Spent Brothers Productions Gene Vincent Website

She She Little Sheila, Derek & Tommy Facenda - Brooklands Racetrack UK 4 July 1993 (prior to appearance on Capital Gold radio show)

Dickie Harrell, Tommy Facenda, Bob Erskine & Derek - Keighley hotel bar UK 10 July 1993 (after playing the Victoria Hall gig on The Gene Vincent Full Experience tour)

Derek & the late Paul Peek - Croydon hotel bar late January 1997 (prior to the Rockers’ Reunion gig in London)

Tommy “Bubba” Facenda, Derek & Peter Robbins - The Rockers Reunion, Camden, London UK)

Dickie “Be Bop” Harrell, Trevor Gardiner, Johnny Meeks & Derek - Croydon hotel reception January 1997 (after the Rockers’ Reunion gig in London)

Dude Kahn, Derek & the late Ronnie Dawson & Juvey Gomez - Mi Cochina restaurant Dallas TX August 2000

These were through the good offices of friend David Dennard, Chief Executive of Dragon Street Records in Dallas, who hosted a lunch for me when I visited Texas in 2000. Amongst other guests, he had invited Blue Caps drummers Juvey Gomez and Dude Kahn, honourary Blue Cap Ronnie Dawson, who played on the Gene Vincent demo of Say Mama and with him live, Light Crust Doughboys supremo Smokey Montgomery and several relatives of Blue Cap bassist Grady Owen.

GENE my rebel friend, brother and my guardian on the road.
Learned a lot from you - Lovey you
Juvey Gomez

Smokey Montgomery

Ronnie Dawson

Dude Kahn

Thanks Dickie Harrell

This, and the other 1992 Blue Caps autographs, was obtained when I first spent time with The Blue Caps in a small hotel in Croydon, Surrey, UK, thanks to the good offices of Gang Of Four member Bob Erskine. I had seen the band play live before, at Weymouth, Dorset, UK, where I obtained the cap. I travelled up from Southampton by train and met the tour bus just as it arrived at the hotel. I even got to carry Johnny’s guitar case in! Another GoF member Steve Aynsley was also there. I showed the boys my very first draft of my Discography (printed out on a dot matrix printer), and got to spend several hours with the gang, chatting and drinking beer. Johnny Carroll turned up later, and the whole evening took on a surreal atmosphere. It was fun. Bobby Jones was not on that tour, but I mailed him the cutting, and after a long delay and a gentle reminder, he very kindly mailed it back to me, giving me the full set of a classic Blue Caps line-up.

Excerpt from an early draft of the Gene Vincent Discography, autographed in 1992 at the session when they first played together.

Bobby Jones Paul Peek Dickie Harrell Johnny Meeks Tommy Facenda

To Derek
Thanks for being on our side
Friends always
Paul Peek

To “Derek”
Thanks So Much
Johnny Meeks
Blue Caps

To Derek
Thanks for everything
Dickie Harrell

Thanks To Derek
Tommy (Bubba) Facenda

Gene Vincent autograph

Gene Vincent

This autograph was obtained during a weeklong series of performances at the Hippodrome Theatre, Brighton, Sussex UK. We rushed round to the Stage Door after the show, and when Gene and Jerry Keller got into their car to return to London, my friend Phil Green and I jumped on my BSA motorcycle and tore off after the car, accompanied by another friend John Knight on his old Matchless.

When we got to the outskirts of the town, I rode up alongside the car and Phil, on the tandem seat, passed my autograph book and a pen through the rear window to Gene, me yelling “Two, Gene, please”. The nice taxi driver continued to drive along at a steady speed, although goodness knows what he thought of this caper. Gene duly signed the book twice and passed it back out to Phil.

I peeled back to let John try and repeat the exercise, but the driver had had enough by then, and accelerated away, leaving one frustrated and disappointed fan on his flagging motorbike.