Trailblazer DJ's record
ALAN Dale wants to put the record straight. Pretty apt, that, because he claims to have launched the first mobile discotheque in Sheffield and, for all he knows, Britain.
In mid-Sixties Sheffield there wasn't a hotter property than Alan with his two-deck unit, made out of a couple of Dansettes and orange boxes, with go-go girls shimmying away behind him.
"My first pub was the Olive Grove at East Bank Road and there were so many people trying to get in they stopped the traffic," he recalls.
This story really starts back in 1966 when Alan, then lead singer with local group The Square Circles, got a call to take over from Barry Marshall of The Lizards, off on a tour of Norway and Sweden where they had amazingly got to number three with Hey Baby.
While over there young Alan asked one of the local girls what they did for entertainment in the winter when bands couldn't travel because of the snow and ice between towns.
"We go into the bars and hotels and play music on record players," she told him.
Alan thought that a great idea but when he got back to Sheffield he was laughed at. "What do we want that for when we've got juke boxes?" he was told.
But Alan persisted and quickly got a following as he went from pub to pub with his record player, rigging a microphone in front of it and doing a little bit of patter between records.
He also found he was being hired because he was cheaper than a whole bill of bands or singers. They'd sing then he'd do a spell on the Dansettes.
"Joe Cocker used to sing between me playing records," he says.
He would also run little competitions and had girls hired specially to dance to the music. Two, Diane and Lorraine, were his regulars "in skimpy outfits."
Alan, now 64 and living in Totley, wasn't such a bad looker himself and kept himself in free disco gear.
"I never had to buy any clothes. The boutiques would ask 'Will you wear this shirt?' They knew people at the disco would ask me where I got it from.
"I'd put a sign up in front of the stage saying 'Clothes bought from Harry Fenton' and announce it over the microphone."
Alan left The Lizards (he cites musical differences) who became Bitter Suite and while he made a success out of his mobile disco he never left his day job, as a metalworker, which took him round the world.
Alan claims to have put Radio Hallam DJ Ray Stuart on the first rung of the ladder when he took over Alan's gigs when he went on holiday, after showing him how the equipment worked.
"When I got back the only gig left was at the Bull and Mouth on The Wicker where the men dressed as women. But they took to me and I was there quite some time."
So how does Alan's claim to be the first pan out?
The book Not Like A Proper Job, by John Firminger and Martin Lilleker, the 'bible' of Sheffield's early pop history, cites Alan but also Ian Ramsay as well as Art Stereo Disco in Rotherham as pioneers.
Alan has done the occasional disco down the years but has now more or less packed it in. But he reckons mobile discos were a city first.
"I believe the Sheffield public were treated to the first in England," he says.
Got a view? Leave a comment below.
Follow The Star on Twitter and Facebook:
For breaking news and sport follow The Star on Twitter at www.twitter.com/sheffieldstar and Facebook at www.facebook.com/sheffieldstar.
JOIN THE STAR READER PANEL: The Star is YOUR newspaper, so tell us what you think about it and what you want to see - CLICK HERE.
Don't miss our daily pull-outs - only in the The Star: Monday Star Sport, Tuesday Class Act; Wednesday Business; Thursday Grassroots; Friday Time Out; Saturday Retro. Subscribe to The Star - CLICK HERE
READ MORE
Join the Star reader panel
Main news index
Your letters
Features
South Yorkshire's environmental news
Kids Zone
More business news
More Rotherham news
More Doncaster news
More Barnsley news
Latest sport
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Light snow
Temperature: -1 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Light snow
Temperature: -2 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South east
