CHEVY
(This band
formed out of CUPID’S INSPIRATION who had a hit single c 1968)
Line Up: Steve
Walwyn – Guitar / Martin Cure – Vocals, Guitar / Andy Chaplin – Drums (at some
point) / Paul Shanahan – Guitar / Bob Poole – Bass
End of 1981
– Steve Walwyn and Andy Chaplin had been replaced by Baz Eardley on Guitar and
Ted Duggan
They have a
page on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Chevy-150397718303932/
For the
Pete Chambers Backbeat article – view here –
“Martin Cure
one and the same as Martin Cure of “the Peeps” . Ted was also in
Purple Haze in the 60’s, Drops of Brandy in the 70’s, Paris in the 80’s, Chevy
in the 80’s and The Mudsliders with Baz Eardly, Clive Layton, Tim on bass, Greg
Crab vocals. He’s played for Banco De Gaia and from time to time the Two Tone
Collective and is now involved with the reformed Chevy and Dark Side of the
Moon – a Pink Floyd tribute band. Martin / Andy / Paul / Bob were all in the
hit group Cupid’s Inspiration – see Bob Poole’s story below.
Singles
Too much
loving / See the light – July 1980 – Avatar Records
The Taker
/ Life on the run – Mid 1981
Just
another day / Rock on – late 1981
Album – The
Taker – September 1980
1. The
Taker 2. You got me running 3. Skybird 4. Chevy 5. Too much loving 6. Turn on
the light 7. Shine on 8. Cold and lonely 9. Rock on
From Bob
Poole – 2010
The Chevy
story – Once upon a
time there was a band called Cupid’s Inspiration. Cupids had a number 1 hit
record in England
with a song called “Yesterday has gone” and then went on the slow road toward
the “one hit wonder” graveyard.
After a few
line up changes the group stabilized by 1971 with the following personnel:
Martin Cure (vocals) Bob Poole (bass) Paul Shanahan (guitar) and Andy Chaplin
(drums). In the middle of the 70’s the musicians began to write songs together.
By the late 70’s the band were, in tandem with the “Cupids” gigs, organizing
local pub rock gigs under the name of “4 wheel drive” to play rock music and
try out their own songs and began building up a strong local following. At this
time they recruited a second guitarist, Steve Walwyn, from another local band
to build up the twin guitar sound the boys had decided would best suit their
own music.
Avatar
Records
The band
had by this time relocated from London to Leamington Spa in the midlands as a
better base to travel to gigs around England. The next step was to build a 2
track-recording studio in the drummers attic and begin recording demo’s which
were then sent in to every record company in England. A reaction came from
Bronze records publishing department and the song “Chevy” was placed In
February 1980 on the EMI compilation album “Metal for Muthas Vol. II”. Chevy
went on to sign a record deal with Avatar Records, a new company formed by
Jerry Rafferty’s former publishers, Robert Patterson and John Brewer. The first
release, the single “Too much loving / See the light “ was in July 1980. At
that time the group were playing a lot of concerts (for example touring with
Alvin Lee and Hawkwind).
The Chevy
album “The Taker” was released in September of the same year and received
excellent reviews in all the major British music papers. In spite of the good
reviews in the music press and the bands great live performances, and not
entirely undue to the record company’s inefficiency, the album sold too slowly
to achieve national chart success. In the middle of 1981 their second single
“The Taker/Life on the run” was released. Chevy’s third and last single ” Just
another day / Rock on” was recorded soon after and had a limited release. By
late 1981 Steve Walwyn and Andy Chaplin had gone on to pastures new and been
replaced by Baz Eardley on guitar and Ted Duggan on drums.
Chevy were
still touring England but relationships with their record company and
management were getting strained and by the end of that year Chevy sued their
record company for breach of contract and quit Avatar just three weeks before
they were scheduled to record their second album. With the new line up Chevy
played a radio one live In-concert for the BBC with support coming from Rock
Goddess. The BBC later compiled and broadcast a Radio 1 In-Concert with Chevy
as support to Gary Moore.
Red on Red
Chevy
finally split around 1982/83). In 1983 Martin Cure, Bob Poole, Paul Shanahan,
Steve Walvyn, Ted Duggan, Bob Jackson (ex- Indian Summer, ex-Badfinger) decided
to begin a new group called Red on Red. Unable to secure a new record deal and
after one year Red on Red was dissolved. They later added a second keyboard
player, Mark Steeds. Ted Duggan handed over his place to Paul Brook -drums, who
in the 70’s had been playing in Cupid’s Inspiration.
AFTER CHEVY
Martin Cure who before
Cupids Inspiration and then Chevy, was the vocalist with such bands as The
Peeps, Rainbows and Still life, set up good time R&B band The Rogues and he
still performs with them today. He is the owner of P.A. Company “Cable P.A.”
and with some of his old friends occasionally does Cupid’s Inspiration gigs.
Paul
Shanahan – Laid down
his guitar for some years during which time he became the sales director of a
British chemical company. Recently, due partly to his sons’ interest in music,
he recently picked up the guitar again and found that it was good.
Andy
Chaplin – in the 80’s
played with the DT’s and the Steve Marriott Band (ex Small Faces/Humble Pie)
together with Steve Walwyn. He now plays with The Razors and occasionally, The
Steve Walwyn Band. He runs a market garden and he is involved in other music
projects including live promotions.
Steve
Walwyn – was playing
in The Mosquitoes (1982), The DT’s (1982-89), Steve Marriott Band (87-89), from
1989 his main group has been Doctor Feelgood. Between tours with the Feelgoods,
he has worked with Eddie and The Hot Rods (92), Roger Chapman Band, Big Town
Playboys (94), Rogues (94),The GB’s, Steve Walwyn Band (96).
Barry
Eardley – is now a
guitar teacher. After he left Chevy he played in Atomic Rooster, The Mudsliders
(with Ted Duggan) and he was co-operating with B. Lea Bradford and Naked Blues.
He was also short listed to replace Micky Moody in Whitesnake. From 2004 he
played in Coventry based rock group Iron Horse and in 2009 teamed up with Ted
Duggan and Bob Poole to form the three-piece power rock band The Motorvators.
Ted Duggan
– Past and
current bands / artists include The Drifters, Badfinger, Desmond Dekker,
Pauline Black, Rankin Roger, The Beat, Roddy Radiation, Horace Panter, Steve
Walwyn, The Selecter, Paul Horn, Mark Feltham, James Eller, John Wardi Ward,
Cupids Inspiration, and for 20 years he is still working with popular modern
dance music performer Banco da Gaia and with Badfinger and The Mudsliders as
well as teaching drums. He is a session musician and has played Drums for Elton
John, From 2004 he was playing with Coventry group Iron Horse (with Barry
Eardley) until in 2009 he formed the rock power trio The Motorvators with Baz
Eardley and Bob Poole.
Bob Poole – After a short involvement with Billy Rankin of
Nazareth fame he lived in Germany until 2009 where He played bass with the
Whitesnake and Deep Purple cover band Snakebite, sang and played bass with the
rock band Shark Sandwich, guitar and vocals with the acoustic duo Back To Back,
played lead guitar and sang with the acoustic group Side by Side, Bass guitar
and vocals with the country/Irish American folk group Country Balls and put
together an acoustic solo show that has taken him around the world. He has also
written songs and produced records for various German groups. Bob Poole is now
back in the UK where he is playing bass and singing with Baz and Ted in the
Motorvators as well as pursuing his solo career.
The
abridged Chevy story by Bob Poole
I suppose
for me it all started in 1965 when my family moved from a small village in
Gloucestershire to Leamington Spa in the Midlands of England. Leaving school at
15 years of age, I went to work in local shops and Hotels changing jobs
frequently as, from the age of 13, I had already decided that my future lay in
making music. My first guitar was a plastic 4 string thing with a picture of
Elvis on the head. A year later my Grandfather, who was himself an ex
professional entertainer and singer, bought me a Broadway 3 pickup electric
guitar with an action about 3 inches above the fret board. I would plug this
into my Dansette record player and piss off the neighbours, my family and
surrounding wild life banging out tunes on single strings (didn’t know what a chord
was). When we arrived in Leamington Spa I met up with a guy called Rick Purcell
who had an electric guitar and long hair. He showed me what a chord was and off
we went. Formed our first group “Blues Condition” and tried to play the blues.
Next came
“Tobias Heat”, playing Cream and Hendrix stuff. A guy my age lived down the
road from us and we would have friendly competitions playing our guitar as loud
as possible as the other walked past, trying to impress. He was in a soul group
called “Jalopy Ride” and his name
was Paul Shanahan. Paul then went off to play for 6 months in Canada and when
he returned he got a job with Cupids Inspiration. I was well pissed off until
one day not long after he asked me if I would like to be their roadie. I
immediately said yes as this was a chance to travel and be on the road and who
knew what might happen? In 1971 I got my break. We were in Scotland in
Kirkcaldy on New Years Eve, a big money night and Cupids bass player was too
drunk to stand up on the stage. I had been watching carefully and knew all the
songs so I grabbed his bass and said words to the effect of “I can do that”.
That was my first real professional gig and from then on I became a bass
player. The old bass player left not long after and I got the job. Almost
immediately Paul and I started writing songs. It soon became apparent that we
were more rock than pop orientated and as Martin Cure, our singer had already
been down that road with his former bands “Rainbows” and “Still Life”, we
decided to risk the secure income from “Cupids” and turn into a rock band. We
found a scruffy old Hotel in Leamington called the Crown and began to put on
gigs every Thursday night playing under the name of 4 Wheel Drive, covering
bands like Boston, Thin Lizzy and Steely Dan while slipping in our own songs –
until in the end we were just playing our own stuff and had an average audience
of 200 people each gig. (We used to spend the Wednesday before the gig building
a 24 ft-wide stage and rigging up loads of spotlights that we had stolen
individually from Cupids gigs). One of the support bands on those gigs called
“Hands Off” had a guitar player named Steve Walwyn and as we liked his playing
and needed a second guitarist in the band we asked him to join us. He gave up
his day job and played with us on the still active Cupids gigs (where we earned
our money) and became quickly involved in the song writing and developing of
the “Chevy” sound. The next
step was to build a recording room in the attic of drummer Andy Chaplin’s attic.
There, with a 2 track reel
to reel machine, we recorded our first demo’s bouncing tracks up to eight or
more times. (The first song we recorded there was “Skybird”). Then we painfully
copied hundreds of demo cassettes which we posted off to all the record
companies in London. Nobody reacted until, due to poor quality control, we sent
a blank tape to Bronze records who sent back a letter asking where the music
was.
Encouraged, we sent to them again and a guy working in the publishing
department picked up on the song “Chevy” and put it forward to E.M.I. as a
track on the new compilation album “Metal For Muthas volume two”. It was used,
unfortunately, in it’s by then 4 track demo form so sounded shit but got us a
start with the companies. The Bronze guy then left to work for newly formed
record company ”Avatar” and took our demos to them and, after some meetings, we
signed with Avatar. We went straight into Pye studios and recorded the first
single “Too Much Loving” and then a week or two later began to record the
album. The album was recorded in three weeks under extreme duress with a spaced
out producer who sometimes didn’t seem to know the time of day but in the end,
after one week of mixing, it was finished. We were never satisfied with the
final production and hated the sound of it as we had in our heads a picture of
how we should sound and the producer didn’t come close. However, it got
favorable reviews and sold slowly but well (about 40,000 copies were pressed
for England and there were limited releases in other countries).
We were by
then constantly touring with people like “Alvin Lee” and “Hawkwind”, playing
gigs with Gillan and other
rock luminaries and we recorded two BBC live in concerts, one with the original
Chevy line-up playing with “The Tygers of Pan Tang” and later a second with
Chevy mark 2 as support for “Gary Moore”. It was not long before the shit
started with the record company. The usual “the cheques in the post” etc., the
fall through of the proposed American tour and release (later Avatar told us it
was their fuck up and said sorry)! We had three major record companies fly to
England from America to see and hear the band and they wanted to sign us for
the States but Avatar held out for too much advance money so they called the deal
off. This left a rather unhappy group and soon we had problems amongst
ourselves that ended up with a new Chevy line-up, Baz Eardley from Coventry
replacing Steve Walwyn on guitar and Ted Duggan, also a Coventry kid, replacing
Andy Chaplin on drums. We were scheduled to record our second album at that
time in Island studios with a French rock producer but three weeks before the
sessions began, knowing we would never see a penny from Avatar for our work; we
sued the record company for breach of contract and left them. You don‘t get
away with that trick in London and the word was out on us as trouble so nobody
would give us the new deal we needed and there came a day not too much later
when I said to the band “I’ve had enough” and the rest seemed to agree so we
split up. There was a third Chevy incarnation a couple of years later for about
one year. We called ourselves “Red On Red”, had the same line up as the
original Chevy except Ted stayed on drums and we added two keyboard players,
Mark Steeds and Bob Jackson. We wrote new songs and recorded some BBC sessions
and did some T.V. stuff and live gigs but again, couldn’t get a record deal
that suited us so we shut that one down too. As far as Chevy is concerned, the
rest, as they say……… Bob Poole – 2010
From Pete
Chambers Backbeat article – On the Reunion
“Well the
bulk of the material, is of course coming from The Taker album.
“But we are
also doing some rare stuff, that would have been on the second album, had we
recorded it. Our normal two part-guitar harmony is giving way to three-part,
with the addition of original guitarist Steve Walwyn. It’s the first time the
three guitarists have all played on stage together.”
Chevy had a
great reputation, and if you want to know why, well make sure you don’t miss this
one, as it may never happen again….
Ears began
pricking when the band gained a prize spot on the EMI Metal For Muthas Vol 2
album with the track Chevy, and the anticipation grew.In 1980 they released The
Taker and won a shed-load of fans in the process”
Plenty more
Chevy on You Tube – but here a couple –
Martin Cure
Ted Duggan
