Doug Richford

Starting piano at age 7,[1] he became a fan of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman, taking up the clarinet at 13.[1] A pupil of American clarinetist Danny Polo before the war,[2][3] during Army Service in World War Two he played in the Lion Swing Stars.[1] Following the war he led a 14-piece big-band, the Streamliners. After a stint with the River City Jazzmen in the early/mid 50s,[1][4] Richford had his first professional job with George Chisholm and Tommy McQuator.[2][3] In the later 1950s he was a member of Sonny Morris's and then Nat Gonella's bands;[1] and from 1959 to 1961 Bob Wallis's Storyville Jazzmen,[1][5][6][7] with whom he recorded.[8][9][10][11]

Richford started his trad jazz band in July 1961,[1][12][13] which debuted in Coventry.[14][15][16] A week later, the boozy London Jazzmen played on a riverboat near Liege for Belgian TV.[13] Trumpeter Trevor Jones,[17][18] trombonist Eric Dalby, future illustrator Toni Goffe on double bass,[13] 18-stone big Pete Deuchar on banjo,[19][13][20] and Kenny Harrison on drums,[3][21] were in the initial line-up.[16][22] Clarinettist Gerry Turnham joined later that year.[23]

Represented by the Lyn Dutton Agency Ltd,[6][24][25][26] and financed by publishers Chappell, the DRLJ recorded in November 1961,[27] and released in January 1962 on Parlophone records,[13] their first single Yip-I-Addy-I-Ay/On Sunday I Go Sailing.[28][29][30] The band was by then Pete Deuchar, Toni Goffe, Kenny Harrison, the legendary Nat Gonella trumpet/vocals,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37] and Bill Hales trombone.[38] After Colin Bowden took over as drummer,[39] it was probably their second single that was recorded at Abbey Road studios, Cascading/12 Over the 8 - both Richford originals.[40][19][13][41]

The band played in London, often late at night at Studio 51, known as the Ken Colyer Jazz Club off Leicester Square,[42][43][44][45] and around England throughout its 1961-64 life.[1][46][47][48][49][50][51] They appeared four times on the BBC Light Programme,[13][52] alongside / introduced by Humphrey Littleton, Diz Dizley and George Melly.[53][54][55] Trumpeter Nat Gonella was replaced in mid-1962 by young Australian Dick Tattam in his first professional role.[56][19][57] Guitarist Paul Sealey also played with the band;[58] vocalist Beryl Bryden appeared with them too.[59]

As well as travelling in Britain, in 1963 the band visited Denmark,[60] where three tracks were recorded by Copenhagen-based Storyville Records,[61] - Spooky Takes A Holiday, Running Wild and Beedle-Um-Bum.[62]

After the Trad boom ended, as The Beatles changed popular music,[63][64] Richford took a trio for a summer season in Jersey in 1964.[1] Ironically Richford had appeared repeatedly at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, whilst the Beatles were still a local Merseybeat band performing there.[65][66]

Richford returned to full-time music in 1978 to tour Germany with Steve Mason's Dixielanders,[1] and then played "residences" in Zurich.

Richford was born in 1920 in Camberwell, London, where in 1945 he married Ellen Rolf; their son Lincoln Douglas Richford, born 1946, is a land reform campaigner in Scotland.[67][68][69][70] Doug Richford died in West Sussex in 1987.