Dave Adams

In terms of historic British rockers, Dave Adams is the real deal. Pictures of one of the earliest bands he was in, the Blue Jeans, underscore what a radical transition in personal appearance combos such as the Beatles would be involved in. Adams and band, which like many of his early musical projects included his sister Joy Adams, positively look like some kind of church social performers, not rocker hooligans. The Blue Jeans played rock & roll when there literally weren't any rock songs to play, so most of the group's repertoire was actually country & western and cowboy songs. Adams spent a good part of his career in close collaboration with the brilliant, eccentric record producer Joe Meek, including a series of recordings done under made-up names. In addition to his musical relationship with his sister, Adams later cultivated a performing duo with his talented daughter Dee Dee Adams called the Generation Gap. Brother and sister Adams and their friends were greatly influenced by the film The Blackboard Jungle, the rebellious ambience as well as the music that included "Rock Around the Clock," for a time to become the only actual rock & roll song in the set list of the Blue Jeans. The family already had a rich tradition of music, the children brought up enjoying Saturday night gatherings around the piano in the front room. Their father would play mandolin, cousins dropped by to strum guitars and manhandle accordions, and there was an uncle who played banjo, sometimes when he was asleep. Dave Adams began on piano, while his sister played guitar. Well before Adams met Meek, the former man was already a veteran of countless experiments with a Grundig one-track tape recorder. Indeed, Meek and Adams seemed to feed off each other in terms of weird recording ideas, Meek...