Nottingham rock group 1973-74

Originally a three piece:

1973
Barry Foster: Guitar, Vocals
Paul Richards: Drums
Dick Kupsa: Bass

Simon Gibson joined on guitar to make them a four piece:

1974
Barry Foster: Guitar, Vocals
Paul Richards: Drums
Dick Kupsa: Bass
Simon Gibson: Guitar

Down to Earth supported pub rock band Ducks Deluxe in March 1974.

They appeared on the Nottingham Castle Rock album that was released in the summer of 1974. A song called “Money Women” written by Barry Foster was recorded by Bob Rowe at the “Arrow Sound” studio not far from Canning Circus.

Hear this track in the context of the whole album here.

With three other Nottingham groups, Gaffa, Autumn Design and Centaurus they played at the Victoria Embankment in an open pop concert (I was there). By then Dick Kupsa had left and Simon Gibson moved to Bass. They also added a keyboard player, Pete Bailey, who was also co writing songs with Barry Foster. They announced that this would be their last gig under the name of Down To Earth and as Simon Gibson remembers
“At the Trent Embankment gig I played bass, as by that time Dick had left which happened around the time Pete joined us on piano …. and at that point I took over as the bass player. As far as I recall that was the only gig we did with that particular line up ….having been together for a few months..“

Final line up:
Barry Foster: Guitar, Vocals
Paul Richards: Drums
Simon Gibson: Bass
Pete Bailey: Keyboards

The group folded fairly soon after this and Barry Foster and Paul Richards formed “Wheels” later in the year.

Simon Gibson continues:

“Once Barry and Paul went to set up Wheels, I went my own way and started to focus on bass as my first instrument.. still playing guitar but I sought bands looking for bass players.

I then went through a period of not playing much to be honest as I focussed on other things. Then after that break in the early 80’s I set up a jingle production business with my brother in law Mark Wheatley, and we also recruited a keyboard player, Dave Butcher, to form a trio writing, performing, recording and producing jingles for various markets including local radio.

By the early 1990’s, the business had run it’s course, and I had developed a strong interest in alpine sports. I then became focussed on that for many years and playing music took a bit of a back seat during this period. Then around 2002, I decided to take a full time HND course in Music Production at New College in Nottingham, looking to focus on the era new digital recording industry as an audio engineer. In 2004 I came off this very enjoyable course and did a few sound management and production gigs, but then I was asked to go back to New College to lecture; which I did, setting up and delivering a Location Recording course for New Collage students.

Following this I travelled internationally quite a bit, and then eventually came back to music locally again around 2014, forming a 4 piece band with a local singer songwriter, Sally Charlesworth, called Paris Dresden, which went very well until the band inevitably split in late 2016. Nothing musical again then until just after the Covid period, when after many years I got back in touch again with Mark, my old Jingles partner. After a trial period to see where we both now were musically speaking, we decided to set up a song writing, playing, recording and production partnership… doing brand new jointly written material…. and we now go by the name of ‘Hover Jockeys’. We have our first album due for release on-line shortly, under a self publishing arrangement”. 2025.

Here is a picture of Simon Gibson in 1976 with friends a couple of years after Down To Earth split up.