The empty and unassuming Bolton building that was once a legendary northern soul club If you went in now, you d say there s no way a northern soul all-nighter would work here but it did
08:00, 23 JAN 2021
Updated
Revellers outside Va Va in Bolton. The photo shows part of the original Va Va sign (Image: UGC)
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Allan Clarke formed the band with his Salford school pal Nash with the dream of becoming “Manchester’s Everly Brothers”. They chose the name as they waited to go on stage at the Oasis club in December 1962 because, said Clarke, “we liked Buddy Holly and it was Christmas”.
Guitarist Vic Steele didn’t want to turn pro so they poached Tony from the local band the Dolphins.
“I caught the Ribble bus to Manchester to check them out. They were playing The Twisted Wheel club and I listened through an air vent in case they were crap.”
They weren’t so he introduced me to Graham who filled him in on the audition they had coming up at Abbey Road.
IT was Cumbria’s golden age of live music. For decades, Andy Park was at the beating heart of it all first as a local newspaper pop columnist and then as a band manager and successful live music promoter, working with local acts and some of the industry’s biggest names. The Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Hollies, The Searchers, the Moody Blues, Jimmy James and the Vagabonds . . . the top performers he worked with read like a Who’s Who of rock and pop. He has now told the story of his professional life in a new book: Andy Park, Cumbria’s Music Man.