While this site mainly focuses on the bands and venues from the 60s and 70s it is also important to recognise some of the 'behind the scenes' people who helped make Cornwall's music scene so vibrant.
One of these guys is Ernie Scott. Ernie was a music obsessive through and through and also a great collector of memorabilia. In the 50s he played in school boy skiffle outfit the Blue Aces.
For more on this band check out the Blue Aces page
Located in the family owned Britannia Inn in Truro, he set up and ran the Onyx fan club. As well as promoting the band's shows, he helped plug their records as well as distributed promo photo's and fan correspondence from the band. His work with the band in their early days helped them enormously in garnering publicity and fans.
After leaving Cornwall for London Onyx were managed by Bob Potter and Ernie become involved with other bands on Bob's books, such as Wishful Thinking. Clearly a big fan of harmony pop his love for the Wishfuls equalled that of Onyx and he become involved in their fan club and plugging them locally.
Ernie also had a love for Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mitch and Titch and was a fully fledge member of the fan club. He would also share a healthy passion for bands such as The Move and Cops 'n Robbers.
He made a lot of contacts through his involvement in the various fan clubs and had his finger of the pulse of the latest release. These contact and knowledge of popular music would lead him to work with Joy at The Flamingo and he would regularly recommend bands to her as well as helping with contacts and bookings. He also had a small printing press and would print up many of the tickets for the Flamingo gigs.
Ernie was quite a collector of memorabilia and gathered up many posters, flyers, promo photo's, etc. many of which would have been regularly discard once the next release came out. Due to the disposable nature of these paper good, many of them are now rarely seen and his collection provides a fascinating glimpse into a lost era.
Ernie was also an avid autograph collector and collected souvenirs of many of the bands who performed in Cornwall. Each set of autographs were collected on a postcard with a picture of the band and the date and location they performed. Not only an incredible archive of autographs and letters it also highlights just how vibrant the music scene was in Cornwall at the time.
Sadly Ernie passed away in 2004 but with thanks to his family I've presented this archive here on Kernow Beat as it seems the best way to show just the sheer variety of bands came to Cornwall during the 60s and 70s. With thanks to Ernie for collecting and keeping all of this!
(please be patient, there are lots of images to load!)
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