On reaching Glasgow we would drop the fans off in the city centre at George Square and we would then head on to a night club, usually the Picasso Club, hoping to jam with some of the other bands who would also turn up after their own gigs. Whichever the booked band for the night was they would always allow the various bands to get up and perform using their gear.

 

Sometimes the very next morning, without warning, and always at some ungodly hour, probably around 11am or 12 noon, some of the fans would find their down way to my parents’ house in Ayrshire on a visit. My father would holler up “Eddie there are some wee lassies here from Glasgow - get out of bed”, and I would be obliged to sit in the house chatting to the fans for an hour or so before they would return home. They had travelled a round trip of 60 miles just for a cup of tea and a chat with a top pop star . . . but because the top pop star hadn't been home the wee buggers had just come on down to annoy me. Mind you, I married one of the fans two years later - that's her front centre of my photograph with the "We Love You Hi-Fi Combo" banner across her body like a sash.

 

Every Saturday morning the place to go was at Bath Street, Glasgow. McCormack's music shop just around the corner attracted the bands posing, signing autographs, purchasing gear or window shopping and the fans would chat with the groups whilst the adjacent restaurant did a roaring trade from them all.

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I remember, right from joining the band at the very start, being quite blase about signing autographs for the girls, but I imagine that this was simply a result of my youth. The manager, Jim Finnie our roadie's big brother - nepotism gone mad - had always insisted that this was part of being a pop star, although I personally never ever felt anything other than a musician in a very good band.

 

Two slow smoochy songs like the one now playing, Sixteen Candles by The Crests - lead singer Johnny Maestro - and also another one by The Cryin' Shames called "Please Stay" [click below to hear it] would see all the girls stop dancing in the hall at the Friday or Saturday dance and head en masse to the front of the stage swooning and staring up with dreamy eyes at the guys in the group. Another song the fans absolutely loved was Any Day Now which holds great memories for me as it was the very first Soul number which I performed with the Hi Fi Combo. Shotgun [click below to hear it] was another goodie in my eyes.

 

On the downside for me the guys in the group also liked to perform a childish fun song, a West Indian Skaa type number by Georgie Fame - called "Humpty Dumpty" - which would include all the well-loved nursery rhymes but . . .  with each verse culminating in a really rather smutty punchline. The fans - male and female - loved joining in on the chorus which simply went 'Wo Wo Wo' [as this was meant to drown out the smutty punch line [which was never aired but simply left to the imagination]. I hated that number as I was only 17 going on 18 and in front of so many girls I really got quite embarrassed by it all. I still get red-faced thinking about the indignity of it all - here's me, a really serious, classically-trained pianist - trying to be a really serious pop-star . . .and the girls seeing me seriously red-faced and cringing with embarrassment. Some girls even deliberately asked me rude questions to see me blush.

 

The fans would also turn up in droves - accidentally - on a Saturday morning at the music shops and coffee bars we frequented, and their lives seemed to revolve around the Hi Fi Combo. 

 

Below is an invaluable set of autographs of the boys that all The Hi-Fi Combo fans would have paid a small fortune to own . . . well . . . they would at least have given us a kiss. to own. This one - bottom right - was my first ever autograph . . and it shows.