Valley of the Golden Children

Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll. It was a chance meeting after a fifty year gap that prompted me to embark on this journey back to my youth. Some things are best left in the past but rock music has endured, so it was not a case of looking back through rose coloured lenses it was more a sense of recording the story so far. Ray Dexter embraced the whole package and used the dual talents of a great voice and classic rock and roll looks to pursue the dream. Back in the day I was inspired by his enthusiasm and appreciated the time he had for those of us who would also strive to reproduce one of the predominant music forms of the twentieth century. Ray’s personal story is a structure upon which are woven the stories of others who walked along the same path. We were not those who lived in the rarefied atmosphere of the “stars” like Ray, each night when we switched off our amps we knew the morning meant a return to the office or workshop bench. Only those like Ray had the courage to not just talk the talk but also walk the walk. I hope the reader, whatever age, might gain an insight to those heady years of the fifties when there was everything to play for and for the first time in history the young had their own music which they could embrace on all levels. The book also contains a foreword written by Chas Hodges of 'Chas and Dave' fame.