The Sons Rise Again
The recognised line up of the Sons was Pete Buckby on drums and vocals, Jim Gaffney guitar and vocals, .John Hemmings guitar and vocals and Dewi Toleman on Bass guitar and vocals. On April 23rd this esteemed line up are reforming for a reunion at the Con Club in Cottingham Road, Corby. The first time they will have played together in 55 years! Since 1967, the fabled ‘Summer of Love’.
The Sons were formed in 1964 and cut their teeth playing gigs at local venues which included ‘Nellie’s Bin’ and the Crows Nest, slowly building up a reputation with their renditions of Beach Boys, Beatles and Hollies hits, as DJ Bip Wetherell, who’s own career includes vocalist and keyboard player with local bands Friction, The Rhubarb Tree, Granite and later the Tornados, recalled all so well on his Corby Radio Show in 1998:
“I remember the first time I heard ‘Good Vibrations’ on Radio Caroline and like many others, it knocked me out. Such intricate and magnificent harmonising! A week later my band Friction was on the same bill as the Rising Sons at Corby Civic Centre and they came on and floored everyone with their rendition of Brian Wilson’s masterpiece! They peed me off! They were brilliant. Made me feel like jackin’ it in there and then!!”
Dewi Toleman was the only Sons member with previous experience having started his career in the 1950s with a band called The Vikings and he later formed The Electrons with whom they gained prestigious bookings supporting world famous stars The Ronettes and Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.
Dewi recalled those halcyon days of the mid 1960s with the Rising Sons for a feature in the local magazine The Pilot when home from Australia in 1999.
“We played all the usual chart stuff like the Beatles’ ‘I Feel Fine’, the Hollies’ ‘Look Thru’ Any Window’. We also indulged a little by playing obscure stuff like Little Anthony and the Imperials’ ‘On the Outside Looking In”, The Impressions’ ‘Sad Girl and Boy’, Astro Gilberto’s ‘Girl From Ipenema’. I’m obviously biased but I believe the Sons of that later era were close to being the best band that Corby or the surrounding area ever produced.”
The band soon progressed from playing local dances to appear, like The Electrons before them, as support to many of the top names in the business.
Most exciting of all was undoubtedly with Otis Redding at Boston Gliderdrome, a fantastic venue with a revolving stage and sky high ceiling with thousands of fairy lights. Otis was brilliant, sadly it was just a year before his fatal plane crash in Wisconsin. I was only sixteen at the time and playing with these people who I was a big fan of was unbelievable.”
Thrilled with the band’s progress, Pete was thus disappointed when his suggestion about going full time was greeted with less enthusiasm by the rest of the band.
“The Otis Redding gig went really well and I was buzzing. I brought up the suggestion about us going full time because I felt we had something going and thought it was time, either to make a go of it, or leave it. The response sadly was negative. I could see it took them by surprise. Dewi was keen but both John and Jim were planning to go to university and I could hardly blame them.”
Pete’s ambition had been to become a full time professional musician. Even if his dream was met with cynicism from a school master.
“I remember being asked what I wanted to do when I left school and when I told him ‘I want to be a drummer’ he replied in that most patronising tone that school teachers have, ‘you can’t be a drummer, there’s no jobs like that’, intimating that I should consider a career in the steelworks or something like everyone else.”
The Rising Sons duly announced their retirement to a disbelieving Corby public in 1967 with a farewell gig at the Strathclyde Hotel which was reported by a distraught Alex Gordon in his Corby Leader column, with the headline, ‘Another nail hammered into the coffin of Corby Rock.’
After the break up, Dewi Toleman was soon in demand to step in at short notice for a number of bands, including The Midnighters and The Size Seven in Cambridge when bassist Alan Black was unavailable the night Celtic played Inter Milan in the European Cup Final which was being shown on television!
Dewi emigrated to Australia in 1967 and continued to play, joining Oz rock and roll outfit, American Graffitti. Over the years he has since played in numerous Oz bands, including some time with fellow ex Corby patriots Pat and John Casey of the Midnighters.
Pete meanwhile, whilst waiting for a call, became a trainee chef at the Hunting Lodge in Cottingham “earning £3.50 a week” and also harboured thoughts of joining the Merchant Navy. It was while contemplating a life on the ocean wave he received a phone call from New Formula singer Mick Harper telling him about an opportunity to audition for a Sheffield band called The Endeavours which would earn him around £19 a week. A life changing moment it was. Pete was successful and achieved his goal of becoming a full time professional drummer for over 20 years with The Endeavours who later morphed into Canned Rock and became one of the hottest bands around in the 1970s and 80s. Which is another story for another time.
Two years after this reunion was originally planned, all going well, covid wise, Dewi will be home for a couple of months to meet up with sister Ros who incidentally will be making a guest appearance on vocals, visit his birthplace of Llanberis, and to renew acquaintances with many of his old friends from the 1960s. And to perform once again those classic numbers with the boys in The Rising Sons.
