for Sunday 22nd January 1967
After a dearth of new releases over the festive season, we suddenly see a huge influx of climbers

All Kinds Of People

Fingers

Columbia DB 8112

Fingers, from the Southend area, had previously appeared on the Big L playlist on October 9th 1966, with I'll Take You Where the Music's Playing (the Drifters' 1965 US hit). The single, though picked as Keith Skues's Climber, remained on the playlist for only one week and failed to make the Fab.

All Kinds of People, from the pens of Carter/Lewis, was to take Fingers to #32 in the Fab, but unfortunately, nowhere near the Nationals. Pristine copies of the single are quite collectable, changing hands at around £25.

On Dec 2nd,1966, at High Wycombe College, the band, consisting of John Bobin, bs, cello (#367) Mo Witham, gtr (#368) Bob Clouter, drms, (#369) and Alan Beecham (#370) keybd, horns, with Ricky Mills (#371), gtr, and David Grout (#373) on guitar and vocals, was the last, and probably the least-known group to join the Knees Club. Fingers had (like many other bands at the time) undergone a swift change of musical direction between October and December, by which time they were well into psychedelia.

(left): Fingers and Knees – The band was the last to add its name to the Knees Club book

The band reappeared in the Fab Forty a few months later, in the new guise of Daddy Lindberg with Shirl, another Carter/Lewis composition. Also in 1967, Ricky Mills was to join forces with Force Five, as the magnificently-monikered Crocheted Doughnut Ring. John Bobin and Mo Witham later joined Southend pub-rock band, Legend.

In 2006, John Bobin got in touch to tell us:

"I have written a book, the profits from which are going to Cancer Research. The book is entitled Bark Staving Ronkers and it is an autobiographical memoir of 12 hectic years in the life of a young musician.

As a teenager I played in various bands including The Orioles (with Mickey Jupp), The Fingers (allegedly one of the first UK psychedelic bands) and Legend (again with Mickey Jupp, and described on some web sites as the first pub-rock band.)

The Fingers recorded at various studios including Abbey Road. Legend recorded at Advision and Philips.

I was born at just the right time to experience the heady delights of growing up in the sixties and early seventies. I was lucky enough to play with some very well known musicians and to record at Abbey Road and other seminal recording studios.

We did radio and TV work, played in Europe and had a minor hit record in Italy. The book describes a time when I was associated with many top stars, producers and venues during an era when the music industry was alive with excitement and spontaneity.

I still play as a regular gigging musician and the most popular songs that we do by far, are those that originated in the sixties and seventies. Every bookshop has a music section and an army of fans buys books that celebrate this golden era. TV and Radio shows also cater for eager sixties and seventies aficionados and there are popular, specialist radio stations and websites that offer their own views of the period in question.

My book is directed towards the hundreds of thousands of Rock and Roll and Pop music fans who remember a period when their entertainment was not provided by bands that had been ‘manufactured’ by TV shows."

There have been some encouraging sales via Amazon, both in the States and in the UK and I have sent a reasonable-sized cheque to Cancer Research UK. I chose to do this, even though I am still personally in the red, as I wanted to make certain that this worthy cause benefited from "the BSR experience."

John's book is receiving great reviews. Example:

For more reviews, click the book jacket (right).

John has very kindly written both a full history of Fingers and a feature about his 21st Century band, Da Management for us.