A rocker who met Elvis and partied with The Who is marking his band’s golden anniversary with a gig on Teesside.
Barry Whitman, who was the original drummer with Herman’s Hermits, was there when mod wildman Keith Moon lost a tooth, cost him $200 - and was almost arrested - at a drunken knees up in America.
And he was quizzed by Elvis in Hawaii - on how to deal with fame.
Barry, now aged 68, said chatting to Elvis was like ‘meeting God’ - but that nothing topped the madness of his 21st birthday celebration...
Speaking before his anniversary gig at The Forum Theatre in Billingham in March, he said: “In 1967 we invited The Who to be our support band on our US Summer tour.
“A few days before it was my 21st Birthday in Las Vegas, we had a few drinks & photos were taken.
“A few days later in The Holiday Inn in Flint Michigan it was Keith Moons 21st Birthday.
“One or two cakes had been delivered to the dining room of the hotel for Keith’s birthday, so we decided to have fifty more delivered for my birthday which was a few days before. The whole tour entourage gathered to view the cakes which was a pretty impressive sight.
“Of course we’d had a few drinks & Keith went to eat a fork full of cake, I stopped him & said that last year someone tried to poison us, so not to eat any. He put the fork down then decided to flick cream at Karl Green which hit him in the face.
“Everybody laughed apart from Karl who stuck his finger in a cake & flicked it in Keith’s face. That was it - everybody started, and within minutes that room looked like the inside of a cake.
“It was up the walls on the ceiling all over the carpet, now during this Keith Moon went over to Karl Green & pulled down his trousers, Karl returned the compliment but also pulled down Keith’s underpants as well.”
This was a bad move, Barry said.
“The police officer assigned to guard the room saw Keith’s private parts and promptly pulled out his revolver pointing it at his manhood & tried to arrest him for breaking the law in Michigan State. We gathered round Keith pulled up his pants, apologised to the officer & pushed Keith out of the fire exit.
“Poor guy tripped over the pavement & smashed out his two front teeth. He spent the rest of the night in the emergency dental hospital.
“Meanwhile back inside of the cake ( The dining room ) we slipped the police officer a few hundred dollars and thanked him for not arresting Keith. The next morning our tour manager was at reception paying for the rooms & the damage.
“It cost Herman’s Hermits $25,000, I thank you. Rock’ n’ Roll Eh!”
Barry can’t promise a cake fight on stage at the The Forum Theatre, but he does promise to be Into Something Good with The Sensational 60’s Experience World Tour on Saturday and Sunday, March 14 and 15.
The Hermits take a walk down memory lane to the swinging sixties with songs such as There’s a Kind Of Hush, Henry Vlll, Something Is Happening, I’m Into Something Good and Sunshine Girl.
Herman’s Hermits will be joined by The Union Gap who shot to the UK number one spot with Young Girl, and number five with Lady Willpower.
Also on the bill are classic 1960s bands The Swinging Blue Jeans, who shot to fame with the Hippie Hippie Shake, The Crying Game singer/songwriter Dave Berry, and 60s boyband The Ivy League, led by original member Perry Ford, who will perform Funny How Love Can Be and Tossing and Turning.
Herman’s Hermits started in Manchester in 1964 with Peter Noone as lead singer. When he left in 1971, Barry took over as band leader, with Paul Cornwall from Union Gap stepping up for frontman duties.
The band still performs more than 200 shows a year all over the world.
Barry Whitwam recalls his meeting Elvis Presley.
“It all came about in the summer of 1965.
“Herman’s Hermits had just finished a big tour of America in Hawaii at the Coliseum and we were booked to fly home the next day, but that night after the last show we got a telephone call from Colonel Tom Parker.
“Col Tom was Elvis’s manager and he said that Elvis Presley would like to meet Herman’s Hermits on his film set the next day.
Peter [Noone, Hermits front man] and I were delighted to be invited and we managed to change our tickets home for a flight 24 hours later.
“Karl, Keith and Derek chose to fly home missing the chance of a lifetime. Elvis was filming Paradise Hawaiian Style and we were to meet him on the film set which was on the beach that same day at two o’clock in the afternoon.
“We arrived on the film set just before two o’clock and Col.
“Tom met us and told us that Elvis had just gone out for a ride on his motor bike with his friends and would be back very soon.
“Just then we heard what at first sounded like thunder coming from down the beach a long way off.
“As the sound got louder we could see about thirteen motor bikes side by side coming towards us. After a short time we could see that Elvis was in the centre of the riders as they roared onto the film set. What an entrance, as they say in show business.
“We found out later that Elvis had bought each of his friends their motorbikes. He was such a generous person.
“As Elvis approached us I was spell bound, it was as if God had come down from Heaven. Altogether we had about two hours with Elvis and talked about our tour of America.
“He knew we had millions of fans there but I don’t think he really understood why!
“Elvis seemed to want to know what our secret was - how five young lads from Manchester could make such a big impact around the world. At the end of the meeting we had some picture taken with Elvis, and I have a large framed photo of Elvis and me mounted on my ’Wall of Fame’ at home.”
You can view the photos on my web site http://bit.ly/1KWszFc
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