The Midknights were a Nottingham based rock and roll group active between 1962 and 1964. The four members were all students and met at Nottingham University. They had that “Shadows” influenced British rock and roll sound. They gigged locally and recorded an 7″ ep with a picture sleeve in 1963 for the University rag which is now incredibly rare. For decades this record remained a mystery until Rob Bradford, working for “Record Collector” magazine, unearthed the real story of this record and group. I will post that article further down the page. To hear the record go here.

The Midknights were friends of another Nottingham University rock and roll group “The Hustlers” whose story can be seen here. Indeed, the Midnight’s lead guitarist, Mike Northcott, sat in for Bill Walker of The Hustlers on a few occasions.

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The following information and images are from the record they released:

Mike Northcott (Rhythm guitar and vocal)
John Page (Lead guitar)
Roger Norman (Bass guitar)
Bill Langley (Drums)

Side 1
Moonshine
Just for me

Side 2
Blastoff
Greenskins

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The Midknights met the Everly Brothers and managed to get a photograph with them.

At the end of their student days the group folded. There is a “Roger Norman” on the “Folk Nottingham Style” album from the early seventies but this is probably someone else as the Record Collector article suggested they all left music except for Mike Northcott who continued playing music turning up in Texas in 1965 and playing with The Citations. In a search on Discogs for The Citations brings up a dozen contenders (a common name) but the best is Bobby Clanton and the Citations who were from Texas.

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I don’t know what year the Record Collector article originates from but guess at the late nineties or the noughties. Here it is in full:

As the article looked:

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There was at least one other group called The Midknights at the same time. They were from Buckinghamshire. Here is an article about them.