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The first information about the beginnings of the group and its members date from about 1964, when 17 year old Johnny Fox had just one year earlier left his home town of Audenshaw, Manchester to move to Grimsby.
In his luggage, he was carrying away two great passions, the motorbike and the love for the old Rock 'n' Roll of the fifties. His passion for the motorbike caused him to discover a bikers coffee bar on Cleethorpes sea front called the “Hawaiian Eye". Cleethorpes being the seaside province adjoining the town of Grimsby, situated some 200 miles north of London.
On a warm summer evening in 1964 in that promenade Coffee Bar, the place was packed with teenagers clad in silver studded, black leather jackets and blue jeans. The Seeburg juke box stands majestically in the corner with it's bright array of coloured neon tubes and auto-change mechanism proudly on show. It's heaving sound permeates through the crowd, on through the open door to outside and beyond, to mingle with the incessant thunder of throaty British motorcycles being revved up or arriving and departing.
The sound of the music is only interrupted by mechanical clatter as the Seeburg weaves it's way through an endless selection of hits from the current charts. Above all this noise is heard the definitive rattle and clang of the pinball machine in sympathy with the clink of numerous glass cups raised and lowered onto saucers as hot coffee flavoured foam from the “Gaggia” machine and called "Espresso”, lubricates the over active tonsils of the crowd. So providing a brief recharge for more enthusiastic chatter about six-fifty's, Nortons, Triumphs, Beezers, clip-on bars, the sound of ‘swept back’ pipes bolted to straight through "goldies" and so on !!
Two of the bikers are well known to the crowd for their love of the fifties music in defiance to the current trend but the two are yet still to realise that in a few short years they will themselves be on stage playing such music to eager crowds around Britain and Europe. The two in question are Ray Firth and Johnny Fox the founders of the group The Riot Rockers.
Their enthusiasm was fuelled by the records Johnny played from his collection including Carl Perkins Dance Album recorded by Sun records and early Elvis Sun recordings along with some wild Gene Vincent and Johnny Burnette stuff he had on LP's. The yelps and screams were soon copied in their act.
August 1970,
From humble beginnings the group developed under the name of “Johnny and the Blue Cats” and went on to perform over two hundred gigs. After a few more changes of line up the Blue Cats finally disbanded in late 1972. After reforming again in 1973 the group rose from strength to strength under a new name The Riot Rockers.
The group continued to climb the ladder and through a variety of agencies progressively enlarged their coverage of the UK Rock N Roll scene. Getting booked further afield in Birmingham, Manchester and Huntingdon. In 1975 they were booked at a Rock N Roll All Dayer at the City Hall in Hull. This gig was to prove a major turning point in their fortunes.
On the same bill were Crazy Cavan and the Rhythm Rockers, a group that Ray & Johnny had seen about five years previously at the “Fishmongers Arms” Wood Green, London, where Johnny had got up and performed a couple of songs with them and they loved Crazy Cavan to bits. It was after their brilliant set at the City Hall that Cavan and the boys got talking to the Riot Rockers at the bar and contact cards were exchanged.
About two or three weeks later a telephone call was received from Terry Marshall the landlord of the “Adam & Eve” pub in Hackney, London.
The group were told by Terry Marshall that the ‘Riot Rockers’ had been recommended by ‘Crazy Cavan’ as a potential band to play at his pub. A date was agreed so the group had realised their first major goal in getting a gig in London at last ! This was something they had had their sights on for a long time.
With some apprehension the Riot Rockers took the stage at the Adam & Eve to a packed crowd of Teds. The front row of Teds stood with one foot up on the stage apron each with a pint in their hand, each rockin back & forth.
The atmosphere was tense at first, as they had yet to see what this new band would be like from “up North”, but it went down well, really well and they loved the recently introduced skiffle numbers. It probably helped a lot that the Riot Rockers wore Ted gear whether they were on stage or off and the audience clearly liked that , a bit more credibility never went amiss !
Know what I mean ?
Here they met new friends amongst the Teds including the memorable Sunglasses Ron !
On Jan. 30th 1976. Now under management by Carousel Artists of London, the group started a 3 week stint in Copenhagen, Denmark.
This was an ordeal by fire and no mistake.
The first thing noticed by Johnny was that the stage in the Hard Rock Cafe was about 10 feet high off the floor, painted jet black. One false step on the edge of that and you plummet into total darkness and beyond !
This gig was very hard work. They had to play for at least two hours each evening and didn’t take the stage until all the other acts had finished their set, so stage time was usually about 1.00 a.m. lasting through till 3.30 ish. Leaving the club at about 4 a.m. The good thing about this 21 night stint was that on return to England the group had performed so intensely every night that they were now polished and the rough edges had gone.
In September 1976, The Riot Rockers secured a string of Sunday evenings at the Queens Hotel Cleethorpes. On one of these nights a friend turned up from down south. His name was Trev Noddles. He introduced the group to a Dutch friend he had brought that night. His name, Bert Rockhouse. Bert saw the show and was keen to get an L.P. recorded with the group. He told how he had just produced LP's by Crazy Cavan and Matchbox.
After his return to Holland he booked the Riot Rockers to perform over two successive weekends at various venues all over The Netherlands, including Vlissingen, Twello, Haarlem, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Maasbree on the German border.
On the weekdays in between, the group was to record their first L.P. at a studio just outside Amsterdam. This all took place between 10th & 19th December 1976 and recorded a mix of Rockabilly, Skiffle and some self penned songs Johnny had written including Road Of Steel.
This Holland trip was a further landmark in their careers and further helped to seal their place on the Rock N Roll circuit. In January 1977 the L.P. was released and sold very well and quite steadily over several years in Britain, Europe and the Benelux countries. It was brought out initially by Rockhouse and then by Charly Records it was then released in Finland and also Japan and a few other countries.
A couple of tracks were released on a compilation called Best of British Rockabilly. The Riot Rockers were now playing in and around London regularly. A new venue had opened up for Rock N Roll at the famous Lyceum on the Strand. Some great nights took place here and The Riot Rockers often jammed on stage with Cavan to the delight of the crowd. They appeared with some first generation artists also like Mike Berry and the Outlaws and all the new generation of great guys in bands like Flying Saucers, Freddie Fingers Lee, Little Tina & Flight 56 and Sesion 57.
The lads had played a skiffle set for some time which had proved very popular. It was a real honour for them when they were booked to appear at ‘The Porterhouse’ in Retford, to support their skiffle idol Lonnie Donegan. He walked in as the lads were practice running through a few numbers before the show.
After listening to them run through ‘Rock Island Line’ and ‘Puttin’ On The Style’, Lonnie applauded them. He was asked if he minded if they performed these songs and he told them no of course not and he happily agreed to put his moniker on their washboard.
The next major highlight for the group was when they played at the New Roxy Theatre in London. Appearing with Sun Record legends, ‘Warren Smith’ and ‘Ray Smith’ along with Cavan and several other London bands.
Sometime around 1978 the group recorded 2 sides on the RAW record label, "Tennessee Saturday Night" and "Some Kinda Earthquake".
The group toured the UK and Europe extensively as far north as Finland and south as Swtzerland, Austria, Spain and Italy. They recorded regularly through the 1980's and produced an E.P. With Beetle Bug Bop, Please Mr. Mayor, Goodnight Irene and Brand New Cadillac.
They did most of the holiday camp weekenders which were now very popular.
In 1995 a 10" LP and CD was recorded called Back With A Vengeance but the lads were saddened by the sound on the German released CD especially as the master tape sounded good. In 1999 a CD was put out called Live & Rockin'. All sold very well. Around 2002 a German company asked to release Live & Rockin' on a 12" Vinyl LP. The result was a disaster with tracks missing, sound very poor and the cover was completey altered to something innapropriate and 30 years out of date !.
As at the end of 2005 soon after a gig in Spain, the band found themselves without a guitarist. Although a stand-in was secured for the Spain gig there was no possibility he could remain in the band permanantly. In 2006 the Riot Rockers have not played due to committed musicians being absent but the band will return to the circuit hopefully in the very near future.
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