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Dennis Grant — keyboardist with Inspiration and Next Move
Dennis recalls .....
In late 1967 I joined The Next Move - a well-established group then playing at Club Jamal in Christchurch. They were wanting to add organ to their sound, and as I happened to have one of only 2 Jansen Transonic organs available in Christchurch at the time, I got the job. At Club Jamal the music tended to be outside the current top pop charts, more oriented towards ballads and numbers which suited Les Inwood's voice and style. Letterly the club got into some financial difficulty, and at one stage our equipment was locked-up over some financial dispute with the club's owner. Apparently, one night, Trevor Spitz the South Island manager of Prestige Promotions visited the club, liked the band and off we went to a residency at The Monaco in Cathedral Square, where we were playing three nights a week and sometimes onSunday afternoons. The band often played at some of the other venues around town, a thriving scene prior to the pubs extending their closing hours from 6pm to 10pm. The Next Move won Benny Levin's South Island Battle of the Bands, at the Caledonian Hall in Christchurch in 1968. At that time, Ross Taylor had a then state of the art, Revox reel-to-reel recorder and we did record ourselves a couple of original songs, which were included on the CD A Day In My Mind's Mind and which was released in 2018. Popular in the day was TV show C'Mon and I believe we were the only South Island band to ever appear on that amazing show. For a short time I played at the Rendezvous in Stanmore Road before joining The Inspiration at the Valley Inn, before heading off to Europe on the passenger ship Australis - a popular method of travelling to the UK in the day. A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum left a lasting impression with me, as it did with many at the time, and a lifelong interest in Hammond organs was sparked. With the Melbourne bands we would lug a huge Hammond Leslie and Rhodes suitcase piano to all the venues, and we were fortunate to spend time with Gary Brooker and Procol Harum over the years. Although not playing any more I am now proud to own a vintage Hammond B3 with 2 Leslie 122, Leslie 3300 as well as Hammond A3 Heritage portable and Nord keyboard ... you can never have enough! In Brisbane in the early 2000s I played with Lone Star Blues Band in various venues around Brisbane. I am now currently just listening, but not playing ..... |
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