THE BUSH Boys, fronted by Rita shaking her maracas, were hot stuff in Worcester in the 1950s. While over in America Little Richard was screaming “Awop-bop-aloo-bopawoop- bam-boom” and the young Elvis was stuffing a length of pipe down his trouser leg, the Bush pub in St John’s vibrated to the city’s answer.

There was Wal Bowley on piano, Ron Weston on tea chest bass or Tony Cook on double bass, Moggy Holder took lead vocals, Brian Maund played drums, Bill Jeynes banjo and Rita jigged about giving it all she’d got. Finally, and somewhat unusually for a rock & roll band, there was Mike Bowley on clarinet. You don’t find many clarinets in a rock band, but then the Bush Boys were groundbreakers in more ways than one. “I think we were probably Worcester’s first rock & roll band,”

said Mike. “Up until then it had really been trad jazz.”

As a Worcester-born lad – a veteran of both Samuel Southall and Christopher Whitehead secondary moderns (his family moved home across the city, he didn’t get thrown out of school) – Mike began his music career by playing cornet in the local ATC band. Then as he went though his teens the revolution arrived.

“When I went in to National Service in 1954, the number one record was Oh Mein Papa by Eddie Calvert,” he recalled. “When I came out in 1956 it was Why Do Fools Fall In Love by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.” Rock & roll had arrived from America, Worcester wasn’t going to miss out and it all centred around the Bush pub on the Bull Ring.

“In those days the Bush was the place to go,” Mike explained.

“Everybody went there. A few of us got together and decided to form our own group and it seemed natural to call it after the place where we gathered.”

The Bush Boys were something of a minor sensation in the pubs, clubs and village halls around Worcester.

And not only for Rita’s energetic maraca playing. “We’d do stuff like Rock Around The Clock, Blue Suede Shoes and Shake, Rattle and Roll.

Songs people had never heard ‘live’ before,” Mike added. “Up until then it was more dance bands.”

They became so popular, local exboxer Eddie Warr was engaged to keep the crowds at bay. Anywhere with 50 or so pumped-up fans trying to get at the group for all sorts of reasons presented a safety hazard. That Eddie, on his own, had sufficient presence to stem the flow enabled Mike Bowley to come through the rock & roll years unscathed and emerge as one of Worcester’s leading music teachers.

He also ran his own music shop in New Street, Worcester, but after 26 years and two months – he’s quite specific about the time span – has decided to call it a day and retire.

Which will be sad news for generations of local musicians who turned to Mike Bowley for advice and service when it came to buying and repairing instruments.

His tales of life as a music teacher almost match those of his life on the road with a succession of bands. Like the time an elderly lady approached him one August and asked if he could teach her to play the saxophone by Christmas, because she wanted to perform in a concert in her village hall. “What piece of music will you be playing?” Mike enquired.

“Jailhouse Rock,” she replied.

“And she did too,” he added.

Then there was the occasion he was asked to fill in with a band performing in Cheltenham. It turned out to be the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars and Mike was kitted out in full braided uniform for the concert. Quite a change for a lad who did his National Service with REME.

Mike’s reputation as a music teacher spread far and wide and caused something of a headache for the Royal School of Music when he put forward no less than 32 pupils for one Grade Three exam in flute and clarinet. “It was the most they had ever had at one time from one tutor,” he said.

“I think the examiner was contemplating suicide at the end of it, after having to listen to the same piece of music 32 times.”

Mike inherited his musical talent from his father, who played the piano, but for quite a while it wasn’t his day job. Following National Service he worked at motor retailers North Worcester Motors and later at Metal Box as a systems analyst. It wasn’t until 1985 he opened his music shop and began music teaching full time.

By then Mike Bowley was a familiar name on the Worcester music scene, principally through his band The Colbo Sound, which followed The Bush Boys and went out for many years as either a four or six piece combo depending on how much the event could afford.

Space for just one of the golden moments over the years: “One night we started up after a break and I was out front playing saxophone when I suddenly realised I was on my own. No one else was playing. I looked behind and there was our organist jumping up and down on his dinner suit jacket, which was on the stage floor. I immediately thought he’d had one too many during the interval, but then I realised he’s put his pipe back in his jacket pocket and set the jacket on fire.”

It was hot stuff all right. But maybe not quite so hot as Rita and her maracas.