“I'll send you a fairly lengthy email in a day or three - I'm currently bedridden recovering from illness and it'll help alleviate the boredom in a pleasant way :)
The mis-spelling of 'Casson' occurs, not in your own writing, but in what I think is a clipping from a newspaper or a magazine, the one which comes under a picture of 'the Caravelles'.
If you put his name into the youtube search engine, you will find many videos of his stand up comedy, he's well represented there. Richard Harding also is on 'the tube' - he (and the other Cresters) played for a while as the backing band for the highly successful country singer Tammy Wynette, who used to feature Richard's guitar work in her shows. Again, a youtube search of 'the Tammy Wynette show with Richard Harding' will take you to a video featuring Richard.
The two 'Allans' who have previously posted on this thread are both a few years older than I, and were involved in the scene for longer than me - I've let them both know about your posts also.”
“Hi Scotbeat :) I lived in Elgin during the 60s and have many memories of Albert and his promotions. Regarding your questions about the Cresters - none of them died in a car crash, I'm pleased to say. Apart from John Harding, who kindly supplied information on himself and Malcolm Clarke in a previous post on this thread, the other members were Richard Harding who is alive and well, and Johnny Casson (not 'Caffen', as he is wrongly identified on your site). In more recent times, Richard has been gigging with the original singer of the Cresters, Mike Sagar; Johnny Casson has had a successful career as a stand-up comedian, with many tv appearances to his credit. I have many memories and quite a bit of knowledge about the 'Bonici years' - if you want to contact me so that I can pass on some of my info that may be of interest to you, let me know how to contact you and I'll get back to you. The two 'Allans' who have also posted on this thread are also Elgin natives who were on that same scene :)”
“oh and by the way, I meant to say, regarding the photograph at the top of this page - I had a copy of the original of this photo, given to my wife and I by Johnny Casson when we spent a few days in Leeds staying with Richard and John in 1974, it's not from 1968, it's later than that :)”
I have indeed got the 1972 cassette, it's not hi-fi quality but it's quite listenable. I also have some recordings made by Richard in his studio, mainly instrumental guitar things, plus a few tracks of a 'jam' session made two or three years ago of Richard and myself playing 2 guitars.
Eileen - I've lost your contact details, if you get in touch with me again I can do you some copies which are (only marginally, I'm afraid!) better than the ones I sent before.
Allan J - get in touch, I'll be happy to send you what I've got.
I find this site hard to navigate and a bit haphazardly laid out, I've tried to locate both of your email addresses on here and failed, so I'm taking a wee chance now just in case you can't find mine - contact me on munroneil245@googlemail.com
“Eileen - you have tapes of the Cresters from the 60s? Any way you could share these? I have a small number of recordings from then myself but the sound quality is seriously dreadful - I'd be happy to supply copies to anyone who wanted them though. (not you allan, you've got them already)
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The mis-spelling of 'Casson' occurs, not in your own writing, but in what I think is a clipping from a newspaper or a magazine, the one which comes under a picture of 'the Caravelles'.
If you put his name into the youtube search engine, you will find many videos of his stand up comedy, he's well represented there. Richard Harding also is on 'the tube' - he (and the other Cresters) played for a while as the backing band for the highly successful country singer Tammy Wynette, who used to feature Richard's guitar work in her shows. Again, a youtube search of 'the Tammy Wynette show with Richard Harding' will take you to a video featuring Richard.
The two 'Allans' who have previously posted on this thread are both a few years older than I, and were involved in the scene for longer than me - I've let them both know about your posts also.”