Early Years

Peter "Ollie" Halsall was born on March 14th, 1949. He grew up in Southport, England, just a short distance away from Liverpool. From an early age he gained an interest in rock & roll musicians such as Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, and Johnny Ray. He also was a longtime fan of The Beatles, attending some of their early shows before the explosion of Beatlemania. Eventually he also gained an interest in jazz, which played a later influence into his own musicianship. He would first tinker with guitar at the age of seven, on an instrument owned by one of his older sisters. However, the first instrument which he took up seriously was the drums. In his teenage years he played with various local bands such as Pete and the Pawnees, The Gunslingers, The Music Students, and Rhythm and Blues Incorporated.

Timebox

In 1965, after getting out of art school at age 16, Ollie was invited by fellow Southport bassist Clive Griffiths to play vibes in the pop rock group Take Five. After teaching himself to play the vibraphone, he moved to London with the group to start his professional music career. The group played a mix of their own material and tunes by other groups such as the Modern Jazz Quartet. They played gigs regularly at the Whisky A-Go-Go in London and even toured with the likes of The Kinks and The Small Faces, but this incarnation of the group did not acheive much success.

The band would soon change their name to Timebox. In early 1967, they would land a record deal on the Picadilly label. They recorded a single with the US vocalist John Henry (or was it Richard Henry?), "I'll Always Love You" / "Save Your Love". However, Henry, a runaway American soldier, was soon forced to return to the US. Their second and final single on the Picadilly label, "Soul Sauce" / "I Wish I Could Jerk Like My Uncle Cyril", was entirely instrumental.

Soon enough, the band would find a vocalist in the form of Michael Thomas McCarthy, known professionally as Mike Patto. After a series of rotating drummers and their guitarist Kevan Fogarty leaving, the band lineup would finally stabilize:

• Mike Patto - lead vocals
• Ollie Halsall - guitar, vibes, vocals
• Chris Holmes - piano, organ
• Clive Griffiths - bass, vocals
• John Halsey - drums

The band released a series of singles on Deram Records, which proved to be somewhat successful on the charts. Particularly their rendition of The Four Seasons' "Beggin'", which hit number 38 on the UK charts. The band would hone their live act, incorporating more elements of jazz and humorous on-stage antics, which the group affectionally coined the term "looning" for. However, by the summer of 1969 Chris Holmes found himself more and more disillusioned with the group's act and he would leave the group shortly after. The group weren't disencouraged, however, and carried forth under a new name.

Patto

The band formerly known as Timebox had broken into the 70's under a new mantle, Patto. The 21-year-old Ollie, who had only been playing guitar seriously for a small handful of years at this point, already proved to be a force to be reckoned with on the instrument, which was further highlighted by the material Patto were performing, which compared to their singles from the Timebox days, was a heavier mix of jazz and rock. They released their first album, a self-titled, in late 1970, produced by Muff Winwood, the brother of Steve Winwood of Traffic fame. The content within shows the band at their rawest, deliberately produced in a manner resembling their live act at the time, with minimum overdubs. It contained an assortment of catchy riffs and vocal lines, along with free-form jazz freakouts in which Ollie had the opportunity to show his proficiency on his instrument.

It wouldn't take long for the band to amass a cult fanbase, in no short part due to Ollie's instrumental proficiency and his knack for songwriting. Patto would release two other albums during their lifetime: 1971's Hold Your Fire and 1972's Roll 'Em Smoke 'Em, Put Another Line Out, in which he also displayed his ability on the keys. The band would record one last album in early 1973, known as Monkey's Bum, however Ollie would leave the group during these sessions and the album would remain unreleased in any official capacity for over twenty years. The group disbanded shortly after.

Tempest

After leaving Patto, Ollie would find himself doing session musician work, something which he would do for several years to keep the bills paid, working with the likes of Steve York, Neil Innes, Scaffold, Vivian Stanshall, and John Otway (even doing all the guitar work for the movie adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar!). In the summer of 1973 he joined Tempest, a band consisting of:

• Paul Williams - vocals, percussion
• Allan Holdsworth - guitar, violin
• Mark Clarke - bass, vocals, piano
• Jon Hiseman - drums
• Ollie Halsall - guitar, keyboards, vocals

Paul and Allan would leave the group shortly after Ollie joined, but they carried on as a trio. Living in Fear, the band's second album and the only one with Ollie, was a tour-de-force of 70's heavy progressive rock, which Ollie wrote four of the songs for. However, the band would soon call it quits shortly after the album's release.

Kevin Ayers

Ollie, ever the working man, would not find himself without a band for long. In mid-1974, after recording a solo for the song "Didn't Feel Lonely Till I Thought of You", Ollie was invited by Canterbury Scene singer-songwriter Kevin Ayers to join his touring band, The Soporifics, which would be the beginning of a decades-long working relationship between the two talents. He was heavily involved in the recording of Kevin's 1975 Sweet Deceiver, however shortly after the lukewarm reception of the album and a stressful European tour, Kevin ran off to southern France for an extended vacation.

Boxer

Despite the running off of his new musical partner, Ollie would soon reunite with his former Patto bandmates for a series of reunion gigs in London. The shows were a great success, but did not spark a full-on reunion of the group. Instead, Ollie would join Mike Patto, fellow Soporific drummer Tony Newman, and bassist Keith Ellis to form a new band: Boxer. Unlike the jazz, pop and prog influences from their former groups, Boxer was a "straight-ahead" rock band. Their first album, Below the Belt, while being decent, is more remembered for the controversial front cover featuring a naked model than the actual music. The band recorded one more album in 1976, Bloodletting, which remained unreleased until after Patto's tragic early death in 1979. Ollie left the group in late 1976, after the band went into such crippling debt that their manager withheld their instruments and liquidated his assets, Ollie's guitar presumably auctioned off, never to be seen again.

The Rutles

In the next couple of months, not having a guitar or a band, Ollie laid low until the summer of 1977, when Neil Innes asked him to join a group he was developing: The Rutles.

• Ron Nasty (Neil Innes): vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Dirk McQuickly (Ollie Halsall): vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Stig O'Hara (Ricky Fataar): vocals, guitar, bass, sitar, tabla
• Barry Wom (John Halsey): vocals, drums, percussion

The Rutles were a pastiche band parodying The Beatles. They were initially conceived in 1975 for a skit on the TV show Rutland Weekend Television, created and written by Monty Python member Eric Idle with music by Neil Innes. The skit was shown on Saturday Night Live in 1976 and it was such a success that it led to the greenlighting of All You Need is Cash, a mockumentary following the careers of the band, twisting story beats of the real Beatles' story in a comedic fashion along the way. Upwards of 20 songs were recorded for the movie, in the style of The Beatles' music. Some were more direct parodies, such as "Ouch!" being a parody of "Help!" and "Get Up and Go" being a parody of "Get Back", while others were more vague in their inspirations, such as "Goose-Step Mama" being written in the general style of The Beatles' early Merseybeat tracks.

For the movie, each of the members of the actual band played their respective Beatle-surrogates. All except for poor Ollie. Despite his desires to play the Paul character in the film, the producers wanted Eric Idle to play the role instead, with him miming along to Ollie's singing. His role in the film was left as a brief one-shot appearance in a still photo as Leppo, the fifth Rutle in their early years who "mainly stood in the back" (not unlike The Beatles' own Stuart Sutcliffe) and "was never seen again after crawling into a trunk with a small German Fräulein".

Abbots Langley

The next couple of years proved difficult for Ollie. Without a guitar of his own, he was borrowing instruments from whoever was willing to lend, including glam rock singer Gary Glitter's star-shaped axe. This allowed him to do some session work to keep him barely afloat. He was living in Abbots Langley, a village in Hertfordshire, living without electricity and unable to pay his mortgage. In 1979, he recorded a series of demos in which he played all the instruments, including drums, keyboards, guitar, and even saxophone. The songs were a mix of laid-back McCartney-esque tunes and upbeat pop, all with a certain intellectual wit to them that shone through his songwriting. The demos were not released until after his death, under the name Caves. In 1980 he recorded another series of demos with fellow Patto and Rutles bandmate John Halsey, which didn't see a release until 2008.

Spain

Around the time, Ollie found himself touring with Kevin Ayers once more on a tour with his former Patto bandmates John Halsey and Clive Griffiths. Later, in 1981, he moved to Majorca, a Spanish island where he lived for the rest of his life. Living close to Kevin, they would work together over the next 11 years whenever Kevin was in a creative mood. In the interim, Ollie produced and played with an assortment of Spanish bands, including Cinemaspop, The Sex Beatles (harkening to The Beatles and The Sex Pistols alike), and Radio Futura. Kevin and Ollie released five albums between 1983 and 1992, some of which contained songs written by Ollie, such as "Stepping Out", which was written as far back as 1979, during the Caves sessions. The last album released in his lifetime was Kevin's 1992 Still Life With Guitar, a mellow and predominantly acoustic album where Ollie played acoustic guitar, and for the first time in years, the vibraphone.

On May 29th, 1992, Ollie died of a drug-related heartattack in Madrid. He was buried in Majorca, where fans have placed a guitar volume knob on his tombstone.

Legacy

Ollie Halsall is perhaps one of the most underrated and underappreciated guitarists of all time. His ability on the strings was uniquely fluid and fast and full of character. He also proved to be a talented multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and singer unlike any other. This biography is awfully brief in covering his life and legacy, and I urge you to listen to his music and spread the word. The fact he's not up there with the likes of Hendrix, Beck, and others is criminal, although he never cared about being crowned as a guitar hero. He was humbly blessed with an immense gift for music, and definitely worth looking into.

Discography Highlights

	Album	Band	Year
	The Deram Anthology	Timebox	1967-69 (released 1998)
	Patto	Patto	1970
	Hold Your Fire	Patto	1971
	Roll 'Em Smoke 'Em Put Another Line Out	Patto	1972
	Monkey's Bum	Patto	1973 (released 1995)
	How Sweet to Be an Idiot	Neil Innes	1973
	Living in Fear	Tempest	1974
	The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories	Kevin Ayers	1974
	Sweet Deceiver	Kevin Ayers	1975
	Below the Belt	Boxer	1976
	Bloodletting	Boxer	1976 (released 1979)
	The Rutles	The Rutles	1978
	Caves	Ollie Halsall	1979 (released 1999)
	Abbots Langley	Ollie Halsall & John Halsey	1980 (released 2008)
	Diamond Jack and the Queen of Pain	Kevin Ayers	1983
	La Naranja Mecánica	Cinemaspop	1984
	Falling Up	Kevin Ayers	1988
	Still Life With Guitar	Kevin Ayers	1992

Further Reading