Comments on: Split Rivitt – The Archives

By: Wilf

Wilf — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:06:38 +0000

Thanks for the memories Nick. Brings it all back to life. Heady days!

By: Nick Earl

Nick Earl — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:53:45 +0000

I saw Split Rivitt a lot back in the day must have been ten times or more. Their gigs were always well attended and quite a few kids followed them around from North London where they were from. I often wondered why success eluded them, I guess they just werent fashionable enough but I thought they were as good as 9 Below Zero who were similar in style. Rivitt had a lot of good originals and some blinding covers like Soul Limbo and Houseparty by the Showstoppers where Mark used the harp as a police siren! Rest in Peace Barney and Mark you were bloody great.

By: Wilf

Wilf — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 17:56:07 +0000

Hi Tom – thanks for your comments. We note with great sorrow you have added Mark Hughes RIP. Can you email me further details. We have been trying to find out more about Mark and his outstanding contribution to music and the harmonica. Regreattably we only seem to draw blanks. Thanks in advance. Wilf

By: tom f

tom f — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 05:20:06 +0000

Barney was a great bloke and a mighty bass player.
R.I.P.
Mark Hughes was a true master on the harp. Frighteningly talented but fragile. R.I.P.

By: DJ Rogers

DJ Rogers — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:00:22 +0000

(I submitted before finishing, sorry, so just to finish off from my last comment…) What I really wanted to do was utilise their black influences and obvious rhythm-playing abilities. (Barney and Dave were quite simply one of the tightest rhythm units I’ve ever jammed with – when they were straight! – and I’ve still got the rehearsal tapes to prove it…including those from my mum’s front room.) And to blend and distill these qualities with my eclectic songwriting/lyrical aspirations – be those lyrics twee, pop-type nursery rhymes, or deeply introspective, suicidal metaphors – whatever! But if there was any way I could have accomodated a blues harp in there somewhere, then let me say that Mark Hughes would have been the man for the job. From what I heard, he was a superb player. Infact, after hearing him, I went straight out and got a little blues harp. I’m still trying to play it! And I hope he still is…

By: DJ Rogers

DJ Rogers — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:33:57 +0000

You are very welcome, Wilf – there is so much more I could write! – learning of Barney’s death has really opened up so many poignant memories. (I can only apologise for a few typo mistakes, but you’ll appreciate I wrote that in the early hours and in a fairly emotional state.) Don’t wish to get too self-indulgent at this juncture, but those heady days in the early 1980s were very difficult for me, so the band experience with Barney and Dave was integral to my mental survival at the time – a real creative, cathartic life-saver. I’m no stranger to bereavement, but somehow reading of Barney’s premature death really brought home the fragility of one’s mortality, because he was so full of restless energy, a real livewire with an opinion on everything. He could be really charming – and really rude on occasions! – but he was never, ever boring and possessed a great sense of humour. He was also deeply intuitive – indeed so was Dave. I found them both extremely stimulating individuals and very wise souls indeed (if a little too fond of the funny cigarettes during rehearsals in those days – to my endless frustration!) They were good guys to have in your corner and we really believed we could change each other’s lives at that time. But too much gigging for too little reward had taken its toll on him and Dave – all of Split Rivitt, infact. This was apparent every time II broached the subject of us doing some in Listen! But whereas they’d spent all their time gigging, I’d been working at home, writing and recording onto a Revox, learning to bounce tracks back and forth to produce (extremely raw!) mono demos. No drum machines in those days, and definitely no sampling! You also played through from beginning to end and mistakes stayed put!). Regarding Mark Hughes, I’m sorry to say I can offer no enlightenment concerning his musical legacy or present whereabouts. I met him a few times at the squat, after the initial rehearsal, and that was it. He seemed like a good guy and he knew he was a good harp player. So did I. Split Rivitt were all good: solid, tight players. But I was 2 or 3 older than them, I think, and within ‘Movement X’, I’d been playing with guys who were about 8 years older than me; and who, quite frankly, could play any soul and blues lick you care to think of; and it would just have a totally different feel to most white, anglo-saxon bands. Let’s just say it sounded more authentic. I only got in (as a white, anglo-saxon myself) because I’d worked as a guitar salesman at Orange music in the 1970s. Subsequently, I’d got to learn quite a few of the old Stax-type soul riffs from some of the black American session musicans who used to use the studios beneath the shop. So as good as SR were at the RnB stuff, there was no way I wanted to recreate that stuff, especially after 9 months rehearsing with the likes of Movement X, which all came to nothing. As I’ve said, apart from Barney and Dave, the rest of the guys in the band wanted to be taken seriously as blues musicians, whatever. But I’d got over that particular ambition.

By: Wilf

Wilf — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:35:20 +0000

Wow! DJ this is invaluable. Thank you so much for adding your memories. Do you have any clues as to the whereabouts of Mark Hughes?

By: DJ Rogers

DJ Rogers — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:15:24 +0000

I have just heard about Barney’s death, literally just read about it tonight, and I’m still reeling from the shock – albeit some two years on from the tragic event. I’m gutted, actually: I loved that guy, even though I hadn’t spoken to him nor seen him since 1988. Regarding Split Rivitt’s demise, following it, Barney and drummer Dave Lyttelton ultimately ended up in a 3-piece pop band with me called “Listen”. This must have been about 1981, or thereabouts. I’d been playing guitar in Chalk Farm with an African band, “Movement X”, led by Nigerian drummer/vocalist, Mo Osman (tremendous!) and a Jamaican bass player called Dwight. Having seen an ad for a band featuring the ex-Split Rivitt members, I went along to audition as their potential blues-and-soul vocalist (Dave Wilgrove having left the group). In the Chalk Farm studio that day, as I recall, were Barney, Dave, Mark Hughes (harp) and Chris Warren (guitar). There was also a sax player, whose name eludes me, and a cocky young bloke called Toby on keys. (He was good though, and was also an aspiring producer). We jammed on a funk-type song of mine, and after the audition, Barney, Dave and Chris took me back to their squat round the corner. Here, rather naively, I left a whole cassette of my material for them to listen to, whilst they made up their mind about me. I was more of a writer than a perfomer – then, as now; and there was another contender for the job, a black guy, whose richer, soulful voice they stated frankly that they preferred. But the fact that I had a whole batch of songs already written and demo’d seemed to impress them, as they had little or no original material to speak of. Having duly persuaded them to take on my material, Mark Hughes eventually dropped out, as did the keyboard player and Listen became a 4-piece with Barney, Dave, Chris and me. Chris the guitarist also eventually dropped out as he clearly wasn’t happy playing Listen’s poppier stuff, though he was an excellent axe man, leaving his slick rythmic mark on a song used to promote the band, also entitled “Listen”. (Recorded at Jigsaw Studios – then run by Dave Williams, in Purley). For several months, Barney, Dave and I rehearsed regularly, splitting the sessions between Camden Town studios, and my mum’s front room in Ilford – depending on how squint we were! (Very squint, actually.) With a freebie photo session, courtesy of Stiff Records’ Claire Muller – sorted by Barney’s then girlfriend, Barbara Dean – we ultimately managed to bullshit our way into the offices of Priority Records on the back of the “Listen” track (which could be loosely described, style-wide, as UB40 meets Culture Club meets Police…sort of). Despite Barney’s constant piss-taking of the managing director!, we were subsequently offered a recording and publishing contract. (As I further recall, Barney’s dad, the actor Peter Jeffrey, very kindly got a showbiz lawyer friend to peruse and tease out the more awful clauses, of which there were many, as we soon discovered.) Realising the dodgy implications of signing with Priority Records, then, the idea was consigned to the bin of dubious music-biz dreams. Lacking any real impetus or gigging aspirations, although we never fell out, after a couple of years, the three of us a musical unit inevitably drifted apart. I haven’t seen Dave since 1985, when he played Simmons electric drums for me on the track “Rescue Me (Imagination)” at Bark Studios, in Walthamstow. I last saw Barney in person a few years later in a Hampstead theatre pub, in 1988, where his sister Vicky was in a play called “Woyzeck”. HIs mum, actress Yvonne Bonhomie (apologies if the spelling is wrong) was also there, as were his younger sisters. But my most enduring memory of Barney is that of him thumping out a great boogie-woogie blues on my mum’s old, upright, out-of-tune piano. It was a Saturday morning and he surprised the hell out of me! I’d always hoped I’d meet up with him again one of these days – guess now it will have to be in heaven. Definitely one of the most intelligent, articulate and talented guys I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and being around. God bless you, Barney Bear. (And you Dave, wherever you are.)

By: Michael Kramer

Michael Kramer — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:01:01 +0000

In memory of Barney, who I am shocked to learn of his death and to the good times had with Split Rivitt in the early eighties, when I tried to manage the band.
SR were truly original and underrated, their blend of music and influences changed the way and kind of music I listen to today.
They did not get the break they deserved, possibly because of mismanagement to which I was largely responsible and the difficulties in getting a serious record label involved, as the band were not “pop” enough. They were a musicians band.
If you see this boys, I hope you are all well.
Michael Kramer