The Complete Bob Posner Interview

I replied to an advert in a local paper and after a couple of days I received a phone call from Shel, he said can I come round now and have a chat and see how you play. My first incontro with Shel and my first impression was "Jesus he is so bloody tall" 6' 4" & a half inches but he seemed cool and he was driving a Ford Anglia. We chatted and I played a bit and he said "ok, come and have a practice with the other guys" (The other guys were Vic Briggs and Mike Shepstone) That was the start of 'The Shel Carson Combo'. It stayed like that for tours of England, Scotland and Germany in Hamburgh and Hanover. It was over there that we received a 'telegram' from our agent back in London asking us would we like to do a four week tour of Italy, accompanying Colin Hicks. We replied 'Yes'. At that time it was still mostly a singer accompanied by a group, like Cliff Richards with The Shadows, or singing groups like the Drifters or Elvis, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and the Crickets etc.

In Italy you had Peppino di Capri, Modugno, Rita Pavone, Gianni Morandi etc. By the time we went to Germany the groups were just starting, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Mersey Beats, The Searchers.

Shel was the only one to play with Gene Vincent.

It was a prerequisite of the contract I can't remember why. I think it wasn't his first tour and his previous bands were called the Cabin Boys. After the tour I can't remember seeing or hearing of Colin ever again. Our repertoire of songs consisted of Jerry Lee Lewis (High School Confidential, Great Balls Of Fire, At The Hop) Chuck Berry (Memphis Tennessee) Ray Charles (Hit the Road Jack) The Isley Brothers (Shout) Keep on Pushing, some Elvis, some Blues some R&B.

We met Teddy Reno a few weeks after the finish of Colins Tour (for the record one week in Milano, then Torino, followed by Genova and last of all Roma) Teddy hired us to accompany Rita (Rita Pavone, one of the most famous female singers in Italy, she’s active from the early 60s and made lots of movies too - editor note) on her latest tour of Italy. The tour was successful for her and for us.

I seem to remember we played on some record at RCA Studios, but I’m not sure about it…

At one point there were lots of bands, but the only name I remember is "Mal e i Primitives".

The story behind the name is quiet banal: we were in our car, riding around a fountain, and Johnny said "That fountain is as straight as a roke", he meant 'rake' (this is part of an old saying). We took the piss of him for a while, and then when we had to choose a new band name, The Rokes was picked. It’s written plural because we were four Rokes.

I can’t remember who had the idea for arrow shaped guitars, we were looking for something new in design and we had a few choices. Our friends at the Eko factory helped us by saying which ones weren't practical and we ended up with the "Eko Rokes" model. It is featured in the Guitars Of The World book.

There were times when it seemed that we were more popular than the Beatles or at least on a par with them, in Italy only of course. It was all very exciting and wonderful, before we became just a little blasé.

Shel and Mike, for a while at least, were quite good with the new material. I think it took us in a wrong direction but we can't change the past.

Lucio was a really nice guy. He was of course a great song writer and singer and performer. The relationship was pretty casual, we needed songs and he wrote them and with the help of Mogol writing the words, the rest is history.

I must pull out my collection of Rokes songs and have a listen to jog my memory. At this moment I can't remember how or why it was done. I will get back to you on this one.

We liked very much Equipe 84 and we were also friends as well as being rivals. We quite often played at the same festivals. So we would have lots of times to chat and go and eat after the shows. Naturally we liked and knew Dik Dik and many others.

We had a great rapport with our fans, we always had time to stop and write autographs when it was safe to do so, and we set up a Fan Club so that we could communicate and listen to their comments. However, some of the places where we played would be so crowded it would have been dangerous to stop even for a moment. We used to pass through a corridor of fans and they would rip off your rings from your fingers, tear bits of your clothing from your body and grab any chain from your neck, and your hair from your head to keep as souvenirs. As you get more famous, this aspect of 'adoration starts to alienate you a little, and stops you from getting as close as you would like to the fans.

The Cantagiro competition was a great idea and we enjoyed it very much. The convoy of cars with all the stars sitting in them waving at all the people who would line the route and when the caravan slowed down the shaking of hands and signing of postcards. The route was always advertised in the papers, on television and radio too. I think that we were all aware of just how important this publicity was for us all. The artists had to be nice to the public because it was the public that voted for them at the end of the show. Each show had a winner and was great for disc sales.

There were quite a few dishonest fixes made with the voting public, not every artist or manager was fair, but that's another story. The venues were nearly all open air, and it was great playing in front of a sea of faces.

Sanremo was a different type of festival, much more up market. In the front rows of the theatre you had loads of film stars, other top artists managers, old royalty, (Barons, countesses, princes). A little bit daunting and a lot more nervy. The winners of the respective shows weren't always that important. The records that sold the most, as a result of the show were the real winners. Some of the winners of the shows, I thought were a little bit suspect.

It was great fun acting and playing in films as Rita The Figlia Americana, we had the honour of meeting and working with the great Totò. He was a gentleman and a true professional in the complete sense of the word. If I had kept a diary I would know how many films, television shows and advertisements we had played in, but I didn’t and I can’t remember them all. The Algida commercials were certainly the most fun. We did a lot of (The Monkees) type sketches and they were very popular on "Carosello" at (whatever?) 9.00 PM. Sometimes our manager Prince Altieri would say "You must fly up to Milan and be at the television studios to record a show" and we would do it without always knowing what show it was. Maybe we got to see it and sometimes we didn’t.

We were asked to play as The Rokes in Italy in 1993, Shel wasn’t interested but Mike, Johny and myself were. Mike and I flew to Rome and the three of us had extensive talks with an "impresario" (manager, ed.). We would do a record, some television chat shows and play on them, some radio, and then with this publicity we would do forty gigs around the country. Mike and I would do all the singing up front, I would also play bass and Johnny would play guitar. Mike and me started practising in England, and Johnny (because he lives in Rome) had the job of finding another guitarist, a drummer and a keyboard player. Everything was arranged, money and all was okay, but Johnny wouldn’t sign the contract. To this day I don’t understand why. So the return of The Rokes never happened.

We played in Cosenza two, maybe three times. I have tried very hard to remember which theatre but I’m sorry it escapes me.

Certainly the reception that we received in Cosenza and indeed in all the south of Italy, including Sicilia, was extraordinary. It was very difficult to meet and shake hands with individuals because the reaction of the fans was so intense. We were mobbed at stage doors to and from our Lincoln Continental, our car, and we had to be rushed for our own safety. It got so that we couldn’t wear rings, chains, watches, etc. because they would be grabbed for souvenirs.

I think that must go to Che Colpa Abbiamo Noi. Not just for record sales but for market timing, political timing and so many other factors. Culminating in the success for us, and opening the market to all the other groups. Because until then Italy had been dominated by solo singers as Rita Pavone, Modugno, Mina, Claudio Villa, Celentano, Elvis. Even the groups that were already in Italy, were singers first group second. Like Peppino Di Capri e I Suoi etc. The only people that didn’t know what was happening in the international group scene was at RAI television, it really pissed us off. We all, as individuals received mega amounts of fan mail (we had Bobby fans, Johny fans, etc.). It wouldn’t matter if I sang a duet word for word with Shel, the TV producers would just show Shel singing the whole song with a two second clip of me, a three second clip of Johnny, a one second clip of Mike on the drums. They would have had a real dilemma if The Everly Brothers had come over. They really didn’t have a clue of what was going on in those days.

RCA was okay all the time that we were having success. Our knowledge of Italian was very limited at the beginning and certain things were not made clear to us. We didn’t realise that every session that we recorded, every mixing, every time we recorded late at night was paid extra rates, everything and anything was a chargeable event. So we spent thousands of pounds over the top, sometimes just practising the number in the studio instead of practising at home. We were making a percentage of the sale of the record and they were making a very much larger percentage especially as they owned the publishing rights as well. All of the above costs came out of our small percentage.

When we eventually broke up, we had recently had some advance royalties, 40 million Lire. This was paid back out of future sales (eventually) after RCA released These Were the Rokes, and cassettes and CDs they sold out to another company who released other compilations and videos.

Since that 40 ml we haven’t received anything else, not one lira. Our solicitors are looking into it but it takes years.

Okay, No No No was written by all of us. It was developed as we went along in studio. We used to play Bo Diddley songs and we played Not Fade Away by Buddy Holly, a song covered by the Stones. And you can hear the influence. Shel of course was credited with the writing of the song. I don’t understand how Sergio Bardotti was credited for the English words.

The Pretty Things were an okay group, they and the Outsiders had their own market and played appropriately to do as well as they did.

Well we weren’t asked in the first place, and in the second I remember that I would have liked to see them but we were on tour ourselves so it was impossible. We saw them in a theatre in London and they were second on the bill to Tommy Roe (Dizzy).

They were very good. It was just before all the screaming became fashionable. They sounded just like their records. We were told many times that we also sounded just like our records. The Italians are a little bit diffident sometimes they would shout out "you are miming" and we would stop playing and then start playing one by one so that they could see it really was us playing.

I was eighteen when I came to Italy, my hair was quite long by 19/20 years, and of course with our young clean shaven chins we must have looked feminine. (I think that’s why we grew moustaches and beards soon after). If they didn’t recognise us (most did) then we would hear someone shout out "frocio" (read literally "fag", Ed.). Pretty soon you could see loads of people with long hair so it didn’t matter anymore.

A great little theatre full of soldiers who were very loud and very appreciative. It was our first venue in Rome with Colin Hicks. We also played with Rita Pavone at the Ambra Jovinelli on our first tour with her. Later on we played it as The Rokes.

We have never played with Eric Clapton or with Jeff Beck. I would certainly have liked to but it never happened. After the Shel Carson Combo, Vick Briggs went to play with the Animals. I heard that later on he was in America playing with someone.

The Roaring Twenties was one of the first R&B clubs in London, it was frequented a lot by black Americans and musicians. When you walked down the stairs into the club there was a strong smell of grass, no hash, brown or black, only grass in those days. The resident band was Cyril Davis and The All Stars. Cyril sung and played the harmonica (he had a roll of cloth with lots of pockets in it with about a dozen harmonicas sitting in them). He was absolutely brilliant on them.

Another regular was Long John Baldry a great singer and now also an excellent harp player. He would sit in with the All Stars. We would start playing and warm them up, and then Cyril, then us, and then Cyril again.

I have some good memories of our weeks at the Roaring Twenties.

This is true. There might have been some 12 stringers about, but they weren’t featured by any bands.

RCA dictated what was to be released as the number one side and we were allowed to use the B side.

Vic Lewis, our English impresario, shagged us really good. He came over here and wined us and dined us (mind you we were the ones who paid out the money). He took our single back to England with him. It’s funny how the Grassroots released Lets live for today before our record, and all the promotion TV that we had talked about just never happened.

Mike and Shel wrote La Mia Città loosley in Italian and then Bardotti wrote the final words.Then Mike & Shel (mostly Mike) wrote the English words

Yes we all lived together for a couple of years, always in Rome, our first place was an apartment with four bedrooms, an enormous lounge and kitchen. The bedrooms were three large rooms and one small room. So we took it in turns to sleep in the small room we would change once a month (very democratic): two months in a big room, one in the small one. I don’t remember the address anyway. We had loads of fun there, party after party and needless to say (it went with the life style) the bedrooms didn’t have a lot of sleeping done in them.

After that I had a villa on the Via Cassia (Villagio dei Cronisti), Shel an apartment on Via Cortina D’Ampezzo,

Mike an apartment right on the Via Cassia, Johnny was close by me but I can’t remember the road. We all lived within two miles of each other.

Great enthusiasm was the common reaction. We had various responses from wild and continuous screaming to very warm and enthusiastic applause, and the extreme where young girls taking off their panties and throw them onto the stage for us. We never had a bad reaction. I can remember a very frightening time right back at the beginning, when we were still accompanying Rita Pavone on tour. We were playing at one Festa dell’Unità.

There were about 20,000 people and it was in some huge field. There were some large barriers in front of the stage and Rita was very late arriving. The crowd was getting very angry and they were surging forward, the barriers were splintering and the Carabinieri were panicking and so were we. Well we went up on to the stage to give them something to amuse them and started playing. It all came together and the crowd started clapping, dancing and enjoying the moment. Eventually Rita arrived and it was a good night.

Our fee for playing went up each year and we had arrived at 3 million Italian liras per show (at the time that was loads of money). The only way for the impresarios to recoup their money was to put us on in stadiums or large theatres. So they could keep the ticket price down and let the numbers of people make the money.

There were not that many large venues in Italy at the time so we had less and less work. We played once every two months, the money was split 5 ways with our manager Prince Altieri, and after paying for our technicians, roadies, personal manager (Mike’s Dad) and our chauffeur Lino, there just wasn’t money enough left.

Record sales were down a bit and we had already had an advance so there wouldn’t be any money from that source for a while. Johnny and I wanted to restructure the band, put our gig fee down ‘cos we were still in great demand but they couldn’t afford to pay us. That way we could have worked two gigs a week, no more personal managers, chauffeurs and only use sufficient technicians: we would still be working now!! But Shel and Mike wanted to finish it whilst we were still on top. So The Rokes disbanded. Later on Mike told me that he regretted that decision but by then it was too late.

I love Italy. I often wish that I had never left for England. In May of 1974 Jenny (Bob’s wife, Ed.) and I decided that it was time to return to England with our little roman daughter Jayne, and to start a new life. June the 12^th we returned to England. I have some regrets but not too many.

Before returning to England I had made some inquiries about pubs, so that August I did two months training in the pub business. By December we had our first pub and since then I have had six pubs all different from each other from disco to strippers, to restaurants, to family type pubs. I enjoyed them all and they gave me a good life.

I spoke with Johnny, who lives in Rome, in March ‘99. And with Mike a few months ago. Shel has moved without giving me a forwarding address and I haven’t spoken with him for a few years. We are all on good terms and I miss all of our good times together.

Grundy is an unpretentious group. Four people that are fair musicians. We like to play a bit of everything and we get a lot of joy out of playing. Playing in front of people and getting an enthusiastic reaction is all most musicians want and can hope for. If you want to make a career out of it then you must do a lot more things to make that happen. We are quite happy with our niche. We have more bookings than we can handle, so we refuse a lot of bookings, especially weddings, birthdays, christenings and those "type of things". Mostly clubs and a few pubs. I am 53 nearly 54 years old and I don’t intend to stop until I absolutely have to.