THE 1960s saw the emergence of pop music, defined in a jaundiced Keighley News article in 1963 as “youths with weird-looking guitars, and highly skilled recording technicians with their sound mixers combining to mesmerise gullible teenagers”!
In 1962 four local teenagers – wages clerk Norman Crabtree, warp twister Michael Howley, planning assistant Robert Bailey and moulder Joe Haigh – formed a group initially playing at Haworth Youth Club. They called themselves The Nomads.
This hazy snapshot shows them performing at an early rural venue. A notice stuck on the small building behind them reads “Gents”!
By the end of 1963, however, with their equipment insured for £900, they were appearing on the same bill as Freddie and the Dreamers at the Imperial Ballroom in Nelson.
Their usual payment for a dance-hall engagement was £12, whereas Freddie and the Dreamers could expect around £700.
But The Nomads, albeit with an altered line-up, were still raising money for charity into the 21st century.
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