More than 30 years before Simon Cowell was auditioning hopefuls in front of a live audience, David Courtney was sifting through the responses to an advert he put into The Argus for new talent.
“I was at the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton, on a hot Saturday afternoon,” he recalls from his home in Hurstpierpoint. “I had forgotten to limit the audition to music, so I was getting people doing farmyard impressions and things like that. I thought I’d made a real boo-boo.” Someone had left the theatre doors open so an audience had gathered to watch the acts. Little did David know the next band, Patches – number 49 on the list – would change the course of his life.
“My head was spinning, I’d got a migraine, and this band from Shoreham started playing,” he says. “I thought, this is another band, there’s nothing particularly special. And then there was this voice. This figure walks onto the stage – a bit like a Shakespearean actor – with a mop of curly hair and this voice projecting out of his little frame. I knew then and there I had found something special.”
That voice belonged to Gerry Sayer – who David would rename Leo after being inspired by The Argus’ horoscope pages. Having formerly played drums in Adam Faith’s band David approached his old bandleader in Henfield armed with a demo tape, ostensibly to ask Adam to check out a contract he had received for Leo from George Martin’s Air Studios. After hearing just a minute of the tape Adam told David to rip up the Air contract as he wanted to manage Leo.
This story is from the August 2020 edition of Sussex Life.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the August 2020 edition of Sussex Life.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
TAKE YOUR TIME
Dean Edwards’ new cookbook features delectable recipes that you can slow cook or stick in the oven. Here’s a selection of the best
Decorative art
Not simply functional, treat your walls like an extension of your personality
ON THE FRONT FOOT
The rugby legend took the reins at Sussex County Cricket Club in 2017, rekindling his love for a sport that first won his heart on the village cricket fields of North Yorkshire
NAKED AMBITION
In the 1980s, Christine and Jennifer Binnie partied with Boy George and Marilyn and bared all as performance art collective The Neo-Naturists. Now they are working together to gain the recognition they feel they deserve
ROCKET MAN
Astronaut Tim Peake has come a long way since growing up in Westbourne and attending Chichester High School for Boys: 248 miles above Earth, to be precise. But, he says, life on the International Space Station has a lot in common with family caravanning holidays
Revolution man
Lewes’ most famous resident Thomas Paine may be the greatest propagandist who ever lived. But how did a humble customs and excise officer ignite the touchpaper for revolution in not one but two countries?
THE DIARY
17 exciting things to do this month in East and West Sussex
All in a day's work
Meet Tim Dummer, who has helped keep Midhurst’s Cowdray Estate shipshape for an impressive five decades
My favourite Sussex
Bruce Fogle is an author and a vet with a practice in London who has lived in West Sussex with his wife, the actress Julia Foster, since 1989. He recently became president of RSPCA Mount Noddy near Chichester
10 OF THE BEST Meat-free restaurants in Brighton and Hove
Brighton is often rated one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the UK. What these restaurants prove is that plant-based food doesn’t have to be puritanical – at all of these places you’ll find big flavours and a desire to push the envelope
