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Funk Skunks

The HISTORY of the Funk Skunks - Part 1 (1981 to 1988)

(by Tony McCormick)

The Funk Skunks started life in 1981 in my father’s pub “The Adur” at the end of Hove Lagoon. In those days I called the band “Night Breeze” after a Ronnie Laws number that was in the pad we used to play on Sunday nights when I was around, and the band usually consisted of myself on saxes, Nigel Brimley on keyboards, Dave Higgens on drums, Andre Emond on guitar and either Jerry Dearden or Terry Fisher on bass.

In those days we had no regular singers, usually none at all, but sometimes friends would turn up and do a couple of numbers. I had been playing predominantly on cruise ships in the West Indies and America and had listened to a lot more modern stuff than you could get in Brighton in those days. Everybody else was busking Georgia and Summertime, but we were playing Sergio Mendes, Tom Scott, David Sanborn, and The Crusaders which made us pretty different and we soon built up a bit of a following.

At the end of 1981 I went to play on the QE2, which is where I met Bob Croucher, who was singing with the “Rob Charles Orchestra”. After returning back to Brighton, Bob turned up in my dad’s pub one night and I invited him to sing on the following Sunday with my band in the pub. Bob brought his girlfriend Kim Streader along who is also a singer and his cousin Terry Johnston who was a guitarist from Worthing. A fantastic night was had by all and I decided to ask them to join the band. Shortly after this my parents Mike and Peggy decided to sell the pub so we started to do gigs in the “Old Vic” in Ship Street in Brighton Instead, which was a really good fun gig at the time.

It was at about this time that we decided that ”Night Breeze” sounded like some candy-arsed wedding band, so one drunken night when we were drunk as skunks we decided to rename the band ”The Funk Skunks”. With the new name seemed to come a new level, the band soon built up a big following and was playing at a very high standard of musicianship (in fact as tight as a kippers arse).

For a time we played regularly at “Jonesy’s” and “Chapmans “in Worthing before moving to our home at the Hare and Hounds at Preston Circus in Brighton.
 

By this time Terry Johnston and I were on tour with Kiki Dee in Blood Brothers the musical. When it transferred to London in 1988, it gave me the chance to really get the skunks going regularly.
 

this website was cobbled together by Ada, masterminded by Tony McCormick 2008