsey Interview on youtube.
