Making Whoopee!

Between 1991 and 1997 I had the pleasure of playing banjo with the hilarious comedy jazz show Bob Kerr’s Whoopee Band. Bob has paid his dues as a musician and has taken his unique brand of musical comedy where few have been before or since. In late July 2007 I went to visit him at his home in Suffolk where we talked about his music career of nearly 50 years.
Sean: Bob can you tell the Just Jazz readers a little about yourself, where you were born and how you started playing music?
Bob: So long ago…I can’t remember!….Is that enough? I was born in Fulham, London, in 1940 on Saint Valentines day. When I was about 16 or 17 I had a great desire to play trumpet. I don’t know why, it came right out of the blue. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life at all. I was training to be a draughtsman, absolutely hated it, and thought the only way to get away from this is to learn an instrument.
Sean: Who were you early musical influences?
Bob: My early influences were Louis Armstrong (he still is) and Bix Beiderbecke. The first record I bought was Louis Armstrong, it had two songs each side of the disk. Billy Cotton was also doing his radio show then and he played some things I enjoyed too. It was right after the war, in the 1950’s, I and was living in Boreham wood, also called Elstree, where we had moved out to because our house had been blitzed. I used to go to St. Albans ( a much nicer place!) where I played with people like Donovan, Maddy Prior and mostly "folkies". We had a jam session in the backroom of The Cock public house in St. Albans. I was also playing a little bit of guitar and we all really got on. We were 20-ish and there were really some very good musicians.
Sean: Was this during the so called Trad. Jazz Revival?
Bob: No, it was a little before all that I think. I must say I never really liked the Trad. Jazz Revival. I always much preferred listening and trying to emulate the American players who knew what they were doing and really swung. The British bands were also very much into the "backs to the audience stuff" which I did not like at all. You should at least tell the audience what you are about to play.
Sean: Tell us about your first band.
Bob: When I started I played with many little bands in London. I did an audition for Ken Barton and his brother… who turned me down. I was only about 19 and couldn’t have been much good! We later became very good friends and I did eventually forgive him! My first real band was Spencer’s Washboard Kings, run by trumpeter Carl Spencer. I was playing alto saxophone and bass saxophone in that group.
Sean: It’s an unusual combination to learn both trumpet and saxophone?
Bob: When I first came to London there we so many trumpet players I thought "I have to learn another instrument", so I saw this alto saxophone hanging up in a shop window for 20 Quid, saved up and bought it. I adapted my trumpet style to the saxophone. I also found a Conn bass saxophone, which I loved, and bought for 40 Quid…it would be worth about 20 grand now!! I started to really study Adrian Rollini with Bix.
Sean: Was Spencer’s Washboard Kings a touring band?
Bob: Yes, within a week of joining them I did 20 days in Denmark. You can’t really do that anymore. Although I was playing alto saxophone and bass saxophone in that group, I also did some second trumpet on King Oliver tunes.They went down a storm in the jazz clubs. It was a "serious" band but we did do a sort of comedy cabaret act too. We didn’t use drums. We had Bill, a fantastic washboard player, and Stan the pianist who did all the arrangements. We had a great time… but eventually I got the sack. I got sacked from all the bands… which is why I eventually formed my own band ….and then the musicians had to leave me!
Sean: What did you do once you "left" the Washboard Kings?
Bob: I joined a band called The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. They were just turning professional, were touring up and down the country and they were a lot of fun.
I also eventually got the sack from them! What happened was we did a gig at a students residence or something and a load of leather clad bikers turned up looking for trouble. We were all dressed in our strange outfits on stage so they made a beeline for us. I picked up the dustbin which we used for a gag and as the bikers were coming up the stairs I thought "they’re not going to get me" and I chucked it at them and ran off stage. The manager, dear old Reg Tracey, told us to go back on but I refused, as did Big Sid (the banjo player) and my dear friend Vernon, and it all got very messy. Reg said "If you don‘t go back on, your fired!" so I said "OK, so I‘m fired" and left.
Sean: So who did you play with next?
Bob: Well, about a week after leaving the Bonzo’s a drummer friend of mine called Henry Harrison called me and said that he had a call from this guy who had written a song which could be a big hit and he was asking him to find some guys to front a band called The New Vaudeville Band. The song, Winchester Cathedral, which had already been recorded with session musicians, did became a number one hit. We did the television show Top of the Pops. In those days the band mimed but the singer had to sing live, so I had to tape the words to the side of the organ to get through it. It was all a big leap from what I had been doing. The song was also a number one in the USA and we were very big business for a while, although we didn‘t make very big money. We even did the Ed Sullivan show and went to Las Vegas...it was a wonderful experience.
Sean: Tell me what happened to New Vaudeville Band and where did your carer take you next?
Bob: I was sacked of course! I was called to see the band's manager Peter Grant, who later managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, and he said "I’m sorry, I like you and all that, but the boys want a change", he gave me a months money and that was it. I knew the band had reached its peak anyway so I didn’t worry about it too much. I went and formed my own band, Bob Kerr’s Whoopee Band. Vernon Dudley Bohay Nowell, Sam Spoons, Gieves and some of the other guys who had left the Bonzos (since they had changed musical directions) came and joined me so by 1967 I was my own band leader.
Sean: Tell us about your first Whoopee Band tour.
Bob: We were playing at the 100 Club in Oxford Street, London, where I met a guy called Dieter Nentwig (later to became Germany’s top jazz promoter) who was knocked out by our show and wanted to know how to get the band over to Germany. I told him that was simple - get us three jobs and we would go. So I eventually got a call back from Dieter saying he had got us three jobs. We were an eight piece band in those days and the old bus that we had would have hardly got out of London, so I got a "new" bus which got as far as Belgium before a piston blew. We got it to the garage and were rescued by a guy who knew someone with a coach that would take us to our gigs.
Our first job was at a bank, who we holding a jazz evening. It was very palacial with marble everywhere. "Evil" John "Gieves" Watson, our banjo player who had been with the Temperence Seven in there heyday, did a funny dancing act with a life size dummy. We were to play the introduction whilst he went offstage and got his dummy… but he never came back. We played the introduction over and over again until someone eventually went looking for him. It turned out he had slipped over on the marble floor and had fallen over onto the dummy, cracking a rib. He was moaning and groaning and could not speak German, but someone eventually realised he needed help and called an ambulance. The medical guys came rushing in to be confronted with Gieves and the life-size dummy both laying on the floor and didn’t now which one to take to Hospital! So he didn’t do one job on that tour!
Sean: You have been running the Whoopee Band for Forty years now Bob, what do you think the secret of the bands success is?
Bob: The Whoopee Band tries to connect with the audience. We endeavour to involve them, talk to them and our musical comedy travels very well. The band has changed a little through the years, people come and go, but the same basic concept is to have fun and convey that. For example, we played at the Reading Jazz and Beer Festival recently where the audience was mainly younger people who absolutely loved it. We had to do three encores to get off. Festivals are always good for the band. We try to keep the show up to date (a bit) and we are still able to do that… so we might as well carry on. We are just different in our music and presentation style to everyone else.
Sean: What would you consider some of the "highlights" from the Whoopee Band’s 40 years history?
Bob: Almost the very first gig I got came from the guy who used to play clarinet with the Temperance Seven. He was producing a TV series about all the American presidents and he wanted us to do the music. His particular song was "I like Ike, shout it over the mike!", all very trite stuff . Also, in 1970 we were offered our own six half hour series for London Weekend Television. We had made a half hour pilot show at the Half Moon pub (the bands spiritual home) in Putney with Bob Godrey, the famous animator who did the children’s show "Rhubarb and Custard" and he wanted to do this show involving us and him. We got the series but LWT didn’t want to use Bob Godrey, which I thought was terrible, but went ahead of course and took the series.
Sean: Did any of those shows make it onto DVD or are they archived somewhere?
Bob: No, I think it was recorded on wire in those days! It would be wonderful to see them because we were always working on Friday nights when it went out, 6pm to 6.30pm and we never saw any of them. Nobody had video recorders in those days. A funny story is that one evening were hurrying to get back after an afternoon show to get within the range of LWT so we could at least watch one show and we found a Chinese take-away restaurant with a television set behind the counter. We all rushed in and asked the Chinaman to switch to channel 3, which he did. He looked at the TV and looked at us and said "Ahhh …you!…on terravision!". We ordered some food and began to watch the show until suddenly the chef came out of the kitchen and switched the TV off. We threw our food at him and ran off. So, no more Chinese food in Luton for a while!
Sean: Tell us about the recent reunion of the Bonzo Dog Band?
Bob: A Classic Rock promoter wanted to get the band together for a "one off" concert at the Astoria Theatre in London and it was so successful it was decided to take the show on tour. This year we are touring again and we have just finished making a new CD. It has nice mixture of styles and should be out in October. The band has all the original members apart from Vivian Stanshall who unfortunately died about 5 years ago. His wife has been to see us a few times. Of course, nobody could replace Viv, so TV comedians Adrian Edmondson and Phil Jupitus joined us. They grew up with this offbeat stuff at university and they love us, we are Gods to them. The Bonzos were forerunners to the Monty Python team and of course they laid the foundations for a whole generation of offbeat comedy stuff. This style of entertainment is still funny today, there has always an audience for the likes of Spike Jones, The Alberts, Dr. Crock and his Crackpots, The Temperance Seven, even Spike Milligan, The Goons, they were all offbeat humour. Kids nowadays are very receptive to this style of music because they have never seen it on TV or heard it on Radio, even so called "live" performances are with playbacks now. They just love it, sit there with there mouths open. It is simply not making it on television which is a huge shame. A lot of modern comedy is "cringe-worthy".
Sean: Bob, you have been a successful musician all your life. Have you any other ambitions yet to be fulfilled?
Bob: Well, although I have been playing with comedy bands most of my life I do enjoy playing straight jazz too. In fact when I joined legendary jazz trumpeter Kenny Ball on stage at my last jazz festival he said to me "I knew if you played a bit slower, you’d be alright !". Whoopee tempos can be a bit frantic!
Sean: Yes Bob, tell me about the Stradbroke Jazz Festival that you organise each year?
Bob: Well, this year was its tenth year and it has been sold out each year. It is held in a big marquee at the back of the pub and was also web-cast now on the internet. I had emails from people all over the world who had seen it on the web. The festival combines Real ale and jazz and as well as having the Whoopee Band performing, I invite guest players and this year Kenny was our featured star. He loved it.
Sean: Well Bob, we’ll wrap things up there and many thanks for talking about your life and career.
Bob: My pleasure Sean, cheers!
Copyright Sean Moyses.
http://www.seanmoyses.com/