THE youth of Middleton, along with the rest of the country’s teens, had been seduced by the ‘devil's music’. Ballad singers like Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Dickie Valentine, Jimmy Young and the old crooner himself, Bing Crosby was for ‘squares’.

Rock and roll was sucked into being by the vacuous content of the music scene at that time. Looking back at the music charts - only four years old in 1956 – songs like: Twenty Tiny Fingers, Poppa Piccolino, Where Will The Dimple Be, and Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen By The Sea were mixed in with multiple releases of the same songs by different artists, a situation that speaks volumes about the quantity and quality of the material available - or not - at the time.

British teenagers of the fifties identified with America’s disaffected rock and roll singers – mainly young boys from the southern states. Singers like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Burnette, Jerry Lee Lewis and of course Buddy Holly. Young boys back in Britain tried to imitate their idols in the way they dressed and the way they walked but any thought of spending ‘good money’ on musical instruments would have been frowned on by parents that had struggled through six years of war on service pay and ration books.

Lonnie Donegan changed all that with the release of Leadbelly’s, Rock Island Line. His up tempo version of the song became a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic and the skiffle line up he used on many of his television appearances was an inspiration to the many aspiring musicians. With a combination of guitar, banjo or ukulele and a rhythm section consisting of a tea-chest bass and a washboard for percussion it was a cheap and easy to start a group.

Newspapers of the time offered "The Viceroy Skiffle Board - complete with cowbell and hooter" or "the Broadway ‘Kat’ snare drum and cymbal" but at £10 14s the later option was out of the reach of most young lads.

Rainmakers and Startones

Two of Middleton’s first and more successful skiffle groups were the Rainmakers and the Startones who battled their way to the finals of the Rochdale Skiffle Contest at the Carlton Ballroom. The Rainmakers won but the Startones came in a close second and were hoping to do better at the North of England Skiffle Contest at the Apollo, Ardwick, later in the year.

As the Rainmakers and the Startones battled for supremacy younger members of the community were following their example. The Moonrakers practiced in the garage of the hardware shop at 62 Mount Road, Alkrington. The shop was owned by the parents of their lead guitarist, Peter Cowap.

These eager, young musicians gained in confidence and musical ability by giving shows for the local kids on Alkrington at 3d a time (Just over 1p).

Moonrakers

Mike Lappin the washboard player remembers their big break at the first Middleton Fair in August 1957. "Pete Cowap should have played lead guitar at the fair but the day before a guitar string snapped and hit him in the eye."

Verleen, Peter’s sister, remembers how serious the injury was. "The string snapped blinding him in his right eye, then an infection set in and he had to spend three weeks in hospital. We all thought he was going to loose the eye but it was saved by strong medication."

The Middleton Guardian didn’t report this earth shattering news, but did list the background music at the fair as coming from, "gramophone records and a skiffle group of 12 and 13-year-olds called The Moonrakers."

Peter did get to play at Middleton Fair in 1964 with a different group - The Country Gentlemen.

Young Middleton skiffle groups like the Moonrakers and the Dominoes earned small amounts of money on the local church hall circuit along with their more skilful roll models. However, by the end of '59 the skiffle craze had run its course. Manchester’s Belle Vue announced that drummers would not be allowed to use washboards, and the tea chest bass reverted back to packing cases, used by families moving from the old slum areas to the new council estates. The primitive musical outburst was over but not before parents had realised their offspring could earn a few bob from their guitar playing, hip shaking, lip curling pastime. From this wild seed Middleton’s music scene was about blossom.

Deke Bonner and The Tremors

Peter Cowap was having guitar lessons at Reno’s music shop on Oxford Road and spent many hours practicing and copying the styles of his heroes, Buddy Holly and Duane Eddy, on his twin pick-up Hofner Club 40, which cost him the princely sum of £32.

The first all-electric group in Middleton were Deke Bonner and the Tremors, formed in 1959 by Len Dyson. The name came from the Johnny Kidd and the Pirates song, ‘Shakin’ All Over’ (Johnny Kidd was killed in a car accident on 8 October 1966 when the Ford Cortina he was travelling in collided with a Mini on Bury New Road, Radcliffe.

With Len was vocalist Colin Smithies, bass player Tony Cook (Nick Duval) and Charlie Sidebottom on the drums. The group rehearsed at Middleton Cycling Club, behind the New Inn.

The Tremors did cover versions of popular rock and roll artist of the day, but without the individual stamp of a good lead guitarist the group lacked the punch needed to grab an audiences attention. John Dean, a close friend of Len’s, introduced them to Peter Cowap, who turned up with his friend Neil Gibbons. Peter was certainly interested in joining the band but made a proviso that Neil (a saxophonist) would have to be included in the deal.

There was a measure of excitement in the room as the band watched Neil hook up his complex looking saxophone and, surprising as it may seem now, even Peter was filled with anticipation as he watched Nick Duval strap on the first electric bass guitar he had ever seen. The session that followed surprised everyone. The full-on rock and roll beat, with Peter’s attention to detail on the solos, driven by an over-saxed rhythm section convinced everyone they had the talent and a new sound that would make them a force to be reckoned with.

Lead singer Colin Smithies took the name Deke Bonner after seeing Elvis Presley’s second film, ‘Loving You’ in which Elvis played Deke Rivers, a young hillbilly singer.

John Dean became the Tremors’ manager and secured them bookings all over the northwest adding to their already growing success as a hard working rock and roll group. But like many groups over the years evolutional disparities played a large part in their break-up.