Mansfield seven piece pop soul group c 1969-1971. Also known as Jaffa Band.
Including ‘Six Times Table’.

Line up:
Dave Marriott (organ)
Tony Penny (drums)
John Gaut (bass guitar)
Mick Wallace (guitar)
John Ponka (tenor sax)
Steve Kehoe (trumpet)
Alan Marshall (baritone sax)

Mick Penny (guitar) In the 1969 line up

Formed from the ashes of other late sixties groups, one of which was “Six Times Table” they played the Notts, Derby, Lincs circuit as well as further afield playing a brass led soul set. They started as a six piece and did extend to an eight piece but are generally remembered as a seven piece group.

I spoke to Tony Penny some years ago and most of the photos are from the Jaff a Band appreciation society facebook page.

Dave Marriot remembers the beginning like this: (from a facebook post on the Jaff a Band appreciation society).
“The Jaff a Band came from four school friends wanting to do something with their time and playing music seemed to be a good idea. Dave Marriott had played keyboards in a couple of bands and knew John Gaut had a bass guitar at home and had built his own speaker cabs and taught himself to play. Tony Penny had taught himself to play drums and was eager to play. Steve Kehoe had played bugle in the Boys Brigade and was eager to learn to play trumpet. Add to this mix A very talented friend called John Ponka who had learnt to play accordion and tenor sax and the band was nearly complete. After a few practices it was decided we needed a guitarist. Regular visits to the Westfield Folk House where local bands appeared regularly turned up Mike Wallace who at that time played with a group called Union Jacks (This may have been Jack’s Union). It didn’t take much to persuade Mike to join the band an rehearsals began in earnest, in the beginning, at a church hall in New Houghton. The first gig was at the Folk House and afterwards luckily Barry Lucas the youth leader saw our potential and.let us rehearse there in return for the odd gig free. Also Barry helped us financially by providing a van and new amps cabs and instruments which we paid for out of the gigs we decided to add another member on baritone sax and found Alan Marshal and the band was complete we managed to get the biggest midlands agent to take on the management and the gigs started to flood in another guitarist friend and brother of the drummer Tony, Mick Penny joined for a short while but it wasn’t really his sort of music and he left after a while“.

When I spoke to Tony Penny I planned out his early musical journey.

TONY PENNY
I caught up with Tony at a TOASTED FROG gig in Sherwood, Nottingham, June 2019. He is still playing drums some fifty odd years since he started which is no mean feat and I managed to have a chat with him to grab a few historical nuggets to illuminate his musical journey.
Drummer Tony Penny was born to Mansfield parents in 1950 in the Mansfield hospital. His father who was a sailor died when he was two and he was brought up by his mother. Something drew him to music. “Well, I started off playing guitar but a mate of mine was in Boys Brigade and he was playing drums and I thought that looks easy. I should have stuck with guitar”.
1963
Tony went to see the Beatles when they performed at the Granada Cinema on West Gate on 23rd February 1963, around the release of “Please Please Me”. Top of the bill was still Helen Shipiro but this soon swapped around as the Fab Four rocketed to stardom. They appeared again just a month later as part of the Tommy Roe and Chris Montez tour and legend has it, the group was chased by hoards of fans back to the Swan Hotel the second time they were in town. Back in the day, the Granada played host to a number of leading acts including Gene Vincent, Screaming Lord Sutch, Roy Orbison, Cliff Richard and the Rolling Stones.
If rock and roll and skiffle were the first tasters for playing pop music then the explosion of The Beatles was a catalyst for a whole generation of youngsters to pick up guitars and drum sticks, form groups and if they were lucky, earn a living.
In a time when it was either “The Beatles or The Stones” Tony would eventually move towards the soul music that was becoming very popular in the mid sixties clubs and pubs.
c 1964
In a town that already had emerging bands like The Mansfields, Ricky Storm and the Stormcats and most notably Shane Fenton and the Fentones and the Nottingham/Mansfield outfit The Jaybirds who became Ten Years After Tony joined his first group called THE INCAS. They were more of a rock and roll outfit. “We used to practice in his dads garage at the bottom of the garden and upset all the neighbours”.
c1965
Then he joined and played drums for JACKIE AND THE LAYTONS. who were a one family band consisting of two sisters one played bass and one who sang, a brother and a dad who roadied. A photo exists “I tell you what I have got, I’ve a Jackie and the Laytons photo and we all stood with dark red suits on, first suit I ever had, in height, going in height order, really korny like, you know”.
Not in any way to demean vocalists but female instrumentalists in pop were still fairly rare in those days so a female bass player in the Mansfield area was most likely a first. Some of the early pioneers of girls in pop started out with Liverpool group The Liverbirds who could be argued as the first all girl pop/rock band, Honey Lantree, drummer for London group The Honeycombs, Megan Davies who played bass for Birmingham group The Applejacks and Ivy Benson who was a drummer and a leader of a big band in the days before rock and roll.
c 1966
Tony then joined another youth club band called “SIX TIMES TABLE” around 1966. “We weren’t long out of school and we could just about do the six times table”. They performed the pop soul hits of the day.

1969
The Six Times Table morphed into the “JAFF A BAND” who were a soul group formed in 1969 comprising:
Dave Marriott (organ), Tony Penny (drums), John Gaut (bass guitar, Mick Wallace (guitar), John Ponka (tenor sax), Steve Kehoe (trumpet), Alan Marshall (baritone sax).
The band name had no real meaning and was most likely an invention of Tony’s. The name may have had something to do with them using “Orange” amplifiers but whatever it was it stuck and they secured management at Banner Productions, Nottingham, who also managed Nottingham bands Sons and Lovers, Colours of Love, Six Across, Whichwhat and many others. all playing the same circuit of gigs at pubs, clubs and university’s.
Jaff A Band were a covers band performing such soul and pop numbers as Amen Corner’s “Bend me shake me” and “My girl” and other hits of the day. They played far and wide from Birmingham to Sheffield. No recordings were made. They were just a club band earning a living playing the social and working men’s clubs.

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At the end of 1971 the Jaffa-a- Band split up. John Ponka joined Barracuda in 1972.

NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS

1969

1970

1971

Reunion