Derek Hall entered the world on 1st
April, 1944 having been preceded three years earlier by his brother,
Alan. Their Mum was the musical person in the family, able to knock
out the old singalong favourites at parties. Dad was a survivor of
the World War Two convoys, with medals to show for it.
Derek’s first ‘hands on’ experience with music was
through playing the bugle with the Boys Brigade but an entirely
different kind of music kindled his enthusiasm with the arrival of
Skiffle in the mid 1950’s. Like many lads of his generation (and
one or two girls) he was soon strumming three chords and following
Lonnie Donegan down the ‘Rock Island Line’. He did his best to
hang around with his brother Alan’s skiffle group but that was
sometimes problematic as Alan and his mates were all three or four
years older than Derek and while they could just about get away with
playing in pubs, Derek could not...not easily anyway.
Alan recalls how, on one occasion, he and his mates set
off to the pub for a pint, leaving Derek and their instruments,
including a banjo, at home. When they came back a couple of hours
later, lo and behold, Derek was playing a song on the banjo, even
though he had never picked one up before.
Shortly after this, Derek got his hands on the classic
LP ‘Jack Takes the Floor’
featuring the great American singer/guitarist Rambling Jack Elliot.
He spent every free hour in his bedroom playing the LP over and over
again and copying Jack’s driving style. He was soon a formidable
musician and Alan was stunned to find himself being outstripped by
his younger brother. The secret to Derek’s rapid progress was,
without doubt, the many hours of practice he put in, to the exclusion
of other boyhood activities like football or watching TV.
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Rambling Jack Elliot’s
1958 album was a huge influence on Derek, who learned several of the
tracks on the LP and emulated Jack’s guitar style
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Good guitars weren’t that easy to come by in those
days and Dereks’ first really good guitar was a Levin
Goliath, a Swedish built copy of the famous
American-built Martin Dreadnought.
Soon he went one better and bought a Martin
D28, following the example of his idol,
Rambling Jack. Such quality instruments were rare in Britain in the
early 1960’s, even among professional performers, so to stand up
with such a guitar round your neck was making a real statement.
(Written by Brian Bull based on information supplied
by Alan Hall)