The Sleepwalkers - Blackley - circa 1962-63

 Line-up  

• Jimmy Kelly - vocals
• Steve Paul - guitar
• Ken Porter - guitar
• Peter (Prof) Leighton - bass
• Paul Mackay - drums  

In 1962-63 just after leaving school, myself and a bunch of friends from the Blackley area in north Manchester formed The Sleepwalkers - consisting of myself, Ken Porter-(guitar), Steve Paul, now sadly past away in 2005 (guitar), Peter (Proff) Leighton (bass), Paul Mackay (drums) and Jimmy Kelly (vocals).

The band lasted for about 3 years with some changes namely Pete Goulden took over on drums around 1965.

The group were managed by a Manchester business man Ernest Simons, the owner of the clothing factory "Sylvana" situated in Ancoats.

We played most of the venues listed in your "venues" page and played other unusual venues such as society house parties in the south Manchester & Cheshire suburbs.

All our "stage clothes" were obviously provided by our manager/sponsor and he ensured that we had the finest P.A. gear money could buy but guitars ,amps and drums were our personal possessions.

My guitar (for lead work) was a Gretch Tennessean through a vox ac30.

Steve's guitar was a Hofner Verithin (rhythm) through a vox ac 15 amp.

(Prof) Peter played a Fender Presion through a Vox "T" which I think was a tall (4ftX18in) cab with 3, 12in speakers pushed by a vox 30w "piggy back" amp.

Paul played a nice kit of white premier drums.

All together we made a pretty good sound playing mainly R&B with a good mixture of current pop.

The "icing on the cake" was our manager had an account with a local coach firm who would pick us all up with gear to and from jobs in a 41 seater luxury coach.

Ken Porter - 14/8/09