aka
Phil Kinorra (with Don Rendell & Brian Auger)
Julien Covey (with the Machine)
Philamore Lincoln (as himself)

This is a remarkable story of one of Nottingham’s little known musicians, who in the sixties, shared the stage and studio with some of the biggest names of the era, in the worlds of jazz, rock and pop, released a “now considered classic” northern soul single, a well crafted album of whimsical psych, a few years producing and then in the early seventies disappeared from the music scene altogether.

Firstly a drummer but also a composer, arranger and singer his relatively small recorded output has a musical quality and the production values of someone who was both creative and able to call upon his contemporaries to help him deliver songs worthy of their appearance. I could write a list of names of people he worked with that to someone of my age or above who is in reverence of that golden time would make your mouth water such was his standing.

In an age when the lost stories of the mid twentieth century music renaissance are being sort after and documented before being lost forever, I to, have been drawn to this wonderful snapshot of a life in music. Apart from the received wisdom, the scattering of information already available to us online and scouring the music press the primary thanks must go to Peter Markham who in 2015 managed to track down the elusive Robert Anson and interview him along with fellow band member Bob Downes for The New Untouchables online magazine thus providing some real insight into what really happened and dispelling a few myths along the way. I am using that interview extensively (in italics) but I am also going to reprint that interview in it’s entirety at the end of my breakdown and appraisal of Robert Anson’s life in music for contextualisation. Another big thanks goes to Chris Bishop at Garage Hangover who has put in the hard work to work out the line ups of Julien Covey and the Machine.

Robert Cromwell Anson was born October 20, 1940, in Sherwood, Nottingham. In the Kelly’s Directory of Nottingham 1953 there is an Albert Anson living at 5 Valley Road, Sherwood and this is Robert’s father. Robert as Philamore Lincoln describes the area he grew up in, in his song “Early Sherwood” which will be talked about later. Valley Road is at the very bottom end of Sherwood and across the way is Daybrook which is also referred too in the song.
He grew up with an elder brother Peter and a younger brother Michael. Peter later owned a successful TV/Hi-Fi business [Peter Anson Electronics] and Mike played bass guitar in local Nottingham groups The Mysteries and Mothers Worry. He went under the name of Mick Cranson or Mick Hanson. There is a picture of him here with a guitar over his shoulder.

An article in the Nottingham Guardian from 1969 tells the story of Valley Road. It mentions the address of the Anson family and has a picture of Albert Anson (Roberts father).

You can read the full article HERE

Like many of his era the radio played a pivotal role in Robert hearing new music.
“Around the age of eleven I began to start noticing the drumming on jazz records, playing on the radio. Just before midnight I used to sneak downstairs in my parents’ house, put a blanket over my head, and turn on the radio and tune in to The Voice of America Jazz Hour. It was great to hear so many excellent players every night. I began to buy records featuring drummers [that I liked], and then I found a good drum teacher and began to take lessons. When I was fifteen I joined a naff group playing middle of the road music and I remembered what the drummer Andy White had told me: “When you are learning, take every opportunity to play, every bit of experience helps you develop”. Andy was the session drummer on the Beatles’ first single”.

1953/55 est Drum lessons

It is a fairly well known fact that Andy White was a session drummer used by George Martin on the first Beatles single “Love Me Do” and the inference here is that Andy White was the drum teacher Robert is referring too. These lessons would have been in and around 1953/54 maybe and how Robert had secured the lessons from Andy White is unknown but a feather in your cap for sure. Andy White was already busy in the 1950’s touring America in 1958 and playing on Billy Fury’s “Sound of Fury” in 1960 which is now considered Britain’s first homegrown rock and roll album.

1956 est “Unknown Group”

Robert refers to his first venture in a group playing middle of the road music.

1958 Jamming with Jazz musicians

In his late teens he joined the Royal Air Force c1958.
I joined the RAF Music Collage at Uxbridge, Trevor Watts and the fine trombonist Paul Rutherford were there at the same time. I was at Uxbridge during the day and jamming in Soho jazz cellars all night. The deal with the RAF was that you could, if you wanted to, buy yourself out of the RAF within three months of joining. With just two days left to the deadline I decided that jazz was more important than anything else. I sold my Avedis Zildjian hi-hat cymbals, paid them the money and escaped from Uxbridge in the nick of time. I was playing drums with Dudley Moore every Sunday night at a cellar jazz club in Fulham Road, called Café Des Artistes and jamming in small clubs all over Soho the rest of the week.

Trevor Charles Watts is a Jazz and free-improvising alto and soprano saxophonist performing with Amalgam and the Spontaneous Music Ensemble among others and Paul Rutherford was was a free improvising trombonist. Dudley Moore was an accomplished musician performing with Johnny Dankworth’s band before finding international fame and fortune as a comedian.

1960 – Gigging and jamming

At the beginning of 1960 Robert played in a R&B outfit with Heather Logan, sister of Scottish jazz singer Annie Ross.
“At this point the bass player, Tony Archer, and I went up to Scotland to do a gig on the Isle of Bute for a few weeks. On my way back to London, when the gig finished, I spent a couple of days in Glasgow. I got a call to say that an American R&B band had just arrived for a UK tour but that just before they had left the US their drummer had been busted for possession of pot. His entry visa was revoked and they needed a drummer to do the tour. The singer was the younger sister of the jazz singer Annie Ross. I went to the audition and they offered me the job”.

Londoner Anthony John Archer is a jazz double bass player who Robert was playing with fairly regularly. It was around this time Robert started using the stage name Phil Kinorra.
“The American R&B band liked my playing but they said that my name sounded very English and, as it was supposed to be the original US line-up, could I come up with a more American sounding name? I started thinking and then I remembered that a girl I had been dating on the Isle of Bute had mentioned a place called ‘Villa Kinorra’. It may have been somewhere in Mexico… I put the name ‘Phil’ in front of Kinorra and it seemed to fit and when I called the R&B band, to run it past them, they said it was much better and would I please use it for the UK tour. Every time we finished a tour date we headed back to London where the sax player and I would jam around the clubs. We were playing at the Flamingo Club in Wardour Street one night when some musicians asked the sax player what my name was. He told them ‘Phil Kinorra’. The MC at the Flamingo was a record company executive called Tony Hall. Tony also wrote articles for a music paper called Disc and when he wrote a piece about me he referred to me as Phil Kinorra. After it was published I was stuck with the name, so I thought “what the hell” and carried on with it”.

Phil Kinorra worked with the Peter King Quintet and the Ronnie Scott Quintet around this time.
“I was playing in a Soho club called the Mandrake one night when Ronnie Scott came in and jammed. He invited me to go to his club [Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club], in Gerrard Street, any time. I began jamming there regularly and, eventually, the great alto saxophonist Peter King asked me to join his quintet, which I did and several months later Ronnie Scott asked me to join his quintet which I did. That was a tough demanding gig and great experience, all the guys in the band were exceptionally fine world class players”.

1960/61 – DON RENDELL

Phil Kinorra then joined the New Don Rendell Quintet in May of 1960 and recorded the LP Roarin’ in June 1961.
“After I left Ronnie’s quintet and after months of gigging all over the place I joined the New Don Rendell Quintet. We toured and played jazz festivals and recorded for Riverside Records. Graham Bond was a well trained keyboardist, but he was only playing alto saxophone with the quintet. I wrote a blues for the band called “Blew Through.” We played it for the first time at a Sunday gig in Coventry. The audience reaction was incredible. A couple of weeks later Graham Bond told me that Alexis Korner wanted Graham and me to join his new band Blues Incorporated. Jazz, at its best, is a very seductive mistress and we said no, but some good seeds were sown”.

Don Rendell was pioneer of British modern jazz. Here are some reviews of the album.
London Jazz Collector
All Music
Different Perspectives in my room

Phil Kinorra lived at Cleveland Square, Paddington for a few months and then moved out to live in Fulham with a girlfriend. Larry Parnes was also living in Cleveland Square putting up aspiring musicians such as Duffy Power.

1961 – THE CONNECTION

During this period Phil Kinorra also deputised for Tony Mann during a London run of Jack Gelber’s play The Connection.
“In the early ‘60s I appeared in a play called The Connection at the Duke of York’s Theatre in St Martin’s Lane, London. Four of the characters were real jazz musicians and 30 minutes of original jazz music was played live at every performance. The music was written by the jazz pianist Freddy Redd, and Freddy and the great alto saxophonist Jackie McLean came to the UK to appear in the London production. Both of them were previous members of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. The drummer Tony Mann was doing the play, but he was a member of a regular band and could not do all the performances. We shared it and it was a privilege to play with the brilliant Freddy Redd and the late, great Jackie McLean”.

The Connection is a 1959 play by American playwright and director Jack Gelber. It was first produced by the Living Theatre, directed by Living Theatre co-founder Judith Malina, and designed by co-founder Julian Beck. The play has a play-within-a-play format, with characters Jim Dunn as the “producer” and Jaybird as the “writer” attempting to stage a production about the underbelly of society using “real” addicts. Some of the addicts are jazz musicians. They all (except for the “producer”, “writer”, and two “photographers”) have one thing in common: they are waiting for their drug dealer, their “connection”. The dialogue of the characters is interspersed with jazz music. The music was composed by jazz pianist Freddie Redd. Freddie Redd (born May 29, 1928) was an American hard-bop pianist and composer.

A British production of the play started 22nd February 1961, at Duke of York’s Theatre, London. The somewhat controversial topic caused outrage and resulted in some negative publicity.

From: The Connection: The Living Theater And Hardbop Jazz By DAVID JOHNSON Posted September 15, 2007

“The Connection was a groundbreaking 1959 off-Broadway play from New York City’s Living Theater group, written by Jack Gelber, that cast jazz musicians as heroin addicts waiting for a score. Artists that passed through the play included pianist Freddie Redd (who composed the original score), alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks, and pianist Cecil Taylor. The Connection was made into a 1961 movie directed by Shirley Clarke, who would go on to film the adaptation of Warren Miller’s controversial Harlem-set novel The Cool World. A West Coast production was also staged in Los Angeles, with different music written by cast member Dexter Gordon. The show won several Obies and ran for more than 700 performances; eventually it was presented in London, where its raw immediacy and demolition of the normal boundaries between audience and cast provoked a near-riot”.

It even made the front page of The New York Times 23rd Feb 1961

LONDON, Feb. 22 — Jack Gelber’s play about drug addicts, “The Connection,” got off to an unfortunate start tonight at the Duke of York’s Theatre. It incurred the hostility of the first-night audience who ruined the performance with interruptions.

During the summer of 1961 Phil Kinorra and his bandmates Tony Archer and Gordon Neck went to Ireland as Davy Jones backing band for an appearance on Ulster TV. Davy Jones was neither the Monkees singer or the then unknown David Bowie but West Indian/Canadian singer Davy Jones who moved to Britain in the fifties and hit the British and European club circuit during the sixties, and for a few gigs using The Beatles as his backing band.

Unfortunately the boys didn’t get their due fee and took Davy Jones to court to recover the money.

1961/62

Phil Kinorra was still playing in London during the period with Ronnie Scott and others.
“I played with a band called the Bootleggers for a short period. Brian Auger and Glen Hughes were in the band, but we changed the line-up and the name after a few weeks. I met Johnny Griffin at the Blue Note Club in Berlin, where he was playing with the drummer Art Taylor. Brian Auger and myself were playing at another club in the city at the time”.

The Bootleggers also featured guitarist Frank Bowen, later of the Pete Best Four and bassist Harry Scully of the Trends.

1963 – BRIAN AUGER TRIO

In July of 1963 he joined what would eventually become the Brian Auger Trinity with Brian Auger on piano and eventually Hammond organ and Rick Laird on upright bass. At first they were just known as the Brian Auger Trio.
“Over a period of two or three years I had played a lot of gigs with the hard swinging jazz pianist Brian Auger and we decided to form a new jazz trio. At this time Brian was playing jazz piano and had not started to play the Hammond organ yet. We needed a bass player and everything pointed to Rick Laird being the best player around. So we asked him if he would like to join us and he accepted. We rehearsed every day at Brian’s house in Shepherd’s Bush. A lot of the stuff we were playing was gospel influenced funk, so it seemed appropriate to call ourselves the Brian Auger Trinity. We started playing around London jazz clubs and were soon doing regular gigs at Ronnie Scott’s club”.

In September, Phil Kinorra would find himself back in his home town when the Brian Auger Trio were a support act on the “Ronnie Scott” backed jazz concert at Co-op Concert Hall on Broad Street. Roland Kirk, the celebrated multi-instrumentalist was the main attraction. The Ronnie Scott Quartet were also in support.

1964

Brian Auger was becoming a star and Phil Kinorra was well known enough to come 4th in the drums section of the 1963 Melody Maker Jazz Awards published on February 1st, 1964. Also, at 6th was Keith Webb who would later drum in Julien Covey and the Machine and 8th Ronnie Verrell who would appear om the Philamore Lincoln album.

Phil Kinorra was still playing with Brian Auger in February 1964.
“After about a year or so we were contacted by a large nightclub in Piccadilly, London [the Pigalle]. They asked us to add two more musicians to the group and take up a residency to play jazz at the club. We were jointed by the guitarist John McLaughlin and the baritone sax player Glen Hughes. Glen had been playing with Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames. A few months later we played in Germany for a month and, after returning to London, Brian and I went to Berlin where we played with Leo Wright, from Dizzy Gillespie’s band, and the saxophonist Herb Gellar. I think the club may have been called the Tangent”.

Brian Auger recalls the days of the quintet of Brian, Phil, Rick, John and Glen in an interview here.

No recordings were made by the trio of Brian, Rick and Phil Kinorra nor the slightly expanded version with John McLaughlin and Glen Hughes except (fortunately) a BBC session with the trio which has seen the light of day on a Brian Auger compilation CD called “Brian Auger’s Musical History Sampler” in 2003 which Phil might not of been aware of. In the liner notes Brian Auger refers to Phil Kinorra “who held down the drum chair with great verve and swing”. Phil Kinorra features on “Blues Three Four” and “If You Could See Me Now”.

“The Brian Auger Trinity never recorded, but we did a live BBC radio broadcast opposite the Tubby Hayes Big Band for the series Jazz Club. If the BBC still have the tape, that would be the only recording in existence”.

Brian Auger’s place in British music history is well known and he is recognised as being one of the worlds foremost Hammond organ players as well as the grandfather of the “Acid Jazz” genre. Irishman Rick Laird eventually teamed up with John McLaughlin in the fusion monster that was the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1970’s.

1964-1967 – JULIAN COVEY & THE MACHINE

Sometime around the late summer of 1964 our Robert Anson still known as Phil Kinorra made a move away from jazz and became more soul and R&B influenced.
“At a point when jazz was becoming more experimental, with less emphasis on intense grooves, I started to look for other outlets. I was doing a gig with a pick-up band at a US base in the UK when an agent told me that he had lots of work available if I could put a band together. So I did”.

He then gave up playing the drums for some months to concentrate on a solo night club act that would eventually become JC & the Machine.
“After three months of non stop gigs I got a call from some managers to go to a meeting at the Radio Caroline offices at 6 Chesterfield Gardens, off Curzon Street in London. The manager was Tony Secunda, the producer Denny Cordell and several others were all based at this large building. The managers offered me a deal. They wanted to call the band Julian Covey & the Machine and, if I agreed, they would pay for the van, a sound system, stage gear and everything else. I considered the offer for a full quarter of a minute and agreed”.

The following is from the excellent Garage Hangover website put together by Chris Bishop and the hard work he has put in is highly commendable. I’m reprinting a lot of it here in blue just in case it should ever disappear.

Drummer Robert Cromwell Anson (b. 20 October 1940, Sherwood, Nottingham) had played with various jazz bands, including The Don Rendell Quintet before joining The Brian Auger Trinity in July 1963 and working under the name Phil Kinnora. In August 1964, Anson left to form his own group, The Machine, and adopted a new stage name, Julian Covey. The first line-up of the new formation came together that September. Over the next three years, Julian Covey & The Machine underwent a staggering number of personnel changes, which often resulted in entirely new formations lasting a handful of months. One of the first significant musicians to feature in the group’s ranks was Hammond organist Vincent Crane (b. Vincent Rodney Cheesman, 21 May 1943, Reading, Berkshire, d. 14 February 1989), who had previously worked with The Vincent Cheesman Trio, The Simon Magus Band/The Vincent Cheesman Blues Brothers, Lew Hird’s Australian Jazz Band and The Big Sound.

It’s quite possible that Crane was part of the formation when Julian Covey & The Machine made its Marquee debut, opening for The Spencer Davis Group, on 4 May 1965. Noted jazz sax player Bob Downes (b. 22 July 1937, Plymouth, Devon), who had previously worked with The John Barry Seven, remembers Crane being a member of the band for a while but it is unlikely that the Hammond organist was still on-board when Julian Covey & The Machine travelled to Accra in Ghana and performed a week-long gig in the city. Crane, of course, would later go on to play with The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster after playing with The Word Engine, Vincent Crane’s Freedom Riders and The Vincent Crane Combo in the interim. Downes meanwhile would also work with The Word Engine before playing with Jimmy Nicol & The Shub Dubs, Chris Andrews and then Dave Antony’s Moods.

Around June 1965, Julian Covey pieced together a new version of The Machine comprising the following:

Julian Covey – drums/vocals
Jim Cregan – lead guitar
Dave Levy – piano
Cliff Barton – bass
Saxophone player

Cliff Barton (b. 1944, West Ealing, London, d. 16 May 1968) had worked with a host of bands before joining but didn’t stay very long, according to Jim Cregan (b. 9 March 1946, Yeovil, Somerset). Barton’s pedigree included playing with Cyril Davies and The R&B All Stars and Long John Baldry & The Hoochie Coochie Men. He would join The Alan Price Set on leaving Julian Covey. Jim Cregan told Jason Barnard at the Strange Brew website that he joined Julian Covey and future Yes bass player Chris Squire for a short trip to Ghana to mark the inauguration of the Ghanaian TV service. The trio supported pianist Ramon Bouche and played on TV a couple of times but did not perform any live gigs. Ghana Today Television, the country’s national public broadcaster, run by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation commenced operations on 31 July 1965, so the band’s trip to Ghana would have been around this time. A former member of The Muldoons, Jim Cregan would go on to play with The Ingoes and more significantly Blossom Toes in 1960s among others. He would also become a noted session player during the 1970s.

In another interview online (which has now disappeared) Jim Cregan recalled more:
Was there a band THE MACHINE that you worked with alongside Dave Mason prior to you joining THE INGOES and him joining TRAFFIC?

Yes, I did play with Julian Covey and THE MACHINE… How did you know that? However, Dave Mason must have played at a different time as I was the only guitarist. There was a piano player call Levy, I think his first name was Dave and he really took me under his wing. I would go to his flat and he would teach me chord progressions that I still use. He was an excellent jazz player. We also had Cliff Barton on bass. He was the hottest guy around during those years but he got a better offer and left. I was very young and inexperienced and it was an education playing with those guys.

In October 1965, Covey formed yet another formation of The Machine which included:

John McVie – bass
Stan Marut – Hammond organ
Geoff Krivit – lead guitar

John McVie (b. 26 November 1945, Ealing, London) had been sacked from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers for his drinking in early October (his place taken by Jack Bruce initially). Hammond organist Stan Marut also joined at this time after working with The Jynx Pack. He had previously been a member of Dickie Pride & The Original Topics. Before the year was out, guitarist Geoff Krivit (b. 1948) who had subbed for Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers between September-October 1965 joined The Machine briefly. He’d previously played with The Secrets, Jimmy Powell & The Dimensions and The Five Dimensions. Marut remembers that The Machine landed a regular Saturday night gig at the Cromwellian during this period.

According to Melody Maker, they played at the Pontiac, Zeeta House, Putney, south west London on 6 November. Shortly after John McVie returned to John Mayall’s band in the first week of January 1966, future Herd drummer Andrew Steele (b. 2 August 1941, Hendon, London, d. 18 April 2005) joined after working with Johnny Halliday. Steele had started out with Gary Farr & The T-Bones and was an old friend of Jim Cregan’s, having played with him in The Muldoons in early 1965. Geoff Krivit also departed around February 1966 to spend time with Freddie Mack & The Mack Sound before hooking up with Dr K’s Blues Band. Guitarist Mike Ward and bass player Steve Rance from The Ad-Libs, the house band at Leicester Square club, the Ad-Lib joined at this time. The band then comprised:

Julian Covey – lead vocals
Mike Ward – guitar
Stan Marut – Hammond organ
Steve Rance – bass
Andrew Steele – drums

Marut remembers the band played Peter Stringfellow’s club, the King Mojo in Sheffield and also at the Britannia Boat Club in Nottingham. Marut also remembers sax player Dave Quincy from Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds used to jam with the group regularly. I found a few gigs during this period:

26 February 1966 – Dungeon, Nottingham (Nottingham Evening Post)

18 March 1966 – Ricky Tick, Windsor, Berkshire (Melody Maker)

26 March 1966 – Cromwellian, South Kensington, west London (Melody Maker)

On the eve of a tour with John Lee Hooker in May 1966, Marut was forced to leave and Dave Greenslade took his place. After the tour, Dave Greenslade left to join Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds.

While playing at Tiles, Oxford Street, the band’s drummer (Ed: Andrew Steele?) had to pull out and Covey took over the drum stool and gained praise from Hooker.

Julien Covey and the Machine backed up visiting US artist like John Lee Hooker while he toured the UK.
“We backed John Lee Hooker for a UK tour. He was mighty! His sense of time was cast in GRANITE! I know his work very well from all the albums I had had for years. The drummer with the Machine was backing John, but when a gig on the tour came up, at a large club in Oxford Street, London called Tiles, my drummer had a blister on his hand that was bad enough to prevent him from playing. I stepped in and had one of the best playing experiences of my life. John liked a simple groove with lots of drive, so that’s what I gave him. At the end of the set, in the dressing room, he said, “Who was playing drums?” I said, “I was, John”. He had a big grin on his face and he said, “You drivin’ me along.” I had just had the privilege of locking onto, and sharing, some great grooves with this truly great artist. I treasure the memory”.

14 May 1966 – Plaza Ballroom, Handsworth, West Midlands (Birmingham Evening Mail) Backed John Lee Hooker

16 July 1966 – Unknown venue, Cromford, Derbyshire (Poster)

21 July 1966 – Adam & Eve, Southampton, Hants (Southern Evening Echo)

22 July 1966 – Peyton Place, Bromley South, London (Melody Maker)

MORE COMING SOON………..