Meet our writers
in alphabetical order
Alan Clayson
Writer
From 1975 to 1985, Alan Clayson led the legendary Clayson and the Argonauts – who reformed in 2005. He also delivers solo recitals – which defy succinct description – and a presentation entitled Clayson Sings Chanson.
Clayson’s compositions have been recorded by many musicians, including Dave Berry (in whose backing group, The Cruisers, Clayson played keyboards in the mid-1980s), Stairway, Jane Relf, Turnpike and The Electronic Males.
He has also worked with The Portsmouth Sinfonia, Wreckless Eric, Twinkle, The Yardbirds, The Pretty Things, Mungo Jerry, and Screaming Lord Sutch, among others.
He has written many books on music. Best sellers include Backbeat (the tie-in-book to an Oscar-nominated film); Beat Merchants and an authorised biography of The Yardbirds. Among other subjects of Clayson’s work are Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, The Troggs – and death discs (the subject of a BBC Radio Two programme, scripted and presented by the author).
A 2002 tome concerning modern classical composer Edgard Varèse led to Gail Zappa appointing Clayson to pen the saga of her late husband.
Clayson has contributed also to journals as diverse as The Guardian, Record Collector, Mojo, Mediaeval World, Rhythm, The Beat, Folk Roots, Guitar & Bass, Hello!, Sunday Times, Rock ‘N’ Reel (RNR), The Independent, Daily Telegraph, Ugly Things, Vintage Rock and, as a teenager, the notorious ‘Schoolkids’ edition of the 1960s ‘underground’ magazine Oz.
Further information about Alan can be found at www.alanclayson.com
John Firminger
Writer
Has been a music fan and collector since just prior to becoming a teenager in 1957. Early musical heroes were some of the singing cowboys along with some of the novelty records heard regularly on ‘Uncle Mac’s Children’s Favourites’ radio show.
Whilst his parents probably thought that rock’n’roll was the end of civilisation, for John and many others, it was total liberation! His musical interests then took in all the favourites; Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and many mothers. Also since he was about eight years old when he first heard Slim Whitman, John has been a country music fan which has contributed to a large part of his own collection.
Being something of an admitted musical snob, whilst still an ardent rock’n’roll and country fan John realised he’d been denying himself some wonderful music outside his own personal choices and his tastes have widened over the years. As a result his listening pleasure now encompasses names like Nat ‘King’ Cole, Roberta Flack, The Carpenters, Matt Monro all of who’s singing borderlines on perfection.
Through his musical interests John has been involved in several books, both musical and on local history. These include a recently published book on Eddie Cochran fateful UK tour of 1960 while John is also Co-Editor of quarterly Sheffield nostalgia magazine My Kind Of Town and has published Crickets File magazine since 1979 and still rockin’! He became involved in BEAT magazine after meeting David Parker who’d taken over the publishing.
Martin Hutchinson
Writer
Martin was born in Bolton, where he still lives. A lifelong music fan, thanks to his (then) teenage sister, who played Radio Caroline and Luxembourg in the evenings. In the 70’s he was unable to walk past a record shop and he built up a decent collection. He enjoyed writing for pleasure and in the early 80’s he wrote comedy sketches for both TV and Radio, as well as holding down a full-time job in engineering.
The possessor of a brain chock-full of useless information, he began quizzing and to date has appeared on a dozen TV quizzes, including Bullseye and The Chase (both of which he won).
But the writing bug came to the fore again and he instigated a weekly music quiz in his local paper and wrote articles for a magazine about the works of Gerry Anderson.
He started interviewing music artists in 1995 and the year after he started writing CD liner notes, mainly for EMI (one, written for Warners about The Monkees, reached #15 in the album charts – when compilations were allowed in the charts). He has written over 270 liner notes, but this work dried up due to the rise in downloads.
Since 2000, he has concentrated writing features (for love, not profit) for many provincial papers and magazines, and started writing for The Beat in 2012, covering 50’s to the 80’s music.
His love of music is so great, that for his stag ‘do’ in 2018. He entered a recording studio with his two best men, and recorded a CD.
In 2021, Martin became Lord Martin Hutchinson of Sealand.
His first book, ‘On Track … The Kinks’ is to be published in March 2022, with at least another book to follow.
Chris Moule
Writer
Chris was born in Birmingham, UK and has lived all over Britain. Mainly she grew up in London is the 60’s. How lucky?Maybe not.
She was packed off to boarding school and missed it all! She originally had to train as a secretary – in those days you had to do as you were told – but always loved the theatre and music.
‘Life’ got in the way for a while but, following a successful career in sales, Chris took off for America with just her clothes and CD’s to study Performing Arts. She loved the experience, the Professors, the students – though never worked out why she also had to study English and Algebra!On returning to England she set up home in the Lake District with her dogs. Rural life was wonderful but something was missing.
As a baby Chris was adopted and decided to see what she could find out about her birth family. Her Mom was still alive – and then, one by one, she found out she also had five half-siblings! To say she was amazed is an understatement, and they were shocked! They had a very emotional reunion and Chris soon moved to the West Midlands to be close to them. She had her own Lost Families experience!
A number of her newly found family had a musical background, particularly 60’s and 70’s music. After going to a 60’s show and seeing, amongst others, P.J. Proby, she decided to take things into her own hands. She approached his management and, in due course, became PJ’s Public Relations representative, arranging interviews, promoting recordings and writing articles.
Now she has accepted the opportunity to submit articles and interviews about other artists to The Beat magazine. As Chris told us: ‘Sometimes it takes a while for dreams to come true!’
Pat Murphy
Writer
Born and raised in Dublin in Ireland, Pat has lived in Canada since 1965. Almost all of that period he spent in Toronto, prior to moving to nearby Burlington in 2021. His interest in pop music dates from a 1958 cinema viewing of The Tommy Steele Story, after which he bought his first record (a 78 of Nairobi). It was the beginning of what became a lifelong habit.
Over the decades, he’s been fortunate enough to see an array of artists in concert.
Beginning with Helen Shapiro in 1962 and going on to include Cliff (with and without The Shadows). The list grows…Glen Campbell, the Everlys, Ricky Nelson, Petula Clark, Peggy Lee, Olivia Newton-John, Jerry Reed, Merle Haggard, Bobbie Gentry, Paul Anka, Sonny & Cher, The Supremes, The Beach Boys, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Del Shannon and countless others.
That said, his most memorable was probably Cliff’s Silver Tour (at the very top of his game). The most underrated was Joe Brown (a great performer) and the most pleasant surprise was Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme (slick sophistication at its finest). Writing after retiring from a senior IT management position, it was by way of finding something interesting to keep the brain cells active.
To date, he’s published over 700 articles, most of them dealing with history, politics, current affairs and economics. His main outlet is a regular column for Troy Media, a Canadian online publisher and distributor. In 2008, his first Beat article was with an interview with Shadow Bruce Welch, conducted when the guitarist was in Toronto for Shadowmania. At the time, Pat was hosting a monthly community radio show broadcast on CKLN.
Russell Newmark
Writer
Russell Newmark has been writing monthly reviews for ‘The Beat’ throughout the 20 years since 2002. He has long been interested in the pop, rock and modern jazz that emerged on both sides of the Atlantic from the late 1950s up until the end of the 70s.
Beginning his career as a journalist on local newspapers before working for the nationals, he has contributed to all the dailies and Sundays – with the (specialist) exception of the Financial Times – involving coverage of a wide variety of subjects including general news, politics, entertainment and retro football. He has also written features, interviews and reviews for several other music magazines over the decades.
As a child he was intrigued and impressed to find that his parents’ discerning record collection had seen them acquire ‘The Ice Cream Man’ by the Tornados, rather than the more obvious ‘Telstar’. Before that, one of the first records he heard on the radio was ‘Ferry Cross The Mersey’, by Gerry and the Pacemakers – which he originally thought was about a fairy traversing the river. He plays no musical instruments, despite having had a very brief one-to-one guitar session at Bert Weedon’s house. He once accompanied Carl Wayne to the filming of an interview for a TV programme wearing a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase, and the singer mischievously – and successfully – introduced him to the producer as his solicitor.
He and his wife Karen, previously long-time denizens of West London, now live in Somerset.
Jane Quinn
Writer
Born and bred in America’s “Tornado Alley”, Jane Quinn’s first concert was in the midst of another kind of tornado…The Beatles on their 1964 whirlwind American concert tour. There could be no turning back, and she launched her (ad)venture into the Arts as a teen correspondent for America’s Tiger Beat music magazine. Her first interview transpired at age 14: innocent victims being Brit singing duo Peter and Gordon. While watching a colour episode of the tv show Bonanza, Peter Asher revealed that he and Gordon had once “borrowed” Paul McCartney’s precious automobile without first asking permission…well, it WAS in the middle of the night so they didn’t want to disturb him. Paul was not overly amused.
Over the next several decades Jane worked in the music world in various roles, including manager, agent, press/promotions, wardrobe, editor, photographer, celebrity co-ordinator for charity concerts/events, record producer, PA and all-round dog’s body. One of her clients, Top 10 recording artist Ian Whitcomb described her in his recent book, Letters from Lotus Land, as a “well-mannered agent to artists with special needs.”
Share a Cuppa Tea with Jane is a monthly column Jane writes for The Beat, a uk based music magazine which focuses on the music of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Each month she shares a virtual cuppa with a familiar musician with hilarious consequences and more than a few surprise revelations.
Semi-retired, Jane Quinn is living happily ever after somewhere in England with her Liverpudlian husband and a small Scottish terrier called Adrian.
Ron Tennant
Writer
Although born in Birmingham England, since 1978, Ron has lived in Belgium with his wife Linda. When he attended Yardley Grammar School in Tyseley at the age of 11, he became a big fan of Elvis Presley. In 1964, he also then became a super fan of singer PJ Proby and much later in 1992 Ron actually became a sort of manager for PJ at the singer’s request. A role that lasted 5 years.
He has always loved pop music with his three all-time favourite male singers being Elvis, PJ Proby and Billy Fury. His two top groups are the Beatles and the American group Four Seasons.
He first wrote a letter in 1964 when he was 16, to the Elvis Monthly Magazine complaining about The Rolling Stones. They had recently appeared on TV publicly moaning about Elvis and Ron strongly disagreed.
Ron’s real music article writing started in 1993 for mostly British music magazines. Now and again he writes articles for other countries about Proby, such as Italy, Holland, America, Belgium, and Germany. When The Beat magazine began in April 2002 and he wrote in his first article two years later.
Since that time he has written over 70 articles about Proby alone, as well as other articles of artists.
As a 74-year-old, Ron is still a giant fan of the Beat and pop music especially that from the 1960s.
Ian Woolley
Online Editor
Ian Woolley had a love for music from as far as he can remember. Having musical parents and Welsh roots, it was singing around various chapels growing up and listening under the bedclothes to Radio Luxembourg where his passion began. A passion that hasn’t waned in his 63rd year on this planet.
Having a very short career in a Welsh band as a singer, it wasn’t until he moved to the South that he eventually turned to DJ’ing to earn extra income. Having spun tunes in Malta, France, Austria and even Dubai he decided to retire at the age of 40.
Compering in the early karaoke craze and quiz nights (including music one naturally) led him to launch Quiz Britain. Writing bespoke quizzes for TV, smart phone apps and charity events.
It was around this time that he became good friends with DJ Ed Stewart with whom they did several interesting projects and lived nearby. Just before his untimely death, they were about to embark on a Crackerjack pop-quiz tour of the UK. This led him to work with other former Radio One DJs (and other TV celebrities) in putting on special quiz events and retro shows mainly for charity.
More recently, Ian started writing freelance for several musical publications including occasionally for the US based online website Music Addict.
Around 2019, became a regular writer for the Beat having interviewed lots of musicians and singers, as well as putting these interviews out on his new podcast channel WoolleysBeat.
Of late, he’s had his first Children’s book published and even provided doowop vocals on one of the tracks on Mungo Jerry’s forthcoming new album!