Johnny Rogers(1926-2016)

[Jazzrook]

There's a fascinating article in the current Jazz Journal(March) by Brian Morton about the Club Eleven alto saxophonist Johnny Rogers who worked as a signal-man. Rogers' alto playing could sometimes be heard coming from his signal box!
His son Paul Rogers uploaded this BBC2 film on to YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx17LArdsKc

and playing in his signal box....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX01NnAQGfc

[Serial_Apologist]

Same thing with Lyn Dobson!

Some may associate Lyn with Soft Mchine 3 and wonder whatever happened to him. Long story (not sure I know it all), but before Softs he was (among other things) in the Group Sounds Five - a unit, sometimes including Jack Bruce, led by trumpeter Henry Lowther. Henry - who's a wealth of anecdotes if you corner him on a good night - recalled how Lyn worked in a signal box near Luton, I think he said, where the band would get gigs. Lyn would slip back to the signal box to change the points, then rejoin the gig. I really should try and dig it out - can't right now recall where I've stashed it - but it's unlikely to have been the main line north, I wouldn't have thought!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I'm sure I remember Lyn Dobson playing with one of the versions of Georgie Fame's Blue Flames in the 60s? He was very good.

Re Signal Boxes, in my "teenage beat days", I broke into a partly disused one on Swansea sea front for somewhere to sleep. (OK, Swansea in the driving Welsh rain wasn't exactly Big Sur but I was "pretending" to be Kerouac.). I got woken up at about 5.30am by a freight train right outside the window with the driver blowing his whistle like a lunatic (he could see me through the smashed windows) and threatening to get the cops - after he'd given me a bloody kicking. I should have changed the points and sent him hurtling into the bay.

BN.