Henderson Chambers

The picture, taken at the Go-Jo club in 1969, shows L-R Ray Johnson (sax), Des Tong (bass), Larry Edwards (vocals), Brian Pearson (drums), Tony (guitar) and Harry "Bo" Kelly (keyboard).

Bo Kelly here in sunny Perth, Western Australia, where I've been living for the past 21 yrs with my lovely wife Pat who has put up with me for the last 43yrs.

We have a great blues club here with many fine acts appearing, ie Charlie Musselwhite and people of that ilk.

It was great to read the write up on the Legends, as I ain't seen any of 'em for around 25 yrs. I've got so many memories of the music scene in Manchester from the old days that I could go on forever.

My musical career started in the late fifties listening to boogie woogie 78s at my aunt wins in Denton because we couldn't afford a record player. She had a posh radiogram!

I went to a folk blues festival at the Free Trade Hall circa 1961/2 and I was hooked on the blues and I have been playing ever since.

I used to watch Cyril Davies playing blues harp with Alexis Korner at the Bodega and i learnt to play the blues harp the wrong way round if there is a wrong way round, its cetainly done me ok through my career.

After coming home from our last German tour in 1967, the Legends disbanded which was unfortunate because all that working 6/7 hrs a night had made us a very tight outfit, but the old story of musical differences and personalities put an end to that, plus the copious amounts of krout beer did'nt help!

Anyway, I played in a couple of small bands gigging in pubs, clubs etc, but I wanted a blues/soul band that could blow em away. It took a long time for the finished product, but what a band, the late great Ray(the bear) Johnson on tenor sax, Brian Pearson, still the best drummer I ever worked with, Des Tong on bass who left to do session work at Strawberry Studios, followed by Jack Shaugnessy, another very tight bass man, Dave Soloman on guitar, Austin Cleaver on trombone, Sid Hayhurst on trumpet, followed by Rod Dunthorne later, myself on organ, harp & vocals and former Art Nouveau singer Larry Edwards.

We named ourselves the Henderson Chambers Band and I loved it, we did some great gigs and we had some really fun times. 

We did a lot of radio work and played a few radio one club gigs at lunchtime which was always an experience playing live to 11 million punters.

Before I go I've got to tell you this great story that concerns Larry Edwards. We were playing Leigh Casino one night and we were blowin the place away.

At the end of the show, Larry went off while we did the false tab for the encore, he slugged back a pint of lager as we played the intro to It aint nuthin but a house party by The Showstoppers.As he came back on under the spotlights he chucked up the lot all over front of the stage. He's goin to kill me for that (if he finds me). 

Anyway keep up the good work and best wishes to you and manchesterbeat.

Harry (Bo) Kelly