Читать книгу Buzzcocks - The Complete History - Tony McGartland - Страница 10

At the age of eleven, Garth Davies has ambitions to become a pop star. Born in Tyldesley, near Leigh, Lancashire, he is the youngest of five children: two girls and three boys. He attends Tyldesley County Primary School and, from September 1967, Leigh Boys’ Grammar School. (Leigh is a mining and cotton town.)

He is submersed in music at home. His parents play Doris Day, Sinatra and Elvis Presley on an old radiogram, while his brothers and sisters play nonstop Cliff Richard, Helen Shapiro and sounds from the Merseybeat.

Radio and television are also to contribute to his interest in music. ‘The first music that made a real impression on me was rock’n’roll. All the American and British originals. Pop hits of the early to mid-sixties were also influential, and I still regard this decade as my favourite for music.’

Garth’s parents buy him a cheap, nylon-stringed guitar and enrol him in lessons with a local music tutor. ‘The lessons were in classical guitar playing, which seemed alien to me, but I thought that all guitarists had to learn like that. Still, I tried to copy the songs that I liked most, but my career as a guitarist in any genre didn’t amount to much.’

During his teens Garth becomes acquainted with blues and progressive rock, listening extensively to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Jethro Tull and Cream.

Not far away in Leigh, Peter McNeish’s aunt returns home with a transistor radio for him and his brother Gary. Peter listens to late-night pirate radio stations and, in particular, listened a lot to the Beatles.