Where the phenomenon begins…

It was in this role he ended up playing trombone on releases by Cilla Black, Billy Fury, Tom Jones and the Walker Brothers. John was at least earning a living and playing with some of the top acts around at the time. This all helps to serve as part of that great apprenticeship of life and for what was yet to come.

At the end of 1963 a young and enthusiastic John Rossall had met up with the musical entrepreneur and multi talented Mike Leander and was auditioned at the Hammersmith Palais and invited to join the Mike Leander Showband and tour the country. They spent three months performing at theatres such as ABC’s and Odeons around England. Whilst they were doing this tour with the Bachelors on the bill were an act known as Elaine and Derek. The relevance of this is nothing really just a fact as to who Derek became later in life. Well Derek took up acting and is now a household name for his part as Charlie in the BBC’s Casualty drama series.

In early 1964 they recorded at Decca studios songs titled “It’s alright” , I Hate You Baby, Peter Gunne and the Greatest Story Ever Told the last two being instrumentals. The vocals on the other two were provided by Paul Raven. About three weeks before the end of the tour, Paul Raven was sacked from the show with no money, the rest of the band had a whip round to provide his train fair home. The conductor of the show whilst backing the other artists was a certain Phil Coulter who is probably better known today for his successful song writing talents for the Bay City Rollers. He was also very successful providing songs for Sandie Shaw with Puppet on a String and Cliff Richards , Congratulations both of which did well in the Eurovision Song Contest. The band provided the backing for all the artists on the bill as well as having their own spot. Unfortunately at the end of the tour, they were disbanded as being an eleven piece was seen as too big and therefore not economically viable.