Hi Figgis watchers

I thought April had been a hectic month but since then May, June and most of July have been manic and here we are almost August before I've had the chance to post up the next profiles. I have to tell you the main reason for the delay has been our new Christmas song. Yes, a Christmas song, crazy you might say with summer in full swing and soaring temperatures but when else would you plan a Christmas song. Writing, arranging, rehearsing and recording and when you hear the final result and slept on it for a week or two, then come the inevitable changes and additions but more on that later.

This months profiles feature Bassist Tammy Tampsett and percussionist Mick Scatley.

We feature Tammy this month on a sixties feel number 'Sweet Annie'.
I've known Tammy for a good fifty years both as a musician and a real friend especially in the early years when we were both learning guitar, sharing and exchanging ideas and techniques along the way.
Back in those days transport for the band was a big issue. Often a band would be formed around someone who had access to a van and not necessarily on their musical prowess. Not so though with Tammy, he was always a dedicated and pretty fair guitarist. I do recall though at one stage Tammy was a milkman for his day job which proved quite handy. He would sneak back to the dairy in the evening, take his float off charge and use it to get the bands gear to the gig at an impressive fifteen miles per hour. Problem was that if the float wasn't back by midnight there wouldn't be enough charge left to complete his round next morning and several times Tammy would have to be towed back in.
I played with Tammy in the late sixties/ early seventies in a soul type band called Wind of Change as mentioned in a previous profile on Mr TC Turner. When Wind of Change broke up I lost touch with Tammy for some years during which he pursued a career in the pub trade as well as bringing up a family. We teamed up again in 2004 when I asked him to play bass on Uncle Figgis's first album Leaving From Platform One from which Sweet Annie has been taken. Tammy's bass style is very precise and contains some beautiful runs, so much so that all his takes in recording the album were done in one go and then he had to endure over two days of listening to everyone else trying to get their parts right.
Following Platform One we then played together in the newly formed Chapter Six but Tammy was already planning retirement to Cyprus where he now lives. But you cant keep an old rock and roller down, he's now in an all Brit band called The Xiles playing his first love on lead guitar. You can catch up with him online via:- Xiles larnaca.

Our second profile features Mick Scatley on drums in a rocking number called 'Nothin to Lose'. Mick's a bit of a mystery character who apparently emerged during the punk era as a rated session drummer. I first met up with him in 2005 when he stood in for us in Chapter Six. A couple of years later he became a regular and a natural choice drummer when recording Leaving From Platform Two. Following the break up of Chapter Six Mick formed a swinging outfit called King Paul and the Zeronoughts catering for private parties and corporate functions. You can catch up with him on his web site:- king paul and the zeronoughts.com