dave webster

Dave Webster or Toots as he is known to some people has been around for donkeys years. He started shouting the blues unnacompanied in the pubs of the Cowcaddens area of Glasgow in the sixties, and soon was playing tenor for Big John Tennant's Bluelites, an r'n'b band he helped to form. this was 1961 and there were precious few r'n'b bands in the uk. Dave and his pals got their inspiration from buying 45's that had been imported to feed the demand for blues and jazz from the many black servicemen stationed in Glasgow. Dave and chums used to frequent the Cell club in the West End, where black guys from the south would occasionally sing. also at the Cell were the house musicians, who included Alex Harvey, Jim Mullen and Jacky Bruce. That was some scene. After moving to London in the sixties, Dave picked up work from an old colleague who had run rock and roll bands at the Cell. This guy got him a gig with none other than the Tymes, the fabulous Philladelphia soul group who were in the uk promoting their no 1 hit single, a cover of Barbara Streisand's "People who need People". That was the gig of a lifetime.....with their red diamante stage suits, extending their fingers to the screaming lassies, the Tymes were one of the consumate hip stage acts of their era. Revolving stages, screaming fans, it was all a bit much for a wee pub singer and budding alto player. after the Tymes, Dave did some woodshedding, and caught up with the sounds of Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. He developed a free jazz voice on the alto, and applied it to playing with the new Psychedelic bands that were springing up. He got a job with one called Cosmic Wreckage ( believe it or not). alongside him in that band was a young tenor player called Davey Payne, who was taking a break from playing with his mate's band...Kilburn and the high roads. his mate was Ian Durie, and Davey later rejoined him to do the killer solo on "Hit me with your Rythm Stick". the two Daves were well into Albert Ayler and Roland Kirk at that time, and it shows in Davey's famous solo. On one Cosmic Wreckage gig at Phun City Festival in Reading (headliners Led Zeppelin, Captain Beefheart and the MC 5- Those were the days! ) Dave met up with free jazzer Ken Hyder, and jammed with him. Dave and Ken dug each other's music, and when Dave moved back to London he joined Ken's free jazz combo with the late Mal Dean. Dave played with Ken on and off for fifteen years and did four albums, radio and tv with Ken's pioneering band, Talisker. Along with the superbe tenor and clarinettist John Rangecroft, Dave got involved in Ken's Alchemical vision of blending Traditional Scottish music with post Coltrane licks. Dave and Ken then took that concept even further, with the vision that they should try to play "The Folk Music of Planet Earth. They did a lot of woodshedding with Dave's little duo The Bampot Brothers, and this experimentation also infused it's way back into the music of Talisker.Ken's open-ness embraced all sorts of music at this time. Ken and Dave pioneered these concepts long before the Stamp of World Music had been coined. Another multicultural visionary from those days was the great drummer, John Stevens. Talisker made regular appearances on the BBC's Jazz in Britain programme, and it's presenter, Charles Fox, was a fan of Dave's alto playing.One of the records from that time, "Dreaming of Glenisla," has just been re-released with bonus tracks from a live session on the John Peel show. Towards the end of his time with Talisker he went back to his early love of Rythm and Blues, and sang and played alto with a couple of cracking r'n'b pub bands of the time. He also wandered round Europe with a couple of pals with a trio calling themselves Lord Snooty and the Snake Charmers, playing weird rock music. He then returned to Talisker and did some memorable gigs, including the Le Mans Jazz Festival, where Talisker were presented to the Mayor of Le Mans. Not bad for a band who had been called "musical roughnecks" in the press, long before punk. When he moved to Herts in the ninetiies Dave joined a local blues band called Route 41, which he ended up fronting with Joe Nethercoat after founder Andy Rio had moved on. He also joined another blues outfit called Reloaded Blues and jammed around the area with various jazz combos, trying to hone the bebop licks, like his hero Eddie Cleanhead Vinson. He moved to Dorset in 2005 and plays jazz and blues with local bands, plus his own brand of strange music, still under the banner of The Bampot Brothers. Dave has been writing prolifically since coming to Dorset, and will release a new Bampots album on the net, hopefully soon. He has received radio play from John Cavanagh at Radio 6 International for his latest efforts. Dave's aim now is to record and gig with more of his own material, and try to blend the experiences of a long and crazy musical journey. At one time the Bampots did a gig at Battersea Town Hall called Tales of Beatnick Glory, in tribute to the Fug's Ed Saunders. He would like to get back to that vibe now. yeh man.